Tribune
11th November 2009, 21:09
First, I offer gratitude to you fine folks in advance for taking the time to read these thoughts and questions, however tentatively proposed. For giving your time and criticism, if you so choose.
And for providing this forum for discussion.
I also note that I generally write in e-prime, which allows (obligates, really) the writer to omit the verb form "to be," and to avoid the temptations of the passive tense. Sometimes, for the sake of what Rosa calls "everyday speech," I switch between standard American English usage, and e-prime.
Quirks of habit dispensed with, then:
Do "relationships" actually occur, in any demonstrable sense of the term. Do they happen, as persons commonly mean when they use the word?
Put another way - assume Jane and Fatima, two distinct persons. Does a relationship exist between them? If so, describe it.
What do you in fact describe, in concrete terms?
A force, unseen? This, I argue, is how most persons* treat with human relationships - as a constant, continuing force operating at distances between separate persons. Capitalist relations. Husband and wife relations. Members of class, relating to one another.
Does this force actually exist, though? If so, how do you demonstrate it? What terms ought persons use to describe it?
But...
If not, what deceptions do we inflict upon ourselves, and our theories, by the unquestioned treatment of "relationships" as forces? How does this treatment undermine efforts to model and create free and socialist community?
A specific example:
We often refer to "capitalist relations." It works as a very useful term, since most of us who use it appear to agree on what meaning that term conveys. Or do we? A recent reading of some assertions in these forums leads me to question that assumption of common meaning, precisely because those assertions rest on the presumption of a force operating at distance, a "social gravity."
A force, I assert in contradiction, which a person cannot actually demonstrate (unlike actual gravity).
In other words, we treat with the relationships between producers and owners as things in and of themselves, as forces moving between persons, and also independent of them.The producer and the capitalist, I have often read, exist in a bond of relationship.
What bond, though? Where "is" it?
I don't see it.
So I ask of myself, and you, what do we actually mean? What terms better describe these so-called relationships?
If neither I nor you can show, prove, demonstrate a force-between-persons, this "relationship," than what do we actually describe.
A provisional answer:
Memory. I come equipped with a memory. You come equipped with a memory. Not perfect, but useful enough to work over time, however subject to error and deception.
What we call relationships don't actually exist, not as forces - but as agreements to keep memory, and very specifically, to keep memory of our agreements.
Returning to Jane and Fatima: neither comrade is the pole of a force which emanates between the two, such that a bonding relationship as a real power exists between them. Their "relationship" functions more accurately as promises to behave towards each other in certain agreed to ways, with these promises not always explicitly made in spoken word, but often in habits of conduct.
As agreements, stored in memory, and kept upon present and future meetings, one with the other. As behaviors which are functionally separate, over time.
So what then, of capitalist relationships?
If a force does not exist between the capitalist and the worker, what in fact happens such that the worker lives in subservience to the capitalist?
Would it be more factually useful to understand that what we name "relationship" we could better understand as a series, over time, of submissions and defeat, for the host of reasons outlined by Marx, et al?
As worker agreements to keep the memory of submission, and the behaviors which follow from it?
Or some other set of behaviors, treated as an unseen bond in everyday language, but not actually operating as such?
Well? What say you, please and thank you?
And, if so, how might this be useful in understanding how to:
1. Coordinate efforts towards a socialist society?
2. Understand and communicate social conditions, historical data?
3. Teach our children?
4. Create the conditions of our own labor?
5. Develop models which allow us to predict and counter capitalist reaction, at least within the limits of error and partial knowledge?
* - an anecdotal assertion on my part, subject to legitimate criticism. As always, all errors I commit, I own.
Again, thank you for your time.
And for providing this forum for discussion.
I also note that I generally write in e-prime, which allows (obligates, really) the writer to omit the verb form "to be," and to avoid the temptations of the passive tense. Sometimes, for the sake of what Rosa calls "everyday speech," I switch between standard American English usage, and e-prime.
Quirks of habit dispensed with, then:
Do "relationships" actually occur, in any demonstrable sense of the term. Do they happen, as persons commonly mean when they use the word?
Put another way - assume Jane and Fatima, two distinct persons. Does a relationship exist between them? If so, describe it.
What do you in fact describe, in concrete terms?
A force, unseen? This, I argue, is how most persons* treat with human relationships - as a constant, continuing force operating at distances between separate persons. Capitalist relations. Husband and wife relations. Members of class, relating to one another.
Does this force actually exist, though? If so, how do you demonstrate it? What terms ought persons use to describe it?
But...
If not, what deceptions do we inflict upon ourselves, and our theories, by the unquestioned treatment of "relationships" as forces? How does this treatment undermine efforts to model and create free and socialist community?
A specific example:
We often refer to "capitalist relations." It works as a very useful term, since most of us who use it appear to agree on what meaning that term conveys. Or do we? A recent reading of some assertions in these forums leads me to question that assumption of common meaning, precisely because those assertions rest on the presumption of a force operating at distance, a "social gravity."
A force, I assert in contradiction, which a person cannot actually demonstrate (unlike actual gravity).
In other words, we treat with the relationships between producers and owners as things in and of themselves, as forces moving between persons, and also independent of them.The producer and the capitalist, I have often read, exist in a bond of relationship.
What bond, though? Where "is" it?
I don't see it.
So I ask of myself, and you, what do we actually mean? What terms better describe these so-called relationships?
If neither I nor you can show, prove, demonstrate a force-between-persons, this "relationship," than what do we actually describe.
A provisional answer:
Memory. I come equipped with a memory. You come equipped with a memory. Not perfect, but useful enough to work over time, however subject to error and deception.
What we call relationships don't actually exist, not as forces - but as agreements to keep memory, and very specifically, to keep memory of our agreements.
Returning to Jane and Fatima: neither comrade is the pole of a force which emanates between the two, such that a bonding relationship as a real power exists between them. Their "relationship" functions more accurately as promises to behave towards each other in certain agreed to ways, with these promises not always explicitly made in spoken word, but often in habits of conduct.
As agreements, stored in memory, and kept upon present and future meetings, one with the other. As behaviors which are functionally separate, over time.
So what then, of capitalist relationships?
If a force does not exist between the capitalist and the worker, what in fact happens such that the worker lives in subservience to the capitalist?
Would it be more factually useful to understand that what we name "relationship" we could better understand as a series, over time, of submissions and defeat, for the host of reasons outlined by Marx, et al?
As worker agreements to keep the memory of submission, and the behaviors which follow from it?
Or some other set of behaviors, treated as an unseen bond in everyday language, but not actually operating as such?
Well? What say you, please and thank you?
And, if so, how might this be useful in understanding how to:
1. Coordinate efforts towards a socialist society?
2. Understand and communicate social conditions, historical data?
3. Teach our children?
4. Create the conditions of our own labor?
5. Develop models which allow us to predict and counter capitalist reaction, at least within the limits of error and partial knowledge?
* - an anecdotal assertion on my part, subject to legitimate criticism. As always, all errors I commit, I own.
Again, thank you for your time.