On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Many Marxists have also objected to talk of "human nature." Does that
> make them PoMo's too?
Uh, no. C'mon, Doug: distribute your middle.
Pomos are
vocal on the
topos at the
moment...
> Besides, pointing to an innate capacity for language in humans doesn't
> tell you anything about what languages we actually come to speak, or
> what we say when we talk.
Uh, right. The question was the connection between Chomsky's linguistics and politics. The suggested answer was his (generally implicit) concept of a human nature that includes both semantics and ethics -- "meaning" in several senses.
--Regards, C. G. Estabrook