Edwina, Gary, List,
I am against utopism too, but I do not see what should be wrong with the Leap Manifesto: They are not propagating an utopian regime, but a basic-democratic change. And that is not utopian (no place), I spontaneously recall at least two places where it has worked: Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Chiapas, Mexico.
In the Spanish revolution 1936 the Soviet Union fought against the revolutionists, because they had success in changing the politics too fast for marxist theory, in a basic-democratic way, establishing a socialism after feudalism, skipping capitalism, which is not allowed by the marxist-leninist theory.
In the 16nth century, Martin Luther edited pamphlets against the peasants, who wanted the same freedom, he advertised before for christian people, and he argued with his theory of the two realms.
With these two examples I want to say, that I think, that a theory (neither the Peircean one) must be not normative, but only explanatory. It should not forbid social evolution (and evolution is not always continuous, but leaps sometimes), but merely explain it afterwards. And if something happens, that cannot be explained by an existing theory- Well, we are good at making up new, suiting theories, aren´t we?
Best,
Helmut
26. Juni 2017 um 22:26 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
Gary R, list:
Yes, I think that any utopian regime, to maintain its 'purity of type', must act as an Authoritarian regime to maintain the holistic purity and prevent the natural dissipation of type that occurs within the natural operations of both Secondness and Firstness. That is - it must reject any incidents of Secondness and Firstness. [Entropy is a natural law and utopias cannot function within entropy].
My own view of utopias is that there are two basic types. One 'yearns for' the assumed and quite mythic Purity-of-the-Past. The image of this Past is pure romantic idyllic scenarios - purity of behaviour, purity of genetic composition, purity of belief - This is the utopia commonly known as Fascism where the idea is that If Only we could go back to The Way We Were - then, all would be perfect. That would be the Ernest Bloch one - and similar to that of Rousseau, Mead etc - which all focused around The Noble Savage or some notion that early man was somehow 'in a state of physical and mental purity'. Or course the most famous recent example is Nazism.
The other utopia, equally mythic, sets up a Purity-of-the-Future. The image of this Future is equally romantic and idyllic - where no-one really has to work hard, where everyone collaborates and gets along, where debate and discussion solves all issues; where such psychological tendencies as jealousy, anger, lust, hatred etc - don't exist. This utopia is commonly known as Communism. This is the LEAP manifesto idea - where - If Only we all learn to behave in such and such a way - then, we'll all have enough, won't have to work hard, will all have loving families and etc. Equally naïve and mythic - and ignorant of economics and human psychology.
I don't agree that Peirce's philosophy involves any utopian ideas, for the reasons I've outlined. Utopia is by definition 'no place'; and Peirce's phenomenology is deeply, thoroughly, pragmatic. That is, it is enmeshed, rooted, in Secondness and the brute individual realities of that category. Equally, it is rooted in Firstness and the chance deviations, aberrations of that mode. Thirdness doesn't exist 'per se' [which would make it utopian if it did] and exists only within the hard-working dirt and dust and chances of Firstness and Secondness.
I feel that Peirce's agapasm is an outline of constant networking, informational networking and collaboration - where for example, plants will interact with insects and animals and vice versa - but- this complex adaptive system is not a utopia, but...a complex adaptive system, busily interacting and coming up with novel solutions to chance aberrations...etc.
Edwina
On Mon 26/06/17 4:00 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com sent:
Edwina, list,
The LEAP manifesto sounds like North Korea? Well, while I agree with you that the manifesto is at least quasi-utopian, I think equating it with the brutal NK is way off the mark.
In any case, there was an op-ed piece today in The Stone, that section of the New York Times editorial page where philosophers comment on cultural, social, political, etc. issues. Today's piece, by Espen Hammer, a professor of philosophy at Temple University, is titled "A Utopia for a Dystopian Age." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/opinion/a-utopia-for-a-dystopian-age.html?ref=opinion
Hammer's piece concludes:
Are our industrial, capitalist societies able to make the requisite changes? If not, where should we be headed? This is a utopian question as good as any. It is deep and universalistic. Yet it calls for neither a break with the past nor a headfirst dive into the future. The German thinker Ernst Bloch argued that all u