IS PEACE POSSIBLE?

WHO REALLY WANTS PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Thomas Riggins

Maybe a better question is , is peace even possible in the Middle East? We should always ask 'cui bono?' when it comes to these kinds of questions. What I want to try and figure out is what is going on in the region and what are the prospects of a FAIR and JUST peace. It seems to me people and nations can argue over all sorts of land issues, religious issues, who has started what and done what to whom and this can go on forever unless one side annihilates the other or everyone decides that they really WANT to live together and CAN live together and then honestly work towards a just solution-- not one that unfairly benefits one side and crams injustice down the other's throat.

Well, this blog is not going to solve the problems of the Middle East, but I'm going to try and figure out what is going on and I intend to do so by commenting on a half page article in the New York Times of 11/11/2009 called "Memo From Riyadh" by Michael Slackman and entitled "America's Closest Arab Allies Fret as Their Influence Slips Away." Some of my comments are speculative and I don't claim that my interpretation of this article is one hundred percent correct but I hope it's the bases for figuring out not only what is going on but also what is to be done. Please use the comments at the end to correct anything I may have gotten wrong as this is only the first draft.

Here is what the Times' writer says but filtered through my commentary-- only actual quotes should be attributed to him or the Times. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both repressive dictatorships that go against every democratic value the US preaches to the people of the region, are the US's closest allies and get tremendous political and financial support from the US to basically hold down their own people in the interests of US monopoly capitalism in the area. Both allies are upset by bungling in the region by the Obama administration-- "they have come to despair."

Both allies are losing their influence with the other countries in the area because of their association with the US and as a result of Israel's basically telling Obama to go jump in the lake (or the Mediterranean) with respect to halting the confiscation of more Palestinian land and the building of more Israeli settlements on the West Bank. This is an indication that Israel has, at present, no desire for peace and wants to continue in a permanent state of war. Israel can't exist without US money so this position is seen as being also that of the US no matter what diplomatic BS comes out of Washington via Ms. Clinton. None of the countries in the region think this is FAIR or JUST behavior by Israel or the US, so by being allies of the US Saudi Arabia and Egypt are losing their influence. People all over the region want to fight back against INJUSTICE-- this means IRAN and SYRIA are becoming more influential. This displeases the two allies-- but the US appears to be too stupid to figure out its own UNJUST policies vis a vis Israel and the Palestinians are one of the root causes of all its problems in the region.

Now I don't think the US is stupid. So it must want these problems. Why? To justify its military adventures and to shore up its takeover of Iraq's oil fields. To keep these fields a military presence will be necessary for decades, therefore there must be tension, terrorism and instability to justify this presence. It appears that neither Israel nor the US want to have peace in the region-- so there will be no peace.

Anonymous Egyptian official: "If there is no peace, then all those who bet against peace are winning. And all those who act and bet there will be peace are losing, like us. We are losing because we are putting this bet." Well, this is a cause for despair. But, wait. The official thinks that SYRIA and IRAN (and Hamas and Hezbollah) are betting AGAINST PEACE and that the US, Saudi Arabia and Egypt (and the Palestinian Authority) are betting FOR PEACE. And here's the rub! The real ally of the US is Israel. It is ISRAEL and the US who are AGAINST THE PEACE. Yes the two Arab allies should despair as they are just pawns in the game being played out in the region.

President Obama made a great speech in Cairo last June that gave hope to people throughout the Middle East that at long last peace between the Israelis and Palestinians was possible. Then Netanyahu announced that Israel would continue to expand the settlements in contravention to international law and the hopes of a peace. The US said that it was against this policy. It appears to be a deal breaker as Netanyahu well knows. Clinton was sent to talk some sense into him. But Netanyahu knows the strength of the Israel lobby in the US and especially in the US Congress so he blew her off. To toss Obama a bone he said he would "slow the building of settlements." Clinton acted as if the US had won something instead of having been told to buzz off.

She praised Netanyahu for having made an "unprecedented" concession. Meanwhile the rest of the world saw her as having made "missteps" having, by her remarks, "severely damaged " the hope raised by Obama's Cairo speech. As a result of this new collusion of Zionism and US Imperialism Mahmoud Abbas will step down as head of the Palestinian Authority [PA] when his term is up, some of his ministers have said the peace process is dead and the two state solution died along with it, and the PA has been left in "chaos." Well, the PA would like peace because then the Palestinians would get a state, the killing of their people, the genocide and apartheid, would end so who are the ones betting against peace? The ones holding all the cards are-- Israel and the US. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been left high and dry by their "ally."

Emad Gad of Egypt's Ahram Center (government supported) said: "Egypt's role is receding regionally and its cards are limited. Their main card, which is reconciliation and peace, is receding." The Saudis split with them on this, thinking that gains can still be made without "progress in the peace process." What gains do they have in mind. Well, progress to weaken the influence of Iran by breaking up Syria's closeness with it. Everyone has their own agenda. Saudi Arabia wants Iranian influence out of the Gulf (not likely), Egypt wants peace on its borders with Israel and Gaza, Israel wants the West Bank, the Palestinians want to be treated as humans, and the US doesn't know what it wants -- aside from control of Iraq's oil-- and lets Israel call the shots, just as the fascist elements in the Miami Cuban mafia dictate its Cuba policy, to curry favor and votes back in der Heimatland.

