Western values? [Archive]

ComradeOm

26th January 2011, 11:27

Indeed, this is true. However, I'd like to add that, even if we socialists also like many of the same things liberals purport to like, we either put some ahead of others (for instance, "liberty," or at least how liberals conceive of it, may take a backseat to equality), or we take the concepts to their most logical conclusions (where liberals mostly only entertain "equality" in the political sphere, we apply it to the social and economic spheres as well). Thus our philosophical roots, while rooted in the Enlightenment much as those of liberalism, are applied quite differently.I'd agree. The most obvious difference is with regards to property rights and the like. But while liberalism and socialism may have diverged over a century ago, they do still operate from a common base. Or at least a common heritage. We may place the stress on different parts of the famous liberté, égalité, fraternité tripartite, but overall I think that these are progressive values that should be upheld

But weren't they unique because of the circumstances that emerged in Europe? E.g. "freedom" seems to be about "political freedom" which is tied to a election system and government in a special fashionWell "freedom" here means 'individual freedom' or, to be more accurate, the inherent and inviolable rights of the individual. Which is a pretty significant break with the previous European conception of feudal rights and obligations

In practice of course the Enlightenment did give rise to liberal parliamentary democracy but this was a pretty messy and protracted process, and about the point at which socialism went its separate way. Liberal values do underpin, at least nominally, the political structures of the West but I don't view that as necessarily a bad thing

I'm still not sure about their definition and if this definition does apply globally, or did apply or if there are differences which often aren't considered. The problem here is that the impact of the Enlightenment is simply so huge as to make it difficult to sum it up or define. Or maybe I'm just too aware of its historic impact to do so. I've mentioned the famous tripartite above, which is probably the most succinct (if not particularly useful) summary of liberalism's values, but someone else might be able to sum it up better

As for the application of these globally, here we have to be careful not to fall into Eurocentrism. I will say that I believe that the values derived from the European Enlightenment are more progressive than previous conceptions of society and human rights, either in Europe or beyond. They are not yet universal globally but while I would welcome their spreading this is very different from advocating 'exportation'. Capitalism in Europe produced gave rise to progressive ideals, it does not necessarily do so in other cultures

So we have values like liberty ... with their meaning tied to liberalism, and there exist no other meanings that have been attached to it(before, or after Enlightenment)?In Europe, not really. There have obviously been concepts of personal freedoms and natural rights but these were typically subservient to the overriding feudal obligations and framed in the manner of feudal law. The idea of the 'rights of man', and its political acceptance in the 19th C, was a genuinely radical proposal. Obviously of course, this was part of the rise of capitalism and the need to dismantle feudal structures, but that doesn't make it any less progressive. So the Enlightenment saw a transformation in liberty, from being something bestowed by the monarch or god to being an inherent right of all men (and only men at the time)

I can't think of anywhere else in the world where such sentiments were expressed. Most obviously, the contemporary Islamic and Chinese civilisations derived their concepts of law, and thus rights et al, from religion and ritual respectively. There were degrees of equality in both societies, particularly China which lacked any real feudal base, but it would take a 'rational revolution' to lay out a universal law in which all were, nominally, equal. This occurred in Europe alone

Ligeia

26th January 2011, 18:29

^^^^
That's really intresting and astonishing.
One would think that concepts such as this would've been constructed somewhere else,too. At least looking at the amount of peoples that have existed and still exist in the world...with variations in their economic systems, as well (though those have been extinguished).

I would appreciate some more info and input on this topic if someone cares to elaborate. :)

apawllo

26th January 2011, 19:14

One would think that concepts such as this would've been constructed somewhere else,too. At least looking at the amount of peoples that have existed and still exist in the world...with variations in their economic systems, as well (though those have been extinguished).

Yeah, your thought process is correct. Native American society displayed freedom, liberty, equality, and democracy. The reason I mentioned that book is because it predates The Enlightenment by 200 years, the author was from North Africa, and many Enlightenment ideas are discussed within. I'm sure there are more like this, but they aren't taught in school like the great Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It doesn't take a leftist to figure out that our society is extremely Eurocentric.

ComradeOm

26th January 2011, 21:05

Native American society displayed freedom, liberty, equality, and democracyEvery society has "displayed freedom, liberty, equality, and democracy" to some degree. Few, if any, wove these into a comprehensive philosophy that was secular, rational and predicated upon individual rights. Ibn Khaldun's work is a perfect example of this - for all that it mediates on certain progressive themes, it fixes them squarely within the feudal Islamic worldview. It contemplates the past without breaking from it. Which, as I've noted above, is the significance of the Enlightenment and the resultant political revolutions

It doesn't take a leftist to figure out that our society is extremely Eurocentric.Well no, but that may be because I live in a European society

One would think that concepts such as this would've been constructed somewhere else,tooWell, we have to be careful here. The Enlightenment is clearly a uniquely European development... but then this is to be expected from the region that similarly gave rise to capitalism. The difficulties lie in that we so often judge philosophies that emerged from other, non-European, cultures according to European criteria. Which we have to be sensitive about

apawllo

26th January 2011, 22:16

Every society has "displayed freedom, liberty, equality, and democracy" to some degree. Few, if any, wove these into a comprehensive philosophy that was secular, rational and predicated upon individual rights.

Yeah, every society has done so, and religion still governs society in the west to a degree as do property owners, so maybe you'll start to understand that you're speaking history class nonsense soon.

the last donut of the night

26th January 2011, 22:43

in b4 NGNM85

ar734

26th January 2011, 23:36

Western Civilization?

Sounds good. Maybe they should try it.

Ghandi

NGNM85

27th January 2011, 04:17

in b4 NGNM85

Very clever.

Actually, ComradeOm beat me to it. While we don't see eye-to-eye on a number of issues I think he posted a very excellent, succinct explanation of Liberalism and the Enlightenment. Though, I suspect this won't incur the firestorm of bullshit that would ensue if I had said it.

Ligeia

27th January 2011, 07:20

I'm glad some others chimed in to comment (more or less) this topic to make it a little more varied.

The difficulties lie in that we so often judge philosophies that emerged from other, non-European, cultures according to European criteria. Which we have to be sensitive about
Any example?

I guess that it's specifically that secular-facette that makes it stand out (which isn't to say that most other concepts who've been religiously influenced were not as elaborated).

ComradeOm

27th January 2011, 12:22

Yeah, every society has done so, and religion still governs society in the west to a degree as do property owners, so maybe you'll start to understand that you're speaking history class nonsense soon.No, it doesn't. If you believe that "religion still governs society in the west" then you are, quite simply, wrong. Virtually every European state is firmly secular in character. If you are a European citizen then your rights are not derived from some divine source or Son of Heaven but are considered to be fundamental to your being and are gained simply by the virtue of being born. I have the exact same basic legal rights as everyone else in my country, regardless of creed or colour. This is not a product of some benevolent deity but rather universal natural law that applies to all humans. Even in the US you will look in vain in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution for any mention of God; these are secular documents

However imperfectly this exists in real life, and I'm not for a second denying the existence of discrimination, these values are amongst the most important products of the Enlightenment. They firmly declare that the individual has an integral worth outside of any religious context. This is an important assertion that continues to form the basis of European law

I guess that it's specifically that secular-facette that makes it stand outIts an important component because secularism makes these rights unconditional. That is, they are not bestowed from above or on the whim of a religious establishment. Now you will find many, many philosophers throughout the centuries and continents who have pondered on the best way to govern and the importance of helping the poor, etc, etc. See for example Mencius. It was in Europe however that the key transformation from 'subjects' to 'citizens' took place. Fundamental to this was stripping away the authority (typically religious) that the rulers used to assert their legal privileges

Any example?Sometimes these things don't translate well across cultures. For example, there is a long debate in academia as to whether pre-modern China had anything that could be comparable to the European and Islamic concept of natural law (lex naturalis), the principle of which is derived from Greco-Roman concepts. This is not applicable to East Asia where the law (Chinese: fa) was predominately perceived in administrative terms. That is, it was more like 'a tool through which the Emperor's will is carried out' than the more European/Islamic 'transcendent rules that even the ruler must obey'. Then there are those who claim that there was a Chinese equivalent in the rituals (li), but that's getting into too much detail

Just a small example of how such debates and concepts can differ across cultures. Sometimes its not a matter of comparing like for like, and we have to be aware of that

Queercommie Girl

27th January 2011, 16:38

Queercommie Girl

27th January 2011, 16:55

No, it doesn't. If you believe that "religion still governs society in the west" then you are, quite simply, wrong. Virtually every European state is firmly secular in character. If you are a European citizen then your rights are not derived from some divine source or Son of Heaven but are considered to be fundamental to your being and are gained simply by the virtue of being born. I have the exact same basic legal rights as everyone else in my country, regardless of creed or colour. This is not a product of some benevolent deity but rather universal natural law that applies to all humans. Even in the US you will look in vain in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution for any mention of God; these are secular documents

I agree capitalist/post-Enlightenment secular Western values are more progressive than traditional Chinese ones.

But actually if you compare pre-capitalist European laws and values with pre-capitalist Chinese ones, you will actually find that the Chinese values are more progressive and closer to the Enlightenment ideal. This is why Enlightenment thinkers can Voltaire actually borrowed from Chinese philosophy. Chinese feudalism was ruled not by the aristocracy but by a meritocratic (at least in principle) bureaucracy selected through an objective examination system. It is believed that the modern education and academic system in the West borrowed some elements from the ancient Chinese examination system.

The Chinese concept of the "Mandate of Heaven" is superior to the European and Islamic concept of the "Divine Rights of Kings", because the "Mandate of Heaven" is not absolute and can change. In fact, the Chinese word for "revolution", geming, still used today, literally means "to change the Mandate of Heaven". This term first appeared during China's slavery-feudalism transition more than 2500 years ago, when the theocratic slave-lord aristocracy class was overthrown.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_heaven

The Mandate of Heaven is similar to the European notion of the Divine Right of Kings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Right_of_Kings) in that both sought to legitimize rule using divine approval. However, the Divine Right of Kings granted unconditional legitimacy, whereas the Mandate of Heaven was conditional on the just behavior of the ruler. Revolution is never legitimate under the Divine Right of Kings, but the philosophy of the Mandate of Heaven approved of the overthrow of unjust rulers. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that the Mandate of Heaven had passed. In China, the right of rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_rebellion) against an unjust ruler has been a part of political philosophy ever since the Zhou dynasty, and a successful rebellion was interpreted by Chinese historians as evidence of that divine approval had passed on to the successive dynasty.

and

http://www.revleft.com/vb/rise-atheism-ancient-t141770/index.html

The Rise of Atheism in Ancient China

However imperfectly this exists in real life, and I'm not for a second denying the existence of discrimination, these values are amongst the most important products of the Enlightenment. They firmly declare that the individual has an integral worth outside of any religious context. This is an important assertion that continues to form the basis of European law.
Which is something much of the Islamic world still has to learn.

Sometimes these things don't translate well across cultures. For example, there is a long debate in academia as to whether pre-modern China had anything that could be comparable to the European and Islamic concept of natural law (lex naturalis), the principle of which is derived from Greco-Roman concepts. This is not applicable to East Asia where the law (Chinese: fa) was predominately perceived in administrative terms. That is, it was more like 'a tool through which the Emperor's will is carried out' than the more European/Islamic 'transcendent rules that even the ruler must obey'. Then there are those who claim that there was a Chinese equivalent in the rituals (li), but that's getting into too much detail
However, it is interesting to note that the socialist idea of law is closer to the Chinese concept, because Historical Materialism fundamentally rejects any kind of idealistic "transcendent rule". Socialism generally rejects the idea of "abstract law" in Western bourgeois societies. Also, in a socialist society direct administration and the legislative parliament are fused together (in Chinese called Zheng Xing He Yi) in a system of direct worker's democracy.

The fundamental difference is that while both socialist law and Chinese law are administrative rather than transcendent in nature, socialist law is fundamentally "bottom-up" while Chinese law is fundamentally "top-down". In this sense therefore, Marxism is almost like a dialectical inversion of Confucianism. Both legal forms are directly administrative, but in Confucianism the ruler/emperor has absolute rights, in Marxism the working class has absolute rights.

Chinese law is "a tool through which the emperor's will is carried out". In a Confucian dictatorship of the emperor, the emperor's will is absolute.

Socialist law is "a tool through which the proletarian class's will carried out". In a Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletariat's will is absolute.

Personally I reject the Western idea of "natural law", as much as I reject the Western idea of "natural ethics". These are things which are left-overs from your theocratic past. Law and ethics fundamentally cannot be natural. Nature has no law or ethics, because there is no God, and Nature has no will. Law and ethics are fundamentally political in character. There is no "natural ethics", only "political ethics". Law fundamentally must be administrative and utilitarian in character. There is no abstract law.

Related is the Chinese belief that human life has no objective meaning, because there is no God, and no external observer or creator in the universe, only subjective meaning. The meaning of human life is only human, it's whatever we make of it. Or as Lu Xun puts it: In the world there are no roads, roads only emerge as people walk over them.

