James Heartfield:
> That suggests that you think it would be a good idea if put into
> practice (i.e. that you think the rhetoric about RoM is hypocrisy, and
> hypocrisy is ever that vice that pays homage to virtue).
No, I meant _rhetoric_ in the sense of orderly, purposeful language, regardless of the intentions and practices of its purveyors. It has certain important limitations. As I said, it is unable to embody more than a small part of freedom.
James Heartfield:
> Myself, I think the rights of man enunciated and (albeit partially)
> realised was a massive step forward for humankind. But even if every
> expression of the idea was hypocrisy the basic idea would be sound.
> After all, what is to object to if equality and liberty are not values
> worth aspiring to, in the suppression of the same?
The massive step forward could only be taken after massive steps backward were taken into slavery and militarism, so that freedom became an exceptional state.
But, as I noted, the Rights-of-Man thing may nevertheless be valuable. Philosophy has mostly been used to confuse people and justify evil, but we still need to study it if only to defend ourselves from it. Similary, the construction of certain propositions about freedom may help warn us when it is being taken away, at least in those cases where the takers haven't been careful to surround their efforts with _their_ rhetoric. (But as they usually have the guns and the money, they often can employ excellent rhetors.)
Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> writes
> >Maybe I'll be Straussian (is that
> >correct?) and say that the Rights of Man thing is good enough
> >for the masses, for now; but serious leftists should recognize
> >its defects, both theoretical and practical (noted above).
James Heartfield:
> But the aspiration for perfection is Godly, not human. Nothing is
> without defects, otherwise history would end in its realisation. Defects
> is not the same thing as saying pointless or rubbish.
I thing the state of things is somewhat more defective than it needs to be. But perhaps it is exactly as defective as it needs to be, and I should retire to my garden.
-- Gordon