That is ok, the "in the begenning" clause was meant
anecdotaly in reference to a sid. hook understanding
of the matter. of course you know this is a matter of
definitions and it it is not easy to squeeze this in
one sentence, so best to skim over that in this
context. certainly you would agree with the concept of
man in the reproduction of material life being social
ie could not exist in the physical apart from the
forms of orgnization of society and the social
relations attendant on it. of course analytically you
can separate the social from the physical aspects but
is this realistic, eg, is there such a thing as a
natural stream under capitalism, i for one, am willing
to pay to see a stream untouched by a relationsip
called capital/ capial consumes both man and nature.
forms of consciousness come to reflect this
relationship of man's relationship with nature, which
under the speicifc historical condition of capitalism
also reflect class and class interests, so much so,
that natural science like nature does not escape the
hold of ideology. so will see now in physics for
instance, a clerical like interpretation of the origin
of the universe, eg inflation theory and big bang etc.
many physiists talk like clerics. the extent to which
facts can be perverted, in this crisis age, is higher
than in the age of thales ( he was a refugee to asia
minor escaping the wrath of godkings in the near
east). so the ether substratum of thales dims in
relative ignorance when compared to mainstream science
today.
--- Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ALI KADRI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 3:46 PM
> Subject: [PEN-L:8058] Re: Social Capital
>
> Everything is social to begin with? What is that
> supposed to mean.?
> In the beginning God made the social and saw that it
> was good and
> the represenation of TOTALITY. Why not Thales' view
> that in the beginning
> was water the totality that became air, and earth
> etc
> At least Thales view is not some intellectual
> gobbledygook and is
> materialist ( or may be) to boot.
>
> Also if everything is social how can there be a
> social being which reflects
> man's material relation with nature. There must at
> least be nature and man
> above and beyond the social or u have a circular
> conception since man and
> nature must also be social.. And what of the lakes,
> streams, rocks, blah
> blah...are they social too...
> CHeers, Ken Hanly
>
> > Isn't everything social to begin with, so may be
> > social represents the category of totality. hence,
> in
> > the beginning there was social being and social
> > consciousness where the former reflects man's
> material
> > relation with nature etc.. and the latter how one
> > expresses those relations.
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35
a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