The goal of Chinese socialism is "human-centric scientific development". Not just humanist, but actually human-centric. Humanity, existing as the universal working class, has absolute rights in legal terms, as just in Confucianism the autocratic emperor has absolute rights.

ComradeOm

27th January 2011, 17:29

Modern secular-humanist-scientific civilisation is not just Western civilisation, it is also Chinese civilisation. It is not just the civilisation of Socrates, Aristotle, Voltaire, Newton and Einstein, but also the civilisation of Confucius, Zhang Heng, Sun Yat-sen, Lu Xun and Mao ZedongI'm going to disagree with this. Chinese culture is endlessly interesting and, as I note above, often differs significantly from European concepts, but it cannot be considered to be either modern or rationalist in the Enlightenment sense. Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism have their progressive aspects - not least in their admiration for the meritocracy; this alone elevates it above European feudalism - but it also tended towards a highly reverent reading of the past. I wouldn't strictly define Confucianism as a religion, certainly not on the Western model, but many of its features (ancestor worship, heavy emphasis on ritual, its cosmology, etc) set it aside from rationalist philosophies

To provide an example, at roughly the same time that Europe was undergoing its Enlightenment, Chinese philosophical thought was dominated by 'evidential research' (kaoheng xue): an exceptionally arid and stale discipline that shunned new ideas in favour of a strict textual reading of the Confucian classics. The latter might not have been religious dogma but they were effectively treated as such. This at the very time that European thinkers were liberating themselves from similar shackles

It wasn't until the 20th C that distinctly Enlightenment values (and here we have to be very careful because this are largely synonymous with Westernisation) were imported from abroad. Ironically, given your reference of May 4th, this was often typified by an intense reaction against the older Confucian teachings and cultural norms

Mao Zedong was a great classical scholar in the Chinese tradition for instance.I bet he had excellent calligraphy and was a practised poet as well. The archetype of the scholar-emperor was well established in China

But actually if you compare pre-capitalist European laws and values with pre-capitalist Chinese ones, you will actually find that the Chinese values are more progressive and closer to the Enlightenment idealI would not agree with the last line, for reasons that I give above, but there is certainly a great deal to admire about Chinese cultural values. Particularly so when stacked against the prevalent tendencies in Europe. However let's not overstate things. The lack of a ruling military/feudal caste (which was of undoubted benefits for the vast majority of the population) and the supine nature of the bureaucracy (a product of its Confucian traditions) often produced veritable monsters at the apex of the state. No European nation would have tolerated anything like the purges practised by successive emperors (particularly from the Ming onwards) that saw thousands of bureaucrats and their families executed or otherwise punished. Despite being nominally constrained by ritual and tradition, an emperor who so desired it could amass near-absolute power with little difficulty

If there was no great distinction between the Mandate of Heaven and the Divine Right of Kings in practice, then I'd also argue that theoretically they were also similar. Obviously the latter has an explicitly religious tone and is unconditional, but they both bestow legitimacy from above. In practice of course, the Mandate was simply a way of bridging dynastic gaps and excusing the transfer of power

As for the 'right of rebellion', this was unfortunately more a matter than theory than practice. I've already referred to Mencius in an above post, but many of his more radical propositions were either suppressed or ignored by following generations. There was a brief flourishing of such Mencius-inspired thought in the utilitarian (gongli, no relation to the later Western school) under the Southern Song but unfortunately this came to nothing. Neo-Confucianism would come to be dominated by the rather more abstract legalist (lixue) and idealist (xinxue) schools. These were rich and sophisticated currents of thought but did not particularly challenge either the state or the status quo

However, it is interesting to note that the socialist idea of law is closer to the Chinese concept, because Historical Materialism fundamentally rejects any kind of idealistic "transcendent rule". Socialism generally rejects the idea of "abstract law" in Western bourgeois societiesAgain, I disagree. There is no contradiction between the idea of universal rights and either historical materialism or socialism

Queercommie Girl

27th January 2011, 18:10

To provide an example, at roughly the same time that Europe was undergoing its Enlightenment, Chinese philosophical thought was dominated by 'evidential research' (kaoheng xue): an exceptionally arid and stale discipline that shunned new ideas in favour of a strict textual reading of the Confucian classics. The latter might not have been religious dogma but they were effectively treated as such. This at the very time that European thinkers were liberating themselves from similar shackles

Actually I think you are mistaken. While I agree with one of the fundamental problems of Confucianism is that it tends to look backwards, unlike the progressive Western Enlightenment tradition which is forward-looking, the actual methodology of kaozheng xue was actually very scientific in nature, and not superstitious at all. You cannot compare it to religious dogmas in the Western sense.

It wasn't until the 20th C that distinctly Enlightenment values (and here we have to be very careful because this are largely synonymous with Westernisation) were imported from abroad. Ironically, given your reference of May 4th, this was often typified by an intense reaction against the older Confucian teachings and cultural norms
The May 4th Movement certainly smashed orthodox feudal Confucianism. But you would be mistaken if you think it represented wholesale "Westernisation". The May 4th Movement still had a very distinctive Chinese character. The irony is that many of the most radical critics of orthodox Confucianism, such as Lu Xun, themselves came from a very Confucian background. Lu Xun's ancestors were elite scholars in the Confucian Hanlin Academy during the Qing dynasty.

Confucius was not actually completely rejected. Perhaps he was completely rejected by those elements in the movement that looked to completely follow and copy Western capitalism, but certainly not by Chinese socialists, who also had in mind the national rights of the Chinese people. As Li Dazhao, one of the two founding members of the Chinese Communist Party put it: "Our rejection of Confucius is not rejecting Confucius himself, but only the feudal authority of Confucianism." Chen Duxiu, the other founding member, also believed that Confucianism was partly reactionary and partly progressive.

Chen Duxiu said in his article Confucius and China:

"According to the standards of modern knowledge, does Confucius have any value? I can definitely say yes. The primary value of Confucius is that he has a rational stance against religious superstition. From the most ancient times to the Eastern Zhou period, the Chinese had accumulated a huge amount of religious and mythological literature. Confucius threw all of them away, and created an education system based on the four subjects of Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics and Literature. (See Lunyu/Xianjin) And Confucian ethics is primarily based on four elements: "literary education, effective action, loyalty and faithfulness"."

As for whether or not Confucianism and other Chinese philosophies are irrational, of course I'm not saying they are as rational as modern science, but I really do not see anything in Confucianism that is less rational than most forms of Classical or Greco-Roman Philosophy. Traditional Chinese Medicine for instance is at least as rational as the Galenic medicine of Ancient Greece, and actually more complex.

Also, according to great Historians of Science like Joseph Needham, in ancient times, Chinese science, technology and medicine were more advanced than all other parts of the world. Marx said the technological inventions of "gunpowder, printing and the compass" were the key innovations that helped to usher in the capitalist age, and all of these were invented in China.

And you cannot deny that great Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire did actually borrow from Chinese thought.

I would not agree with the last line, for reasons that I give above, but there is certainly a great deal to admire about Chinese cultural values. Particularly so when stacked against the prevalent tendencies in Europe. However let's not overstate things. The lack of a ruling military/feudal caste (which was of undoubted benefits for the vast majority of the population) and the supine nature of the bureaucracy (a product of its Confucian traditions) often produced veritable monsters at the apex of the state. No European nation would have tolerated anything like the purges practised by successive emperors (particularly from the Ming onwards) that saw thousands of bureaucrats and their families executed or otherwise punished. Despite being nominally constrained by ritual and tradition, an emperor who so desired it could amass near-absolute power with little difficulty
Yet have you ever thought about the possibility that some of those bureaucrats really deserved to die?

Just like today, I think many of the corrupt bureaucrats in China literally deserve to die, and yes, with many members of their families as well, who are actively involved in their corrupt activities.

Chinese law and ethics do tend to be harsher, as well as retributive, lacking the concept of "forgiveness" found in Christian civilisation.

Just like in ancient Rome, Caesar's plebian dictatorship is still better than the rule of the corrupt aristocratic republic of the Patrician Order, in China, the autocratic centralised rule of the emperor is still better than the rule by corrupt bureaucrats and aristocrats.

If there was no great distinction between the Mandate of Heaven and the Divine Right of Kings in practice, then I'd also argue that theoretically they were also similar. Obviously the latter has an explicitly religious tone and is unconditional, but they both bestow legitimacy from above. In practice of course, the Mandate was simply a way of bridging dynastic gaps and excusing the transfer of power.

As for the 'right of rebellion', this was unfortunately more a matter than theory than practice. I've already referred to Mencius in an above post, but many of his more radical propositions were either suppressed or ignored by following generations. There was a brief flourishing of such Mencius-inspired thought in the utilitarian (gongli, no relation to the later Western school) under the Southern Song but unfortunately this came to nothing. Neo-Confucianism would come to be dominated by the rather more abstract legalist (lixue) and idealist (xinxue) schools. These were rich and sophisticated currents of thought but did not particularly challenge either the state or the status quo
Whatever the practical implications were, in principle they are undoubtedly different. The Chinese word geming ("revolution") literally means "to change the mandate of heaven". Even today this slogan is inspirational in countries dominated by reactionary theocracies where even the slightest blasphemy is a crime.

Again, I disagree. There is no contradiction between the idea of universal rights and either historical materialism or socialism
Then you are mistaken. Socialist law is fundamentally different from capitalist law. Marxism does not believe in bourgeois law, in fact, a communist society would do away with capitalist legal forms. Also, Marxism does not believe in "universal rights" that transcend class, only the "universal rights of the universal working class". There is a fundamental difference.

Marxism also does not believe in separate administrative and legislative branches in the government, but rather the fusion of the two through a system of direct proletarian democracy.

In legal areas, Marxism is really like a dialectical inversion of Confucianism in many ways.

A capitalist and a worker cannot have the same rights. Otherwise a socialist revolution would be literally illegal. But a revolution is only illegal from the perspective of bourgeois law, not socialist law.

Adil3tr

27th January 2011, 18:34

Back when the world had primitive communism, people had these values, all over the world.

ComradeOm

27th January 2011, 18:53

Actually I think you are mistaken. While I agree with one of the fundamental problems of Confucianism is that it tends to look backwards, unlike the progressive Western Enlightenment tradition which is forward-looking, the actual methodology of kaozheng xue was actually very scientific in nature, and not superstitious at all. You cannot compare it to religious dogmas in the Western senseYou misunderstand my point. A key element of the scientific method is a questioning attitude towards. This was entirely lacking from the kaozheng xue. This challenged the textual foundations of the existing schools through an exceptionally close examination of the classics. The latter were not challenged or subject to critical scrutiny; rather the post-Song philosophers were upbraided for not adhering closely to the early Confucian texts. It was simply a closer reading of dogma

Contrast with the roughly contemporary trend in Europe, which peaked in the 19th C, to apply scientific and rational arguments to the Bible with the intention of seriously criticising the base material and revealing the flaws within it

Yet have you ever thought about the possibility that some of those bureaucrats really deserved to die?No. Firstly because its irrelevant unless there is adequate due process in place to determine whether someone "deserves to die". Secondly, we're talking about brutal, and possibly deranged, tyrants such as Ming Taizu* or the very public punishments meted out by Qing emperors at the very suspicion of anti-Manchu thought. These are not excusable today and nor is the barbaric concept of 'blood guilt'

*But then the Hongwu Emperor has always been sympathetically by the PRC

Queercommie Girl

27th January 2011, 19:19

You misunderstand my point. A key element of the scientific method is a questioning attitude towards. This was entirely lacking from the kaozheng xue. This challenged the textual foundations of the existing schools through an exceptionally close examination of the classics. The latter were not challenged or subject to critical scrutiny; rather the post-Song philosophers were upbraided for not adhering closely to the early Confucian texts. It was simply a closer reading of dogma.

But by the standards of historical science, kaozheng xue clearly utilised a scientific methodology. It was backward-looking, and it did not in any way challenge the meta-structure of the Chinese thought system itself. I agree in these it was lacking. But to not see that it was still significantly more advanced than theocratic approaches to philosophy and history is certainly being very unfair.

Contrast with the roughly contemporary trend in Europe, which peaked in the 19th C, to apply scientific and rational arguments to the Bible with the intention of seriously criticising the base material and revealing the flaws within it

It was certainly a good thing to criticise the Bible rationally. But the Chinese classics of Confucianism as well as other Schools of Thought are simply not on the same level as the Bible or Quran. They are much closer to the classical texts of ancient Greece and Rome in form.

Again, I challenge you to show me how ancient Chinese systems of knowledge, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, are any less rational and scientific than the best traditions from ancient Greece and Rome. Li Shizhen's Materia Medica was the most comprehensive medical and naturalist encyclopedia in the entire world in pre-modern times.

