>>> kwalker2 at gte.net 08/14/01 12:50PM >>>
At 11:51 AM 8/14/01 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
>CB: OK, for the sake of argument, lets accept the convincing success of
>your argument, that is you have succeeded ( arguendo) in persuading me by
>argument that social forms are reproduced communicatively.
>
>How does that truth help us to overthrow capitalism and win socialism ?
adressed here, abstractly: Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 16:55:30 -0400 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
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CB: I went to the archive, but I couldn't quite find this. Please post it.
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more concretely: you've argued for democratic centralism, right? this means you want to weld democratic principles with hierarchical organization of command and control, where some in the hierarchy have more power than rank and file.
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CB: To me democratic centralism is just representative democracy or republicanism honestly articulated. In other words, republicanism is a modification of direct democracy because large populations can't vote directly on everything. Thereby the representatives ( such as your legislators and government executives) have power in the interim between votes. So, democratic centralism is basically U.S. democracy.
What is added by the Leninists is the specific idea that everybody, including the minority, agrees to unite around the policies established by the majority in order to have the unity necessary for effective action.
Democratic centralism has more democracy and more centralism depending on circumstances, from war to peace.
Does communicative action address this in any way ? Certainly, democratic centralism is concerned with action based on the whole group's input and carried out by the whole group.
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how do you plan on instantiating this paradigm of movement organization?
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CB: By persuading people of its validity through persuasive communication.
I accepted your or Ken's argument for the sake of you discussing its practical-critical applicability. Now we are discussing my thoughts. I am not Habermas.
Also, how does communicative action come in in Habermas supporting the war on Yugoslavia ?
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what happens when you have a severe disagreement--pick any of the disagreements we have here. how are they to be resolved.
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CB: For the most part, through the majority rule principle of democracy ,taking the democratic part of dem centr. seriously.
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how do you justify, for example, ending a conversation, as doug just did? doug justifies it, ultimately, because he's the list owner and administrator. he can make it stick because he has charismatic authority to do so.
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CB: I don't know that the list is to be run through democratic centralism. However, Doug isn't a real heavy handed center. The conversation he just ended was one of the longest in the history of the list. The issues were probably thoroughly addressed.
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or, do you have some long ago agreed on rule that is invoked in a way that is to suggest that the rule is settled and unquestionable. eg. Gordon's claim that once the stage of meta discussion about the discussion has been reached, the conversation is over, and nothing is resolved?
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CB: I'm not operating on this principle
I remember talking about "thinking about thinking" many, many years ago. Then I finally got around to thinking , and not just thinking, "oh , maybe I'll think ".
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carrol once told me that arguments don't matter to the people who haven't bought into the leninist marxist framework. rather, what would matter and win people over was that leninists demonstrated a solid commitment to one another -- they were comrades, for good or ill. that solidarity would be the way that others would be convinced to sign up --because they want to belong and experience that comradery. i assume that once people start aligning themselves with the group, then they will be won over to the eminent reasonableness of leninist-marxist ideas. i presume that arguments might matter at this point.
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CB: How is the Habermasian framework like the Leninist-Marxist framework? "Communication" has commonality with "Communism", no ? Habermas' emphasis on communication is an emphasis on the social. My question would be regarding the emphasis on the symbolic dimension to communication, as the latter is commonly thought of.
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what happens when there is disagrement within the model of comrades? how are objections handled? who decides what is going to be a topic put on the table for discussion and what will be ignored.
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CB: Ultimately, the whole group must be the final arbiter. It is the practical problem of getting large groups to accurately be represented that is difficult.
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if people feel that the experiences and concerns of the disabled aren't being articulated, or that women's concerns aren't--and we have frequently heard here that people don't think feminist concerns are a worthwhile concern for leftists--then how do people who disagree do so without being dismissed as engaged in an attempt to undermine solidarity.
and so forth...
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CB: What is the communicative action answer to your questions ?