[lbo-talk] Nostalgia

Ian Murray seamus2001 at attbi.com
Fri Apr 11 21:41:05 PDT 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Winslow" <egwinslow at rogers.com>
> Ian wrote:
>
> > So, the aesthetes of slave and feudal societies were more "in touch"
> > with
> > the "idea" of humanity than proletarians who go bowling or play video
> > games? Please. Oh, and what's the use of the pomo framing/"scare"
> > quotes
> > of/around idea? Whose idea. Is there only one?
>
> I would think e.g. Aristotle was, he originated a great deal of its
> content.
============================

Well that says it all, don't it? Your antiquarian, eurocentric nickers are showing........

I don't think he had the techne required to build the
> Parthenon though. You don't say enough about these "proletarians" to
> indicate whether they do.

======================

Who built the Pyramids yaddah yaddah yaddah........Do you really think the know-how for creative transformations of nature was even more concentrated amongst elites way back then than it is now?

You do say enough, though, to demonstrate
> that you don't understand what Marx means by the "complete emptiness"
> of the "fully developed proletariat".

========================

As I never intended to make any exegetical comments on KM's terminology directly, how can you even make such an inferential leap, and perhaps more importantly, what/who gives you the authority to determine whether or not I'm capable of critical interpretation[s] of various aspects of KM's anthropology? You can no more control the interpretations of KM than you, me or the Federal Reserve can control the money supply............


>
> The quotes around "idea" are meant to point to the Hegel/Marx idea of
> humanity as the being with the potential to become a "universally
> developed individual", the idea I've just again been elaborating. This
> isn't the only one. It's different from yours for example.
>
> Ted
================================

Compressing the lives of 6 billion -currently living- persons into the term *humanity* as *universally developed individual* is an EXTREMELY problematic narrative/explanatory project, grammatical problems aside a la Wittgenstein. Why is it whenever you bring that issue up all I can think of as an example is the Borg from Star Trek?

Ian



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