Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 10:06:22 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Re: free will (Spinoza, platitudes & a Grundrisse invitation)


Justin writes from his convalescence:

>OK, I'll buy that Spinoza was more important toMarx than I has thought.
>I'll have to think about this sonetime when I can, not now. I still think
>that Hegel was a lot more imporatnt, and Rousseau through Hegel and directly.

Fine. Hegel was a lot more important. Rousseau I'm not so sure about. Maybe
Justin could expand on what he thinks Rousseau's main contribution was in
relation to Marx.

>Not only do you find the Grundrisse transparent, you think that Spinoza is
>clear and lucid. Obviously you, and not I, should have been the philosophy
>professor.

Bitchy! However, let's just say our approaches and perspectives would
probably differ considerably.


>Hugh said that freedonm is the recognition of necessity reduced to
>Reinhold's Niebuhr's Cold War platitude, "Give me the courage to change
>what can be changed, the serenity to accept what cannot, and the wisdom to
>recognize the difference."

I said no such thing.

>> >What about, for
>> >example, Marx's claim that real freedom is acting according to laws we
>> >give to ourselves in labor?

This is interesting because it means we are making our own history to an
ever greater extent in circumstances we have consciously created (ie if the
laws aren't unconscious). But even if the circumstances are consciously
created, they are still something new generations find themselves
confronting at least initially as a fait accompli.


>> >Don't worry, Hugh,
>> >I'm a hard-boiled atheist.
>>
>> Glad to hear it, but so was Plato, but he was a died-in-the-wool idealist
>> for all that (damn good writer though...).
>
>What makes you think that Plato was an atheist?

This is a joke at the expense of bigoted Christians and Muslims and Jews
who hold that only their particular monopoly god is God, and would burn
anyone else as an atheist. Plato would qualify for the inquisitorial BBQ in
this sense, cos his Demiurge wouldn't fool any Grand Inquisitor worth his
salt.

>And if the suggestion is that I'm an idealist, that's pretty funny.

Nope, it's sad Justin's an idealist...

>I will take the compliment
>about being a damn good writer, however.

Sorry, old son, this was strictly Plato, not any old idealist or atheist. I
don't read you for your shimmering prose. There's only one contributor to
the list who I think I could positively enjoy reading even though his ideas
make me puke, and that's Mark J on a good day. I can appreciate the
repugnant verbal skills of Louis P as he uses his rhetorical razor to carve
up people's faces, but that's not enjoying in any sense of the word.


Cheers,

Hugh

PS I'd like to hear Justin's views on the state of opinion in Columbus
about the bombing of Iraq.




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