[lbo-talk] Narmada Dam (was Arundhati Roy etc.)

[John Thornton]

Miles Jackson wrote:
> First, there is far more extreme and brutal inequality in our 
> industrialized society than in a hunting and gathering society.  Second, 
> note how you're smuggling in the standards of our society to judge 
> hunting and gathering societies as inferior.  For instance, 
> independence: there is nothing inherently good or bad about 
> independence; some societies valorize it, other societies reject it in 
> favor of interdependence and cooperation.  Thus valuing independence 
> cannot be used as an objective standard by which to evaluate all 
> societies.
> My argument is not based on postmodernism.  Rather, it is an obvious 
> conclusion from the available ethnographic data on how values vary in 
> different types of human societies.  It is a well-established fact that 
> the values we hold dear in an industrial society are not shared by 
> people everywhere.  For me, the conclusion is inescapable: we cannot 
> assume that the values we hold, no matter how dear they are to us, 
> should be applied as universal standards to rank societies as "better" 
> or "worse".  I know this is brazen moral relativism, but consider the 
> alternative: if we arbitrarily say "the values in my society are the 
> universal standards by which all societies should be judged", then we're 
> engaged in equally brazen ethnocentrism.
>
> So yes, I completely reject the claim that human society has 
> "progressed" over the past 100,000 years.  --Or rather, using some 
> arbitrary standards, you can claim progress; using other arbitrary 
> standards, you can claim decline.

Miles, you will never convince James of the soundness of your position.
James not only enjoys drinking the kool-aid of which he speaks but he 
manufactures it as well.

John Thornton