Traditional Chinese thought was not on par with modern science, sure, but it was qualitatively superior to superstitious religions like the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism and Buddhism. It was generally on the same level as Classical Greco-Roman philosophy in many ways.

No. Firstly because its irrelevant unless there is adequate due process in place to determine whether someone "deserves to die". Secondly, we're talking about brutal, and possibly deranged, tyrants such as Ming Taizu* or the very public punishments meted out by Qing emperors at the very suspicion of anti-Manchu thought. These are not excusable today and nor is the barbaric concept of 'blood guilt'

*But then the Hongwu Emperor has always been sympathetically by the PRC

To completely reject Ming Taizu is clearly a mistake. While I agree he was way too brutal a character in general, he was certainly not "deranged". He was a very intelligent and hard-working emperor who was also relatively frugal and did not really take part in corruption himself.

If you say he was "deranged" just because he killed a lot of people, then why not call Lenin "deranged" for killing off the entire Tsar royal family (a "barbaric practice of blood guilt" no?), or the bourgeois revolutionaries of the French revolution "deranged" for beheading the king and the aristocrats?

I don't mind whatever ethical beliefs you may have, but please don't apply a double standard to China and the West!

The PRC critically evaluates the Hongwu emperor, but it's true that Mao Zedong drew some parallels between Hongwu and himself: peasant origins, restoring China from the domination of Western and Japanese imperialism/restoring Han rule from Mongol domination, leader of a Red Army/Red Scarves, frugal, intelligent and hard-working, hated corruption and purged many corrupt bureaucrats. :)

Of all the emperors in feudal China, in many ways Hongwu was probably the closest to Mao!

apawllo

27th January 2011, 19:24

Queercommie Girl

27th January 2011, 19:31

And again, the imperfection to which these things exist in real life continually displays that this great concept that is the Enlightenment has been nothing more than that.

The issue with "God" in the Constitution wouldn't be the first issue I'd take, although you went that route with Ibn Khaldun. Obviously the men who founded this country were rich, white, christians. I'd expect them to show this in the founding documents. More importantly, the first country supposedly founded on Enlightenment ideals still had a colonial caste system in place, not to mention mass slavery, and not one but two of the largest genocides in recent human history. And, as mentioned, equality was always based on property ownership, as well as race and religion. So, again, I'll say it's all just history class nonsense.

I agree. Bourgeois society can never do away with reactionary religion and irrationality completely. Only a socialist society can turn the great concept of the Enlightenment into a reality.

Also, the American Revolution was not as radical or progressive as the French Revolution. When the Chinese socialists looked to learn and borrow from the West, we largely looked to the French model, not the British or American ones. The British and the Americans never did radically do away with the feudal aristocracy and the church as the bourgeois revolutionaries in France did.

Voltaire was one of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers in France, and he borrowed ideas from Confucianism to attack the Catholic Church.

The Chinese Enlightenment project is largely based on the French model. Even today the French left are among the most progressive, radical and militant on Earth.

NGNM85

27th January 2011, 19:45

And again, the imperfection to which these things exist in real life continually displays that this great concept that is the Enlightenment has been nothing more than that.

......According to you.

The issue with "God" in the Constitution wouldn't be the first issue I'd take, although you went that route with Ibn Khaldun. Obviously the men who founded this country were rich, white, christians. I'd expect them to show this in the founding documents.

Actually, they were, almost uniformly, deists.

More importantly, the first country supposedly founded on Enlightenment ideals still had a colonial caste system in place, not to mention mass slavery, and not one but two of the largest genocides in recent human history. And, as mentioned, equality was always based on property ownership, as well as race and religion. So, again, I'll say it's all just history class nonsense.

Many of the leaders of the American revolution were highly critical of slavery. Some, like Franklin, Thomas Paine, or both Sam and John Adams, never owned slaves. Franklin, Paine, John Jay and others were leaders in the anti-slavery movement. The acceptance of slavery, rightly or wrongly, was largely undertaken as a tactical compromise. While the framers layed a basis for slavery to perpetuate itself in the Southern states, they also codified the principles and ideas that would ultimately lead to it's dissolution.

apawllo

27th January 2011, 20:52

......According to you.

Yeah, I mean, I said it. Do you debate purely with other people's quotes or something?

Actually, they were, almost uniformly, deists.

Well, my mistake then.

Many of the leaders of the American revolution were highly critical of slavery. Some, like Franklin, Thomas Paine, or both Sam and John Adams, never owned slaves. Franklin, Paine, John Jay and others were leaders in the anti-slavery movement. The acceptance of slavery, rightly or wrongly, was largely undertaken as a tactical compromise. While the framers layed a basis for slavery to perpetuate itself in the Southern states, they also codified the principles and ideas that would ultimately lead to it's dissolution.

Actually, the reason slavery was allowed to exist is because the founders were rich, lazy assholes, and they genuinely didn't give a fuck about average people so much as how much wealth they had. That being the general consensus among them, as stated in founding documents; they used slaves to build the country within the economic structure of capitalism, under the political banner of freedom for the few. And somehow people still buy into this rhetoric that everything was done for the masses.

The fact that a few did speak out against slavery during the founding, puts them in the minority in that regard, but makes them no better than those who intended to establish a slave-holding nation...seeing as how they all took part in that. That's like Warren Buffett saying that he doesn't agree with the way workers are treated. He continues to benefit greatly from it though doesn't he? If he said that, you probably wouldn't think too much of his comments...

Jose Gracchus

27th January 2011, 23:29

Many of the leaders of the American revolution were highly critical of slavery. Some, like Franklin, Thomas Paine, or both Sam and John Adams, never owned slaves. Franklin, Paine, John Jay and others were leaders in the anti-slavery movement. The acceptance of slavery, rightly or wrongly, was largely undertaken as a tactical compromise. While the framers layed a basis for slavery to perpetuate itself in the Southern states, they also codified the principles and ideas that would ultimately lead to it's dissolution.

Nonsense. In what sense did their "principles and ideas" lead to slavery's abolition? Sounds more like the sentimentality of nationalist mythology than serious history. It was a struggle of men and of radical traditions that built up abolitionism to a force that could challenge the South. Thomas Paine of course is hardly a "Founding Father"; he was a radical democrat and secularist spurned and ignored later in his life for his radicalism. Though Founders often had a sentimental Whiggish distaste for slavery, they did little openly to restrict or to move toward its abolition, and their successors quickly moved away from the slavery question and if anything, progressively reinforced it aside from a few, like John Quincy Adams. Plenty of the Founders and their peers had been highly hostile to agitation by the British of both natives and black slaves (Lord Dunmore and his Proclamation, and the "Ethiopian Regiment" come to mind) and feared class or race war.

They were progressive for their day, but not immensely so. They repressed plebeian farmer, artisan and workmen class-based movements like the outbreaks of tax rebellions, and also worked against movements like the Associators in Pennsylvania who passed briefly an unprecedentedly democratic constitution with a responsible legislature. Interestingly enough we continue to suffer today under their antiquated Whig constitution; they represent much more our ancien régime than any even inspiration to a way forward. Its time to pave ourselves a genuinely new and forward path.

"The people who own the country ought to govern it."
- John Jay, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

However, the idea that the Enlightenment, the liberal revolutions, the rise of capitalism, the Scientific Revolution - that these things did not in particular arise in Europe, and that they were not subjectively progressive - that's just wrong. Socialism is about humanizing the democratic and rational project unleashed by this epoch, but unrealized insofar that it was against the interests of the new secular kings - the kings of industry.

robbo203

28th January 2011, 00:18

Interesting discussion. Talking of science and scientific procedures I can remember reading some years ago, Evans-Pritchards ethnographic classic, Witchcraft and magic among the Azande. 19th century anthropology epitomised by the likes of James Frazer's The Golden Bough made a sharp distinction between what it called a traditional primitive mentality and a modern scientific rational mentality. The point of EPs work was to demonstrate that this was a bit of false dichotomy and that beliefs that we in the West might regard as superstititious mumbo jumbo often as not entailed a highly rational and scientific aspect.

The bit from the book that I remember in particular was a procedure called the chicken oracle. If someone was accused of witchcraft (which in Azande thought was an actual substance to be found in the small intestine) they would be subject to the chicken oracle test. I cant temember the exact details but basically a young chicken was fed arsenic while a series of questions were asked. If it lived the person did not have withcraft and vice versa, Then intreresting a double blind test was carried out - a standard scientific routine - to confirm or refute the intitial tests by putting forward a series of questions in the negative form and here we certain parallels with the scientific method.

EP was making the point that it was too cut and dried to talk of a scientific rational outlook being rooted in a particular cultural-historical complex i.e. western society. Arguing from the other end so to speak, people like Paul Feyeraband have suggested that western science, far from being what it presents itself as being - self critical - it too is subject to its own irrationalities and mythologies. In that respect western societies and traditional societies are far more alike under the skin than is sometimes imagined as far the character of their mindsets are concerned

Queercommie Girl

28th January 2011, 01:04

However, the idea that the Enlightenment, the liberal revolutions, the rise of capitalism, the Scientific Revolution - that these things did not in particular arise in Europe, and that they were not subjectively progressive - that's just wrong. Socialism is about humanizing the democratic and rational project unleashed by this epoch, but unrealized insofar that it was against the interests of the new secular kings - the kings of industry.

The Enlightenment was a great epoch of human history, but it did not originate out of a vaccum, nor was it rooted only in "European" civilisation. Looking backwards, it owed much to the thought and spirit of ancient thinkers from cultures all over Eurasia, and looking forward, one of the key elements of the Enlightenment is precisely its universality, that it reflected the deep-seated desires of all human beings, rather than rooted in a specific cultural system. The values of the Enlightenment are fundamentally internationalist simply due to their intrinsic character.

NGNM85

28th January 2011, 02:52

Yeah, I mean, I said it. Do you debate purely with other people's quotes or something?

I meant to imply that this dubious opinion, which you are stating as self-evident, is simply that, and nothing more.

Well, my mistake then.

There’s a world of difference. That isn’t a minor technicality.

Actually, the reason slavery was allowed to exist is because the founders were rich, lazy assholes, and they genuinely didn't give a fuck about average people so much as how much wealth they had. That being the general consensus among them, as stated in founding documents;

I challenge you to find the phrase ‘we don’t give a fuck about average people so much as how much wealth we have’ in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.

they used slaves to build the country within the economic structure of capitalism, under the political banner of freedom for the few. And somehow people still buy into this rhetoric that everything was done for the masses.

The luminaries of the Enlightenment were essentially precapitalist. Also, while slavery was the bedrock of the economies of the southern states, this was simply not the case in the north.

The fact that a few did speak out against slavery during the founding, puts them in the minority in that regard,

Actually, most of the Founders were at least uncomfortable with slavery, and generally became increasingly critical of it with time.

but makes them no better than those who intended to establish a slave-holding nation...seeing as how they all took part in that. That's like Warren Buffett saying that he doesn't agree with the way workers are treated. He continues to benefit greatly from it though doesn't he? If he said that, you probably wouldn't think too much of his comments...

Again, as I said before, you can argue whether or not this political compromise was justified, or necessary. However, you are reducing these people, and this time period to absurd caricatures. There’s actually a lot more nuance than you’re presenting.

apawllo

28th January 2011, 03:16

I challenge you to find the phrase ‘we don’t give a fuck about average people so much as how much wealth we have’ in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.

So we are debating purely with quotations....

Actually, most of the Founders were at least uncomfortable with slavery, and generally became increasingly critical of it with time.
Where and when did each founding father state that they felt this way? More importantly, how did their actions indicate it was the case?

The luminaries of the Enlightenment were essentially precapitalist. Also, while slavery was the bedrock of the economies of the southern states, this was simply not the case in the north.
Yeah, and it was more brutal in Caribbean states. Is that because the people in charge there were inherently better, or because it made the economy run to their liking? There wasn't sugar cane, cotton, etc. in the north. There were still slaves there though, they just performed different tasks.

Again, as I said before, you can argue whether or not this political compromise was justified, or necessary. However, you are reducing these people, and this time period to absurd caricatures. There’s actually a lot more nuance than you’re presenting. Actually, I'm presenting a class analysis of the situation, while you're praising the founders for their rhetoric rather than looking at what actually took place. So, maybe you're projecting when you accuse me of painting absurd caricatures.

NGNM85

28th January 2011, 04:23

So we are debating purely with quotations....

Cut the crap. If you can make these wild assertions then I can call you on them. That is not unfair. You said the statement you made, or some permutation thereof, was written in the ‘founding documents.’

Where and when did each founding father state that they felt this way? More importantly, how did their actions indicate it was the case?

