Re: On Randy Groves big points

Please,  for christ's sake, remove me from this mailing list...my email box
is full of junk now.

Sincerely,
Dan Lewis

----- Original Message -----
From: Emilio José Chaves <chavesej@hotmail.com>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 1999 6:19 PM
Subject: 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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