racist opinion a crime ?

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Sat Mar 31 10:35:44 PST 2001


Brad Mayer:
> ...
> Facts certainly don't negate concepts, Dennis. The 'validity' of concepts
> is measured by their utility in reflecting, representing or however else
> you want to define the relation between conceptual and 'factually real'
> material. In the case of this thread, it is a liberal concept that doesn't
> reflect very well at all the reality of capitalist 'civil' society, either
> in France or the USA, but especially so the USA.
>
> The bourgeoisie were the first in history to draw the distinction between
> state and civil society both in theory and in practice. As the first
> historical form of civil society, characterized as it is by the war of all
> against all, it is also the most primitive, brutal, barbaric and 'uncivil'
> form of society free of the state. Only bourgeois forms of social behavior
> are juridically recognized by the capitalist state as limits upon itself.
> These archaic forms of behavior are no longer adequate to the requirements
> of even advanced capitalist society with it highly socialized labor and its
> race/gender/ethnic mixing, so it is not surprising that individuals,
> especially in the USA, lack the cultural development necessary for the
> mediation of social relations in a peaceful and constructive manner
> independent of the state.
> ...

I think you're omitting something here. Since many individuals in contemporary society, including very poor people pretty much disconnected from immediate bourgeois influence, carry on social relations in a peaceful and constructive manner independent of the State, it is clear that State power is not necessary for such behavior. Such relations often include relations across group boundaries, even when these have been sharpened and deepened (if not, indeed, created) by class war elsewhere.

If we look back through history, not just the history of the bourgeois states but the feudal and imperial states which preceded them, we find a continuous presence of such people on the peripheries of the State, among whom peaceful and constructive relations can and do arise. The notion that those outside State power are all inevitably violent barbarians is propaganda, originally concocted in service of the assertion of slavery and military government, that is, the primordial State. It is precisely these archaic forms of behavior which are the most advanced in the sense of departing from war and slavery.

Bourgeois relations and the bourgeois ideology in fact arose out of a partial adoption of the anarchistic practices and ideology of the peripherals. The nascent bourgeoisie liked the idea of freedom, equality and peace for themselves, through the abolition of that part of the class structure which existed _above_ them, and its replacement with institutions reflecting their interests. Of course they did not intend for the same freedom and equality to be extended to those over whom they had power, their women, children, employees, debtors, foreigners, colonials, slaves, beggars, criminals, and convicts; the the word and the example got out, and there followed the well-known bitter struggles to achieve them by these classes which are now advertised as "progress" by the same class which most opposed them.

The problem with the bourgeois State is that the struggles have reached their limits within the State system: there is only so far one can go in advancing freedom, equality and peace within a class-war system, in spite of the most elaborate and clever strategems and frauds. The class war constantly reanimates invidious distinctions and discriminations. Hence the present rescission of the weak social-democratic facets of the American state put in place by the bourgeois of a generation or two ago, and the resumption of imperial wars. History shows there is no hope in the State.


> This is not an argument for state intervention to mediate in the stead of a
> lack of social cultural development. It argues just the opposite - from
> the side of the oppressed and exploited majority of capitalist civil
> society - that they be free to resort to whatever means they choose, to
> resist and overthrow their oppressors and exploiters. The (almost
> inevitable) barbarism of the methods will be perfectly appropriate to the
> actual barbarism of capitalist 'civil' society, since further social
> cultural development is impossible at any given point under capitalism. To
> expect that everyone will spontaneously behave like a well-educated
> bourgeois liberal under capitalist conditions of society is a hopeless
> utopia. And the degree of social cultural development, under any form of
> society, is the real material index of freedom.
> ...

Unfortunately, in dealing with this problem, the means become the ends. The State can't be destroyed by main force because, in order to organize the force, it is necessary to construct a new State, with the result that the new situation will be like the old one, if not worse. Nor can the State be captured and used. The State is war, and the result of war is death, slavery and more war. Hence, while the violence of the oppressed is understandable, and its condemnation by liberals often fraudlently context-free, one cannot expect it to produce a new society. It is necessary to think more radically.



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