[Marxism] Is this an accuratequote of Heidegger?

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan,

Thanks for your comment.

I'm thinking specifically of Robinsinades of epistemology or theory of
knowledge in philosophy and social science, not any and all individualism. I
forgot to mention Economics' "rational man".

I have long had a hypothesis on this regarding Phenomenology, and your
summary articulation of it suggested a crystalization of my idea. It always
is there when some philospher tries to "strip down" to the basic human
nature or thought process through a model of individual experience of
objective reality, explicitly stripped of social influences. The social
influences are not always referred to by the word "social" . Here I think it
was "intellectual " contaminations or some such.

Charles

^^^^^^^


In reply to CB, I've got nothing against individualism as such, more against
some ways it is asserted. If anything, despite the ideology of
individualism, there is a lack of individualism, as most people in truth
want mostly the same sorts of things.

I don't see christianity with its "love thy neighbor" ethic and its sharing
ethic as individualist either. As far as I can see, christianity in the US
functions in practice mainly as a sort of moderation against egocentric
excesses (of course, it is also possible to commit many sins in the name of
the Lord).

Individualism is I think a rather vague concept which might refer to such
things as expressing individuality, going your own way, self-reliance,
independent initiative, anti-social behaviour, lack of team work etc. Thus
individualism could be a creed against social tyranny, but also a denial of
social cooperation.

In Marxist philosophy, the dialectic of cooperation and competition has
rarely been thought through clearly. The reason is probably that Stalinist
Marxism-Leninism saw individuality, if uncontrolled, as a threat to or
deviation from the party line. The underlying idea was, that we must all
work together and sacrifice ourselves to improve the conditions of material
life, and then the communist paradise will follow. But that is not the case,

and what you still have in the CIS republics these days, is a profound moral
malaise manifesting itself in cynicism, nihilism and corruption.

Jurriaan




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