OK, 5 minutes to spare ...


Judy,you say: "The disagreement is not over the objective DIMENSION of
experience (in my own words) but over whether it has one ideal form --
this disagreement has been stated repeatedly," which I would rate as a
pretty fair summary of what comes close to being the central intellectual
problem of our times.


My take on this is that human society is very heterogenuous and has
within it multiple sub-cultures, languages, communities, etc., etc.,
etc., but undeniably contitutes one material whole. Courtesy of money,
goods and materials, as well as words and images, flow freely across the
whole world and into and out of almost every nook and cranny of it (one
sees New Guineans on TV and they're wearing sunglasses over their
war-paint) and back-and-forth across the humanity-nature border (oil
carriers poisoning the waters others fish out of). That unity is what I
call materiality, or "matter". 


From this perspective it seems to me that humans are constantly creating
all sorts of ideals which are different from each other, just as people
have different experiences. That's so obvious it's hard to say it without
it sounding stupid. 


Andy


 

At 14:16 05/09/2000 -0400, Judy Diamondstone wrote:

>>>> 

<excerpt>Paul, I appreciate the care you have taken to respond to issues
here, and without offense. I recall (was it Andy?) a comment on one of my
posts yesterday that I was "clever" in the way I abstracted from the
message I was responding to. The term seemed to impute to me an intent to
dismantle positions that I d't agree with. That was and is NOT my intent.
I was trying to make sense of theory I don't know well, theory that
underlies a contemporary virtual community of practice which I have found
useful.


In contrast, Paul, you don't apparently impute those motives to me, but
nevertheless, I feel a bit put off (so what, right?) by what SOUNDS like
an assumption of my general ignorance. Specifically, 


you said:

>>>>

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller> The original division
of labor, in marixst theory, is sexual division of labor and there has
always been a debate as to whether or not this constitutes a form of
class divsion.  But in any event,  the development of class society is
clearly not the beginning of ideality which would be found in the
subordination of the identity of the individual subject's object and
motive in specific activity systems.  Perhaps my background as an
anthropologist simplifies viewing these issues since I'm constantly
thinking of how they apply to societies at different levels of
development of productive forces; e.g., technical adaptations to specific
ranges of ecological systems, ranging from paleolithic hunting and
gathering bands through our present global society based on the
exploitation of non-human/non-animal sources of energy  Perhaps the
absence of this mesogenetic framework leads to the confusions Judy admits
to having and that appear in such notions as "the ideal" being based on
the separation of proletariat and bourgeosie. 

</smaller></fontfamily></excerpt><<<<<<<<


I was responding to the wording of Andy's message. I keep forgetting that
the xmca community is always changing and there may be participants who
would read a challenge from me, a request for clarification, or whatever,
in ways I should know better to guard against in email. Hmmm -- I realize
that I was reading Andy's words literally. I was doing so because they
carried no theoretical resonance for me. So it goes 2 ways... I keep
searching for the elucidating abstraction (woops, wrong word -- the
elusive 'concrete universal'), the mysterious insight into the notion of
"concrete universals" that has so far eluded me. There must be SOMETHING
in Marxist theory other than its social-historical positionedness that
will help me to understand the apparently passionate conviction of the
Marxists on this list that certain truths are transcendent.


by the way, I'm quite familiar with the anthropological literature; I did
study w/ Bateson, and I have spent years immersed in worlds not my
own.... which is why, despite the apparent structural similarities across
human cultures -- division of labor, technologies, language/ideologies,
etc --  I take my own convictions with a grain of salt.


Here's Paul again: 

<excerpt>

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

>>>>

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller> is this objectivity is
to be understood if at all.  And we see that even accepting the ideal as
an aspect of matter, not as simply something that happens in the central
nervous systems of different animals, it's difference from the physical
aspect of matter raises the question of whether it is singular or
multiple, whether we can determine necessity in the ideal aspect of
matter .  

</smaller></fontfamily></excerpt><<<<<<<<


I think it's a safe bet that no one on this list thinks of ideas/ values
as "something in the central nervous system." The disagreement is not
over the objective DIMENSION of experience (in my own words) but over
whether it has one ideal form -- this disagreement has been stated
repeatedly. I was hoping to learn more that would give me more purchase
on the different perspective.....


I do appreciate Marx's historical analysis -- (which is elegant and
stands as one of the grand theories of modernism) but I don't accept the
transcendence of history or of 'objective determinate patterns' there.
The issue of transcendence may be more a matter of rhetoric & terminology
than of substance. Sure, we're born into a world that's given. But the
story changes with new regimes, psychoanalysis, the tricks of memory. I
am just as bewildered by your conviction as you are by my lack of it.
Here and on related points there are fissures in the CHAT community. The
CHAT community will thrive if CHATTERS accept the fissures without
insisting that those who disagree come over to their side, which can turn
xmca into a terribly repetitive incantation of claims & and counter
claims. Sorry, Paul, but for me, the concrete I hope we rise to is
genuine dialogue where dialogue is possible. You don't have to share my
admiration for Bakhtin and I don't have to be convinced by you of your
convictions for us to find a way to trade perspectives and maybe even
occasionally learn from the other.


Best wishes to all, & apologies to anyone who read this far for preaching
-- it's late.

I do hope other voices will pitch in; certainly when Mike gets back....


Judy




</excerpt><<<<<<<<



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