Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 22:34:18 +0100
Subject: BHA: Emancipation


Hi Ismail,

Very briefly, simply and in a bit of a rush:

Emancipation is the view that human beings essentially or by nature have
enormous unrealised potential (corresponding to 1M in critical realist
terms), are highly creative (2E), loving or caring (3L), capable of
spontaneous right action (e.g. a whizz football player, Ryan Giggs since
you're from Aber, except it didn't do Manchester much good tonight, but
then they were lacking the truly great exponent of right action, old
broken foot) (4D) and refexive or valuing of theory/practice consistency
and capable of transcending the given in order to achieve it (5A).

Some locate the source of this essential human nature in the socio-
biological process of human evolution (e.g. Marx). Others locate it
deeper, in the intrinsic cosmic structure of necessity or possibility
(which could amount to the same thing really) (e.g. Plato, Hegel,
Bhaskar), which Bhaskar calls 'the cosmic envelope' in his latest book
and which religiously minded critical realists would perhaps call 'God'.
Perhaps it doesn't really matter - as Bhaskar claims in his new book,
this is a position that is 'consistent with all faiths or no faith'.
It's just the way, on the complex arguments that are marshalled, that
things are.

All agree that this essential human nature is, in class societies or in
what Bhaskar calls master-slave-type societies, stultified and occluded
by oppressive and exploitative social structures and by mystifying
structures of ideology (e.g. in capitalist society we have the illusion
that we are completely separate, atomistic egos, but in reality, besides
being distinct embodied personalities, we are radically connected with
each other and the cosmic whole). 

And all agree that to be emancipated, to be free, what we have to do is
cast off these heteronomous structures and truly come into our own.

Reading:

Rousseau, The Social Contract
Marx, Early Writings, esp. The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
Bhaskar, From East to West (difficult)
Bhaskar, 'Who am I?' in his *Reflections on Meta-Reality: Transcendence,
Emancipation and Everyday Life*, Sage 2002 (won't be available in the
bookshops until about mid-year).

Mervyn

PS. Non-soccer freaks, please excuse the arcane illustration of
spontaneous right action. It's what Tolstoi has Levin achieve when he
goes mowing hay with the peasants - just doing it right effortlessly
after a lot of practice.




Ismail Lagardien <ilagardien-AT-yahoo.com> writes
>
>Hi
>
>Much like someone mentioned earlier, Bhaskar's work is somewhat new to me; 
>Critical Theory less so. Thus, I am making my way slowly and laboroiusly 
>through 
>some introductory texts. In the meantime, can someone provide me with his 
>conception/explanation of emancipation (with refs so I can follow up on it), 
>please.
>
>I came across a kind of definition that resonates well with the basic approach 
>of my research:
>
>"...we evidently must acknowledge that an emancipatory conception of 
>international relations is not all of a piece. The subjects who are picked out 
>by the emancipatory theory may be the working class, or women, or society's 
>marginal people, but whomever the subject, the theories addressed to them share 
>the liberatory idea that there is something drastically wrong with the way 
>human 
>life is lived on this planet, and that, more importantly, people live in 
>certain 
>ways because they have an erroneous understanding of what their individual and 
>collective existence ought to consist, of which can, and should, be changed." 
>(Spegele, Roger - 1997. Is Robust Globalism a Mistake? Review of International 
>Studies. 23, 211-239.
>
>Thanks
>
>Ismail
>
> 
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
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-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
Editor, Journal of Critical Realism (incorporating 'Alethia')
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Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>

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There is another world, but it is in this one.
Paul Eluard



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