At 11:20 AM 4/12/01 -0500, Forstater, Mathew wrote:
>The charge of
>"illiteracy" ignores the tremendous oral literatures of noncapitalist
>societies,
>and the democratic integration of artisitc and creative traditions with daily
>life. Note that the term
>"primitive community" indicates that Hobsbawm is not here talking about
>feudalism, and especially European feudalism, which is what Brad seems to be
>primarily refering to. It would not even indicate major tributary
>communal-despotic formations. Rather, it would refer to those basically
>stateless, classless, communities. Again, why we are not able to learn
>from what is best about societies without accepting the mistakes is beyond
>me (unlessit can be shown that the positive is inextricably linked to the
>negative, butthat must be demonstrated, not assumed). In another context,
>why shouldn't non-industrialized nations be able to learn from both the
>mistakes and the
>advances of industrialized ones (use newer technologies without environmental
>destruction--with the qualifier given just above)? Mat
>