On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Tani wrote wrote: > Post this to Mim and gang. > > I think B knows this from the OLD dialogues with Setians. I know Pete > > For Mim, the dialectic is a thing to talk about and insert into a > cerebral analysis. For me the dialectic is ever- present in EVERYTHING [1]mim3@mim.org says: So it is. The problem with you in particular is you are propagating something closer to Taoist materialism, not dialectical materialism. If I speak with others about dialectics, other things are the problem, but you know I've had a guess from pretty early on where your intellectual training is coming from. Eastern spirituality shows up in your ToD and also your discussion of yin/yang and streams and rocks. You think you are rebutting me, but actually you reinforce my impression, because of the maybe 12 elements of dialectics, you miss the ONE that is truly contemporary. Marx and Mao especially were knowledgeable of these, but you need to ask yourself why they called themselves diamatical and believe they were breaking with the past. I don't know, but maybe for Tani this involves giving some credit to the Germans, Hegel in particular and why Engels and Mao had to have a little controversy (Mao disagreeing with some stuff from Stalin and Engels). What is missing from your version of dialectics is Frankenstein (see Hr. Vad's web site for Tani's essays on Frankenstein). Somehow Hegel knew about this thing, where mad scientist thinks he's doing one thing and ends up getting something turn against him. That is not the same thing as saying water wears down a rock or spring turns to fall etc. You are free to show me otherwise, but in all the hocus-pocus (take your pick) that you mention, I challenge you to find ANYTHING comparing with the Frankenstein metaphor. It seems to me that Frankenstein requires some of that Western rationalism PLUS something else unique that Hegel got us. But go ahead, I grant you thousands of years of Eastern culture and religion to look for this idea expressed. Seems like you might have a good shot just based on sheer quantity of chances, but to my knowledge you will fail. You are interested in this sociology of knowledge question lately and won't let it go: so I give you a chance to say it: mim3 is honkeyist, because Frankenstein was prefigured in (Title, page number). > some specific place or time, etc. It's TOO MUCH to have to THINK THINK > THINK about something that is so as-given, so FELT. So INSTINCTIVE and > for us, intuitive. BUT NOT CEREBRAL. Mystic b.s. "Feels" like reading Russell Means, a scam. > about it. I KNOW it - my whole BODY knows it. It's FASTER than thinking > thoughts. I KNOW that both me and the bacteria went to war, that BOTH of > us are now changed due to this war and that a new dialectical > relationship within my cells will exist due to this, new organizations > will take place due to it on the cellular level: likewise for those > bacteria. I KNOW this -it's IMMEDIATE, beyond thinking KNOWLEDGE. Having > to belabor the obvious in PURELY HUMAN relations is a CHORE for me, it's > TEDIOUS. mim3 continues: This last paragraph I don't believe is reflected in the ToD as argued against MIM by Tani. The idea of conflict and synthesis is of course talked about in connection to dialectics. But with bacteria and people or trees and soil, it is easy to take up a CYCLICAL view. Oh sure, the tree grows up and up, but it eventually returns to the soil. Alternatively what I don't like about ToD is its aiming at the agricultural foundation. It's not enough; this is why Engels, Stalin and Mao had to have some tension. How to describe this spiral upward? How to describe something completely new and not merely a transient, cyclical appearance? Why they had to talk about "negation of the negation." What is that? A return to the original positive state? Frankenstein is one way to describe this. Someone else raised that Mao thinks like multiple giant slinkys (spiral springs or chains) sometimes parallel, sometimes knotted up and of varying lengths. > > There is nothing alive that exists without the living dialectic > constantly being in motion - and it is in MOTION as I see it, moving, > interacting all the time LIKE the yin/yang symbol, FLOWING and > interacting, constantly contradicting and yet fluxing, each into the > other. Phil, who has his degree in philosophy agrees with me entirely on > Mao because he knows BOTH: MAOISM IS TAOISM! Let a river flow over a > rock and there is dialectic interaction. The one will change the other > and vice versa and the change will henceforce be interdependent on BOTH > river and rock, but far more, there is a lot more going on than JUST > river flowing over rock. There are no human relations that exist without mim3 continues: This is what I mean about what I think Tani's dialectics lack; although lately we are arguing mostly lack of materialism. Of course dialectics as conceived by Hegel and Marx has to be 90% previous ideas. When I am arguing with Tani though, it is about the parts of dialectics that are relatively historically new. I realize for a lot of people the problem is as simple as not realizing what Vad said, that what you do might result in they might "kill you back." So study of these ideas of Tani's for those completely unexposed can give you some tools you didn't have. _________________________________________________________________ This page hosted by [2][LINK] Get your own [3]Free Homepage References 1. file://localhost/home/worm/mec/mim3@mim.org 2. file://localhost/ 3. file://localhost/