Intellectual debate in leftist circles is Byzantine in complexity, clouded by an unspoken implication that the further to the left a position, the more likely its verity. Chinese Marxists, (not that they have a monopoly on truth, but being Chinese myself though not a Marxist, it is an affliction I would have to carry for the rest of my consciousness), are constantly reminded of the need to guard against rightism as well as leftism. Still, personally, I have more trouble handling attacks from the left than I do from the right, perhaps because fraternal disputes, like civil wars, are frequently fought without mercy or honor. In fact, it is a reliable test, who ever gets you upset must be close to you.
Mencius (371-288 B.C.), apologist for Confucianism, subscribed to the belief that man is innately compassionate rather than self-seeking. But this trait can receive expression only if men enjoy peace of mind through material sufficiency. Therin lies the philosophical basis for socialism. In his classic dialogue with Prince Leung, Mencius offered a proposition that during battle some soldier in panic cowardly withdrew fifty paces while others withdrew a hundred paces, but were laughed at as cowards by the fifty pacers. Prince Leung observed that both groups were bad soldiers and there was no different between them, where up Mencius relied: "Similarly, there is no difference between governments." Every schoolboy in China is required to memories this dialogue even under Communist rule. Left and right are relative terms Daoists point out that concepts are merely cognitive extremes of a consciousness continuum. Extremes exist only as contrasting points to give distinctive meanings to the unthinking, but in truth these extremes are inseparably interdependent. There can be no life without death, no goodness without evil and no happiness without tragedy. Light shines only in darkness. And no left without right. We only know something had been forgotten after we remember it. Behind this dualistic illusion, an unifying, primary principle of life endures. It is called Dao. Some call it socialism. So the left and the right need each other for their separate existence. One is always to the left of some and to the right of others. Personally and intellectually, I enjoy more being on the left of my companions than on the right, because I have noticed that attacks from the right tend to be more civilized than that from the left. Its just a personal experience, but at all an universal truth, but it has again been demonstrated on this list.
As for facts and and logic, permit me to quote from one of my earlier posts:
It is a Daoist axiom that intellectual scholarship and analytical logic can only serve to dissect and categorize information. Knowledge, different from information, is achieved only through knowing. Ultimately, only intuitive understanding can provide wisdom. Truth, while elusive, exists. But it is obscured by search, because purposeful search will inevitably mislead the searcher from truth. By focusing on the purpose, the searcher can only find what he is looking for. How does one know what questions to ask about truth if one does not know what the elusive answers should be? Conversely, if one knows already what the answers should be, why does one need to ask questions? Lewis Carrol's Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) would unknowingly be a Daoist.
St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), nicknamed Dumb Ox because of his slow and deliberate manner of speech, brilliant father of Neo-Scholasticism, aiming to resolve the dispute between Averroists and Augustinians, would hold that reason and faith constitute 2 harmonious realms in which the truth of faith complements that of reason, both being gifts of God, but reason having an autonomy of its own. The existence of God could therefore be discovered through reason, with the grace of God. The theological significance of this momentous claim by Thomas Aquinas cannot be over-emphasized. It would save Christianity from falling into irrelevance in the Age of Reason, sometimes referred to as the Enlightenment, and preserve tolerance for faith among rational thinkers in the scientific world. As Thomas graced the believe in God with reason, Marxist provided the belief in human equality, albeit a belief only, with rational determinism. The reason of dialectic materialism compliments the truth of faith in socialism. The Thomist claim would remain unchallenged for five centuries until David Hume (1711-1786) who would point out in his Inquiry into Human Understanding that since the conclusion of a valid inference could contain no information not found in the premise, there could be no valid conclusion from observed to unobserved phenomena. Hume would let the logic air out of the Thomist natural theology balloon, and in the process would show that even general laws of science could not be logically justified beyond their own limits, perhaps even including his own sweeping conclusion. Hume, the empiricist, would logically determine that logic is circular and goes nowhere: a classic position of Daoist skepticism. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) would emancipate man's command of knowledge from Humean skepticism. In his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant would emphasize the contribution of the knower to knowledge. While acknowledging that the 3 great issues of metaphysics: God, freedom and immortality, could not be logically determined, he would assert that their essence is a necessary presupposition. In his subsequent publications: Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and Critique of Judgement (1790), Kant would assert as a moral law his famous categorical imperative, which would require moral actions to be unconditionally and universally binding to absolute good will. Notwithstanding the enlightened breakthroughs of English Protestant empiricists like Hobbes, Locke and Hume, and perhaps in reaction to them, Pope Leo XIII would issue the encyclical Aeterni Patris in 1879. It would declare Scholasticism, as modified by Thomas Aquinas, to be official Catholic philosophy. Unwittingly, Scholasticism would legitimize the independence of secular politics from Church control. If reason and faith constitute 2 harmonious realms in which the truth of faith complements that of reason, both being gifts of God, but reason having an autonomy of its own, then politics and religion can also belong to separate realms in which morality of religion complements virtue in politics, but politics having an autonomy of its own. It would provide the theological rationalization for the separation of Church and State. Socialism offers an opening for the reunification of reason and faith because for once the basic tenaents of reason and fifith are not in conflict when it comes to the goodness of man.
Logic and facts are useful only if one has no desire to break out of their self-prescribing circle. Creativity and revolution, by definition, must defy logic and facts in order to facilitate their own births. Of course, it does not follow that being illogical and in defiance of fact inherently qualify one as creative or revolutionary.
Henry C.K. Liu
Max Sawicky wrote:
> > No it's not about class struggle - the bourgeoisie only have Brad & Max
> > here! It's about maintaining a social/discursive space. Lou & I have
> > watched a lot of "Marxism" mailing lists spin out of control. No
> > more about
> > this.
>
> And a happy Thanksgiving to you too.
>
> Them revolutionaries. Talk about freedom
> but when they get the power, all of a sudden
> they claim dominion over 'social/discursive
> space.'
>
> But it's true I've been deployed by B.C.
> (Bourgeoisie Central) to monitor the dangerous
> activities of members of this list. We were
> especially dismayed to see the inauguration of
> new Marxism mailing lists (new lists, not new
> Marxism, that is) where incendiary thoughts are
> born and pulse through the very circulatory
> system of cybernetic capitalism.
>
> My primary technique for disrupting these
> ominous developments is to introduce facts
> and logic into the stream of insurrectionist
> hoo-ha. That seems to slow things down a
> good bit. My secret technique is to assume
> ultra-left positions through the guise of my
> covert alter-ego, Louis Proyect, which
> attack genuine reformist threats to existing
> arrangements and lure innocent folks to futile
> fantasies of indigenous peoples with laptops
> toppling the Big Cigars.
>
> "MBS"