[Marxism-Thaxis] that man (sic) was born free, but was crippled through social organisation.
excerpt from Liberty A study in bourgeois illusion From this it follows that the animals are less free than men. Creatures of impulse, acting they know not why, subject to all the chances of nature, of other animals, of geographical accidents and climatic change, they are at the mercy of necessity, precisely because they are unconscious of it. That is not to say they have no freedom, for they possess a degree of freedom. They have some knowledge of the causality of their environment, as is shown by their manipulations of time and space and material - the bird's flight, the hare's leap, the ant's nest. They have some inner self-determination, as is shown by their behaviour. But compared to man, they are unfree. Implicit in the conception of thinkers like Russell and Forster, that all social relations are restraints on spontaneous liberty, is the assumption that the animal is the only completely free creature. No one constrains the solitary carnivore to do anything. This is of course an ancient fallacy. Rousseau is the famous exponent. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Always in the bourgeois mind is this legend of the golden age, of a perfectly good man corrupted by institutions. Unfortunately not only is man not good without institutions, he is not evil either. He is no man at all; he is neither good nor evil; he is an unconscious brute. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] that man (sic) was born free, but was crippled through social organisation.
I'm no Rousseau expert, but this doesn't sound right to me. The Rousseau quote in itself seems to be a quintessentially dialectical statement: how is it that a human being born a tabula rasa (socially if not genetically), who has the potential to become anything, is then socialized in a society that limits and imprisons him? The primitive state is not necessarily valued in itself, but rather contrasted dialectically with the alienated, repressive state of civilization. Let's remember that Rousseau was out of place in the aristocratic milieu of the French Enlightenment. Voltaire got all the girls, leaving Rousseau with his dick hanging out, and Voltaire thought he could educate the rulers to reform society according to the first principles of reason. Rousseau brolught a perspective from outside in the only way he could. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sep 12, 2005 12:55 PM To: 'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired' marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] that man (sic) was born free, but was crippled through social organisation. excerpt from Liberty A study in bourgeois illusion From this it follows that the animals are less free than men. Creatures of impulse, acting they know not why, subject to all the chances of nature, of other animals, of geographical accidents and climatic change, they are at the mercy of necessity, precisely because they are unconscious of it. That is not to say they have no freedom, for they possess a degree of freedom. They have some knowledge of the causality of their environment, as is shown by their manipulations of time and space and material - the bird's flight, the hare's leap, the ant's nest. They have some inner self-determination, as is shown by their behaviour. But compared to man, they are unfree. Implicit in the conception of thinkers like Russell and Forster, that all social relations are restraints on spontaneous liberty, is the assumption that the animal is the only completely free creature. No one constrains the solitary carnivore to do anything. This is of course an ancient fallacy. Rousseau is the famous exponent. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Always in the bourgeois mind is this legend of the golden age, of a perfectly good man corrupted by institutions. Unfortunately not only is man not good without institutions, he is not evil either. He is no man at all; he is neither good nor evil; he is an unconscious brute. Ralph Dumain's The Autodidact Project http://www.autodidactproject.org The C.L.R. James Institute http://www.clrjamesinstitute.org Ralph Dumain's The Autodidact Project http://www.autodidactproject.org The C.L.R. James Institute http://www.clrjamesinstitute.org ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] that man (sic) was born free, but was crippled through social organisation.
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 12:55:03 -0400 Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: excerpt from Liberty A study in bourgeois illusion Caudwell seems to have held to a type of compatibilism concerning the issue of free will and determinism. As such it seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to the views of Plekhanov as outlined his essay, The Role of the Individual in History, http://art-bin.com/art/oplecheng.html as well as to view of my friend Tom Clark (who is not a Marxist), see: http://www.naturalism.org/freewill.htm Certainly, Caudwell's take on freedom can be seen as as a Spinozan and even Baconian, since for him human freedom is based not on an illusory contracausal free will but rather upon the acceptance of necessity which leads us to seek the determinants of our own behaviors which in turn makes it possible for us to become the masters of the natural and social forces that shape our destinies. Thus, for Caudwell, socialism was seen as the key for the expansion of human freedom under modern conditions. From this it follows that the animals are less free than men. Creatures of impulse, acting they know not why, subject to all the chances of nature, of other animals, of geographical accidents and climatic change, they are at the mercy of necessity, precisely because they are unconscious of it. That is not to say they have no freedom, for they possess a degree of freedom. They have some knowledge of the causality of their environment, as is shown by their manipulations of time and space and material - the bird's flight, the hare's leap, the ant's nest. They have some inner self-determination, as is shown by their behaviour. But compared to man, they are unfree. Implicit in the conception of thinkers like Russell and Forster, that all social relations are restraints on spontaneous liberty, is the assumption that the animal is the only completely free creature. No one constrains the solitary carnivore to do anything. This is of course an ancient fallacy. Rousseau is the famous exponent. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Always in the bourgeois mind is this legend of the golden age, of a perfectly good man corrupted by institutions. Unfortunately not only is man not good without institutions, he is not evil either. He is no man at all; he is neither good nor evil; he is an unconscious brute. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] that man (sic) was born free, but was crippled through social organisation.
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 14:27:00 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm no Rousseau expert, but this doesn't sound right to me. The Rousseau quote in itself seems to be a quintessentially dialectical statement: how is it that a human being born a tabula rasa (socially if not genetically), who has the potential to become anything, is then socialized in a society that limits and imprisons him? The primitive state is not necessarily valued in itself, but rather contrasted dialectically with the alienated, repressive state of civilization. Let's remember that Rousseau was out of place in the aristocratic milieu of the French Enlightenment. Voltaire got all the girls, leaving Rousseau with his dick hanging out, and Voltaire thought he could educate the rulers to reform society according to the first principles of reason. Rousseau brolught a perspective from outside in the only way he could. I would agree that is a rather undialectical, mechanistic reading of Rousseau. Although, it should be noted that Rosseau was sufficiently ambigous in his writing, that he can be interpreted in all sorts of different ways. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sep 12, 2005 12:55 PM To: 'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired' marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] that man (sic) was born free, but was crippled through social organisation. excerpt from Liberty A study in bourgeois illusion From this it follows that the animals are less free than men. Creatures of impulse, acting they know not why, subject to all the chances of nature, of other animals, of geographical accidents and climatic change, they are at the mercy of necessity, precisely because they are unconscious of it. That is not to say they have no freedom, for they possess a degree of freedom. They have some knowledge of the causality of their environment, as is shown by their manipulations of time and space and material - the bird's flight, the hare's leap, the ant's nest. They have some inner self-determination, as is shown by their behaviour. But compared to man, they are unfree. Implicit in the conception of thinkers like Russell and Forster, that all social relations are restraints on spontaneous liberty, is the assumption that the animal is the only completely free creature. No one constrains the solitary carnivore to do anything. This is of course an ancient fallacy. Rousseau is the famous exponent. Man is born free but is everywhere in chains. Always in the bourgeois mind is this legend of the golden age, of a perfectly good man corrupted by institutions. Unfortunately not only is man not good without institutions, he is not evil either. He is no man at all; he is neither good nor evil; he is an unconscious brute. Ralph Dumain's The Autodidact Project http://www.autodidactproject.org The C.L.R. James Institute http://www.clrjamesinstitute.org Ralph Dumain's The Autodidact Project http://www.autodidactproject.org The C.L.R. James Institute http://www.clrjamesinstitute.org ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
