[Marxism] Reification

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Respuesta a:"Marxism Digest, Vol 32, Issue 46"
Enviado por:marxism-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Con fecha:18 Jun 2006, a las 7:19

John Gray in the New Stateslam: 

> As an intellectual movement, the Enlightenment has always had a 
> distinctly seamy side. In its political incarnation, it was one of the
> factors that shaped modern-day terror.

This can be traced back to the origins of the atomistic mind, in that 
"I think, thus I exist" implies that the whole world outside the 
individual is, exactly, _outside_ the individual and does not have a 
subjective side.  This is the core of "reification", and it can also 
be traced back to British empyricists.

In the end, this is the reflection in mind of a mode of production 
where the single valid human relation (in the sense that it is the 
single one you can't escape from if you want to remain alive) is the 
commodity relation. When human energy becomes just another commodity, 
then you have the starting point for abstract moral values of _any_ 
(that is, positive or negative) hue.

If there exists no "We", if the world is made up of single "I"s, I am 
not bound to another "I" but through the ties that my own convenience 
makes valid.  These ties might range from mass murder to brotherly 
love.  It depends on circumstances.  Including John Gray's fallacious 
rejection of "the best product of Enlightenment", that is, socialism, 
which is in fact the material criticism of Enlightenment.

What it does not depend on, and not at all, is on any concrete moral 
standing as regards the history of the human species and our place in 
it.


Este correo lo ha enviado
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[No necesariamente es su autor]
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"La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
Aparicio Saravia
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