[lbo-talk] Dewey on intelligence, co-operation, and class

[ravi]

On 18 Oct, 2007, at 11:47 AM, Miles Jackson wrote:
> ravi wrote:
>> First the quote:
>>
>>      To say that all past historic social progress has been the
>>      result of co-operation and not of conflict would be ... an
>>      exaggeration. But exaggeration against exaggeration, it is
>>      the more reasonable of the two. And it is no exaggeration
>>      to say that the measure of civilisation is the degree in
>>      which the method of co-operative intelligence replaces the
>>      method of brute conflict.
>>
>> Most who consider themselves leftists will probably neither disagree
>> not find anything particularly novel in the above.
> I disagree wholeheartedly.  The assumption that civilisation is
> characterized by "co-operative intelligence" in contradistinction  
> to the
> brutal conflict in "noncivilized" societies is ethnocentric through  
> and
> through.  Comparing social relations in hunting and gathering  
> societies
> and our "civilized" society, ...

I wouldn't disagree with your point. I read Dewey (or interpret the  
above, my purpose) to mean that the dichotomy is not temporal (modern  
"civilised" vs early "uncivilised") but qualitative. It is doubtful  
he intended it that way (and yours is the more valid reading) but for  
my point, the important thing is the issue of what is at the basis of  
historical social progress: co-operation or conflict? And how  
"intelligence" ties into this.

	--ravi