hello there. Just a quick point - no Gary I didn't mean the soul of a male
person should not be reincarnated as a female, quite the opposite. My
objection was that in the lives we had there were ONLY TWO (token) females.
It is interesting to read what you write about the novella element of Roy's
book. What I do find inspiring about it is that Roy had dared to do
something deeply unpopular - and has spoken publicly of things that he
believes in. I agree with you that such a treatment COULD be moving,
however I don't find it so, not because of the remnants of my Marxist
Leninist (Maoist) past, nor because of the emphasis on unconditional love
(which has a place in my own world outlook), but because... well because...
I just don't. Not enough depth to those lives I think.
Caroline
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Maclennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 3:27 AM
Subject: Being out there was Re: BHA: anybody out there?
> At 20:42 1/11/00 -0500, you wrote:
> >What is this TDCR stuff? I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying it. I feel
for
> >Professor Bhaskar's personal position. He has created an Earth-shattering
> >philosophy, and gets no credit or recognition. Nevertheless, the new
> >project of
> >East-West synthesis seems mystical and syncretic to me. The new book
seems
> >too postmodern and anecdotal.
> >
> >These are my initial thoughts, before finishing the book.
> >
> >regards,
> >
> >Andrew Hagen
> >Lindenwold, New Jersey
> >xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> >
> Hi Andrew,
>
> Unfortunately work prevents me getting back to my response to FEW and the
> "TDCR stuff". However I hope to finish my review some time soon. But I
will
> repeat what I have said on this list that there are wise and beautiful
> things in FEW and hopefully when I get a little freer I will be able to
> document at least some of these.
>
> Now I am not sure what you mean by "syncretic" but I agree that yes FEW
> does have its mystical moment. Does that then condemn it. Is "mystical"
> yet another curse word like "idealist"? Is it something we chant over the
> fence at our opponents? The problem with curse words is that they can
> preclude engagement. So they have to be used with care.
>
> Let me take a comment from Caroline's post. I do not have her email in
> front of me because that is on my home computer, so she will have to
> forgive me if my memory falters. She raised the question off the novella
> component of FEW. I was pleased to see her touch upon this. There is
> almost, I feel, an embarasment about this section of the book in Critical
> Realist circles. Thus it seems to me that the critics, with the possible
> exception of Mervyn, have been happiest engaging the philosophy of the
> first part of the book.
>
> Yet the lives are crucial to the whole enterprise. They do have of course
> their therapeutic personal moment and I would not back away from that, but
> crucially they also represent the most thorough going attempt to engage
> Eastern thought. Indeed it is here that I would emphasize my disagreement
> with Alan's remarks at the conference that there was not much that was
very
> Eastern about FEW (This from memory again,. I do not have my conference
> notes with me). One can only maintain that position if one ignores the
lives.
>
>
> Let us take the instance that Caroline objects to. One of the lives of
the
> soul is that of a female. I found this life to be very moving. It deals
> with how one should respond to human suffering. Caroline demurred I
> recall. But *if* one takes the notion of the reincarnation of souls
> seriously then it is surely a nonsense or worse to suggest that a soul can
> only be reincarnated as a male or as a female. Did I detect a whiff of
> separatism in Caroline's post? It almost reminds me of the very sharp
> debate we had in the Brisbane gay community in the 70s about whether
> transexuals should be allowed to use the female toilets in the gay bars.
> Whatever the case is the notion that one's soul can have been reincarnated
> as a female so hard to accept? If it is so, then the objection springs
> partly from a failure, if I may be so bold to say so, to think of
> constructs like the soul and God in non-gendered terms. Of course there
is
> a politics to raising the very possibility of a terrain or domain of the
> non-gendered.
>
> There are two things I would like to stress here. The reincarnation of
> souls is a theological point and again moves us from the terrain of
> empirical proof to that of faith. Roy does offer some arguments for
> reincarnation such as the phenomenon of deja vu. Frankly for me they are
> unconvincing. I see no alternative to the argument that in theological
> matters one is either a believer or one is not. Of course there is the
> allied point that it is difficult to restrain the power of faith. In
other
> words what is it reasonable to believe in? Or can one even formulate such
> a question? Is faith totally outside the realm of reason?
>
> I am currently reading Pascal's Pensees and it is interesting to see a
> truly brilliant man set about the task of justifying faith. He begins by
> pointing out the limitations of reason. We can neither fathom the Nothing
> or the Infinite. Yet according to him we come from one and are heading
for
> the other. One has only to look up- at the night sky to get some *feeling*
> for Pascal's arguments. Mystery and wonder are everywhere. As Heidegger
put
> it so well - "Why are there beings rather than nothing?"
>
> As I said at the conference, it is part of Roy's particular makeup as a
> philosopher that he will boldly go. I suppose one could say it is his
> karma. By contrast Heidegger refused to define Being. He took refuge in
> tautology - "Sein is selbst". Adorno too refused to leave the via
> negativa. He followed Kierkegaard in this. He resolutely declined to
> outline in positive terms what we ought to do or what being part of
> humanity was all about. He had much fun with Heidegger in Jargons of
> Authenticity, but when the mockery subsides we are still left with the
> question "What is the meaning of Being?'"
>
> What astonishes me about FEW is that Bhaskar attempts to answer this
> question. He also attempts to depart from the via negativa. tod do so he
> constructs a mystical theological framework- a framework of belief.
>
> My final point is that believing in reincarnation is not or it certainly
> should not be taken as proof that one has lost the plot or abandoned the
> struggle for a better world. My reading of Bhaskar is that he is still
> part of the movement for a better world. He is still capable of writing
> and arguing brilliantly about philosophy. I will repeat what I have said
in
> an earlier post. We need a broad progressive movement if we are to get
out
> of the mess we are in. We need to rediscover the moment of the 19th
century
> when to be a Marxist was to part of great movement to construct utopia
here
> on Earth. Thus some of the early Marxists in the USA doubled as
> clairvoyants and mystics and saw no contradiction.
>
> To say this I know takes me away from the "Leninist-Trotskyist" tradition
> to build the workers' party. Bhaskar as a libertarian socialist never
> belonged to this tendency. I however did. I feel that this have given me
> the ability to see the weakness of so much that has passed for Leninism
and
> Trotskyism. For me one of the crucial weaknesses of the dominant Marxist
> tendency of the 20th century was due to Lenin's personal hostility to
> religion and mysticism and eventually even to aesthetics in that it
> beckoned one in the direction of what Roy calls "unconditional love".
>
> regards
>
> Gary
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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