[lbo-talk] Berlet on Democracy Now

lbo83235 lbo83235 at gmail.com
Thu Jan 13 12:08:23 PST 2011


On Jan 13, 2011, at 6:30 PM, Wojtek S wrote:


> [WS:] The argument in the linked piece is based on a quite false premise
> that human though and actions originate in the individual. They do not.
> They are created by an interaction between the individual and others. The
> typer of interaction pretty much influences, if not determines, the thoughts
> and actions.

Agreeing with this, and elaborating on my previous post: It's convenient but wrong-headed to dismiss disturbing behaviour as "disturbed" ("crazy," "pathological," etc.): it minimizes if not eliminates any responsibility "we" (a constantly renegotiated construct, to be sure, but perhaps best understood at all times as "those of us who give a shit") might have for the conditions within which the behaviour has occurred, and the influence / determination thereof. The *cost* of that move is that one foregoes any possibility of actually understanding or explaining the behaviour in question, as at least in some way a product of the conditions within which it occurred. It constitutes a recourse to voluntarism, and thus a capitulation to explanatory impotence.



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