To pull out every single quote would take a number of pages and more research than I’m really inclined to conduct at the moment, but there are numerous examples. This one, by Jefferson, always stuck with me, especially the last part;

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. . . . And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. –Thomas Jefferson

Slavery was an issue of contention from the very beginning. Some wanted to ban it, outright, from the very beginning. There was actually going to be a paragraph on slavery in the Declaration of Independence (Although, Jefferson placed all the moral responsibility on England.) which was, ultimately, removed. As I understand it, the chief advocates of slavery were the representatives from Georgia and South Carolina, which isn’t too surprising. First of all, as mentioned, a number of the Founding Fathers never owned slaves, including Sam and John Adams, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, as well as less famous figures like Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman. Ben Franklin became the leader of the Pennsylvania abolitionists. John Jay did the same. Washington was privately critical of slavery and emancipated his slaves in his will. Thomas Jefferson is a much more complicated case, he was openly critical of slavery, but owned slaves his whole life (Although, he did ensure they had the benefit of an education.) this may have been partly due to financial difficulties, there’s definitely a certain amount of hypocrisy in his case. It varies. You have to take it on a case-by-case basis. Six years after the Revolution, one third of the States had already abolished slavery. In twelve years, half the country had abolished slavery. It wasn’t just theoretical.

Yeah, and it was more brutal in Caribbean states. Is that because the people in charge there were inherently better, or because it made the economy run to their liking? There wasn't sugar cane, cotton, etc. in the north. There were still slaves there though, they just performed different tasks.

Again, very shortly after the war for independence ended, northern states started getting rid of slavery. Also, again, if it had been left entirely to the northern representatives, it very possibly would have been abolished from the outset.

Actually, I'm presenting a class analysis of the situation, while you're praising the founders for their rhetoric rather than looking at what actually took place. So, maybe you're projecting when you accuse me of painting absurd caricatures.

You’re not presenting any kind of analysis of the situation. My early American history might be a little rusty but you don’t seem to be remotely qualified.

NGNM85

28th January 2011, 04:54

Nonsense. In what sense did their "principles and ideas" lead to slavery's abolition? Sounds more like the sentimentality of nationalist mythology than serious history.

The ideological foundations of the American revolution are fundamentally antithetical to slavery. This was no secret to the founders, they stated as much on several occasions. Most of them were, at least, uncomfortable with the concept of slavery. They also created a legal basis for overturning slavery. I’m not saying there aren’t legitimate criticisms to be made, just that it isn’t that simple.

It was a struggle of men and of radical traditions that built up abolitionism to a force that could challenge the South.

Including people like John Jay and Ben Franklin.

Thomas Paine of course is hardly a "Founding Father";

That depends on your criteria.

he was a radical democrat and secularist spurned and ignored later in his life for his radicalism.

Yes.

Though Founders often had a sentimental Whiggish distaste for slavery, they did little openly to restrict or to move toward its abolition,

You can certainly say they didn’t do enough, but I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say they did ‘little.’

and their successors quickly moved away from the slavery question and if anything, progressively reinforced it aside from a few, like John Quincy Adams. Plenty of the Founders and their peers had been highly hostile to agitation by the British of both natives and black slaves (Lord Dunmore and his Proclamation, and the "Ethiopian Regiment" come to mind) and feared class or race war.

They were progressive for their day, but not immensely so.

Ok, so you say they were marginally progressive, and I say they were significantly progressive.

They repressed plebeian farmer, artisan and workmen class-based movements like the outbreaks of tax rebellions, and also worked against movements like the Associators in Pennsylvania who passed briefly an unprecedentedly democratic constitution with a responsible legislature. Interestingly enough we continue to suffer today under their antiquated Whig constitution; they represent much more our ancien régime than any even inspiration to a way forward. Its time to pave ourselves a genuinely new and forward path.

I’m by no means a strict constructionist. People who treat the Constitution as if it were the Ten Commandments are totally out of touch. It wasn’t intended to be set in stone, it was intended to be modified and added to needs meet with the times.

"The people who own the country ought to govern it."
- John Jay, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

“I am the walrus.”
-John Lennon, Lead Singer of the Beatles

However, the idea that the Enlightenment, the liberal revolutions, the rise of capitalism, the Scientific Revolution - that these things did not in particular arise in Europe, and that they were not subjectively progressive - that's just wrong.

This is another point we almost agree on.

Socialism is about humanizing the democratic and rational project unleashed by this epoch, but unrealized insofar that it was against the interests of the new secular kings - the kings of industry.

In their defense, the luminaries of the Enlightenment were essentially precapitalist. They didn’t even imagine the kind of private tyrannies that would arise in the future. They wrote about religion and the state because that’s what they knew. Later on, as these things started to take shape, James Madison voiced fears that this already represented a genuine threat to democracy. I think if they were alive today, most of them would be socialists, or, at least, would be considered socialists.

ComradeOm

28th January 2011, 12:13

But by the standards of historical science, kaozheng xue clearly utilised a scientific methodology. It was backward-looking, and it did not in any way challenge the meta-structure of the Chinese thought system itself. I agree in these it was lacking. But to not see that it was still significantly more advanced than theocratic approaches to philosophy and history is certainly being very unfairWhat is the difference then? That Christian theologists uncritically accepted Biblical documents while Chinese scholars uncritically accepted Confucian classics? In both cases we're talking about dogma

I have much more respect for the earlier Neo-Confucian traditions because, while still venetating the past and being excessively legalist, they sought to build on previous teachings and were not adverse to incorporating, however unwittingly, Buddhist influences. In contrast kaoheng xue was a predominately destructive school that criticised previous currents purely on the basis of departures from the classical texts. Simple dogmatism

Again, I challenge you to show me how ancient Chinese systems of knowledge, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, are any less rational and scientific than the best traditions from ancient Greece and RomeI'm not for a second suggesting that they are

To completely reject Ming Taizu is clearly a mistake. While I agree he was way too brutal a character in general, he was certainly not "deranged". He was a very intelligent and hard-working emperor who was also relatively frugal and did not really take part in corruption himselfHe also had thousands executed on the basis of a strong paranoia that bordered on mental illness. Whatever about assessments of his regime (and even in the realm of administration these were not necessarily positive) this sort of tyrannical rule is hardly to be condoned

If you say he was "deranged" just because he killed a lot of people, then why not call Lenin "deranged" for killing off the entire Tsar royal family (a "barbaric practice of blood guilt" no?), or the bourgeois revolutionaries of the French revolution "deranged" for beheading the king and the aristocrats?I'm not making any such comparisons, beyond noting that Chinese thought did not challenge such flagrant misuses of executive power. No matter how poor or destructive an emperor was the role of the scholar-official elite was to support his decisions and policies. There was no real opposition from the top (as there would have been in European feudalism) or from below

Which is all the more visible when we take up the comparisons that you've drawn. Even if he had wanted to, Lenin could not have ordered the executions of thousands and their families. He was not an untrammelled autocrat and was responsible to both his peers in government and ultimately to the Russian people. Even Nicholas II, literally an autocrat, would have faced opposition to such measures. Secondly, simply characterising the victims of Ming Taizu as corrupt officials is baseless. The execution of counter-revolutionaries or supporters of the ancien regime is one thing, but this is not the reality of Chinese court politics. Projecting such sentiments backwards into history (as the PRC does so often) is deeply anachronistic

Of all the emperors in feudal China, in many ways Hongwu was probably the closest to Mao!That is not a good thing. Unless of course one wants to make a perverse fetish out of bloodshed, seeing something virtuous in the deaths of thousands of innocents

And again, the imperfection to which these things exist in real life continually displays that this great concept that is the Enlightenment has been nothing more than that.Nothing more than what? A set of values that don't always match up with reality? I'd fully agree with that. But then that's exactly what we're comparing here - philosophies

Which does not of course excuse you from simply dismissing the gains of the Enlightenment. We in the West live in a liberal world which, if far from perfect, is nonetheless a vast improvement over pre-modern forms

The issue with "God" in the Constitution wouldn't be the first issue I'd take, although you went that route with Ibn Khaldun. Obviously the men who founded this country were rich, white, christians. I'd expect them to show this in the founding documentsExcept they didn't. Saying that the US was founded on religious principles is simply wrong. Perhaps if you'd spent more time with "history class nonsense" then you'd know that

apawllo

29th January 2011, 00:29

Cut the crap. If you can make these wild assertions then I can call you on them. That is not unfair. You said the statement you made, or some permutation thereof, was written in the ‘founding documents.’

This one should be enough:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

As stated, purely done for taxation purposes. In other words, so that the southern economy could function properly, and so that the rich whites could continue as they had been doing.

What doesn't make sense is the historical explanation. Yes, surely northerners opposed slavery, but why? They didn't need it. Southerners did due to the economy there, as stated. Otherwise they would have been toiling on plantations to keep them running rather than cracking whips. It's not a difficult concept to figure out. Thomas Paine opposed slavery because the economy of New York was mercantilist, John Adams the same because Boston was that way as well.

I assure you that John Adams, Thomas Paine and the rest of your great founders would have favored slavery through this period had their economies been in the same position as the south's. You can buy into the rhetoric all you like, but remember that the men in the south who owned all those slaves were talking the same nonsense about freedom and equality prior to it.

To pull out every single quote would take a number of pages and more research than I’m really inclined to conduct at the moment, but there are numerous examples. This one, by Jefferson, always stuck with me, especially the last part;

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. . . . And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. –Thomas Jefferson

Slavery was an issue of contention from the very beginning. Some wanted to ban it, outright, from the very beginning. There was actually going to be a paragraph on slavery in the Declaration of Independence (Although, Jefferson placed all the moral responsibility on England.) which was, ultimately, removed. As I understand it, the chief advocates of slavery were the representatives from Georgia and South Carolina, which isn’t too surprising. First of all, as mentioned, a number of the Founding Fathers never owned slaves, including Sam and John Adams, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, as well as less famous figures like Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman. Ben Franklin became the leader of the Pennsylvania abolitionists. John Jay did the same. Washington was privately critical of slavery and emancipated his slaves in his will. Thomas Jefferson is a much more complicated case, he was openly critical of slavery, but owned slaves his whole life (Although, he did ensure they had the benefit of an education.) this may have been partly due to financial difficulties, there’s definitely a certain amount of hypocrisy in his case. It varies. You have to take it on a case-by-case basis. Six years after the Revolution, one third of the States had already abolished slavery. In twelve years, half the country had abolished slavery. It wasn’t just theoretical.

It's fine if you want to fetishize certain founding fathers, but it's odd how the opinions of these men changed on this key issue as they moved south, and as the times changed, where and when the economy was run differently. Suggesting that these men were enlightened due to their words is a stretch. Cotton and tobacco grow significantly more effectively when the climate allow them to. A random state of mind can occur at any given places, though. Those who took an active stance during their lives were likely a product of the fact that they saw slavery to be useless. Had these men lived in the south, I wonder what they would have said. Regardless, their actions and words didn't do much of anything in the way of emancipation; and for men who created nation, that says quite a bit.

Again, very shortly after the war for independence ended, northern states started getting rid of slavery. Also, again, if it had been left entirely to the northern representatives, it very possibly would have been abolished from the outset.

Again, for economic reasons, not cause they were better people.

You’re not presenting any kind of analysis of the situation. My early American history might be a little rusty but you don’t seem to be remotely qualified.

Qualified to teach what you learned? No, definitely not, and gladly.

Nothing more than what? A set of values that don't always match up with reality? I'd fully agree with that. But then that's exactly what we're comparing here - philosophies

Which does not of course excuse you from simply dismissing the gains of the Enlightenment. We in the West live in a liberal world which, if far from perfect, is nonetheless a vast improvement over pre-modern forms

And this doesn't excuse you from attributing any gains to those outside of the West who added their philosophies. Because like I said in my first post, history's winners live to tell the story.

Not to mention, at what cost to the rest of the world have the gains of the West come? This life that you attribute purely to Enlightenment philosophy has come at the cost of colonialism and imperialism. If the ideas of Confucius or Ibn Khaldun had built a nation based on murdering, enslaving, raping and pillaging others to maintain a life style, then those individuals had called that freedom and equality, would they have been called Enlightened as well?

Except they didn't. Saying that the US was founded on religious principles is simply wrong. Perhaps if you'd spent more time with "history class nonsense" then you'd know that

How so? Even if you don't agree that the US was founded as exclusively Christian, surely you have to agree the founding was centered around religion. I'd say both though...

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature.

The right to freedom being the gift of the Almighty...The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutions of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.

Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins.

In my opinion, the present consitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banner bona fide must we combat our political foes, rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provided for amendments. By these general views of the subject have my reflections been guided. I now offer you the outline of the plan they have suggested. Let an association be formed to be denominated "The Christian Constitutional Society," its object to be first: The support of the Christian religion. second: The support of the United States.

I can keep going...

The Garbage Disposal Unit

29th January 2011, 00:42

We in the West live in a liberal world which, if far from perfect, is nonetheless a vast improvement over pre-modern forms.

Spoken like a Western liberal. Surprise.

The heirs of the liberal tradition rushing ever to its defense - Science! Reason! Democracy! - as though, somehow, more "authentic" practice of these things will engender a result other than, at best, a more authentic practice of what now exists.

From the Leninists, I couldn't expect anything else - they expect a more "authentic" Leninism to lead somewhere other than, well . . . we've seen the outcomes.

