Milton, "post-leftism", etc.

[Andrew_Sawtelle at brown.edu]

> On Wed, 21 Aug 2002 Dddddd0814 at aol.com wrote:
> 
> > Chuck:
> > Anarchism doesn't call for a "wholesale change of heart," because it sees
> > that most people already have libertarian and cooperative instincts. The
> > problem is getting rid of the state and capitalism so that people can have
> > total freedom to develop and explore these tendencies.
> > << Chuck0 >>
[snip]
> I'd appreciate more thought on this subject as well. It's problematic. I
> can't say, like Chuck0, that people "already" have
> libertarian/cooperative instincts. But that doesn't diminish the
> desirability of a society that has production and distribution organized
> along egalitarian lines, either.

I'm firmly in the camp that "human nature", at least a large part of it, is no help at all if we're trying to create an egalitarian and anti-authoritarian society. Ernest Becker has some very good insights on the nature of social evil and attempts to change society in "Escape from Evil". His thesis is (sort of) the psychological equivalent of Dawkins: we need to understand what really drives human activity at the most basic level if we're going to try to create a society that (probably) works in spite of those forces.

/andrew