Jay Hanson wrote:
>
[snip]
> The triumph of capitalism and democracy could have been predicted
> by evolutionary theory. Capitalism extends the human genetic
> propensity to exploit (make the best use of something: profit)
> and lie (meant to give a wrong impression: advertise). Democracy
> is simply the freedom to exploit and lie. Self-deception keeps
> us from knowing what we are really up to.
[snip]
Cornelius Castoriadis (_World in Fragments_) argues that capitalism and
democracy are antithetical. Further elaborating the same notion of
*democracy* Hannah Arendt described in _The Human Condition_,
of the ancient Greek polis,
Castoriadis sees democracy as mankind's rational (i.e.,
reasonable, not algorithmic) self-governance, as opposed to all
"heteronomous" forms of social organization, where persons
do not open-endedly question and mutually decide their future,
but rather obey generally mystified patterns of pregiven social
organization. Castoriadis says that, insofar as we *do* have
democracy, it is a result of the people struggling against
the all-devouring maw of Capital. He sees this struggle as
having largely been given up in the post World War II period.
Castoriadis is apparently a former Trotskyist who has endeavored
not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am currently
trying to track down a photograph which I feel pretty much
summarizes the lost hopes and the crushed hopes of the 20th
century: It is a picture of Leon Trotsky lecturing in
Copenhagen (1938?). Trotsky's animated face (and probably upraised
hand, making a point) is brightly lit against a dark background.
The whole picture is covered with "scintillations", as if the print
was made from a glass plate which had been fractured, like an
automobile windshield struck by a rock (the picture
may in fact be from a fractured glass negative). The
broken picture of a broken man's [unbroken? or just
autonomic?] determination to keep
fighting to the end for a broken dream.
There is no memory which time does not efface, and
no pain to which death does not bring an end.
(Cervantes)
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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