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Justin, quoted by Charles: "I would be very wary of looking at societies<BR>
as organisms -- this has usually been the approach precisely of fascist<BR>
ideologists, not progressives."<BR>
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Charles: <BR>
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Yes, analogy is limited.<BR>
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I don't know about fascists using this analogy more than progressives. <BR>
Marx compared his method in Capital to natural history. <BR>
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Carrol: The analogy is more than limited, Charles, it is really vicious. </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">^^^^^<BR>
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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 ?<BR>
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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.<BR>
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Carrol: The</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"> </FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">whole reactionary tradition in political theory has been grounded in<BR>
organic views of the state, beginning with Plato's _Republic_. If your<BR>
eye offend you, pluck it out. Perhaps good for an organism, vicious for<BR>
a state.<BR>
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To compare two methods is _not_ to compare the objects of the two<BR>
studies. The comparison of the body politic to the organic body is<BR>
inherently anti-revolutionary. Humans _make_ their history in a way that<BR>
does not remotely resemble the way in which a a fetus makes itself into<BR>
an adult organism.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">^^^^^^<BR>
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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. <BR>
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It is important to use care in the choice of metaphors -- and to keep<BR>
separate what a metaphor does and what an analogy does.<BR>
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Carrol</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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