[PEN-L:8600] Re: Money, technology fetish

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

     A curious detail about "The English Patient," which I 
loved btw, is that there really was a historical Count 
Almasy from Hungary who did mapping in the Libyan desert 
before WWII.  But, contrary to the film, he was a 
full-blown Nazi agent before and during the war, including 
being an aide-de-camp of Rommel's.  
     "Anti-fascist film"?  Well, that is debatable given 
the "Egyptians might as well side with the Nazis against 
the Brits" line in the movie, that indeed many Egyptian 
nationalists such as Anwar Sadat actually followed 
historically.  Not a simple business, this movie.
Barkley Rosser
On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 14:27:50 -0800 (PST) "Wendell W. 
Solomons" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> >From <R. Baiman> and queries from <ajit sinha>:
> 
> >(1) Can socialism be "built" on capitalist technology?
> 
> Media technology, so highly developed under capitalism, was used by
> Hitler to destroy Montesquieu and other's checks and balances under
> his Swastika symbol borrowed via the Brahaminic caste totalitarian
> state of 1000 BC. We are not too far away from Hitler chronologically
> to misuse technology ourselves, to paraphrase Michael Ondaatje's
> anti-fascist film, "The English Patient."  According to CNN the film
> is on its way to top award in the States. Madonna meanwhile is using
> media technology to project herself as Evita whom the TIME last page
> of Feb 17th calls a fascist's lady. Quite a role model for audiences
> after the mercenary, crossover teen/adult Material Girl image.
> 
> We might strain at a gnat and swallow a camel if we impute a strict
> corelation into technology. If it is Marx, his numerous quotes on
> technology do not hypebole into central fetish as in Walt Rostow's
> "The Anti-Communist Manifesto" and in Post-Industrialist idealogues.
> 
> >(2) What kind of subjectivity a socialist society would have
> to reproduce itself--what would be the socialist ideology?
> 
> The world is full of koans, mantras and psychodelics. How would
> one explain for instance to a member of caste-based society that
> lives the aforementioned what Thomas Jefferson's framework means
> -- let alone socialism? Marx is so much in the distance. He was
> able to take the position that his fellow Germans "performed
> revolutions in their heads because they were denied the opportunity
> to perform it in real life." The query might have sounded less vicious
> circle-like if it was given to us as "What would socialist idealogy
> be ?" or even "What kinds of subjectivists would reproduce socialism?"
> 
> Rgds,
> \\/
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]