Mommy, what's an intellectual?

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Tue Jul 10 11:41:37 PDT 2001



>
>In communism , won't everybody be both an intellectual and a physically
>active comrade in a manner that is socially productive ? Writing music in
>the morning and whistling it while they collectively build geodesic domes
>in the afternoon, nude swimming and fishing in the afternoon, and making
>astronomic observation at night.
>

I read the "hunt in the morning" passage as a claim that under communism, people will do, as Marx says, "just as [they] please"; that is to say, apart from whatever necessary labor has to be assigned and enforced, people who care to do diverse physical and mental activities will do so, and them as don't, won't. If someone wants to spend her days toiling away in the library redacting Manilius, the associated producers will not haul her out for nude swimming and geodwesic dome building that she'd rather not do. In technical terms, Marx is claiming that communism will involve maximal negative freedom from coercion or compulsion.

--jks

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