Greg Schofield wrote:
>
> --- Message Received ---
> From: Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu>
> MIles:
> > In such a circumstances it becomes practical to begin asking some very
> > abstract questions.
> >
>
> "Such as? This is a serious question, not a snotty retort."
>
> Thanks Miles I will take this in the spirit that it is raised.
A powerful feature of capitalism is its tendency to generate continual and radical change without any change whatever occurring in fundamental social relations. And this generates an immense lust for "new ideas," a lust which is inevitably frustrated because really new ideas emerge only with fundamental changes in social relations. (The phrase "Newtonian Science" is not really too ill-fitting a label for the science of Einstein, Planck, Crick, etc.: tremendous change within the same dynamic.) A comicbook episode from around 60+ years ago sticks in my memory. It involved a human torch -- and the bad guys at that time were still ordinary crooks, not creatures from science fiction. This particular set of crooks had an inspiration and they trapped the Flame (or whatever he was called) in a heavy glass or fire resistant plastic cylinder, cutting off his oxygen and shutting down his flame. Then they bungled the final steps and he escaped. Did they recognize that they had worked out the right fundamental method? No. They went back to the drawing board, developed "new ideas" and were soon quelled. The assumption of these crooks runs deep in bourgeois thought and feeling. If something doesn't work, the designers have failed and must go back to the drawing boards. The world is new. No "old idea" is worthwhile. We must start all over again from scratch. Defeats can't possibly come because capital was (is yet) too strong. They can only come about because everything we did was wrong. Really?
In general I agree with the Thompson-Williams-Wood dismissal of the "base-superstructure" metaphor. But there is a powerful resemblance between this endless superficial revolution of daily life under capitalism and the endless search of bourgeois thinkers for new ideas.
Carrol