> Ted Winslow wrote:
>
> >If this is a realistic psychology, a full explanation of the
Taliban would
> >require examination of the social relations including the economic
and
> >family relations within which its members developed and live. This
is what
> >I understand Marx to have meant by a "materialist" analysis.
>
> I think many self-professed materialists would regard this as too
> personal, individualistic, smelling too much of subjectivity,
> preferring that "materialist" analyses be carried out at a high
level
> of abstraction, the realm of "imperialism" and "finance capital."
>
> Doug
==============
Well those self-professed materialists would be missing out on lots of good stuff. There need not be a zero-sum game between those who choose different levels of social analyses, and those who fetishize agentless narratives have forgotten the art of historical narrative as storytelling. Imperialism without imperialists is an impossibility ditto finance capital. We simply need constant vigilance to the pitfalls of reductionism.
Ian