File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0004, message 89


Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 21:12:50 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed


Howard,

As I read DPF, it doesn't claim to be subversive without marxism. It
actually strengthens or informs the work of the mature Marx (which is
very positively appraised as scientifically realist) by elaborating the
ontology which underpins it, which Marx left largely implicit. But it
may also, and aspires to, inform other emancipatory social and natural
science which is not necessarily marxist as such, eg deep ecology.

Putting this in Bhaskarese, DCR as an ontological grammar (to borrow a
concept from Nick Hostettler's article in the forthcoming *Alethia*)
contains but is not exhausted by marxism.

My preliminary view is that such a notion could not, however, be
defended in respect of TDCR (so you're possibly onto something,
developmentally) - but let's wait till others have had a chance to read
the new book.

Mervyn

Howard Engelskirchen <howarde-AT-wsulaw.edu> writes
>Mervyn,
>
>My question went to the way the word "subversive" is weighted with history.
>It seems it should carry some of that weight when we use it.  I think the
>accumulation of genuine scientific results can subvert dominant ideology.
>They can guide genuinely subversive practice.  Also, the vision of a society
>"in which the free development of each is a condition of the free
>development of all, necessitating the abolition of master-servant-type
>relationships in their entirety" is one of genuine emancipation.  It would
>necessarily entail the overthrow of existing social relations.  But there is
>a distinction between utopian ambitions and subversive ones, though there
>needn't be a contradiction between them -- ie utopian ambitions can be
>subversive ones.  So I guess the question is whether the dialectic of the
>desire for freedom can carry the freight.  That is not self-evident.  Does
>Dialectic as it stands threaten existing social relations?  As I understand
>it claims are made that DCR does not imply, though it may be consistent
>with, marxist social theory. What are the ways, without marxism, that it
>threatens existing social relations?   
>
>Howard
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mervyn Hartwig [mailto:mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk]
>Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 2:22 PM
>To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed
>
>
>Howard,
>
>>Also from that thread of posts was Mervyn's comment that CR was "unlike
>>POMOism, a genuinely subversive movement."  I don't mean either this
>>question or the last to be rhetorical, but what are the grounds for
>>considering CR or DCR genuinely subversive?
>Come off it, Howard. The dialectic of desire to freedom in DPF leads in
>the direction of a society in which the free development of each is a
>condition of the free development of all, necessitating the abolition of
>master-servant-type relationships in their entirety....
>
>I agree very much with your point, however, re resolving the problems of
>Western philosophy (to a large extent) in isolation from their socio-
>historical context in PE. This might largely be occasioned by the nigh
>impossible scale of a full account - note that when he's on familiar
>territory, ie the twentieth century, the social context is often
>sketched in well and used to account for developments. But it possibly
>also prefigures a general tendency to downplay the socio-structural in
>favour of ideas and individuals in giving an account of ideology and
>oppression...
>
>Mervyn


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