FWD: Re: J. O'Connor on Chomsky

Carrol Cox cbcox at mail.ilstu.edu
Thu Nov 5 08:32:51 PST 1998


C. G. Estabrook wrote:


> And over against the PoMo pooh-pooh of any talk of human nature, his
> positing of a language faculty insists that there is a human nature
> available for examination.

This more or less confirms the uselessness of the term "pomo" and its synonyms. Does the writer want to classify Marx, Engels, Arendt, the behaviorists, the many marxists who responded to Geras on this issue, etc. etc. as "pomos."

There may or may not be such a thing as "human nature" (I doubt that there is in any non-tautological sense), but I would agree with Hannah Arendt's claim that even if there were we could never know it. Of course Arendt then funked out by substituting a functional equivalent, "the human condition."

On the whole (Geras being the best known exception), most social theories positing some knowable "human nature) are anti-marxist (as is Chomsky's) or even reactionary. Associating this debate with "pomos" is puerile.

Carrol



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