Margins of Being "Human" (was Re: Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs)

[Chris Burford]

At 00:08 08/03/00 -0600, you wrote:
>
>
>>We need to reframe the concept of consciousness as not peculiarly human but
>>as the focus of attention. The non-conscious is not some mysterious other
>>realm of an individual psyche but is the basic fabric of engaged
>>interaction by someone within a *social* network.
>>
>>Chris Burford
>>
>>
>Traditionally "consciousness" is used to distinguish people from animals.
>If we define it as awareness of mentality, then it serves that useful
>function.  (Animals do not pay any attention whatsoever to their minds.)
>But I see your point.  The mind is much more than the focus of attention.
>We are as much our unconscious as our consciousness.  The human race is like
>an ocean with six billion waves.  Each wave thinks it's separate from every
>other wave.  In reality, what makes us human is not the wave-in-itself but
>the fact that the wave expresses the ocean.
>
>Ted

Yes, the Marxist view is that "social being determines consciousness". 

That is very different from "being determines consciousness",  which is a
mechanically deterministic perspective that privileges the individual,
either as biological mechanism on its own, or as a product of infantile
psychodynamic conflicts with parents, especially mother. 

Both viewpoints are mechanically determinist. Instead, we need to reaffirm
that social being determines consciousness - and add that it determines
non-consciousness as well.

Chris Burford

London