Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 16:26:05 -0700
From: bill hard <billhard-AT-netwizards.net>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Communism is no utopia


At 07:59 AM 9/1/97 +0200, you wrote:
>Bill's on to something here:
>
>>Depending on how one sees communist relations I would not at all be
>>surprised if a future communist society was not confronted by profoundly
>>complicated choices as regards the exploitation of natural resources, in
>>this respect I don't see communism as an automatic panacea for the ills of
>>the world but rather as establishing democratic control of how we address
>>them.
>
>Since the solution of the problem of universal democratic participation
>will mean that more people will feel free and actually be free to
>participate in the decision-making battles of a  communist society -- and
>these decisions will range from the personal to the communal, the regional
>and the world-wide, including environmental issues of course -- then there
>will be an awful lot more agitation and adrenalin around public policy and
>private lives, and the links between the two, than there is now. What will
>be missing is exploitation and degradation, social petrification and
>enforced ignorance. The excitement of a life full of real decisions, where
>the responsibility actually rests with each individual, is something we can
>hardly even imagine, it's so alien to our constricted and brutalized lives
>under capitalism and its regimes of slavery.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Hugh






It seems to me that there are certain aspects of human behavior that are
"natural" in the Darwinian sense. That we are not born a "tabula rasa" which
will later develop values solely through external conditions. Studies of
primates have shown very complicated social relations varying immensely from
species to spiecies. Why should we as a species be expected to be so very
different. Certain human behaviors seem universal: jealousy, sense of
heirarchy (a fascination with British Royalty), etc. It seems to me that the
points made by evolutionary psychologists such as Robert Wright, Daly, and
others should be evaluated in ways in which these ideas might impinge on
marxist thought. I would also like to know of a marxist interpretation of
"ethics" that is not ontologically or a priori based. 



bill

 



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