On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> This discussion seems to assume the existence of the individual. That is a
> false assumption.
>
> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Arthur Maisel
> Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 9:11 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Caudwell on on language's inability to reflect
> the...
>
> I knew there was something specious about the molecular argument (all new
> molecules = all new person), but I only just thought of a good analogy.
> Every four years we get a new President; every two and eighteen,
> respectively, we can have an entirely new House and Senate. Anyone here
> want to say that we would have an entirely new government once those sweeps
> were completed?
>
> Of course the government analogy is actually much fuzzier than the
> molecular person argument, because when you get a new molecule of some
> amino acid in your liver, it is presumably identical to the old one,
> whereas a new senator is only substantially the same---given the tolerances
> of the system---but naturally not identical.
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 5:47 PM, Charles Brown <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 3:29 AM, James Heartfield <james at heartfield.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > In the 1970s Caudwell's work was in print with Lawrence and Wishart,
> and
> > was by default the first port of call for anyone interested in Marxism
> and
> > art. I spied a copy of his Art and Illusion on the shelves of the
> fantastic
> > poet Tony Harrison when he was being interviewed on the TV.
> >
> > ^^^^^^^^
> > CB: I have a copy of the Lawrence and Wishart edition right here.
> >
> > ^^^^^^
> > >
> > > Lastly, Charles makes the argument that we are not the same people we
> > were. This same argument was made by the reactionary Joseph Barker,
> > defending slavery and himself against charges of inconsistency, as
> recorded
> > by a contemporary, the Chartist Adams:
> > >
> > > At one meeting, Barker was challenged from the audience, a letter in
> his
> > name of some years earlier, against slavery was produced. Was he the
> Joseph
> > Barker who had written it? 'No,' was the astonishing reply. 'It is, as
> > everybody knows, a physiological fact that the particles of the human
> frame
> > are all changed in the course of every seven years. More than seven years
> > have elapsed since that letter was written; therefore I am not the Joseph
> > Barker who wrote it!' W.E. Adams, Memoirs of a Social Atom, 1968, p 400
> >
> > ^^^^^^
> >
> > CB: Good point, James , although in this case, don't have to go to the
> > molecular level. Evidently, Joseph Barker had changed in that he had
> > changed his opinion on slavery. He had turned into his opposite.
> >
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> >
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