At 10:58 PM 12/15/00, you wrote:
>Thanks, Charles. I was aware of the notebooks, but not so much about the
>Engles work which I have not studied.
>
>What is important from my perspective is the relative importance given by us
>all to "precapitalist formations". Regardless of which early date once
>chooses, the ideas of control over nature that come out of early human
>culture-building are central to biocentric thought. Perhaps a bit more
>emphasized by me than by you guys.
>
>best,
>Tom
I would interject that we don't see the IDEAS of control over nature giving
rise to different methods humans have used to manipulate and transform the
world. Materialists tend to think that the actual exercise of
"controlling" nature (a loaded word, that one), gave rise to those ideas.
Are we talking about practices like setting the woods on fire to stampede
animals over a bluff to get meat? This is what occurs to me when I hear
echoes of the noble savage. I don't know if that's in the background here
or not, but it certainly occurs to me. Humans are a technical success
story, but may be an evolutionary blip on account of it.
"I am not a Marxist."
-Karl Marx
"Mask no difficulties."
-Amilcar Cabral
"Am I to be cursed forever with becoming
somebody else on the way to myself?
-Audre Lorde
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