Eubulides wrote:
>
>
> As horrible as the current conjuncture is, if barbarism was our lot this
> listserv would not exist and lots of it's participants would be dead.
Well, some barbarians get to watch the slaughter from the grandstand. And barbarianism does come in more sophisticated forms than Dachau.
Socialism is not a metaphysical Good; barbarianism is not a metaphysical evil. They are both complex ensembles social relations. No contradiction in affirming Luxemberg's empirical description while denying Arendt's personified abstractions.
Carrol
P.S. Possibly, had I not been intensely reading Arendt in 1963-64 I wouldn't have been reading Mao in 1968. I profited greatly from The Human Condition, On Revolution, and Between Past and Future. I had read Totalitararianism and, at the time, didn't challenge it -- but was exhilarated by it the way I was by these three works. I still think her triple division of labor, work, action is illuminating.