From self-described anarchists, though? When anarchist theory and practice has come so much further since the days of Emma Goldman advocating eugenics . . .

Jose Gracchus

29th January 2011, 14:44

Yes, science, reason, and democracy, who would want to stand behind a legacy like 'the god king can't murder us for no reason anymore' and stuff like 'public hygene' and the like. Gee, can't imagine doing that.

I can't believe there are still people today who think there's some virtue in Noble Savage-esque appeals to the wisdom of the East or something. Its not about thinking things are "better" or not; I think you're trying to concieve of things like a liberal worried about offending the nationalists of other powers because of some cosmopolitan post-modernism. How about Marxism in the Third World? Should that be considered retrograde because its a "reason and science, pro-Western" outlook?

Also, if you want to blame the Enlightenment for not abolishing previously extant racism and imperialist attitudes then you're just an empty idealist. The material and political conditions were not there where one could really expect that. The revolutionary workers' movement has a much more unique relation to struggles than bourgeois democratic revolutionaries; it does not contain in its essence a requirement for imperialism, colonialism, exploitation of the periphery.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

29th January 2011, 18:11

Civilizations' staunchest defenders rush to same desperate dichotomies of its harshest false critics (primitivists) - either civilization or primitivism! Either the rational man of the enlightenment or the (ig)noble savage. If there's a "post-modern" contribution that's valuable for an anti-capitalist projectuality it's NEITHER/NOR. Case in point, the most interesting third-world Marxisms aren't pro-Western: the Zapatistas, the Naxalites . . .

Insofar as "the revolutionary workers' movement" fails to break with the enlightenment tradition, it will carry with it the "requirement for imperialism, colonialism, exploitation of the periphery," - insofar as people have almost always had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the secular, industrial, Western world (even the people of Europe).

Jose Gracchus

30th January 2011, 03:30

So what exactly are you claiming? That 'Western' examination of identity issues and forms of oppression such as partiarchy, heteronormativity, and racism are irrelevant? Is the 'Western' norms of the scientific method and logic not the soundest means of arriving as truthful conclusions? Anarchist critiques of oppression are rooted in Enlightenment and reason. That we must hand-wring, qualify, and spin-rings around this fact just goes to show to what extent a kind of straight-forward, progressive politics has become submerged in a swamp of postmodern liberal relativism and cynicism.

Point of fact, I don't really see what the Naxalites and the Zapatistas have to say much outside of their immediate millieu and social-cultural community base. In a substantial way, I think it would be a stretch to call each really 'Marxism'.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

30th January 2011, 06:29

So what exactly are you claiming? That 'Western' examination of identity issues and forms of oppression such as partiarchy, heteronormativity, and racism are irrelevant?

See, there's the implicitly racist liberal assumption: that there is not resistance to patriarchy or heteronormativity within non-Western cultures. This is the ideological operation that justifies (neo-)colonialism par excellence. The others lack that which makes our culture superior. While previously this was articulated explicitly as, for example, Christianization or The White Man's Burden, contemporary liberal ideology employs, well, contemporary liberal ideology: its so-called feminism, its so-called tolerance, etc. Identity can't be so easily exported: Women in one place are not interchangable with women in another (nor queers, nor disabled persons, nor . . . ). Just because you don't see existing non-Western feminisms doesn't mean they're not there. I'd like to offer a fantastic quote from a fantastic short story I read recently:

“But they make you wear that hood.”
“The hijab, I choose to wear it. I get more respect this way. And at least I’m not expected to dress like a prostitute.”
“You don’t understand, this is empowering for us!”
“To be on your back?”
“No, we have attitude. We can use men. They think with their penis, if they’re attracted to us we can make them do anything for us!”
“Be careful: the things you own will come to own you.”
“Oh come on,” Angela broke in. “You really think it’s equal? Women are getting stoned to death in Afghanistan, I saw it on TV.” Fatima turned to her, nodded slowly.
“Yes, women are getting stoned to death in Afghanistan, before and after the Taliban. But it is not the Taliban I fight for.”
“Then who? Look, I know what’s going on in the Middle East is really sad—this is only going to make it worse—but” dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “these men you’re fighting for, they don’t care about women’s rights, you should join the, or, maybe start a women’s movement over there.”
“And where would such a movement start? Girls in my country, they see the music on the television, empowering music, music with attitude, your music, and they get skin whitening treatment, operations, so they can look beautiful like you. Go on a diet, marry an American businessman, become liberated American girls. You want to figure out who is more empowered here? No need to waste words. Look: I am holding the gun, and you and your men will do what I tell you to do.” Fatima nodded. It really was the end of the discussion. Angela Corgan thought about that.

Is the 'Western' norms of the scientific method and logic not the soundest means of arriving as truthful conclusions?

It really depends on what "truths" you're looking for. Many humans in many forms of social organization have lived lives no less valuable than any Westerners, and done so without the enlightenment.

Anarchist critiques of oppression are rooted in Enlightenment and reason. That we must hand-wring, qualify, and spin-rings around this fact just goes to show to what extent a kind of straight-forward, progressive politics has become submerged in a swamp of postmodern liberal relativism and positivism.

The irony, of course, is that you're spouting the same arguments that come out of the mouths of postmodern liberals. The dismissal of a post-modern emancipatory project is precisely the primary object of said liberals: The old workers movement is dead/co-opted/etc., therefore, the end of history - all that is left is for the values of the enlightenment (the liberal project) to consolidate themselves globally. Of course, what we should view the death of the old paradigms (workers movements as traditionally understood, "the left") as is an opportunity: an opening up of new space to experiment in . . .

Point of fact, I don't really see what the Naxalites and the Zapatistas have to say much outside of their immediate millieu and social-cultural community base. In a substantial way, I think it would be a stretch to call each really 'Marxism'.

My point exactly! Precisely because their ostensible "Marxism" isn't a grand scheme to end history; because it is rooted in specificities more than in Politics, it is inspiring. The promise of communisms rather than a monolithic Communism.

Jose Gracchus

30th January 2011, 20:55

See, there's the implicitly racist liberal assumption: that there is not resistance to patriarchy or heteronormativity within non-Western cultures. This is the ideological operation that justifies (neo-)colonialism par excellence.

Asshole, I never said that. My point is several intellectual and political traditions originated in the West, and there's nothing wrong with noting that fact. It is not racist.

The others lack that which makes our culture superior. While previously this was articulated explicitly as, for example, Christianization or The White Man's Burden, contemporary liberal ideology employs, well, contemporary liberal ideology: its so-called feminism, its so-called tolerance, etc. Identity can't be so easily exported: Women in one place are not interchangable with women in another (nor queers, nor disabled persons, nor . . . ). Just because you don't see existing non-Western feminisms doesn't mean they're not there. I'd like to offer a fantastic quote from a fantastic short story I read recently:

This is drivel. I know all this, your condescension notwithstanding. True or false: the scientific method was predominantly developed in the West? Scientific methods intrinsically allow the participation of all in a manner which does not discriminate on identity, race, culture. The development of a secular universal belief system, scientific methods, and capitalism are probably prerequisites for general communist transformation. That doesn't mean the other powers outside of Early Modern Europe and its colonies were subhuman, inferior in any value judgment fashion. It matters to me not at all that people who looked like my dad did a lot of the leg-work of the project of reason that makes communism possible today. Not least because I am brown and substantially Amerindian and to be honest, its fucking racism to imply simply because someone who had some linguistic closer relationship and some genetic similar heritage but belonging to societies and belief systems totally alien to me today, necessarily I identify with them more than, say, Han Chinese in 1600.

It really depends on what "truths" you're looking for. Many humans in many forms of social organization have lived lives no less valuable than any Westerners, and done so without the enlightenment.

Human civilization had to produce certain prerequisites before we can talk about communism today. Among these are the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the formation of early capitalism, and the articulation of the scientific method - and thereby universal humanistic belief systems.

The irony, of course, is that you're spouting the same arguments that come out of the mouths of postmodern liberals. The dismissal of a post-modern emancipatory project is precisely the primary object of said liberals: The old workers movement is dead/co-opted/etc., therefore, the end of history - all that is left is for the values of the enlightenment (the liberal project) to consolidate themselves globally. Of course, what we should view the death of the old paradigms (workers movements as traditionally understood, "the left") as is an opportunity: an opening up of new space to experiment in . . .

Uh, just because "liberals" call it the "values of the Enlightenment", doesn't make it so. When Rousseau talks of the nobility of foriegners who spurn "European voluptuousness" only to "maintain their freedom" and bitingly remarking "it does not behoove slaves [read: European apologists] to muse about freedom," is that what these "liberals" are talking about?

I'm amazed to learn that people in Third World sex tourism, submerged under American commercialist culture with all its socially dysfunctional values, and rape of their natural resources - I'm unaware that this is considered by them part-and-parcel of the "values of the Enlightenment." Maybe you could justify this preposterous ex cathedra declaration.

My point exactly! Precisely because their ostensible "Marxism" isn't a grand scheme to end history; because it is rooted in specificities more than in Politics, it is inspiring. The promise of communisms rather than a monolithic Communism.

If words have meanings, that means they are understandable only insofar that those definitions are consistent. They are not Marxism, though that does not mean they are worthless. I don't consider myself a Marxist. I may be Marxian, just as I may be anarchistic. I don't concern myself too much with the religious schisms just as involved in the conditions of the time, as well as personal and tactical politics as any fundamental crisis of theory.

To the extent theory has applicability broadly, and is a guide to action and to manage the affairs of human communities - by which point must now include the global community - it must transcend local specificities. That does not mean disrespecting or ignoring them, but rather permit the grasping of a rational whole.

Lucretia

30th January 2011, 21:41

See, there's the implicitly racist liberal assumption: that there is not resistance to patriarchy or heteronormativity within non-Western cultures. This is the ideological operation that justifies (neo-)colonialism par excellence. The others lack that which makes our culture superior.

Nobody is saying that there wasn't any resistance to oppression in those societies, only that those earlier or non-Western cultural contexts were less conducive to the success of that resistance. Which is why you don't see the development of universal adult suffrage or the abolition of slavery until the development of a culture of enlightenment universalism. Just because people might take this fact and use it for nefarious purposes does not make this fact wrong.

While previously this was articulated explicitly as, for example, Christianization or The White Man's Burden, contemporary liberal ideology employs, well, contemporary liberal ideology: its so-called feminism, its so-called tolerance, etc. Identity can't be so easily exported: Women in one place are not interchangable with women in another (nor queers, nor disabled persons, nor . . . ). Just because you don't see existing non-Western feminisms doesn't mean they're not there. I'd like to offer a fantastic quote from a fantastic short story I read recently:What's so wrong, in the abstract, with supporting the spread of enlightenment ideals or socialist ideals? Are you implying that socialism does not contain a morally superior set of ideas than, say, authoritarian theocracy?

Now the question of how these ideas is to be spread is a separate issue. Obviously attempting to do so at the barrel of a gun actually undermines the very Enlightenment ideals of equality and respect for difference that makes such a culture superior to premodern ones.

Toppler

30th January 2011, 22:02

For those sycophantic admirers of "the West" and "Western values", how do you define them? Were, for example, Eastern Bloc societies "Western"? They weren't any "god king despotism", they had high standards of social welfare, everybody had enough money to live decently, people had small families and long lives just like in the "West" (and if you don't believe me, go ask people older than 40 here or look at the UN data and commentary, you know, state socialist regimes weren't just Maoist China, 1930s USSR, Pol Pot's Kampuchea and similiar shitholes), people listened to modern music etc. yet the political system was not a Western liberal democracy, there was a lot of variety in culture etc, compared to the West, the political system was dictatorial (but better than any "US beloved" dictatorship such as Pinochet's Chile).

People always think about "the developed West" and the "Third world with poverty everywhere and rule by corrupt god-kings". They forget that the Western capitalist countries were not the only ones to become advanced industrial socities (in fact socialist regimes industrialized a far larger portion of Earth's surface). And that there are differences between, say Turkey and Angola.

Some "third world" countries differ from the West only because they don't have much money, other have still widespread female circumcision while having a lot of money, such as some oil rich Arab states. And the entire Eastern Bloc was founded on ideas, that, while essentially based on the Enlightement, very much differed from the capitalist democracies that are traditionally though of as being the West. You know, you don't have the monopoly for advanced societies and progress.

I know, political oppression, censorship and the chronic shortage of imported goods in the Eastern Bloc was not nice.
Neither is the exploitive nature of the economies, imperialism, homelessness, hard drug abuse, societal degeneration, dumbing down, hypocrisy and slow downfall of Western capitalist countries. Even those people here who hate communism agree that the level of education and culture under socialism was better and that even now, the cultural level here is still much higher than in much of the "West".

Jose Gracchus

30th January 2011, 23:43

Toppler

30th January 2011, 23:56

I would most certainly say the People's Republic of Poland, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, et al were "Western" and arguably Enlightenment influenced. They often successfully finished off any truly premodern relationships and such on the poorly developed countryside, they emancipated women, abolished monarchies, upheld secularism, etc., etc.

