Re: BHA: Re: on Bhaskar's politics

["Andrew Hagen" <xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:23:03 -0600 (CST), Timothy A Dayton wrote:

>[...]  Related to this is one thing Andrew seems determined to avoid: the
>point that the situation in Russia in 1917 was such that if Lenin and the
>bolsheviks did not accept the responsibility of power, then the
>alternatives were incredibly bleak. And this initial situation kept
>reproducing itself in different ways right up to the end of the civil war.
>"Existential freedom" does not, in my opinion, speak to this point
>effectively.

Thank you for taking my points seriously. I greatly appreciate it. In
response to your point that in this case there really was a TINA
situation, a possibility I would categorically reject, I offer the
additional argument that had Lenin and the Bolsheviks been better
attuned to Marx's critical analysis of Hegel, they would not have been
Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Instead of having played an important role,
along with the inept Tsar, in precipitating the crisis of 1917, they
would have helped direct Russia away from that gloomy finale. Yes, the
Bolsheviks were outlawed and so were other reformers, but I don't
understand how the Tsar was so inept as to lead his country into
disaster, but so powerful that he could stop all the activities of
people determined to reform the system.

Another thought experiment: assume Marx was in the role of Lenin. Can
you imagine him doing what Lenin did? Maybe Marx would have made a
terrible leader, but he wouldn't have ordered the slaughtering of
innocent people. Not when you consider how passiionately he wrote
against such things in Captial.


>    As to Hegel, one may criticize him aplenty, no doubt. Hell, anyone who
>writes that much is going to left wide open on more flanks than you can
>count. Still, go back and read him. It is difficult not to be
>impressed. [...]

It could be subjective, but I'm more horrified by Hegel than anything
else. Reading Hegel is watching the erection of a deeply evil
ideological fortress. Maybe its just the translation, though.

Andrew Hagen
xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



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