war and the state

[Dddddd0814 at aol.com]

"Behavior _is_ history, in the sense of being the raw material 
of which it is constituted (if we're talking about the things 
people actually do, anyway). There's nothing idealistic about 
that. You may want to argue that the notion that ideas result 
in behavior is idealistic, but that requires a kind of duality 
I don't subscribe to and in fact find difficult to follow, 
the Cartesian mind-body stuff. Too idealistic for me." 

..........

"I didn't say anything about the production of Lenin's and 
Trotsky's ideas, and I don't see what the particulars of 
their production has to do with anything. It seems as 
irrelevant as their morals. As for the rest, anyone who 
has ever tried to fix a broken automobile engine knows that 
some ideas are more materially useful than others. 
-- Gordon"

Could someone please clue me in on what the heck this guy is talking about? 
"Behavior is history"? "The notion that ideas result in behavior is 
idealistic"? Huh????
Total mish-mosh.

--David