Brecht (was Re: Ethical foundations of the left)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 5:40 AM +0000 7/20/01, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>I don't think left or any politics depends on argument. I don't just 
>mean this in the obvious Posnersian sense that argument doesn't move 
>people. I mean it in the deeper sense that politics doesn't have a 
>foundation; it is the foundation, or better, the framework for 
>action and for ethical thinking. Of course argument has many uses 
>within that framework. It can be use to adjust and improve one's 
>views within it; it can be used to discredit opposing views; it can 
>be used to enhance our confidence that we are right; it can guide 
>specific policy and actoon choices within a framework, But one 
>doesn't arrive at an ethics outside a political framework and then 
>apply to to construct one. One starts out from where one is, and 
>tries to make sense of one's views, which can involve changing them, 
>within a political perspective. This is surely Marx's view--it is 
>why he gave up philosophy as a seperate activity.

At 4:07 AM +0000 7/29/01, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>But if we've learned anything from Marx, we will realize that if I 
>am a capitalist and you are a worker, we are not going to agree 
>about the division of the social product, eh?

At 4:26 PM -0500 7/29/01, Carrol Cox wrote:
>(Perhaps ethics need a political foundation, but it is
>bizarre to fuss about an ethical foundation of the left.)

*****   from _Life of Galileo_, Scene 8

The Little Monk: But don't you think that the truth will get through 
without us, so long as it's true?

Galileo: No, no, no.  The only truth that gets through will be what 
we force through: the victory of reason will be the victory of people 
who are prepared to reason, nothing else.   *****

Yoshie