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

[Brussel]

People through the ages have imagined what they conceive of as a  
better world or system of governance. In working for their ideals  
they have (often) kept things from even getting worse, and not  
infrequently have improved the general lot and illuminated the  
problems of societal existence.. I'll let you-all think of examples.  
Saying that nothing can be constructively done means that it is more  
likely that nothing will get done. Nirvana may be illusory, but its a  
good (useful) exercise to conceive of it.. Society needs its  
motivations, hope. .

I think I'm getting in too deep… --mkb


On Jan 13, 2009, at 3:20 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON 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.  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.
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> -----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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