People with good intentions believe they should work to change society to fit their "good intentions". We must examine good intentions within the framework of human frailties: greed, ignorance, hate. Human societys' dilemma is: whose "intentions"? Factions within humanity feel so strongly that we must adhere to their belief system that we are all in peril! For, if you study the past, the road to Hell is not paved with good intentions, but the execution of them.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
What would the old Socialist say????
On July 24th, 2007 at 12:10 pm, sharinlite said:
Norman Geras, an old Socialist, puts things so well. We would all, left, right and liberal be better off to at last take in some of what he says. Like all writers, philosophers or critics, there will always be disagreements, but it is time the American Left began to do some research on why they think and behave as they do. Why the Ameican Left hates American so much. I give you all just a tiny, tiny morsel from Norman Geras:
…The lessons have evidently still not been learned of earlier, sometimes calamitous, misjudgements – which produced the Third Period of the Comintern, when social democracy, not Nazism, was said to be the main enemy; and which landed the world communist movement, along with much fellow-travelling liberal opinion, in denial and excuse towards the criminality of Stalinism despite a flood of evidence about this; and which have led, time and again, to a complaisant attitude towards terror and murder for alleged purposes of liberation, so putting in question the claim of those with that attitude to represent a movement for democratic, egalitarian and humane objectives. There is no reason intrinsic to the central values and principles of socialism for these misjudgements or their continuation. But there are clearly, as always and everywhere, simplifying tendencies of thought – in the present case, seeing in imperialism, not merely a crucial feature of the world, but the answer to every question. A thing held too close to the eye obstructs the vision.
To read the Essay in its entirety, go here:http://mail.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/normangerasinterview.html
Geras is not easy for me to read, I’m old and never got to college, but I have tried all my life to learn and have created my own philosophy. However, those of us who care so much, need to do our homework so that we do not waste our time with such a MikeB. The Socialist of old would turn over in their graves if they heard what the American, nay the world Left is spewing forth!
Norman Geras, an old Socialist, puts things so well. We would all, left, right and liberal be better off to at last take in some of what he says. Like all writers, philosophers or critics, there will always be disagreements, but it is time the American Left began to do some research on why they think and behave as they do. Why the Ameican Left hates American so much. I give you all just a tiny, tiny morsel from Norman Geras:
…The lessons have evidently still not been learned of earlier, sometimes calamitous, misjudgements – which produced the Third Period of the Comintern, when social democracy, not Nazism, was said to be the main enemy; and which landed the world communist movement, along with much fellow-travelling liberal opinion, in denial and excuse towards the criminality of Stalinism despite a flood of evidence about this; and which have led, time and again, to a complaisant attitude towards terror and murder for alleged purposes of liberation, so putting in question the claim of those with that attitude to represent a movement for democratic, egalitarian and humane objectives. There is no reason intrinsic to the central values and principles of socialism for these misjudgements or their continuation. But there are clearly, as always and everywhere, simplifying tendencies of thought – in the present case, seeing in imperialism, not merely a crucial feature of the world, but the answer to every question. A thing held too close to the eye obstructs the vision.
To read the Essay in its entirety, go here:http://mail.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/normangerasinterview.html
Geras is not easy for me to read, I’m old and never got to college, but I have tried all my life to learn and have created my own philosophy. However, those of us who care so much, need to do our homework so that we do not waste our time with such a MikeB. The Socialist of old would turn over in their graves if they heard what the American, nay the world Left is spewing forth!