Just Wars

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  > >===========
>>  >Reification. Big time.
>>  >
>>  >Ian
>>
>>  What is meant by reification?
>>
>>  Yoshie
>===========
>Reify:
>To regard (something abstract) as a material thing.
>
>Or in your usage, an agent or agency with cognitive "powers".
>
>As weapons are some of the oldest commodities in existence, the 
>determinations of
>their usage are the oldest of aporias:
>
>http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/hcc05.htm
>
>I: The Phenomenon of Reification
>1
>The essence of commodity-structure has often been pointed out. Its 
>basis is that a
>relation between people takes on the character of a thing and thus acquires a
>'phantom objectivity', an autonomy that seems so strictly rational 
>and all-embracing
>as to conceal every trace of its fundamental nature: the relation 
>between people. It
>is beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the central importance 
>of this problem
>for economics itself. Nor shall we consider its implications for the economic
>doctrines of the vulgar Marxists which follow from their abandonment of this
>starting-point.
>
>Our intention here is to base ourselves on Marx's economic analyses 
>and to proceed
>from there to a discussion of the problems growing out of the fetish 
>character of
>commodities, both as an objective form and also as a subjective 
>stance corresponding
>to it. Only by understanding this can we obtain a clear insight into 
>the ideological
>problems of capitalism and its downfall. [snip]
>
>*And in a fine case of self-reflexive reification*
>
>"History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the
>intellect...History will justify anything. It teaches precisely 
>nothing, for it
>contains everything and furnishes examples of everything." [Paul Valery]
>
>Ian

Why do you think it is a case of reification to regard standards of 
justice -- including what human beings think of as just & unjust 
conduct within war, just & unjust wars, etc. -- as historically 
evolving, being products of social struggles (or social relations)? 
I rather think that the principle of "non-violence" _at all costs_ is 
a case of "phantom objectivity."

Yoshie