[lbo-talk] Re: Logic

BklynMagus magcomm at ix.netcom.com
Thu Sep 18 17:15:49 PDT 2003


Dear List:

First I want to apologize for overposting the other day. I am new to the list and was unaware of the limit. I will be more careful in the future.

Secondly, when I think of human beings, I never think of logic, but rather of desire. This quote from Samuel R. Delany is one of my favorites: " But it's always intriguing to discover the ways in which desire fuels the systems of the world." The Mad Man, p. 257.

For me, desire comes first. Truth is a concept that humans invented in order to get better access to the object(s) of their desire. Logic is the system of truth verification employed to give power to one group over another in their pursuit of these objects.

I put "queer" as the first part of my tag to acknowledge these facts about desire. I think sometimes the role of desire is overlooked when talking/writing about why human beings act the way they do.

For me the system of logic then grew into the edifices of science which promised certain, proveable truths. These truths were necessary in order to accommodate the ever burgeoning growth of desires. Philosophy joined the "truth" bandwagon and gave us Descartes and then the Enlightenment which led to Hegel and his notions of a grand sweep of history leading to an absolute truth. Of course, his theory leads him to write the following lulus:

"Africa proper, as far as History goes back, has remained-for all purposes of connection with the rest of the World-shut up; it is the Gold-land compressed within itself-the land of childhood, which lying beyond the day of history, is enveloped in the dark mantle of Night. Its isolated character originates, not merely in its tropical nature, but essentially in its geographical condition."

Of course, he had earlier admitted that he knew almost nothing about Africa, but that didn't stop Hegel from making pronouncements about it.

and

"In the extreme zones man cannot come to free movement; cold and heat are here too powerful to allow Spirit to build up a world for itself. Aristotle said long ago, 'when pressing needs are sat-isfied, man turns to the general and more elevated.' But in the extreme zones such pressure may be said never to cease, never to be warded off; men are constantly impelled to direct attention to nature, to the glowing rays of the sun, and the icy frost. The true theater of History is therefore the temperate zone; or rather its northern half, because the earth there presents itself in a continental form, and has a broad breast, as the Greeks say.

So now we have a whole continent (well almost a whole continent -- Hegel said Egypt was temperate enough since he needed Egypt as part of his narrative of Christian Europe's ascendancy) cut off from truth and freedom, but capable of being used to satisfy others' desires. All this, of course, is backed up by Hegel's logic.

So no, I do not see logic as being inherent in human beings, nor do I see human beings as seekers truth. I see them as pursuers of the objects of their desire. For me one of the ways out of this problem is in the analysis offered by the second part of my tag -- specifically Buddhist notions of personhood.

Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister



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