[lbo-talk] Caroline Fourest: In Praise of Consent

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Tue May 24 12:59:41 PDT 2011


Eubulides

^^^^^ CB: Species being is one of Marx's concepts. Marx's materialism is based in concepts of human nature. Human nature is not an anti-Marxist notion. Marx does demolish the idea that bourgeois and capitalist ideology is human nature.

Maybe ur thinking of post-modernists and their idea of anti-essentialism.

====================

Well that’s as silly as saying concepts of the photon are anti-Marxist. It's pretty clear from the historical record of disputation regarding the concept of human nature that so-called human nature is an interminably contestable concept bordering on vacuousness.

^^^^^ CB: Not really ^^^^

What behaviors have human beings displayed in the last 30,000 years that aren't human nature?

^^^^^ CB: Suicides, war, greed.

^^^^

The claim that burgeois/capitalist ideology is not human nature is as silly as saying Buddhism is not human nature or the political/theological formations of the so-called middle ages aren't human nature.

^^^^^ CB: At first it seems that you make a good point. Let me be more precise. Bourgeois ideology is not in our genes. It is historically derived. Of course u knew that's what I meant.

But then as I think about it, what u say is silly. Some suicides are against human nature.  There is a human natural instinct of self-preservation; that we share it with other species  does not mean it isn't part of our nature.  Historical ideologies override that human natural instinct.  War is against human nature, the instinct of self-preservation.  It's silly to imply that all  human behaviors in the last 30,000 years are human natural. Fasting is not a human natural behavior, because we have an instinct to eat. It's unnatural to fast.   One has to suppress one's natural instincts to fast.

Buddhism involves a lot of behaviors not derived from genes. Do those behaviors include fasting ? That would be unnatural Buddhist behavior.

Many human behaviors are anatural. They don't contradict an instinct, but they don't derive from instincts or natural reflexes either. They are socio-historical in origin. Playing baseball is not a natural instinct, but it doesn't contradict an instinct.

But we can say the capitalist ideology of greed is not human natural. Humans are naturally social, and not individually greedy and exploitative.   Our species name should be changed to homo communis, from homo sapiens.  So, yes capitalist ideology is against human nature.  So were many of the anti-social behaviors in the political/theological formations of the so-called middle ages

^^^^^

Darwin was an anti and post-essentialist; does that make him post-modern?

^^^^ CB; Does Darwin say humans are social animals ? If so, then he implies that capitalist ideology is anti-human nature. If he doesn't say we are social, then he has poor anthropology.   Then my comment above about post-modern anti-essentialism was to imply that they have a notion that there is no human nature. So, r u saying Darwin held that there is no human nature ? What r u saying ?

^^^^^

When will the fantasy of *the* concept of nature go the way of the limbic system and phlogiston?

^^^^ CB: Now that's really silly. R u saying there have been no human natural behaviors in the last 30,000 years, like there has been no phlogiston or ether ?



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list