At 02:00 AM 9/23/97 -0400, Adam Webb wrote:
Adam: within recent historical memory those goals
>typically have not gone beyond increased consumption (however broadly
>defined) and liberation of the individual to pursue purely personal aims
>upon which the larger society must remain agnostic. Such a mentality--
>which throughout most of human history most assuredly would have been
>judged a pathological negation of the social--pervades even mainstream
>Marxist thought.
Bill: Your interpretation of what Marxist thought is questionable -- no,
rather from some parallel universe. Marx everwhere negates the importance
of the individual and individual goals -- class, economic relations, mode
of production leave to room for purely person aims. Those were the
inventions of the bourgeois which he hoped to put aside. Nor did he
conceive of rasing the workers' level of material well-being from
subsistance as "consumerism" -- in fact, the neglect of consumer demand is
a hall-mark of Marxist command economies.
Adam: First, it confuses means and ends by suggesting that technological
>advancement and universal prosperity will create unprecedented freedom to
>create the social anew, without indicating what the larger guiding values
>of that creation are to be. In other words, what is the point of
>mercilessly clearing out "the old curiosity shop" when one attaches little
>importance to what new wares will occupy the refinished space?
Bill: That was the point of my post. Starting from the YEAR ZERO has
historically been disasterous for the bulk of humankind -- whether it is to
create the future from scratch or to wipe out the present in order to
restore a rose-colored past as Adam seems to suggest.
>Adam: It seems distressingly obvious that
>the "progressive" position on individual liberation could only emerge
>from liberal capitalist notions of consumer sovereignty, moral relativism,
>freedom from public moral projects, negation of the social anchor, etc.
>that have become so widely accepted that even would-be revolutionaries
>fail to identify them with a particular social system. Even such
>otherwise wholly admirable thinkers as Karl Polanyi succumb to this
>baggage when they throw around phrases such as "unprecedented freedom" to
>describe the future utopia.
Bill: You equate freedom with license. But worse, you would impose the ONE
definition of the COMMON GOOD on all. Nazis idealitically pursued their
COMMON GOOD -- a world without Jews etc; Pol Pot, a world without cities.
the KKK/Ayran Nations, a world without color. What would you forbid?
Adam: I fail to see how anyone can profess to be "antisystemic" when
>their ideological position represents an evolution, a refinement with the
>harsh competitive edges softened, of precisely the abhorrent social system
>they wish to overthrow,
Bill: I don't want to overthrow anything. Gradualist reform is the only
way to achieve what you identify as a "synthesis based on as broad a view
>as possible of how that social system contrasts with all other
>alternatives."
Adam: Is my less than condemning view of "fundamentalisms" as "chilling"
>as suggested? I have heard much more vitriolic adjectives, although not
>that exact one until now. ... I would use the word "moderate," but that
has >too much baggage ... in order to render it palatable according to a
..hegemonic yardstick. Of course any tradition is in need of
reinterpretation >... to contribute to a new synthesis of global
revolutionary relevance.
Bill: Moderate fundamentalism and moderate revolution is as wacky as Marx
the individualist consumer.
Adam: My second level of response: what exactly is "chilling," and why
>does this "slippery slope" strike such terror in the hearts of sensible
>people? ... One has every right to
>condemn the Taliban if one sees fit, but at least do it as if one is
>trying to reason with people who do not buy into every assumption
>regarding humanity's inevitable march to the glorious anomic end-state.
>
Bill: The trouble is when they win, everyone else looses and the game
ends. Just like this message.