[lbo-talk] gore vidal is an old, cranky prick

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Mon Nov 2 06:27:19 PST 2009


Chris Doss

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nobody said that people were just physical objects, or that their existence as physical objects is not socially conditioned (although most of it isn't. That I can't walk through stone and cannot travel faster than light are not socially conditioned.). I'm not sure what society has to do with history anyway. If something has a past it has a history, even if it is a rock. The point is that people are not "their histories." They are the confluence of their history; the present moment, in which they are located at a point in space; and their anticipated future. The toy penguin on my desk and the history of the toy penguin on my desk are not the same thing.

^^^^^ CB: At any given moment and "point in space", people are the result of the experiences in their life histories leading up to that moment.

The toy penguin on your desk is a qualitatively different being than you are.



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