The Saudis want to reassert themselves. Abdulkarim H. al-Dekhayel of King Saud University in Riyadh said, "Saudi's role in the last ten years has declined. The leadership now feels it has to try to reset the agenda." To do this the Saudi's want to CONSOLIDATE Arab unity-- i.e., wean SYRIA away from IRAN. Since SYRIA and IRAN are seen as NOT being for peace getting Syria back in the fold would be a step forward since it would isolate Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah. But why is Syria not for peace. Because Israel is illegally occupying the GOLAN HEIGHTS , which is Syrian territory, and wants the keep it. So again it is ISRAEL'S taking of other people's land and not giving it back that is the SOURCE of the problems. It got peace with Egypt when it gave back the SINAI and it could have peace tomorrow with both Syria and the Palestinians it just gave them back what is theirs in the first place.

The Times asks how does Saudi Arabia intend "to persuade Syria to switch from the antipeace camp to the pro-peace camp." The Times has it backwards. Its not Syria but Israel that is in the antipeace camp. What the Saudis and Egyptians have to do is persuade Obama to switch from the antipeace camp to the pro-peace camp. This may be difficult since he waging war in three countries-- but he does have the Nobel in peace so maybe....

The Saudis have a two pronged solution to win over Syria. First, give them a lot of money. Second, let them basically run Lebanon. Both of these are crazy. First, it's the Golan Heights that Syria wants, and second, you just can't cynically turn Lebanon over to de facto Syrian control. Saudi Arabia is only really interested in the Gulf and weakening Iran. The interests of a small Arabic country such as Lebanon don't figure in their conception of "Arab Unity."

Meanwhile, Egypt blames Syria for the fact that Hamas and Fatah have not accepted Egyptian plans for them to unify and thus advance the peace process with Israel. This is also crazy as Israel doesn't want a peace process and Fatah and the PA are swollen with money and aid from the US and that US influence is completely anti-Hamas. The biggest problem the PA, and especially Abbas, has is the fact that it is being more and more seen as a US client and the US backs Israel. This is a fatal contradiction for the peace process unless Obama put his foot down and forces Netanyahu to stop expanding the settlements-- the strong action that Abbas has said might lead him to start up renewed peace negotiations with Israel-- which have been in the toilet after Clinton's cave in to Netanyahu.

Egypt would love for Saudi Arabia to convince Syria "to sever ties with Iran, stop supporting Hamas and actually support the Arab initiative, which offers Israel peace in return for withdrawal to 1967 border lines, establishment of an independent Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital and a 'just solution' to the refugee problem." That is a good initiative, but does anyone think there is a chance in Hell that Netanyahu or ANY Israeli government would ever accept it?

The Saudi's don't believe it possible themselves. A government official had this to say to the Times: "Does the West [i.e., the US] give any support to those moderates on the Palestinian front, on the Arab side, that advocate peace, that say, 'It is not about resistance any more, but what we want can be achieved through negotiations?' The answer is, 'No.' Do we have an empty hand [due to US perfidy]? The answer is , 'Yes.'" Does anybody believe that resistance is no longer needed?

Well, Obama has the ball in his hands. I hope he doesn't fumble.

THE SWINE IN SWINE FLU

THE SWINE IN SWINE FLU: CAPITALIST CORPORATIONS THAT WON'T GIVE SICK TIME TO WORKERS AND THE CONGRESS THAT LET'S THEM DO IT

Thomas Riggins

"At Work With The Flu" is the New York Times headline in Tuesday's Business Section [11-3-2009]. "Many, Lacking Paid Sick Days, Aid a Pandemic." It shouldn't shock anyone that our capitalist system is structured to help, not hinder, the spread of disease and death among the general population since business profits come first and human needs and basic decency come second-- if they come at all.

President Obama has declared Swine Flu to be a national emergency but that doesn't mean those companies that refuse paid sick time to their employees are going to stop enforcing policies that help spread the flu virus around. And please note that what's gong on now in this regard applies to any type of infectious disease that could blow up into a pandemic or even a local outbreak of such a disease. It is the nature of capitalism that leads to this.

"Tens of millions of people, or about 40% of all private-sector workers," the Times reports, "do not receive paid sick days, and as a result many of them cannot afford to stay home when they are ill." [Speed the day when then is no more private sector!]

It is not only that they are so low paid that they can't afford to stay home, they also face being fired if they do. Many restaurant workers, for example, are in this situation-- so remember every time you go out to eat you are risking exposure to the flu, TB, etc. from the food handlers, cooks, and food servers who are being forced to come in and cough and spread infections around for you to get and take home to your family and to work for your work mates. This is one of the ways a pandemic spreads!

Of course the US Chamber of Commerce doesn't see a problem. Their spokesman had this to say about workers not having paid sick leave and the threat of spreading death and disease as a result. "The problem is not nearly as great as some people say. Lots of employers work these things out on an ad hoc basis with their employees." And what worker wouldn't prefer his or her boss to threat them in an ad hoc fashion rather than have a well thought out and agreed upon policy!

