Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 05:44:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Handelman <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Communists and Religious Movements?


Isn't philosophical materialism, just Feurbach and the
other Young Hegelians? Since they viewed the 
world in materialist terms, but they didn't realize
how we have the ability to change the material world.



--- RRobincox-AT-aol.com wrote:
> Hi Friends
> On the subject opf communism and religious movements
> here's a little  
> exchange I had with a comrade in the WSM on the
> World Socialism Now  community.  What 
> do people here think of "philosophical materialism";
> is it  relevant to the 
> struggle ?
> Regards
> Robin
> _www.worldincommon.org_
> (http://www.worldincommon.org) 
> _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WiCopendebate_ 
> (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WiCopendebate) 
> _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldincommon/_ 
> (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/worldincommon/) 
> _____________________
> BILL: I have answered your questions in more than
> one way.  
> 
> 
> ROBIN: No, you havent at all! I am still waiting to
> hear your  answers to 
> these 2 questions I posed
> 
> 1) if religious people are  irrational ("screwballs"
> as you called them) and 
> if the vast majority of the  populace are still
> religious in one form or 
> another, HOW are you going to get  through to them
> by means of rational persuasion?
> 
> 2) Are people who  understand and support WSM
> socialism, socialists in your 
> book - even if they  hold religious beliefs that
> clearly do not affect their 
> political  consciousness?
> 
> BILL: Here's another, A materialist does not believe
> in  the Supernatural. To 
> believe in the supernatural at all, a little or a
> lot is to  not be a 
> Philosophical Materialist. Like being pregnant, a
> woman is or she is  not pregnant. 
> 
> 
> ROBIN: Philosophical materialism has got nothing 
> WHATSOEVER to do with 
> socialism; its an intellectual metaphysical position
> along  with idealism dualism 
> and the rest and there are far more "philosophical 
> matrialists" that support 
> capitalism than oppose it
> 
> 
> BILL: The WSM is  fundamentally a movement of
> Materialists who have a general 
> understanding of  Evolution and of the Materialist
> Conception of History 
> concerning the science of  understanding the
> evolution of Society to the present 
> driving force, Capitalism.  
> 
> 
> ROBIN: The MCH has some bearing on socialism but NOT
> "philosophical  
> materialism" which is a complete irrelevance. It is
> totally possible to be a  
> philosophical idealist or dualist and subscibe to
> the MCH as a tool for  understanding 
> history. The SPGB pamphlet on historical materialism
> points out  that most 
> historians unwittingly make use of the MCH when
> presumably most of  them are not 
> atheists
> 
> BILL:Nearly all people are materialist in their 
> thinking as they go about 
> their everyday lives. They check for traffic before 
> crossing a road, they do 
> not rely on a guardian angel to protect them. 
> etc.etc.
> 
> ROBIN: Right and at a stroke you have completely
> demolished your  own 
> argument! You have demonstratd that having religious
> beliefs does NOT  interfere with 
> the practical materialism that nearly all people
> exhibit in their  daily 
> lives even though the vast majority of these
> self-same people entertain  religious 
> beliefs!
> 
> 
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===="Economic freedom would mean freedom from the economy - from being controlled by economic forces and relationships; freedom from the daily struggle for existence, from earning a living. Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no control. Similarly, intellectual freedom would mean the restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass communication and indoctrination, abolition of "public opinion" together with its makers." Herbert Marcuse

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