[Xmca-l] Re: Don't do it

[David Kellogg]

Ulvi, Mike...

We started this thread with Ulvi's important remark that there is a
difference between:

"Don't do it."

and

"it is not necessary."

Ulvi said that the difference does not lie in their polarity--they are both
negative. Nor does it lie in their representational (referential, or
"ideational" meaning). They both refer to "it" and to the advisability of
"it".  Ulvi said that the first was imperative, and the second was not (the
technical term for the non-imperative form of the second is
"indicative-declarative", as opposed to "indicative-interrogative" which
would be a question).

I shall call this form of meaning--for meaning it is--"interpersonal"
meaning, in order to distinguish it from "ideational" meaning. I think that
interpersonal meaning is meaning, but it is meaning which is directed
towards organizing an interaction as the giving or getting of information
or goods and services. Ideational meaning is meaning too, but it is
directed towards the representation (hence, "indication") of human
experience and logic. They're equally meaningful, but they are filled with
different kinds of meanings.

The difference is qualitative, and that is another way of saying that it is
"revolutionary" (because revolution originally meant turning around axis;
the first political "revolution" was the rather pathetic "turning" of
Latin-speaking civilization from a republican to an imperial form under
Augustus). The difference is between making a proposal and offering a
proposition--i.e. between realizing a potential state and simply discussing
an actual one.

One of the interesting aspects of Professor Jang's paper is that it is
about adolescents who are in the process of forming concepts, but who are
not there yet. And one way in which an adolescent forms a concept about the
difficult concept of a social contract, of citizenship, of nationality is
pseudoconceptual: it is based on discussing "actual" perceptual differences
between races. This might seem irrelevant to current political discourse.
Unfortunately, it isn't.

What does a teacher say to kids who are thinking this way? Do we say "Don't
do it"? Or is it better to show them that it is not necessary?

David Kellogg
Macquarie University


On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 7:58 PM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike, please corrct me if i wrongly take this meaning that revolutions
> causes big numbers of death, death in masses, so we would not prefer them.
>
> But, what if we sum up all the deaths because of occupatinal murders in
> workplaces, deaths from drugs, murders of women and early death because of
> lack of sufficient health care and all the deaths due to the bad
> orgsanisation of society under capitalism  and what is more turning of tens
> of millions of children into ignorant and fanatic human beings who are
> brought up able to kill anyone on the street etc
>
> Is it not more rational to put en end to this state of human society rather
> than to perpetruate it, allow it to exist.
>
> Unemployment itself 20 % in Turkey.
>
>
>
>
>
> 11 Mar 2017 03:14 tarihinde "mike cole" <mcole@ucsd.edu> yazdı:
>
> > >From my personal web page, Ulvi:
> >
> > *Apropos Thoughts on Revolutions and Their Causes*
> >
> > (From C. Dickens, *A Tale of Two Cities*, Ch 15)
> >
> > Along the Paris streets, the death carts rumble, hollow and harsh.
> >
> > Six tumbrels carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and
> > insatiate monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are
> > fused in the one realization, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France,
> > with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a
> > sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more
> > certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush human humanity
> out
> > of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into
> > the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and
> > oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit, according
> > to its kind.
> >
> > It is the nature of the fruits sewn by the French Revolution that give
> > pause for thought. And perhaps accounts for the lack of reply to your
> > articulately formulated note.
> >
> > mike
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 8, 2017 at 1:32 PM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > If I say
> > >
> > > don't do it, it is imperative.
> > >
> > > But if I say,
> > >
> > > It is not realistic and you do not need it.
> > >
> > > It is affirmative and even  though negative, it is again affirmative,
> to
> > > demobilize you.
> > >
> > > What I mean is Revolution.
> > >
> > > Addressed to a married couple with two children.
> > >
> > > With 3 thousand Turkish liras in Istanbul in a  rented home of at least
> > > 1000 tl for rent.
> > >
> > > 1 usd = 4 Turkish liras
> > >
> > > Survival economics.
> > >
> > > Any prospect?
> > >
> > > No.
> > >
> > > That simple.
> > >
> > > What is socialist revolution?
> > >
> > > It is neither an intention nor a wish.
> > >
> > > It is simple necessity.
> > >
> >
>