Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 07:42:37 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: BHA: murmurs, mutters and matters mystical



I too have noticed in Bhaskar's writing an open-mindedness
towards nonscientific channels for knowledge.  I think a
critical realist must be this open-minded: if we contemplate
the possibility of the impossibility of scientific
knowledge, we must also contemplate the possibility of
unscientific knowledge.


In my view, the most important venue for knowledge outside
science are our feelings.  Human beings are stratified, like
everything else, and one of our layers, discovered by Freud,
is the unconscious.  If we want to probe into nonscientific
venues for knowledge, this is what is most necessary to
investigate.  Many of the structures of domination in
capitalism go through the unconsciousness.  The absence of a
public outcry in face of the blatant crimes, televised for
everyone to see, perpetrated by our governments, show how
much we don't understand.  I deliberately wrote "our"
governments; although our consent to a democratic government
is forced, it is indeed our consent, and we all bear
responsibility for it when our will has been subjugated.


Critical realism also overcomes the dualism according to
which only humans have agency and consciousness and the rest
of the world is inert.  And just as modern ideology tries to
downplay and trivialize feelings, it insists that only
humans have souls.  There seems to be a tacit understanding
among Marxists that we first have to liberate our own
species before we can think of liberating the animals and
nature.  But human nature is not this narrow: to many, the
suffering of animals looms larger than their own suffering.
Although this is a distraction from class struggle, Marxists
should not scorn it.  We have responsibility for our
biosphere and the animals living in it.  (There is also
literature that women in the USA became politically active
to fight against slavery before they fought against their
own oppression.  This is not only a weakness, this is also
testimony to human greatness.)


After we know better who those animals are who are closest
to us we may also reach out and understand better what
ties us together with nature in general.  Bhaskar has done
pathbreaking work here too; he places the concept of
dialectical generalizability next to that of immanent
critique: i.e., the world is not only propelled by flaws and
contradictions, but that will prevail which is most
generally beneficial.  However this is where I draw the line:
I have no sympathy for those who strive for unity with
the universe in the midst of the urgently pressing demands
of our sick society.  The universe will continue to sing
long after our human species has committed collective
suicide.


Hans E.


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