> From: Alexander Nekvasil
>
> "Charles Brown" <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> writes:
>
> > Of course, Rosa Luxembourg committed a logical fallacy
> > when she coined the slogan "Socialism or Barbarism"
> > because the fact that capitalism in crisis on its way
> > to fascism shared certain characteristics with
> > barbarism didn't mean that is _was_ barbarism. ( All
> > barbarism is white; all crisis capitalism is white;
> > therefore all crisis capitalism is babarism). But
> > Luxembourg was on point in addressing the mo'
> > important rhetorical problem, because any new term
> > coined at that time would not have been effective in
> > rousing people to action.. That is, a new term then
> > would not have had the history that "barbarism" had
> > associated with it in people's minds.
>
> The locus classicus for a definition of barbarism in
> Germany is Immanuel Kant's _Anthropology_, where he
> attempts a classification of social orders depending on
> their having or not having freedom, law, and violence.
>
> Barbarism, in this scheme, is the status freedom
> present, violence present, law absent.
>
> (Republic is freedom present, violence present, law
> present. And so forth. Curiously, the most desirable
> order seems to be anarchism: freedom present, law
> present, violence absent -- anarchists love the passage,
> of course.)
>
> As an aside, Marx's use of _specious_being_
> (Gattungswesen) comes from the same source.
>
>
> cheers
> AN
> ^^^^^^^^
> CB: Thanks AN. I was thinking that Luxemburg's idea of
> ":barbarism" might also be influenced by the term in
> real anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan's _Ancient
> Society_ ( savagary-babarism-civilization; these are
> sort of modes of production ), as that work was known
> in the Marxist tradition because of the use Engels
> made of it in _The Origin of the Family, Private
> Property and the State_. Although, Morgan actually
> gives a somewhat benign connotation to "babarism".
Can you elaborate on barbarism-as-mode-of-production? Is that tribal communism? If so, what is savagery?
The kantian conceptual game, lacking in economic consciousness as it may be, has the advantage of giving a crystal clear definition to work with, ie to oppose to the current mumblings about "something new" in the int'l order.
As to what Rosa read, I don't know. But I do know that the "Kant vs. Marx", "Kant and Marx" debate was lively around the turn of the century, in and outside the neo-kantian movement. Real hard-nosed revolutionaries of course heaping scorn on all of this from the sidelines.
> Is Marx's "species-being" influenced by Feuerbach's
> philosophical anthropology ?
Kant and Feuerbach ride the same vector here, I think. It used to be called enlightenment, but we are way beyond that, or so I'm told.
Sorry for the delay.
cheers AN