Well, then I agree with you. What I dislike is the typical Western liberal attitude that only Western Europe and North America belong to the industrialized developed world, and the rest is just poor oppressed people we have to paternalistically liberate (many poor people in the so called developed world are worse off than the average residents of, say Turkey or Iran, and I think that any liberation should be done by the group in question [of course, assistance can be helpful]).

And I would say they were definitely Englightement based. Even through the states were autocratic, there were certain elements of democracy (my father says that that under CSSR you could, for example, visit the local party bureucrats any time, and complain, and it would have a much higher chance of being productive than trying such a thing nowadays [of course, this didn't apply to political/ideology complainsts. So you coiuld have complained "My local school is underfunded" and they would try to remedy the situation but not "Socialism should be abolished", that would get you a warning from the StB that your kids will not be allowed to go to college in the best case, if not prison [in the 50s, beating and prison]) and the general values were fairly progressive for a dictatorship, feminism, secularism, pacifism, internationalism, existentionalism etc.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

1st February 2011, 00:16

Scientific methods intrinsically allow the participation of all in a manner which does not discriminate on identity, race, culture.

You'd have to have a pretty fast-and-loose definition of culture for this to be the case (as for race, that's a concept that came out of the enlightenment, which should speak volumes). Since there are and have been cultures that are basically premised on non-scientific ways of knowing, it does discriminate on this basis. It's only within liberal understandings of culture (you can keep yr silly dances, and foods, just adapt to industrialization, modernity, capitalism, etc.) that this makes any sense.

The development of a secular universal belief system, scientific methods, and capitalism are probably prerequisites for general communist transformation.
[. . .]
Human civilization had to produce certain prerequisites before we can talk about communism today.

Ah, so the first step to communism is . . . liberalism.
One might wonder about the ideological baggage (Marx's, your own) in this.

That doesn't mean the other powers outside of Early Modern Europe and its colonies were subhuman, inferior in any value judgment fashion.

Again, the implicit liberal core of your argument: It's not that they're "inferior" or "less valuable" only that they lacked "universal humanistic belief systems" ("the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the formation of early capitalism, and the articulation of the scientific method" ). Of course, that they lacked "humanism" should say something about its alleged universality. In any case, while being politically correct, and trying to avoid an explicit value judgement, what you're saying is that they were culturally inferior, due to their lack of . . . oh, surprise, liberal ideology!

I'm amazed to learn that people in Third World sex tourism, submerged under American commercialist culture with all its socially dysfunctional values, and rape of their natural resources - I'm unaware that this is considered by them part-and-parcel of the "values of the Enlightenment." Maybe you could justify this preposterous ex cathedra declaration.

It's just the obscene supplement - the real underlying consequences that can't be spoken about in polite company. Sex tourism and NGOs building schools are essentially coming from the same place. Consider police: They are necessary for the functioning of the law, but, of course, maintain the law through brutality and illegality. Similarly, the "values of the enlightenment" differ in their expression and their putting into practice. The rule of law, humanism, etc. - the dominant values of the bourgeoisie (y'know, the class that came out on top of all those revolutions?) - are responsible for . . . that for which they are clearly responsible. Only a massive ideological operation is capable of obscuring this fact.

. . . I may be anarchistic.

I wouldn't have guessed.

That does not mean disrespecting or ignoring them, but rather permit the grasping of a rational whole.

You can keep your quirks, but get with the programme?

Jose Gracchus

1st February 2011, 01:47

You'd have to have a pretty fast-and-loose definition of culture for this to be the case (as for race, that's a concept that came out of the enlightenment, which should speak volumes). Since there are and have been cultures that are basically premised on non-scientific ways of knowing, it does discriminate on this basis. It's only within liberal understandings of culture (you can keep yr silly dances, and foods, just adapt to industrialization, modernity, capitalism, etc.) that this makes any sense.

Give a counter-example, then.

Industrialization is the prerequisite, due to the mass increases in labor productivity, of a society where work - in the sense of socially-necessary drudgery - may be largely eliminated, or at least minimized and shared fairly and democratically. Pre-industrial agricultural societies suffer from most of the same troubles as industrialism and capitalism, including are not sustainable and presuppose economies where scientific understanding of our relationship to the physical world will not be able to be maintained. No NASA will be letting us know via satellite the extent or erosion or this or that. Pre-industrial societies limited the development of production. There is no pre-industrial communal agricultural utopia. Attempts to return to this mode of survival would result in die-offs or culling of the population.

If you're against industrialism, you belong in OI. Primitivism is not considered leftism here.

Ah, so the first step to communism is . . . liberalism.
One might wonder about the ideological baggage (Marx's, your own) in this.

This is merely an ideological smear. There is no statement of fact or logical argument here. There's no substantive difference between this and "You belong to the bad bad church!"

What arguments used were bad? In what sense are they "liberal"? In what sense is that "bad"?

Again, without science and rationalism there is no industrial society. Without industrialization there cannot be communism.

Again, the implicit liberal core of your argument: It's not that they're "inferior" or "less valuable" only that they lacked "universal humanistic belief systems" ("the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the formation of early capitalism, and the articulation of the scientific method" ). Of course, that they lacked "humanism" should say something about its alleged universality. In any case, while being politically correct, and trying to avoid an explicit value judgement, what you're saying is that they were culturally inferior, due to their lack of . . . oh, surprise, liberal ideology!

Physics and metallurgy is not "liberal ideology" The Principia is not "liberal ideology". I'm afraid you're a primitivist and "noble savage" Orientalist (everything is "West" versus "everyone else", and implicitly those non-Occidentals who embrace science and Western industry and economy or this or that, academic techniques - they're all race traitors).

I'm not making a value judgment. I'm saying without overthrowing various forms of obligatory superstition and pre-modern doctrine, embracing scientific techniques and principles, you cannot develop industry, cannot develop communism. Communism is by definition a secular humanist belief system, so I do not see why describing its lineage and philosophical origins in "the West" means they are bad. I suppose adoption of certain cereals and domestication is "Fertile Crescent Chauvinism" to you too.

The fact is only the breakout of capitalism and scientific rationalism permitted the formation of industrial society in our planet. This is subjectively progressive, since it allows productive prerequisites for communism to be possible. Of course capitalism and imperialism - which were other effects of industrialization - had regressive and barbaric qualities as well. But no more than the Luddites can one look backward to what preceded as a way for humans in the future. No one thinks they are categorically progressive, that would be a meaningless essentialist argument. For throwing around "liberalism" as a slur you certainly entertain much of the philosophical hocus pocus liberals like.

It's just the obscene supplement - the real underlying consequences that can't be spoken about in polite company. Sex tourism and NGOs building schools are essentially coming from the same place. Consider police: They are necessary for the functioning of the law, but, of course, maintain the law through brutality and illegality. Similarly, the "values of the enlightenment" differ in their expression and their putting into practice. The rule of law, humanism, etc. - the dominant values of the bourgeoisie (y'know, the class that came out on top of all those revolutions?) - are responsible for . . . that for which they are clearly responsible. Only a massive ideological operation is capable of obscuring this fact.

You're being ridiculous. The hypocritical and propagandistic appeals to "the rights of man" etc. that bourgeois revolutionaries were not prepared to meet in fact did not mean their articulation was not at step forward from the autocracy of the family, the church, the landowner, the monarch. Invariably revolutionaries and leaders in the periphery wished to implement these purported-but-unmet principles in their own countries, against both barbarism and empire. Your argument is equivalent to arguing that we should reject "democracy" because that is the lingusitic fig leaf invoked by nationalist Western propaganda in ideological defense of the status quo. That's ridiculous - their pandering and special pleading only exist to the extent it has been forced on them by popular struggle. Social responsibility is not a "capitalist value" simply because of "corporate social responsibility". Use of legitimate values in the service of propaganda is simply a truism in a propaganda society. That Germans might have been treated relatively unfairly by the Entente at Versailles doesn't mean that the Nazi position was admirable.

I wouldn't have guessed.

That is because to you "anarchy" is a form of cultural and personal "rejection" of the system and its "values". Ironically, that is itself a quintessentially post-war American form of individualistic "alternative" to organizing for social change. I mean you troll threads about how to organize post-monetary for-use economies with idiocies like "interact with others", as if that is how the world population would get fed tomorrow, communication links maintained, global pandemics managed, and amelioration of climate change accomplished. You're clearly not dealing in physical realities and fundamentals - your rejection of Enlightenment values is complete, down to rejection of, as Chomsky put it "simply being reasonable."

You can keep your quirks, but get with the programme?

Do you think the EZLN, for whatever one may admire it, presents a way we can get global capital off the starving Third World masses? To help Mexican poor where children at 24 months downstream cannot draw as representationally as children at 10 months upstream (profit-driven pesticide effluent causing brain damage)? You tell me. Mayan peasants subsisting on small production and subsistence farming in small autonomous communities is not a model by which the great suffering majority of the world population can realize its human rights - social and individual.

Oh oops, I used an Enlightenment-ism again.

Ocean Seal

1st February 2011, 02:26

I don't know all that much about freedom, but if there was any culture which respected freedom significantly it was the Plains Native Americans. They gave respect to all life, and allowed people to be free, although they oftentimes had to live within the norms of the culture which for arguments sake is what every culture has done and in all fairness they were far less constrictive than many other cultures. And for the ideas of humanism and equality, hats off to ancient Persia, the world's first welfare state.

The Militant

1st February 2011, 02:36

It is true in the west you are free (to do as the they tell you). We have democracy. If you define democracy as every few years periodically electing new representatives to oppress you. Don't you just love freedom and democracy?:laugh:

NGNM85

1st February 2011, 06:01

This one should be enough:

As stated, purely done for taxation purposes. In other words, so that the southern economy could function properly, and so that the rich whites could continue as they had been doing.

You’ve managed to quote this statement, (From Article One of the United States Constitution.) but you clearly do not understand it.

The 3/5ths decision was a political compromise between pro-and-anti-slavery delegates at the Constitutional Convention. It was actually the delegates who supported slavery who wanted their slaves counted as residents of their respective states. Why, you may ask? The reason was that membership in the House of Representatives (Unlike the Senate.) is based on population. Counting or not counting slaves would be a substantial bonus, or a substantial detriment, to the southern states representation in Congress, and, thus, their political power. The two sides ultimately reached a compromise: slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person. Therefore, Southern states had more political power then they, otherwise, might have, but they also had to pay higher taxes based on those boosted population figures. Also, you’ll notice that it doesn’t say ‘blacks’, it says ‘slaves.’ Free American blacks had, at least on paper, guaranteed constitutional rights. In some areas, blacks and whites were equal under the law.

What doesn't make sense is the historical explanation. Yes, surely northerners opposed slavery, but why? They didn't need it. Southerners did due to the economy there, as stated. Otherwise they would have been toiling on plantations to keep them running rather than cracking whips. It's not a difficult concept to figure out. Thomas Paine opposed slavery because the economy of New York was mercantilist, John Adams the same because Boston was that way as well.

I didn’t realize you were psychic. Would you mind sharing with me tomorrow nights’ Lottery numbers?

I assure you that John Adams, Thomas Paine and the rest of your great founders would have favored slavery through this period had their economies been in the same position as the south's. You can buy into the rhetoric all you like, but remember that the men in the south who owned all those slaves were talking the same nonsense about freedom and equality prior to it.

So you are pissed at the Founders for what they didn’t do, but certainly would have done, under different circumstances???

It's fine if you want to fetishize certain founding fathers,

That isn’t what I was doing.

but it's odd how the opinions of these men changed on this key issue as they moved south, and as the times changed, where and when the economy was run differently. Suggesting that these men were enlightened due to their words is a stretch. Cotton and tobacco grow significantly more effectively when the climate allow them to. A random state of mind can occur at any given places, though. Those who took an active stance during their lives were likely a product of the fact that they saw slavery to be useless. Had these men lived in the south, I wonder what they would have said.

More psychic revelations.

Regardless, their actions and words didn't do much of anything in the way of emancipation; and for men who created nation, that says quite a bit.

…Except abolish slavery in several states.

Again, for economic reasons, not cause they were better people.

You should start a hotline.

Qualified to teach what you learned? No, definitely not, and gladly.

Ok.

How so? Even if you don't agree that the US was founded as exclusively Christian, surely you have to agree the founding was centered around religion. I'd say both though...

I surely don’t, because both of those statements are factually incorrect.

While the first Europeans to emigrate to North America were religious fundamentalists, (The Puritans.) and the American public have always been highly religious, the Founders were not. The Founders were almost entirely Deists, being that they believed in god, as they did not have the benefit of modern physics, biology, etc, and had no other way to explain or understand the universe. However, the god they believed in was the impersonal ‘blind watchmaker’, not the Abrahamic god that was worshipped by most of their countrymen. Thomas Jefferson even went so far as to publish a new version of the New Testament, with all references to Jesus’ divinity, or the supernatural ripped out, published as ‘The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.’ Actually, the United States is unique in that it was specifically designed not to be a Christian nation. This is evidenced by the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This was intended to, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’ This was intended to protect the church from the government, AND to protect the government from the church. This is one of the uniquely progressive features of the American system.

