Ted writes:
> As I've pointed out before, the concept of the "good" embodied in Marx's idea of the "universally developed individual" is inconsistent with imposing it on anyone. Its essence is the ethical idea of "mutual
recognition," a relation completely free from domination and coercion. It can only be realized if individuals self-consciously desire it and are able to arrange their conditions of life, including their developmental conditions, in accordance with its requirements.
To me the problem lies in the creation of self and other. In understanding that other is self and self is other and that both are in a constant state of interconnectedness, questions of dominance and coercion disappear. Since people are already involved in a relationship of dependent origination, the revolution that is needed is the recognition of this reality. To me Marx can be corrected by changing "mutual recognition" to "mutual interdependence/interbeing."
> Its claims about "rational self-interest" are very different from Rawls's. It claims a rational person would wish to live creating and appropriating beauty and truth within relations of mutual recognition. Marx's ideal distribution rule, for instance, is designed to realize this end. It enables individuals to live lives of this kind.
I am unfamiliar with Rawls (he is on my list), but where I see a problem is in the positing of the notion of a "rational person." It is true that every person has the capacity to be rational, but any decision made by a person is usually informed by rationality as well as affective/emotive needs/desires. I do not see how they can be separated.
While I agree that creation is vital, trying to "appropriate" causes the problem of attachment. Why can't beauty and other goods be appreciated rather than appropriated? Again, I would maintain that when a person tries to appropriate it is an attempt on her part to reinforce a shaky sense of self-identity that she feels can be remedied through acquisition/consumption.
As for mutual recognition, I view this as just a step away from Vietnamese thinker Thich Naht Hanh's notion of interbeing. Whereas mutual recognition is acknowledgement of a separate self equal to one's own, interbeing acknowledges that the divide between self and other is illusionary: other is self.
> Even if all irrationality is the outcome of inadequate conditions of development, however, it isn't obvious how conditions can be changed in the way required.
Well, I am not sure that irrationality is the outcome of inadequate conditions of development. For me such a belief goes back to Plato and his elevation of thinking over emotion and reinforced by Descartes and his misthinking. To me it is dubious to think that the elimination of inadequate conditions will eliminate irrationality.
Irrationality is not the problem; neither is rationality. Both will take part in the shaping of desires, needs and actions. To me what is necessary is a framework through which the products of these processes are judged and implemented. The appeal to me of Buddhism is that it does not try to create good, but instead seeks to end suffering.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister