FS & Praxis

[matthew piscioneri]

Thanks Walter, Fred & Daniele for your references.

Correction:

The following should have read:

"Formal logic was the major [TOOL] of unified science..."

>Formal logic was the major school of unified science. It provided the 
>Enlightenment thinkers with the schema of the calculability of the world. 
>The mythologizing equation of Ideas with numbers in Platos last writings 
>expresses the longing of all demythologization: number became the canon of 
>the Enlightenment. (1995: 7)

To pick up on an aspect of one of Jim's post re-Michael Moore. I guess my 
first reaction was also that of predictability. It is what you would expect 
him to say as part of the PR for M.M. This is the commercial niche he has 
carved out for himself in the supermarket of the U.S's social psychology. 
Which isn't to say he is 100% disengenuous :-).

Having said this Bob's polemic - from an Antipodean perspective, of course, 
still has a ring of "truth" about it. As Marcuse pointed out, and Steven 
Luke enlarged upon, in bourgeois lib democracies (BLDs) the mechanisms for 
social control are - shall we say - more subtle, but still omnipresent.

Ever tried to get a social issue up and running? Don't rock the boat baby 
;-). There is a vast complicity of comfort holding BLDs like the U.S & 
Australia together in obedience. In part this obedience is cemented by the 
"happy slave" mentality based on the system of material and existential 
rewards profered by the BLDs.

In return for subjection, AT THE LEAST most of us get reasonably adequate 
health care, social security, standard education,public housing. Thankyou 
State.

At the better, most of us get a few nice toys, some holidays and even (after 
25 years of tutelage) to own our own hovel. Thank you consumerism.

At the best, a few of us get to have much more of all of the above. This is 
only the material rewards obviously. There is also a vast set of existential 
rewards on offer. I won't continue because after all this is a FS list and I 
am reasonably confident all have worked this stuff out for themselves.

It's a crude social contract type of model I realise, so I am hoping others 
may re-model the approach I am taking above. What's wrong with a social 
contract model anyway? The key issue seems to be the degree of voluntas in 
subjection/complicity. For dreamers still holding onto fantasies of 
revolutionary subjects of history, doing away with notions of coercion and 
"brain washed masses" is a tough nut to swallow.

Why are BLDs successful? Because over the last 200 years they have refined 
the existential/material mix (thanks often to the advances delivered by 
researches in psychology, sociology, and even critical philosophy)but 
probably most importantly due to the labor/capital compromise made possible 
by union-backed wage negotiations and welfare
provisions.

Who can argue with this? When I get too agitated about totalitarianism and 
social control in BLDs like Australia I am reminded that my grandfather grew 
up in a mud and bark hut, his family survived by catching rabbits, and 
children then died at the hands of all sorts of diseases now considered 
practically extinct.

It is not all that hard to understand complicity. Why aren't WE critical 
thinkers happy slaves? Well there is always a dialectical niche in the 
social environment for social criticism. There are jobs, publishing 
contracts, lectureships, groupies and existential medals even for the 
Michael Moores, Noam Chomskys and Spike Lees of this world (what about some 
girls' names?). One big happy complicit family.

Regards,

MattP



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