I have quotes too!

"Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."

-Benjamin Franklin

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

-James Madison

“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved-- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."

-John Adams

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."

"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

-Thomas Jefferson

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half of the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies."

-Thomas Paine

apawllo

1st February 2011, 07:39

any historic (materialist) interpretation that doesn't fall in line with what you read in your high school text books is a psychic interpretation? lol. next you're going to be accusing me of witch craft or something. hopefully we can agree that history teaches that doesn't end well... i'll go ahead and step out of the debate here anyhow.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

1st February 2011, 17:31

I actually really like NGNM85's post and agree with its premise: The values of the founding fathers of the United States epitomize the secular values of the enlightenment. Of course, this should speak volumes as to their consequences. I won't tread the boring ground of cliched anti-Americanism (the flipside of the "America is a miracle!" coin), but the real consequences of American power for communists should be evident.

A quick note though, NGNM85, you mean the New Testament, not the Old Testament.

Anyway, jumping back to The Inform Candidate's desperate accusations of primitivism - I'm certainly not. The dichotomy of The Noble Savage as the "other" to the Western Tradition, of course, has its roots in Hobbes and . . . fuck, I'm worried I sound like a broken record . . . liberal ideology. It's not even that I'm "anti-Western" - how could I be? I'm immersed in it! What I am interested in is confronting ideology, and attacking totalizing narratives that attempt to read themselves into all moments and locations. It's not that I'm opposed to science - it's that I'm opposed to the idea that science is the only way of knowing. I'm not opposed to the idea that communism arises out of contradictions within capitalism - but the existence of pre-industrial communist forms should speak for itself (not only among, say indigenous Americans as highlighted by Marx, but also, for example, among various heretical sects throughout Europe, by the Diggers, etc.).

When you assert "Mayan peasants subsisting on small production and subsistence farming in small autonomous communities is not a model by which the great suffering majority of the world population can realize its human rights - social and individual." I agree, wholeheartedly! I would go a step further however, and say there is no model by which "the great suffering majority of the world population can realize [silly liberal attempt to grasp at communism]" - what is exciting about the Zapatista's model is that it works for them, in their circumstances, and that they have carried out a meaningful and autonomous communization without a grand ideology for the whole of humankind. If communists could put communism into practice concretely elsewhere, on the basis of local specificities, maybe an authentic party-of-communism could emerge as a force, instead of forever playing the role of the left-wing.

Jose Gracchus

1st February 2011, 19:03

Yeah, in other words Richard Owen's colonies. Woo-hoo.

It'd be impressive if you could engage ideas without arguing pomo shit like you carry the "sins of the father" in terms of intellectual 'descent'. Who cares if Hobbes said that? Are you really saying that in a more real sense it was not only an 'essence' of liberalism and "Westernism" but it is more responsible for the policies and consequences of imperialism than I dunno, the material conditions, and fundamental economic relationships? This is liberalism. You look at everything as being "icky" ideas with ickyness that spreads through their academic successors, and everything they say cannot be judged freely on its own merits, on its own history, but contaminated by ickyness.

At least that's what I get of po-mo analysis. This is reflecting poorly on "post-left" (whatever that very Western-intellectual-sounding rhetoric means) 'anarchism' to me.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

1st February 2011, 19:49

Are you really saying that in a more real sense it was not only an 'essence' of liberalism and "Westernism" but it is more responsible for the policies and consequences of imperialism than I dunno, the material conditions, and fundamental economic relationships?

If you can't see the interrelationship between liberal ideology, and the material conditions/economic relationships of the existing liberal order . . .
Point being, the further putting-into-practice of liberal ideology will necessarily result in more-of-the-same. Consider the highly illustrative examples of socialist projects of mass industrialization and technocracy, which have consistently ended in capitalism.

And you're right - nothing can be judged "freely, on its own merits" - this is liberalism dead on. Ideas and ideology don't exist independently of their histories, their lineages, their cultural content, their class content (yeah, I went there). The ideology of the (liberal, democratic, multicultural, etc.) ruling class needs to be rooted out and destroyed, lest we remake their world.

Jose Gracchus

1st February 2011, 22:17

If you can't see the interrelationship between liberal ideology, and the material conditions/economic relationships of the existing liberal order . . .
Point being, the further putting-into-practice of liberal ideology will necessarily result in more-of-the-same. Consider the highly illustrative examples of socialist projects of mass industrialization and technocracy, which have consistently ended in capitalism.

Here, I'll make it easier for you. Assume I'm a fucking moron, and explain it to me slowly in plain English. All I see, in my ignorance, is continuing allusions to how liberal values are contaminated by analogy or metaphor with 17th century European "ickyness".

How can we feed the world's population without industrial production? How can you free most of the world's population from subsistence drudgery (or honestly by now - death from starvation) without the use of technology, mechanization, and industrialism? Anti-industrialism is primitivism.

And you're right - nothing can be judged "freely, on its own merits" - this is liberalism dead on.

Again, I'd like to know what is wrong with judging the gravitational constants as physical concepts...on their own merits. Perhaps you could explain this to my simple mind.

Ideas and ideology don't exist independently of their histories, their lineages, their cultural content, their class content (yeah, I went there).

Of course there's a relationship. Don't be fatuous and immature. The question is whether that renders some liberal values, ideas, or historical realities progressive, useful, desirable or abhorrent and to be rejected. Which is it? And why? You're avoiding specific questions so you can preach some self-indulgent creed about 'cultural imperialism' or some such poorly-defined po-mo drivel. Just speak in English and clearly demonstrate the point, please.

The ideology of the (liberal, democratic, multicultural, etc.) ruling class needs to be rooted out and destroyed, lest we remake their world.

Yeah, and what does this mean in practice? Vague post-modernist obscurantism, pseudohistory, anti-industrial delusions (politics of starvation and subsistence), romanticization of foriegn "others" to which the "West" must be qualified in a binary relationship, and appeal to "interact" in gift economies and "live communism". So back to utopianism. It is not like it has not been explained for a hundred and fifty years how utopian socialism is not a program of social progress in a sea of capitalism. It is escapist and lifestylist nonsense at its worst.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

2nd February 2011, 03:36

Alright, I'll try to avoid "pomo drivel" and be as direct as posible:

The values you espouse, while decrying "pomo drivel" are exactly the values of post-modern liberals. You are irritatingly reading your own ridiculous assumptions about Civilized/Primitive, Western/Oriental, etc. into the things I write and missing the kernel of what I'm getting at: the liberal tradition that is founded on these divisions is not useful for a communist project.
Sure, you can say that gravity exists, but you don't need science to figure out "drop shit and it falls". In fact, I'd say that this is generally accepted even among the most whacko of religious fundamentalists. Science is ideological and cultural - pretending that certain people are above and beyond ideology is futile. This doesn't mean science isn't useful - only that it is specific. Stonehenge, built by pagans, is also useful . . . and specific. Various plantlores are also useful . . . and specific.
The claim to have found THE ANSWER is (almost :laugh:) always bullshit.

IN PRACTICE what this means is that rather than concerning ourselves with the liberal project of making liberal ideology universal, we should focus on making communist transformation happen immediately in our own communities - not retreating to Utopian communities, but creating communist forms in communities as a basis for attacking capital. Biting the hand that feeds is a dead end, so we need to learn to feed ourselves. Expecting protection from the ruling class police is the wolf guarding the sheep, so we need to learn to defend ourselves. Real counter-power doesn't grow out of organizing within the limits imposed by capital, but by breaking out of those limits. The real "utopians" are the "revolutionaries" who are still playing at sad historical re-enactment of the early 20th century, while insurrection explodes around them.

Queercommie Girl

3rd February 2011, 15:38

What is the difference then? That Christian theologists uncritically accepted Biblical documents while Chinese scholars uncritically accepted Confucian classics? In both cases we're talking about dogma

No you are completely missing the point. Chinese scholars of kaozheng xue never uncritically accepted Confucian texts, but rather critically analysed them using rationalist and scientific methods.

If anything, it was the Song Dynasty Neo-Confucians that treated Confucianism more like a dogmatic religion.

Now I agree with you that kaozheng xue was largely a totally stale and significantly useless pursuit, but in the narrow sense it did indeed follow the scientific method in its historical analysis.

I have much more respect for the earlier Neo-Confucian traditions because, while still venetating the past and being excessively legalist, they sought to build on previous teachings and were not adverse to incorporating, however unwittingly, Buddhist influences. In contrast kaoheng xue was a predominately destructive school that criticised previous currents purely on the basis of departures from the classical texts. Simple dogmatism
Actually the Neo-Confucians were the ones that treated Confucianism more like a dogmatic religion, partly due to Buddhist influence.

Kaozheng Xue was a very narrow and stale discipline, but it did look at ancient texts for what they are, rather than just upholding them like religious scriptures.

He also had thousands executed on the basis of a strong paranoia that bordered on mental illness. Whatever about assessments of his regime (and even in the realm of administration these were not necessarily positive) this sort of tyrannical rule is hardly to be condoned.
There is no evidence that Hongwu was "mentally ill". Just because someone killed a lot of people does not necessarily imply that he is "mentally ill".

And I'd much rather have a plebian dictatorship, no matter how bloody and "tyrannical", than the ultra-corrupt and ultra-oppressive rule of the Patrician Order.

I'm not making any such comparisons, beyond noting that Chinese thought did not challenge such flagrant misuses of executive power. No matter how poor or destructive an emperor was the role of the scholar-official elite was to support his decisions and policies.
That actually isn't true. Your understanding and knowledge of Chinese history obviously is limited. Even among elitist circles, different groups of scholar-officials sometimes supported different imperial figures and engaged in dynastic coups.

There was no real opposition from the top (as there would have been in European feudalism) or from below
No opposition from below? So what were all those peasant rebellions in ancient China for?

It was actually feudal Europe that had no real opposition from below. The only opposition was from the feudal aristocracy, against the centralised power of the monarchy, but either way the lives of the poor peasants at the bottom of feudal society were largely unaffected.

Secondly, simply characterising the victims of Ming Taizu as corrupt officials is baseless.
It's not baseless at all, since many were ultra-corrupt. Besides, I think you have over-exaggerated the amount of deaths Hongwu caused.

The execution of counter-revolutionaries or supporters of the ancien regime is one thing, but this is not the reality of Chinese court politics. Projecting such sentiments backwards into history (as the PRC does so often) is deeply anachronistic
No-one said they are the same. Obviously they are not. But then just as the military dictatorship of Julius Caesar was relatively speaking more progressive compared with the reign of the ultra-corrupt Patrician Order, the rule of a relatively "enlightened" autocratic emperor still beats the reign of corrupt aristocrats and bureaucrats in China.

And from the perspective of socialism, even the radical French Revolution that beheaded the entire ancien regime is only relatively progressive as well, and certainly not completely progressive, since capitalism is just another ruling class philosophy.

That is not a good thing. Unless of course one wants to make a perverse fetish out of bloodshed, seeing something virtuous in the deaths of thousands of innocents
Depends on who the "bloodshed" is for.

No-one is saying such ancient events are anywhere near completely progressive. Their progressiveness are certainly very limited.

But then any self-proclaimed Marxist who believes in the slavish doctrines of absolute pacifism is obviously mistaken too.

Queercommie Girl

3rd February 2011, 15:58

Besides, ComradeOm, you should know that during a particular period of Chinese history, namely the Age of Fragmentation between the Han and Tang Dynasties, China actually had a system similar in many ways to aristocratic European and Japanese feudalism.

Chinese feudalism wasn't always under the reign of the absolutist autocratic emperors.

Jose Gracchus

3rd February 2011, 22:03

Alright, I'll try to avoid "pomo drivel" and be as direct as posible:

This ought to be good.

The values you espouse, while decrying "pomo drivel" are exactly the values of post-modern liberals.

See this is what's commonly referred to as "not explaining." Simply asserting something to be the case does not make it so. Can you explain which argument or comment is intrinsically based on reasoning or assumptions which are flawed or false and directly to be found in the core values of selected say, examples of "post-modern liberals".

I explain exactly what I'm talking about when I address you. I explain how you keep drawing some absurd false dichotomy between European/Western ideas, and exceptional quality in human history of the Enlightenment on one hand, and the abused and benighted "Other" on the other hand. I explain that utopianism of "living communism" in a sea of capitalism was explained fallacious in the case of Owenite 'socialist colonies'.

You are irritatingly reading your own ridiculous assumptions about Civilized/Primitive, Western/Oriental, etc.

