From: n2412@cray.com (Joe Green)
Subject: Re: the business of poetry
Keywords: condolences
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 14 Apr 92 09:39:38 CDT

In article <1992Apr13.220010.2612@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> "Andrew C. Aiken" <aaiken@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:
>In <1992Apr13.135638.17076@hemlock.cray.com> n2412@cray.com (Joe Green) writes:
>
>>>
>>>Intellectual property IS a commodity. Writing copy for the cyclops,
>>>software for an information engine, press releases for the pimples that
>>>can sing ... speech writing. Nobility? Not likely! 
>
>
>>Make the effort to separate what you do and are able to do from
>>what can be done.  Also make an effort to see that there
>>might be something outside your world view.  Of course what
>>you indulge in is a commodity.  That is my point.  You may
>>not be able to see the possibility of something else -- much
>>less enact that possibility.
>
>	This is a rather Marxist sentiment:  to be precise, it is
>the Marxist belief that those who refuse to engage in the revolution
>suffer from "false consciousness."  He took his cue from Rousseau,
>who wanted to force men to be "free."  Even if it meant genocide.

Yes -- especially as modified by Gramsci.  But the connection with Rousseau
is all wrong except for the association with the millenial and
revolutionary transformation.  Don't you think that many are suspicious
of this?  I have written against this sort of nostalgia again and
again.  The problem with Marxism as practiced by his vile epigones
is that it was enacted within the same old "paradigm."  The Marxist dialectic
that sublates others to understand them and then to use them is
of a piece with the dialectic Marxists claimed they resisted.
 


>
>>Actually, it is sympathy for you -- constrained to speak this way.
>
>	Here again, the same view is expressed.  It is unfortunate that 
>the Left has seized the reins of psychology.

I suppose it is ok to generalize in this way but it is not very interesting.
False consciousness implies that there is a true consciousness.  I have
not used this phrase -- and for this reason.  It is ,however, easy to
see that a consciousness may be colonized by that which enslaves it.
The idea that everything is a commodity and the inability to see
through certain myths ( to see that they are directed against you)
is an example.


  We hear so much talk
>of repression.  What is seldom discussed is the regressive, repressive
>quality of the goals of the Left: namely, the abolition of private property
>and hence individual liberty.

Did I say anything about "abolishing" private property?  I am suggesting
that there is an alternative to the economy of the commodity -- a gift
economy.  This is more of a Christian than a Marxist sentiment.

You move a little too fast here.  You are talking about private
property (one must assume that you mean all private property)
assume that the "Left" is out to abolish it and assume that
this leads to loss of individual freedom.  A lot of assumptions
and nothing much to do with what I say -- just attacking the "Left"
in general.


  Without liberty, how are we to acquire
>a "world view" at all, unless it be one fashioned by the Ministry
>of World Views? 
>
Exactly -- and why do you think that the world view many have now
is not established by a kind of Ministry -- one much more
subtle and dangerous?  I mention Foucault.  

--