Sociology and Explanations (Re: Hitchens responds to critics

kelley kwalker2 at gte.net
Mon Oct 1 05:46:37 PDT 2001


At 08:15 AM 10/1/01 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:


>>That's true. It might be a good idea to avoid substituting contempt for
>>argument though.
>
>All of life isn't a teach-in. Don't we have an interest in understanding
>why people do ghastly things?
>
>Doug

does anyone psychoanalyze the masterminds of our war machine? these guys planned this out, just like "our" guys do. they didn't do anything ghastly, they were waging war on us for reasons that are just as legitimate as the way "our" guys have waged war on others.

as you know, doug, i generally agree that the refusal to consider micro-level psychological/psychoanalytical/social psychological factors is a problem. i do, mainly because i think it's not at all consistent with historical materialism to do otherwise, an argument that has been made well by Roy Bhaskar who has pointed out that those who do not are merely dialectical and espouse theories that are ahistorical.

i just don't see why it's particularly important wrt the specific case of the hijackers.

kelley



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