From: "roger, roger" <ineffable-AT-comcast.net>
Subject: Re: primitivism and anarchism
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 06:49:07 -0800



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Coull"
>
> "Left" and "right" are very vague terms. Like most people, I write
> with my right hand, but my wife Keri writes with her left. There
> are even some folk who are equally happy using either. I read
somewhere
> that in nuclear physics there is such a concept as "left-handed"
> electrons and "right-handed" electrons. How exactly you would define
> "handedness" in such a context, I have absolutely no idea.


alas, does anyone recall my post at the beginning of this thread
concerning the irreconcilable differences between quantum mechanics
and general relativity?  this discussion has been eerily similar to
the 'debates' between the two camps in physics.  most entertaining.


> If even
> the simple concept of "handedness" turns out to be more difficult
> than it looks at first, then "left" and "right" in political terms
> are still more vague. But it can help to look at the historical
> origins of the term. In the French parliament in the late 18th
> Century, it just so happened, by sheer accident, that most of
> the members who wanted some kind of change to alleviate the lot
> of the general population happened to sit on the left, while most
> of the members who thought the peasants were revolting and ought
> to be kept in their place happened to sit on the right. Never
> mind about economic theory, this is about gut feelings.
>

while you are generally correct, it was a bit more complex.  after the
constitution of '91 and the legislative assembly, etc. the Revolution
had run afoul of dangers, foreign and domestic.  having offed the
king, and in the midst of fighting the austrians et. al., by the
mid-90's the groupings included Girondists, and the bunch that sat on
the left, up high, the Montaignards.  this collection, robespierre for
one, organized the well-known Committees and propagagated the infamous
"Terror" of 94, etc.

Frankly, when you throw in Wolestoncraft, Babuef, Danton, etc. you
pretty much have all the political theory you'll ever need.  Marx is
an interesting footnote, but everything from Conservatism (Burke and
the Brits) to 'Terrorism' (literally), and most forms of radical
socialism were found somewhere in the French Revolution.  how perverse
of those wee froggies, to go and invent the modern world like that.

roger