[lbo-talk] communist witches were not spectral

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Tue Jan 24 05:05:03 PST 2006


andie nachgeborenen

Well, you are satisfied with a lower level of specificity and exactness than I am,

^^^^ CB: Not really. I am being more exact, since you are demanding a vulgar materialist explanation where there may not be one. Vulgar materialism is not more exact than precise materialism. Materialists recognize that there are causes from superstructure. That's more exact than your vulgar materialist quest here.

^^^^

and you aren't interested in the same question wrt to the European witch craze.

^^^^^ CB: Sure I am. I just don't demand that it be given a materialist explanation all the way through.

^^^

We don't disagree that ideological and non-directly material factors have a large role in historical explanation. And yes, I am a historical materialist in the sense that I think that economic and class relationships have explanatory primary in accounting for historical events.

I don't understand what relation you imagine that theory has to Kantianism or liberalism.

^^^^^ CB: Kant is a dualist as we just discussed on MarxistThaxis. Sometimes he's a materialist. Sometimes not.

However, you are a liberal, right ?

^^^

I am not a Kantian, although I have been a student of Kant's philosophy, and did make some attempt to help your discussion avoid some errors regarding his ideas. Both Kant's epistemology & metaphysics and his ethics are, as far as I cam tell, wholly consistent with historical materialism, really they are apples and oranges, but since I'm not a Kantian I don't have a dog in that fight.

I am a political liberal. That is a view about the proper role and structure of government and about the place of ultimate values in that government. This is relevant to but consistent with historical materialism -- nothing in saying that representive governent by universal sufferage with extensive civil and political liberties is the best form of government when it is possible precludes the explanatory predominance of the economy, and HM helps explain when it is possible.

^^^^ CB; To be a historical materialist, Marx's theory and practice, requires more than explaining. It requires Communist struggle. Liberals can't be historical materialists because they don't support Communist revolution. They support retaining capitalism. The action for revolution part is not a choice in historical materialism.

^^^^^

Likewise the view that politics inevitably involves irreconcilable disgreement about ultimate values, so these should not be the basis of political argument, is supported by HM for divided societies and not inconsistent with it in a hypothetical classless society



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