Re: The "Desirable and POSSIBLE" vs "BASTANTE!" (Was Iran...) (fwd)

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

How about propaganda as political education, but historically the term has been highjacked to have in popular parlance Andy's first definition , so it makes it difficult to use it in its productive sense ? It is also orignally, pedagogically linked to agitation, such that agitation perks attention for political education. Political education is a resolution of the contradictions that agitation raises.

I agree with Andy on neutrality. As Maurice Cornforth said  "Every philosophy expresses a class outlook."

Charles Brown

07:36PM >>>

The socialist, if her analysis is substantially correct, is able to
achieve maximum objectivity because she is not neutral and therefore
determines the accurate relations and objective interests that form the
sociomaterial foundation of a given social order/historical system.
Neutrality guarantees the failure to achieve any level of strong
objectivity.

Whether such interests consideration in the production of strongly
objective knowledge counts as propaganda depends, of course, on how we
define propaganda. If we define propaganda as uncritical one-side messages
designed to deceptively motivate people to act (or fail to act) in a
desired way, then scientific socialism is not propaganda. If propaganda is
defined as any message that motivates people to act (or fail to act) or
any act itself that advances a cause (i.e., propaganda of the deed), then
scientific socialism produces propaganda. I am critical of the second
definition since it tends to commit the self-sealing fallacy by being so
inclusive as to evacuate any specific meaningful content.

Andy