When you make vague, qualitative, impressionistic and polemic remarks about "industrialism" and "modernism", I, a.) have very little idea specifically and discretely what you are talking about, and b.), cannot see how any attack on what I understand "industrialism" to be, to be anything other than, by logical necessity, delusional primitivism.

Again, I've asked questions, to try (with no avail) do get you to state clearly, in plain English, what you are getting at. Are you saying we will no longer live in cities? No longer smelt steel? Are you suggesting we will do without industrial economies of scale in agriculture? Without substantially technological-modern divisions of labor (however reorganized in the interest of participant control and egalitarianism)?

I do not see a way out of those things without mass human die-offs (either deliberate or at least prerequisite) while retaining resources - unlikely -, or magic technology.

into the things I write and missing the kernel of what I'm getting at: the liberal tradition that is founded on these divisions is not useful for a communist project.

Again, you have failed to indicate clearly what you mean by a "liberal tradition" and how all modes of thinking and ideas analogous to it, are intrinsically toxic to communism. Other than fiat, and again, mere say-so. Simply saying "liberalism isn't communism and you're liberal so you're clueless", however textured - which is in essence all you have been saying - is not profound. You have made no case, chosen no claims, taken no real positions. I would say you were wrong, but you're not even wrong. You're incoherent. No lucid guide to action or stance on issues of controversy or anything that one could call a clear and distinct point of view, critically commenting on the topic at hand, can be discerned.

Sure, you can say that gravity exists, but you don't need science to figure out "drop shit and it falls".

Uh, actually, no one had any idea that all objects fall - and must - toward Earth's center at a rate of 9.80665 m/s2 (~32.174 ft/s2) until Newton described the general principles by which this fact ties into the general characteristics of moving objects in the physical world. No, all kinds of science and knowledge and modern achievement were impossible without Newton's breakthroughs in physics. Newton's physics was absolutely true in its predictions in the physical world just as much in England as in aboriginal Australia or Kung! natives in Africa.

I really don't know what to say. This remark is so clueless I don't know where to begin.

In fact, I'd say that this is generally accepted even among the most whacko of religious fundamentalists. Science is ideological and cultural - pretending that certain people are above and beyond ideology is futile.

Of course, but there are possible, logical and scientific statements whose value and accuracy may be assessed outside of the context of the people who make the statements and do the research. That's the definition of the scientific method. Maybe you sign on to the ultra-hard program of the sociology of science, but if you do you're a fool.

That doesn't mean there isn't bad science or science perverted by ideology. But science is really just about being reasonable and making reasonable statements and checking them for accuracy. Methodologically, it is an exceptional tool for meaningfully understanding the world around you, and irreplaceable.

This doesn't mean science isn't useful - only that it is specific. Stonehenge, built by pagans, is also useful . . . and specific. Various plantlores are also useful . . . and specific.
The claim to have found THE ANSWER is (almost :laugh:) always bullshit.

Again you are evading with vague bullshit. The fact remains, how do you get agricultural and general economic productivity such that everyone can be fed, everyone doesn't have to be forced into Pol Pot type communal agricultural drudgery, without science. Where do you get the scientific method outside of the largely Western scientific revolution? And without those factors, how do you get communism?

Answer the question.

IN PRACTICE what this means is that rather than concerning ourselves with the liberal project of making liberal ideology universal,

What does this mean? How is this a meaningful reply to my remark that you need science, engineering, technology, and lots of social innovation such that you could ever go to a communist society? The tools did not exist in the 1500s. Try to set up a tiny commune and it probably will be full of drudgery, and maybe the time-traveler insurrectionist commies who "live communism" will create a superstitious cult of labor to compel people (after all, its just as good as "Enlightenment thought"). Oh wait, the giant tributary state-empire and attendant social-economic formation like China will roll over you.

we should focus on making communist transformation happen immediately in our own communities - not retreating to Utopian communities, but creating communist forms in communities as a basis for attacking capital.

What the fuck does this mean in practice?

Biting the hand that feeds is a dead end, so we need to learn to feed ourselves.

Yeah, I'll just quit my job and go do this. So will every other working American.

Or maybe I would if I knew what the fuck it meant in practice.

Expecting protection from the ruling class police is the wolf guarding the sheep, so we need to learn to defend ourselves. Real counter-power doesn't grow out of organizing within the limits imposed by capital, but by breaking out of those limits.

What the fuck does this mean in practice?

The real "utopians" are the "revolutionaries" who are still playing at sad historical re-enactment of the early 20th century, while insurrection explodes around them.

How in any meaningful sense am I claiming to have 'legitimate claim' to being a modern 'revolutionary'? (The quiet transition into subjective and meaningless quibbling over pre-modern irrelevencies to social struggle like 'legitimacy' - all that matters is logical coherence, empirical support, and success in practice - is pretty telling for our implicit "real revolutionary" here.)

I agree with you that most of the "Left" is stuck in exactly arcane, ritualistic, recitation-esque historical-reinactement-like practices that make no real progress. However, you are offering no solution to the crisis of theory and practice afflicting the Left. What you are saying - if I knew for sure what the hell it was - seems to be akin to saying, "The Old Left and Liberal ideas are based on being clear and thinking! Therefore, to be Different and New and Authentically Communist, we shall dispense with Clarity and Thinking!"

The Garbage Disposal Unit

4th February 2011, 22:50

Can you explain which argument or comment is intrinsically based on reasoning or assumptions which are flawed or false and directly to be found in the core values of selected say, examples of "post-modern liberals".

That science, technology, democracy, justice, and the values of the enlightenment are universal goods based on essential and alienable truths, which should be realized and put into practice always and everywhere. The difference between the perspective you're putting forward, and that of Francis Fukuyama, for example, is only of position vis-a-vis the traditional left-right spectrum of liberal politics: your vision of a rational, scientific, technological, "multicultural", democratic society is surely different than his in some obvious ways, but based on the same premises - that the values of the enlightenment are universal values which must ultimately be adopted everywhere and by all people. Your only argument against this being liberal ideology, repeated ad nauseum, is that, contrary to communisms that have existed without these things, contrary to the practice of countless societies and communities that are no worse than existing liberal society, that these things are universal truths. They're true because they're true, and I can use use them to prove that they're true! Ideology taken to its ridiculous extreme.

I explain how you keep drawing some absurd false dichotomy between European/Western ideas, and exceptional quality in human history of the Enlightenment on one hand, and the abused and benighted "Other" on the other hand.

You keep asserting that, but I have yet to see an example of it.
If anything, what I've been repeating over and over (explicitly) that the dichotomy is a false one. There's no more authentic truth in either - the premise of both as distinct entities is in-and-of-itself based in the Enlightenment tradition.

I explain that utopianism of "living communism" in a sea of capitalism was explained fallacious in the case of Owenite 'socialist colonies'.

And if you can't discern the difference between the tradition of bourgeois socialism and insurrectionary communism, you're not trying very hard to understand anything.

I cannot see how any attack on what I understand "industrialism" to be, to be anything other than, by logical necessity, delusional primitivism.

This further illustrates the absurd limit of your thinking: not only were forms of pre-industrial civilization wildly varied, but we're in no way limited to past forms of social organization in imagining (or beginning to put into practice) future forms.

Again, I've asked questions, to try (with no avail) do get you to state clearly, in plain English, what you are getting at. Are you saying we will no longer live in cities? No longer smelt steel? Are you suggesting we will do without industrial economies of scale in agriculture? Without substantially technological-modern divisions of labor (however reorganized in the interest of participant control and egalitarianism)?

I do not see a way out of those things without mass human die-offs (either deliberate or at least prerequisite) while retaining resources - unlikely -, or magic technology.

On the other hand, the inevitable consequence of these things, continued on their current trajectory is exactly that: mass human die offs. Already, earth is experiencing the most massive wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs due to pricisely industrial agriculture, and the mode of social organization that they prefigure.

As for the question agriculture, consider this: Intensive companion-plant gardening is many times more productive than industrial monocropping. It is also something that can be immediately put in to practice with limited resources, and easily reproduced. Similarly, small-scale animal husbandry, utilizing land that is unfit for food-crops is less destructive, produces better meat, and is more respectful of animal life than the mass production of grain-fed meat by industrial farming. Again, this is something that can immediately be put into practice, even in cities.
Further, existing technology isn't simply going to disappear overnight - even if we immediately closed every toxic mine and smog-spouting factory, there is a wealth of metals, plastics, fuel, spare parts, etc. to be scavenged/reused/jury-rigged etc. Even without the technocratic division of labour, an egalitarian society wouldn't suddenly be without the leftover garbage of this civilization over night. A transition to reliance on fewer and fewer products that necessitate, say, shit like bauxite mining, or oil extraction, could only be gradual, since nobody can simply will things to cease existing.
This of course also plays into immediate practice (which interests me far more talking about what will happen "after the revolution"). As long as there is mass production, we can appropriate it for our own aims without practicing it. Grocery stores overflowing with food can be looted, and the resulting spoils communized . . . and likewise the literally spoiling food (easy enough to steal as an employee, or rescue from the dumpster with a pair of bolt cutters). I don't know about where you live, but things "fell off the truck" here all the time. In these ways, we can undermine and attack the capitalist economy, while at the same time lessening our reliance on it. The more these practices spread, the more people are less reliant on an increasingly weakened capitalist order.

Again, you have failed to indicate clearly what you mean by a "liberal tradition" and how all modes of thinking and ideas analogous to it, are intrinsically toxic to communism. Other than fiat, and again, mere say-so. Simply saying "liberalism isn't communism and you're liberal so you're clueless", however textured - which is in essence all you have been saying - is not profound. You have made no case, chosen no claims, taken no real positions. I would say you were wrong, but you're not even wrong. You're incoherent. No lucid guide to action or stance on issues of controversy or anything that one could call a clear and distinct point of view, critically commenting on the topic at hand, can be discerned.

Liberalism is intrinsically toxic to communism insofar as it is the ideology of capitalism. All of the various projects undertaken in the name of communism that have carried with them the ideology of liberalism (from the Bolsheviks, to various democratic socialisms, and so on) have had the outcome one would expect: Capitalism.
One can't simply sever democracy, technocratic division of labour, mass industry, and so on from their corollary, capitalism, since these things have a material basis, and are inexorably bound up in one another. I challenge you to cite an example to the contrary.

Uh, actually, no one had any idea that all objects fall - and must - toward Earth's center at a rate of 9.80665 m/s2 (~32.174 ft/s2) until Newton described the general principles by which this fact ties into the general characteristics of moving objects in the physical world.
No, all kinds of science and knowledge and modern achievement were impossible without Newton's breakthroughs in physics. Newton's physics was absolutely true in its predictions in the physical world just as much in England as in aboriginal Australia or Kung! natives in Africa.

Newtonian physics are totally, like, an approximation. For a rabid defender of science, you don't seem to know much about it. General relativity. That happened, y'know?
Anyway, none the less, science's achievements are subjective - they assume that everyone wants to "achieve" the types of understanding one gains through science, and the ends that are thus possible. This is a value-judgement, not a "fact".

Of course, but there are possible, logical and scientific statements whose value and accuracy may be assessed outside of the context of the people who make the statements and do the research. That's the definition of the scientific method.

There it is again! Just because you define scientific method as a means of making "truthful" (non-ideological, non-contingent) statements doesn't make it so. The act of defining science thusly is an ideological act. One could similarly say that it is demonstrable that drinking spruce-needle tea always and everywhere will prevent scurvy, and, since this conclusion was reached by Algonquin traditional knowledge, Algonquin traditional knowledge is always and everywhere "true". Of course, because you define "truth" as scientific, you wouldn't accept such an assertion (or you'd assert that by "testing" this, you're practicing science) . . . but, I digress, if you can't see what I'm getting at by this point, you're putting a tonne of effort into not getting it.

Maybe you sign on to the ultra-hard program of the sociology of science, but if you do you're a fool.

You've caught me! "That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all." (Asimov)

That doesn't mean there isn't bad science or science perverted by ideology. But science is really just about being reasonable and making reasonable statements and checking them for accuracy. Methodologically, it is an exceptional tool for meaningfully understanding the world around you, and irreplaceable.

Where do you get the scientific method outside of the largely Western scientific revolution?

Well, that depends - if "science is really just about being reasonable and making reasonable statements and checking them for accuracy" it is ubiquitous, and practiced in probably its most thorough form by young children everywhere. Various folk-sciences (as lores, rituals, myths) occur everywhere, which is how, without Science, amazing feats of ingenuity from engineering, to astronomy, to medicine are possible. Of course, this is not what Science means, least of all to you, who associates it with "the largely Western scientific revolution". This latter conception of science (which you defend so rigidly) is necessarily ideological, being, as it is, part and parcel of a particular historical project.

Blah, blah, blah, so what do you want to do?

I'm bored of typing, and I have the real world to attend to.
You may have heard of some of this; it's quite popular among anarchists on planet earth, lately.
The Call (http://zinelibrary.info/call)
The Coming Insurrection (http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/)
Modesto Anarcho (http://www.modestoanarcho.org/)