Peter van Heusden:
> Ok, but what's going to be the holder of this culture? Where will this
> culture reside? Who establishes the rules of this culture?
>
> I don't think this way of getting beyond capitalism sufficiently address
> the 'who will educate the educator' question that Marx directed against
> Feuerbach.
I have to assume, without a lot of evidence, that "All the truth needs, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing." That is, a straightforward combination of theory and praxis will succeed politically among ordinary people. History indicates that neither alterations of the State nor vanguardism will work -- that is, you can't force or trick people into being free; the most you can do is show them opportunities for freedom and hope that they'll take advantage of them. And of course the "educators" must be open to being educated by the others. We don't know much, culturally speaking, about living in free communities, and a kind of crooked path of dialectic, rather than a detailed set of unchanging principles, will probably be needed. We do know that communities of human beings are capable of holding and developing sets of ideas and practices which we call "culture", without necessarily constructing repressive institutions to do the job -- that's one of the things we're doing right here and now. So -- one has to hope -- we don't need a vanguard or a ruling class.
Gordon Fitch wrote:
>> There's already some of this going on,
>> but it's slow work, since many of the most active and
>> intelligent people are so bemused by the shiny toys I
>> mentioned and tend to overlook the unpleasant side of
>> the toy machine, darkened as it is by design.
Peter van Heusden:
> Oh, and this is where I find orthodox Marxism and anarchism to be at their
> closest - both try and instill a new set of ideas into those who are 'so
> bemused' (or possess 'false consciousness' in another formulation). Its
> not that I think that shouldn't be done - its just that I think a lot
> happens 'under the radar' - a lot is going on in forms of domination and
> rebellion that don't fit neatly into the domain of consciously articulated
> ('clear') ideas.
I agree, which is why I mentioned dialectic. If the present systems of domination were abolished or seriously weakened, even under the best circumstances, we would encounter others which had previously been obscured, or which arose under the new conditions, and we would have to deal with them. A good example historically is the rise of capitalism and liberalism. That's why I reject the notion of utopia.