>
>
> Justin, quoted by Charles: "I would be very wary of looking at societies
> as organisms -- this has usually been the approach precisely of fascist
> ideologists, not progressives."
>
> Charles:
>
> Yes, analogy is limited.
>
> I don't know about fascists using this analogy more than progressives.
> Marx compared his method in Capital to natural history.
> ---
>
> Carrol: The analogy is more than limited, Charles, it is really vicious.
^^^^^
CB: I don't use the organism metaphor. _You_ made some analogy to rabbits , genuses, and something else, so I just took up your analogy and called capitalism a species. But I don't use analogy to biology for human society in general or on my own. So, why did you start this thread down this vicious path ?
How is it that "if your eye offend thee, pluck it out is good for an organism "? Sounds as bad or worse for an organism as for a state. "Decapitating" a state sounds much better for a state than an organism to me.
Carrol: The > whole reactionary tradition in political theory has been
> grounded in
> organic views of the state, beginning with Plato's _Republic_. If your
> eye offend you, pluck it out. Perhaps good for an organism, vicious for
> a state.
>
> To compare two methods is _not_ to compare the objects of the two
> studies. The comparison of the body politic to the organic body is
> inherently anti-revolutionary. Humans _make_ their history in a way that
> does not remotely resemble the way in which a a fetus makes itself into
> an adult organism.
^^^^^^
CB: Yes, but on this thread , _you_started the analogy to an organism. So, are you scolding yourself ? I agree , you should not have started comparing human societies to rabbits and genuses and mammals.
^^^^^^^
>
> It is important to use care in the choice of metaphors -- and to keep
> separate what a metaphor does and what an analogy does.
>
> Carrol
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