[Peace-discuss] The Revolutiona ry Communist Party says.

[John W.]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 3:20 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at advancenet.net>wrote:

Just for the sake of provoking the discussion, I offer the following
> comments:
>
> 1. " Oddly, both the radical Marxist and the radical Libertarian camps tend
> to
> ignore human nature, designing societies for hypothetical beings if pure
> reason. So I think they are not as different as they appear superficially."
>
> Not so oddly; both do not tend to ignore human nature as much as they both
> make the assumptions of the historic period that they came out of
> philosophically (i.e., the Enlightenment) in that they both presume man to
> be a rational animal and the world to be a rational place capable of
> understanding, knowing, and controlling if not molding.


Which is a small portion of the truth.



> While the Libertarians assume an English Liberal tradition of a Utilitarian
> bent
> coming out of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, James Mills, Jeremy Bentham, and
> J.S. Mills as their basic grounding; Marxists come out of the Continental
> Idealist tradition assuming a less atomistic and more organic bent (i.e.,
> the whole is greater than its parts and gestalt approach) which came out of
> Comte, Saint-Simon, Hegel, etc. as their basis.


Which is another portion of the truth.



> 2. " I think that Christianity gets it right in a lot of ways. I would say
> that
> rights are inherent and that the capacity of people for folly is not to be
> underestimated."
>
> Aside from disagreeing with the whole notion of "inherent rights,"  I think
> that Christianity and its doctrines tend to be a little confused if not
> uncertain about the estimating the capacity of people for folly, depending
> on if one gives priority to pre-determination or free will.  If one holds
> pre-determination as the prime directive, then people have no capacity for
> folly; God has the capacity for folly and people do as they are
> pre-ordained.  If one accepts free will as the prime directive, then the
> notion of inherent rights as formulated is undermined; but people have
> great
> capacity for folly although without some overarching absolute plan that is
> capable of being known it is hard to define folly or irrationality, or
> deviance/sin.


Come on, Laurie.  Absolutely central to the notion of free will is the idea
that each individual has both the right and the responsibility to live in
liberty and to pursue "happiness" (the "abundant life", according to the
Bible) without infringing on the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by
others.  Free will also allows for folly, the making of bad choices that are
inconsistent with the long-term (or short-term, for that matter) happiness
of oneself and others.  There's no conflict whatsoever.

Also, there IS an overarching plan which is capable of being known.  You
exercise your free will in refusing to know it.  :-)



> 3.  "A more orthodox Christian position would be that rights
> are God-given and that people are prone to sin. No matter which way it is
> said, if these statements are correct then human nature represents a severe
> constraint on what sort of political systems will work and how well they
> will work."
>
> Again leaving aside my disagreement and assuming for the sake of the
> discussion that these statements are correct, then I have to ask if human
> nature does not represent a severe constraint on what political system is
> possible, if any at all will work, and/or if they could work well enough to
> be significantly different from none at all.


That's precisely what I - and I think Bob - am/is/are saying, Laurie.  :-)




> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
> [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Bob Illyes
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 11:33 AM
> To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Revolutiona ry Communist Party says.
>
> John and Noam are addressing roughly the same issue, in my opinion. "An
> instinct for freedom" is a way for saying that human nature matters when
> designing a political system or strategy.
>
> Oddly, both the radical Marxist and the radical Libertarian camps tend to
> ignore human nature, designing societies for hypothetical beings if pure
> reason. So I think they are not as different as they appear superficially.
>
> I think that Christianity gets it right in a lot of ways. I would say that
> rights are inherent and that the capacity of people for folly is not to be
> underestimated.  A more orthodox Christian position would be that rights
> are God-given and that people are prone to sin. No matter which way it is
> said, if these statements are correct then human nature represents a severe
> constraint on what sort of political systems will work and how well they
> will work.
>
> Bob
>
> -------------
> Carl posted: "If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there
> will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there
> are opportunities to change things, there's a chance for you to contribute
> to making a better world. That's your choice."  --Noam Chomsky
>
> John W. wrote:
> >... The generic, unspecified "revolution" as the solution to all the
> >enumerated ills of the capitalist system - which the Communists/Socialists
> >always do a pretty good job of enumerating. *yawn*  Been there, tried to
> do
> >that.
> >In my dotage I disagree most profoundly with this statement by Chairman
> Bob:
> >"What has proven to be possible-and what has proven NOT to be possible-has
> >nothing to do with "human nature" or "personal responsibility"...and
> >everything to do with the system that was put in place to ensure "the
> dreams
> >of our founders."  I now know most assuredly and emphatically that there
> IS
> >such a thing as "human nature", which goes a very long way toward
> determining
> >the types of self-seeking "systems" we humans put in place and have ALWAYS
> >put in place.  Unless "human nature" is understood and taken into account,
> >there is absolutely no possibility that human society can ever improve.
> Our
> >Founders tried to take human nature into account with their system of
> checks
> >and balances, but of course they did it in such a way as to leave many
> >loopholes in which they could protect their own privileged status.
> >JBW
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