File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2001/bhaskar.0103, message 26


Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:59:01 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: negativity wins


Dear Jan,

I thought all three of your points spot on, even:

>but Mervyn do you really believe, a la Nietzsche's active forgetting,
>that "forget about the spooks" will be just enough to let them disappear
>by themselfs ? -- i think the spooks are real, and we will have to expose
>fight them whenever we can !

I agree, but I thought I detected a note of paranoia in what you said,
and I was trying to say that if we got too obsessed about spooks
listening in we wouldn't be able to do our creative work. I think this
is one of the things Bhaskar is getting at in FEW when he speaks of
'accepting' the situation as it is as a prelude to changing it and
'shedding' 'structural sin'. Paranoia and fear are the great destroyers.
If only we (or most of us) could overcome them and start acting as fully
human, in love and trust, he is saying - and 'we can do it', via the
dialectics of action and inaction - then we could slough off structural
sin like a snake sheds its skin. This is surely right - *if* only most
of us did it. There are structural preconditions for this to happen, of
course, but it is at least arguable that they are encompassed by the
dialectics of action ...

Mervyn


Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl> writes
>dear All, some scattered remarks,
>
>for Caroline:
>a better, more obvious, example of structural absence might be the
>structural underrepresentation (and manytimes complete absence) of
>women in the ruling circles of corporate, governmental and scientific
>organizations - at least that's the case here in Holland-, a phenomenon
>which subsequentially seems linked to (and consequential for) the
>structural underrepresentation (and manytimes complete absence) of
>men in householding, childcare etc.
>
>Mervyn wrote:
>>evil, and I think Bhaskar is very wise to suggest that evil is basically
>>parasitic on the good and that we should 'let go and let God' i.e.
>>forget about the spooks, *shed* them, and get on with our lives and
>>flourish (I don't mean 'let God' literally - I'm an agnostic).
>
>but Mervyn do you really believe, a la Nietzsche's active forgetting,
>that "forget about the spooks" will be just enough to let them disappear
>by themselfs ? -- i think the spooks are real, and we will have to expose
>fight them whenever we can !
>
>Howard wrote:
>>5. "A purely positive world could not move, change."  I have never
>>understood this argument.  It is just as much a *logical* possibility
>>that there could have been a purely positive world where everything
>>moved and changed because it was exquisitely choreographed by the
>>Grand Ballet Master in the Sky as it is to assume the corresponding
>>*logical* possibility that there could have been just nothing.
>
>leaving aside speculations on alleged exotic powers of divinities, but
>imagine a full box of matches (as an example/metaphor of a purely
>positive world), in such a box it is *impossible* to move one match
>form place A to place B, *at minimum* there must be some free room
>(i.e. absence) to allow for moving (around) of the matches; thus logically
>in a purely positive (i.e. full) world movement (in space) and change
>(in time) are impossible; to obtain the possibility of difference and
>change in united space-time (cf. Einstein) one has to co-invoke the
>reality of absences (emptiness, open-endedness, indeterminacy etc.)
>
>yours,
>jan
>
>ps. (contra to RTS) i tend to view DPF less as a full-fledged theory,
>yet more as a systematic protest against neglected ontological issues
>(i.e. absences and her relatives) and deceptive epistemologies
>(the family of positivisms) ?
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
13 Spenser Road
Herne Hill
London SE24 ONS
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005