> My only point is that people are drawn to radical politics, or any
> other kind, on what they think of as moral or ethical principles.
> Sure, these can be post facto or socially determined or whatever, and
> not some timeless template applied to transient social reality, but
> I'd argue that even Marxists who think they're being scientific are
> thinking in some moral or ethical sense. I'm talking about how people
> think and feel about their choices and affiliations. And if you want
> to engage them, you have to deal with that.
But if you believe people's subjective states of mind are irrelevant and have no effect on anything -- a view which apparently leads one to the conclusion that Jim Crow would have been ended even if the Freedom Ride buses had been filled with robots -- then this doesn't make any difference.
SA