RE: FW: base-superstructure model

[Forstater, Mathew]

Title: FW: base-superstructure model

Jim D. says:   Reductionism here means trying to explain everything in the superstructure by reference to the base. It's silly.   Are you looking to get drawn and quartered? (is that having your four limbs tied by ropes to four horses that get set off in four directions?  That would put a crimp in your day…).  It is also economism, and probably vulgar materialism. David (M.) Gordon didn’t like this last phrase, by the way. I forget why, exactly. I thought Marx used it, but maybe not. Jim, you sound like you fall under what David termed, in his inimitable way, R^2HM (R-squared HM), or Revised Revised Historical Materialism.  That would be something like “last instance determinism”.  That is when you write long paragraphs why culture, politics, and ideology matter, but in the last sentence say that ultimately the economy is the deciding factor. Today you have to be R^3 to get drawn and quartered. Then afterward, you R^4. IR^3. WeB^3. Iwuz^3. Now IM^4. WeeMdevo. M@ 4st@er