I've never thought out my views on most of the questions
being raised in this thread. I'm going to print all the posts
out when the thread is completed and make up my mind
later on. But since Justin has apparently cited me as an
archetype, let me say that I have always regarded Marxism
as a species of hedonism. What capitalism does with its
creation of needs (*and* its creation of compulsions) is
shift the locus of human life from the present to the
future -- hence essentially emptying human life of
physical pleasures to a great extent. The *meaning*
of all actions lies in the future -- but physical
sensation as well as social (as contrasted to spiritual
-- i.e., perverted) pleasure is necessarily in the present.
Hence the asceticism of capitalist life -- and of any
society in which market compulsion reigns.
I learned this from studying Plato's *Republic*. He
sees the viciousness of life under the domination of
the future, but blames the "people" for living in the
present and reserves his approval to an aristocracy
which lives in the past. As Keats was to note, the
eternal is merely death.
Carrol
Carrol
