Re: [ox-en] Re: Oekonux and (non)developing countries
- From: "Franz Nahrada" <f.nahrada reflex.at>
- Date: Sun, 01 Aug 2004 09:08:05 +0200
on Sonntag, 1. August 2004 at 1:11 Uhr [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED]
Stefan Merten wrote:
I hope I could point out that I don't think these differences are
ignored. The real difference is between the Chinese farmer in the
middle of nowhere^H^H^H^H^H^H^H central Asia and the computer hacker
in New York. If you are able to show that this is an unjustifiable
abstraction than I'd agree that there is a problem with the theory.
No, it is not a problem of theory. It is a problem of practise. If we
cannot
help to practically create the link between the farmer in Central Asea and
the
computer hacker in New York, we are doomed.
On the other side, it is a fascinating challenge to conceive the potential
of
decentralised automation in rural and regional areas of this world.
That is why Open Souce Ecology is now the one single most important
endavour for me in the world and I wish more people would rally around it:
www.sourceopen.org
Marcin wants to prove in person that there is a connection, that it is
reproduceable and it can spread like wildfire.
-x-
Another point:
Well, but this is a *moral* obligation. In other words: It is totally
based on idealist thinking. For centuries the left argued in a moral
way about the obligations of the state - with exactly what result?
Moral is a nice thing to disguise interests. If this "moral
obligation" actually has any effect it is because of the non-idealist
/ materialist consequences of "obeying" this obligation.
I know this position very well, but there is a flaw in it. There is a
hidden
tendency in "materialist" thinking to restrain from conceiving goals.
Everything, so they argue, is brought about by the development of
interests. If people can follow their interests, everything else will
come about.
I know this position very well because for long time I have myself
tooled around with it. Nowadays I think it is detremental and interlinked
with the decay of the left. Even the enlightened interest is not able
to create social action if there is not conscious goal-setting.
I agree with you that "moral" in connection with state and politics
is necessarily the "glue" in which people with opposing interests
are constrained to run their dissembling discourse. Books of translation
"moral to interest and vice versa" can be written and have been written.
But there is a different aspect to it. As with "labour", the left has
failed to keenly analize the double character of our social inventions
and categories. Either they glorify the "ideal" of it or they throw
away even the idea of it. The latter was the case in German Marxism
several times, with the effect that Geman Marxism simply has no
ideas nowadays, even if it theoretically well developed.
Marx by himself used the term "moral" to describe the conscious
element in society. In the "Capital", he says for example the rate of
wages contains a "historical and moral element", something which
seems like a residual category for materialistic theory.
"Moral" in this sense is equivalent to "conscious choice". It is
equivalent of the "widespread feeling in society what ought to be".
The more concrete the imagination of goals, the stronger the feeling
of what ought to be will be.
This is why I insist oekonux must be helpful in the development of
goals and visions that can turn into moral, i.e. practical sentiments.
Marx himself was attacking theory that would simply interpret the
world in his eleventh thesis on Feuerbach. "Die Phlosophen haben die
Welt nur verschieden interpretiert. Es kömmt darauf an, sie zu
verändern".
Franz
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