[lbo-talk] Disagreement, Buddhism, Self-Realization

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Sun Dec 7 12:56:17 PST 2003


Actually, pardon me for going all Rawlsian pragmstist on you, but I think that the reasons for socialism do not require us to choose between Buddhism and Romantic Eudamomism -- Marx's self-realization theory. I would choose the latter in a New York minute, but I bound opon the wheel of Maya. Nonetheless, the choice of basic political institutions cannot, in a free society, rest on contentious conception sof the good life. That was one of Rawls' great insights.

People will disagree, and not just because of class and other group conflict. They will just see things differently because answers to questions about What Is Good and What Is The Meaning of Life are inherently disputable. Even if there are Right answers -- which I believe, actually, or anyway that there are wrong ones -- in a free society we let people make their own mistakes. (That's Mill.)

So all we have to say about Buddhism vs. Eudaimonsim is that capitalsim does not allow either of these ways of living for most people, but makes us all greedy and competitive, etc. And socialism doesn't, but rather does allow us to be Buddhist or Self-Realized as we choose.

jks

--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Brian Charles Dauth wrote:
>
> >Unfortunately, this is a mistake. The concept of
> "rich individuality" is
> >just another way of propping up a false sense of
> identity. Had Marx
> >expanded his horizons to Eastern thought he might
> have avoided this error.
>
> Not for me, thank you. Maybe I'm hopelessly
> corrupted by the West,
> but I have no interest in embracing
> anti-individualist notions from
> the East. I'm a socialist because, like Marx and
> many of his
> followers, I think that capitalism limits the
> development of a rich
> individuality by forcing us to become money-grubbing
> competitive
> monads, just as capitalism frustrates the political
> promises of free
> expression and democratic governance. I have no
> interest in emptying
> my ego.
>
> What is a true sense of identity?
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>
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