On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 12:59:21 -0400 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> <http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc2r3/gramsci/gramheg.htm#
Tanks.
> To quote you again:
> >Some degree of subjugation is necessary for subjectivity.
> Here, you assert that "a certain degree" of subjugation is eternal...
No, eternal implies that human beings will always be around - which is a theological claim [I'm thinking about Aquinas again]. Necessary means prerequisite sin qua non (not without which) [my latin ain't so good, might i wrong have that]. Food is necessary for human existence, which doesn't mean that the relation between food and humankind is eternal. Take away the food and the humans disappear, after a while anyway.
> Surely, the function of the chaperone ("an ugly elderly lady"!!!),
> the obsession of Scottie for the dead Madeleine in Hitchcock's
> _Vertigo_, Jewish children's "gently aggressive games," etc. are
> historically bounded & hence transient phenomena, not eternal ones
> that serve as paradigms of human relationships for all times. Why
> assert that without sexism there can be no human relation?
Necessary, not eternal. Transient, of course! Just because human beings need food doesn't mean they need the same food every single time, nor does it imply that they will eat it in the same way every single time.
I don't really understand why this is a problem. Not only is some sort of give and take necessary for human beings to live together, but the alternatives, which I can only conceive of as psychotic or beastial, aren't even desirable. Does this justify domination? No. Necessity doesn't justify subjection, even if subjection is necessary. I'm pretty happy with this paradox. Consistency is hobgoblin. Absolute communal freedom is a conceptual impossibility, but this doesn't mean that it isn't a good measuring stick.
ken