Re: CHAT Responsibility
Jay Lemke (JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Tue, 23 Apr 96 23:36:56 EDT
I loved the first part of Michael Glassman posting on
the dangers of interventionism, and the need for an understanding
of how social systems create what seem to some of us to be
problems (and for others of us -are- problems) because such
conditions subserve larger (and perhaps not-so-nice) social
functions. We have criminals because something in our social
order _needs_ criminals; they are not people who have somehow
been failed by the system, are not outside it; they are as much
products of it as the law-abiding sheep. If we do not understand
the ecosystem, and our own place in it, interventionism is
mere opportunism, and has very little chance of changing anything
but surface forms.
But the redeeming view of the Ideal did not compel my assent.
The ideals we can imagine may be contrary to the perceived
reals of present social practices -- but are they not also
ideals that have co-evolved with those practices? are they
not also part of the social ecology? why should we imagine
that they can break us out of it, rather than lead us right
back into the same networks? What more dangerous seducers
than Ideals? what better good cops to patrol the borders
of privilege?
JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU