Re: Universal Asceticism and Social Levelling
On Jul 14, 2007, at 11:10 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
The multinational empire is appealing, and social liberals of all nations find it irresistible — hence its hegemony. If it weren’t appealing, it wouldn’t be so powerful, would it?
Marx’s diagnosis was correct, but Marx’s prescription (”face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind”) was based on wishful thinking.
What’s wrong with wishful thinking? Bourgeois liberties and the
universal franchise were wishful thinking at one time too. So was
the 40 hour week. I’m all for understanding the material and
political constraints of the moment, but the point isn’t to accept
them as immutable, is it?
I keep asking you this and you keep evading the question: are you
lamenting this state of affairs, like some freshly hatched neocon
who’s just been “mugged by reality,” or are you embracing it? Does
the fight against U.S. imperialism so dominate all other concerns for
you that you’ll cheerlead - from the prosperous safety of Columbus,
Ohio - for forces that would like to cover you from head to toe
because the exposure of your mere forearm would be an intolerable
provocation?
Since intellectuals have little to no influence in American politics
The Iraq war was in large part a project of intellectuals.
Doug