On Randy Groves big points

Dear Randy Groves, and WS-people
Some elements on the key issues you rised:
*****... incredible difficulty of designing a political philosophy even 
with 
the best of intentions and assuming perfect rationality..... . Two main 
views seemed to emerge:
I.A Marxist .. (a) autonomous markets are too dangerous and .. need to be 
eliminated or at least tightly controlled
b) that dictatorship and violence are viable means to the end of 
accomplishing (a) ... and II. a left-Liberal view ... to modify the free 
market through legislation ....************
Both options declare market as the culprit. Market is not an invention of 
capitalism, it is an old instrument of humans. The question is how to use 
the instrument, and what for. I agree that blaming and eliminating the 
instrument is foolish and conduces to option (I). Option II needs further 
discussion with a systemic vision in economics, for another moment than 
this.
****** My own version draws on the work of Rawls and Habermas in basing the 
theory of justice on the ideas of the ideal speech situation and the 
original position********
I've heard of a fascinating debate between Enrique Dussel (philosopher from 
Argentina, researcher on Marx and periphery liberation) and Karl Otto Appel 
(new Franckfurt School). Dussel argues that prior to "ideal speech 
situation" it is the recognition of the Other (person, animal, plant, 
thing) 
in our sense of reality. Habermass is not part in this debate, and I ignore 
other details.
In order to free mind from dogma-police power, Descartes declares that he 
thinks, so he exists, thus founding the basement of modern individualistic 
occidental rationality -and also of modern man loneliness-. Then came 
Illustration, Positivism, Modern Sciences and Techniques. (I am 
oversimplifying). But soon, so much light found its reply in movements that 
claimed that emotions matter to give life sense, impulse and understanding 
(Romanticism). When Goya made some drafts of 1812 war in Spain, he wrote 
some tiny footnotes: "The madness of Rationality" (la locura de la razon). 
Todays postmoderns should remember that.
When I read Marx 1844 Manuscripts of youth in Erich Fromm's Marx Concept of 
Man, I was impressed by his emotional defense of collective sense of life. 
Orthodox called it later a young and immature Marx, but I still believe it 
was the best Marx, in spite of his hegelian influence. After some years, 
however, Marx came with Capital, where the need to explain everything as 
deterministic and logic laws is present. IMO a big change occured, and 
lament that he let the influence of positivism, enlightment and rationality 
to take control of his whole work. I wish somebody explains it to me.
****** There is more to ethics than justice, there is self-realization. 
That 
is the lesson Nietzsche teaches us. ****
I am not a Christian, but live surrounded by them. 2000 years ago, their 
founder said that men live not only from bread. Let's accept that was a 
wise 
way to put it. To me, Nietzsche is a poetic and pathetic cry to say the 
same, that we must give sense to existence beyond eating, shiting and 
procreating. IMO he never broke his cartessian loneliness, and looks like a 
bright and creative bird longing for company in his beautiful flights, 
found 
no others and ended in self-destruction. This is the essence of Unamuno's 
critic to him, to Descartes and to modern rationality, from his spanish 
tradition. Today, spanish neoliberals laugh at Unamuno, because once he 
rejected the idea of making inventions, as a goal per se: Let them invent! 
(Que inventen ellos). Quite a critic to our definition of progress.
I think young Marx was a collective-existencial-thinker.
Also from Spain, long before, Don Quixote tells Sancho when some dogs 
barked 
to them: "They bark, Sancho, it is a signal that we ride our horses". Do 
you 
see the difference?: They see us, they express to us, so we (including 
horses) exist. Just the contrary from Descartes, and it carries the 
existence of the dog, (of the Other) before I take consciousness of mine.
******. What do we want to accomplish as a ws, which ultimately means, .... 
as humanity? .. this makes more sense from the point of view of rational 
choice theory. If we don't know our goal, how can we figure out a fair way 
to get there?****
You have made the basic question, and have given your personal answer: 
rational choice theory. Yes, the question is that the pursuit of sense is 
our task, but there are no magic recipes. Machado said "You make the road 
when you walk", Robert Frost speaks of the "road not taken", and Tomas 
Merton says "let's make the road together".
My personal answer is that given our present road, we have the need to 
build 
a different one as collective beings, using our rationality and 
sensibility, 
to a point where a decent level of social justice guarantees each one more 
freedom, less threats, and more time to develop his/her particular 
vocations 
in the way their inner freedom find it better, without denying, exluding or 
incommunicating from others, and of course without distroying ourselves, 
but 
just the contrary, reinforcing mutually ourselves.
Some Dostoyevsky personage said that good must be done even if god does not 
exist. (An atheist ethics?). Admitedly, all depends of our definition of 
who 
are the recipients of that good. When we define it, we define our own 
personal or collective narcissism: the limit where the Others disappear 
from 
our vision and responsibility. And also admitedly, others must be consulted 
prior to excercizing our good plans for them.
Let me finish with a short story of Antonio, a wise man that once came from 
jungle to visit us. We gave him pop-corn by the first time. He took one, 
contemplated it with delight for a while and told us: Do you want to know 
what the pop-corn has just told me?  Yes, we said. -He told me: < If you 
want to devour me, eat me, but first, please, let me flourish for a while >.
Well, thanks, I promise to remain quiet for a long time.
Emilio, Pasto, Colombia


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