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

Tue Jan 13 21:17:27 CST 2009

(SMILE)

>Which is a small portion of the truth.

> Which is another portion of the truth.

I never said that either of these points were THE TRUTH or even hinted that
they were the "whole truth."  I only suggested that they were each A TRUTH.

>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.  

First of all, in your view,  the idea that each individual has both  the
right and the responsibility to live in liberty and to pursue "happiness" is
central to the notion of "free will;"  I am not so certain about it.
Secondly, I do not have intimate or even good knowledge of the Bible (either
the Hebrew or the Christian Bibles) or even claim to  or, for that matter,
want to.  However, somehow my passing encounters with it did not  bring me
in touch with the concepts of "liberty" or "pursuit of 'happiness'" or the
use of those terms.  Nor do I recall any connections between "free will" and
the inherent or an intrinsic RIGHT or RESPONSIBILITY to live in liberty and
to pursue happiness. That is not to say that, by implication, it might be
related to an individual  having what is described by the "negative" notion
of freedom or liberty and associated with the pursuit of happiness.
Nevertheless this does not have to be as a RIGHT  or as a RESPONSIBILITY nor
does it specify in substance what constitutes  either the nature or the
substantive contents of "HAPPINESS."  Thirdly, what references I remember to
"Natural Law" and "Devine Rights" by political philosophers prior to The
Enlightenment focused on the rights of monarchs not individual common men
when they addressed men; otherwise, they tended to refer to States, the
Church, and filial obligations not 'free will" of individuals.  Of course, I
could have forgotten or be in error.

>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.

I  do not disagree that free will allows for folly, error, and the making of
bad choices that are inconsistent with happiness of oneself and others or
with HUMAN plans; but I do not think that allows for this with respect to
predetermined  Natural Laws or predestined overarching absolute plans of an
all-powerful omnipotent God.  If it does, then, in my view, predestination
and predetermination are meaningless as is omnipotence of Natural Laws or
Devine Plans.  Natural Laws and Devine Plans  then become  probabilistic
affairs which can be  ignored, violated, modified, or avoided at will by
individuals.

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

How do you know that there is an overarching plan which  is capable of being
known,  that I recognize or know of such a plan (or even care about if it
exists or what it is), that the plan has anything to do with any exercise of
free will by me, or that it entails my refusing to know it. J

From: John W. [mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2009 4:20 PM
To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: Bob Illyes; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] The Revolutiona ry Communist Party says.

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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