[lbo-talk] Ambigious Doug

Christian Gregory christian11 at mindspring.com
Thu Jun 26 10:53:40 PDT 2003



>No, it is not a litmus test (or any other sort of test) for leftists. But I don't conceive that to be the point at issue.

Then why demand of Doug that he take stand on the issue, one way or the other?


>I would hold (most materialists would hold), NOT that holding 'spiritual' or religious beliefs is at all necessarily a barrier to participation, even top leadership, of leftist movements but rather would ask _what_ is/are the best premise(s) for understanding the world. (Revolutions are not made primarily by revolutionaries; mass movements for reform are not grounded
in shared ontologies.) Century in and century out, materialist premises are most fruitful to understanding. (_Most_ fruitful and in the long run.)

Fine, though the last part is circular. The people who you say understand the world best share your premises about what counts as the world. I happen to share your view about materialism--especially for the long run, and suitably deconstructed. But there are different ways to view reason and causality that, while they might underwrite leftist activity and even provisional understanding of the world, are, in the last instance, fundamentally different from it. This seems obvious--all you have to do is look at the right's fundamentalist wing to see that, from another angle.

Christian

Christian



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