Re: Totality vs. Totalitarianism

[hariette@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (hariette spierings)]

>
>       When we approach the study of any totality, we need to have a
>little humility here... something that even Marx and Engels occasionally
>lack.  We are ALWAYS internal to the context that we criticize; our
>criticism is ALWAYS immanent to that totality.  And any efforts to rise
>above that totality to judge it from the outside, as if we were God-like,
>synoptic creatures, is not only futile, but dangerous.

  When viewed undialectically
>and as a purely deterministic formula, Marx's historical materialism is a
>mechanistic application that must be avoided.
>
        What Marx teaches however, that is of great importance, is that
>we can understand the totality by grasping it NOT from a synoptic vantage
>point, but from many different vantage points within the totality, thus
>helping ourselves in the construction of a richer, more complex portrait
>of the interrelationships within that totality.
>       I've gone on long enough...
>                                       - Chris
>==================================================
>Dr. Chris M. Sciabarra
>Visiting Scholar, NYU Department of Politics
>INTERNET:  sciabrrc@xxxxxxxxxxx
>http://pages.nyu.edu/~sciabrrc
>==================================================


Yeah, you are actually very right!

I mean also that you have already gone too long, Professor.  It is time to
synthesise!

Adolfo Olaechea



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