Here is an ad hoc policy at work. This is a quote from Paul Hotchkiss who works for Wal-Mart. He had swine flu but was made to show up for work any way. "There are a lot of people," he said, "who have swine flu right now who are going in because they worry about getting fired for having too many points." POINTS? What's that about. Well it seems you can use your sick leave, if you must, but you get a POINT in your record if you do. You can get points for other things Wal-Mart doesn't like as well. Too many points and you're fired. So if you get sick-- better to show up. You don't get paid for the first day of sick leave in any case so if you can't afford to lose a day's pay (and get a point) just be smart-- don't get sick. Even if the store is full of sickos it's going to be your demerit if you get ill. Mr. Hotchkiss did get sent home for looking "pale" but didn't see a doctor because "he could not afford the company's health insurance." [What's the reason we don't nationalize Wal-Mart?]

What about keeping the kiddies home when they have the flu? Schools are reporting that THEY send them home when flu is detected but many are back the next day!!! Why? It's "because Mommy had to work." Naturally, companies that will fire you for being sick won't let you stay home with a sick child. Capitalism isn't for namby-pambies.

The TriBeCa restaurant Thalassa in NYC made one of their food handlers with flu and a bad cough come in anyway "short of people"-- make note for future dining out destinations.

White Castle has great ad hoc policies. They take swine flu "seriously" and make "team members" [they don't have "workers"] stay home until they feel better. But won't they come in because they need the money? White Castle doesn't have PAID sick leave-- you should sacrifice for the team no doubt, be a good team player. Not to worry. Team members can make up the lost pay working "extra hours after recovering." How considerate.

All this annoying moral turpitude goes on under the nose of Congress. Why? Because most of the Congress people serve the private sector not the people who elected them. But a ray of light is beginning to shine on this morass of private sector evil doing. ROSA DeLAURO, a DEMOCRAT in the House from the nutmeg state is the lead sponsor (with 100 cosponsors) of a bill to REQUIRE firms, of 15+ employees, to give seven days of PAID sick leave a year [Cubans get NINE days of paid sick leave a year, but then the Cuban government isn't run by the PRIVATE SECTOR]. Needless to say the Times reports that "Business groups oppose such legislation, calling it expensive [''profits before people'' remember] and unnecessary [don't we have a surplus population for God's sake].

Anyway, let's wish Ms. DeLauro and her fellow utopians the best of luck with her Bill [of the 177 Bills she has come up with since 1991 (her first term) 4 have been passed]. Maybe we should call our representatives and tell them to get on board-- at least we should e-mail them!

INQUIRING MARXISTS WANT TO KNOW, WHERE IS THE TRUTH?

Thomas Riggins

Jerry Fodor, the American philosopher, has a review in the October 16, 2009 TLS entitled "The truth is not out there." This review is of Michael Tye's "CONSCIOUSNESS REVISITED: Materialism without phenomenal concepts" and Tye is a follower of Hilary Putnam a Harvard philosopher who defends a position called "externalism". A position Fodor suggests that "might have outlived its usefulness."

Well, what I want to know is, if the truth isn't out there, where is it? Marxists think the truth, such as it is, depends on both the "out there" and the "in there" (i.e., the head). Let us see what Fodor has to say.

To explain "externalism" Fodor uses the example of H20 vs. XYZ. XYZ is supposed to have all the properties of H20 but isn't really water! We have H20 on earth but suppose a counter earth exactly the same as earth except instead of our water they have something chemically different called XYZ. You can't tell the difference by looking but if you had a glass of XYZ and you thought you had H20 you would be wrong. So for your concept of what you were looking at to be correct it is dependent on external factors as well as your internal state of mind. The truth, it seems to me, is both out there and in there (there being the brain).

Fodor then gives two traditional philosophical ideas that externalism calls into question. The first is that if you learn the meaning of a word ("water") part of what you learn is the meaning of the word and second is that it is the meaning which determines the extension or reference of the word. It's H2O in the glass [oops-- it's really XYZ]. A word should extend to what it means-- that is water I see in the glass if and only if it is H20.

Externalism calls both these semantic rules into question, says Fodor. One or the other or both could be false. Why? Because, Fodor says, it seems that BEING H20 decides if something is WATER but H20 is NOT PART OF THE MEANING OF WATER. You know how to use the word "water" even if you have never taken a chemistry course and don't know anything about molecules of hydrogen and oxygen and how they get together.

Now words express CONCEPTS so if the meaning of a word is responsible for its extension so it is of the concept as well-- i.e., what we think with-- we think with concepts. Fodor gives an example of DOG. The meaning points outward from the mind to the dog and and inward to the concept as well. Fodor says "Fido is a dog" is only true if "Fido falls under the concept DOG" and vice versa. "A word," he says, "expresses a corresponding concept; a concept represents what the corresponding word refers to."

Fodor likes this way of thinking, which he calls the "representationalist view of concepts" [ it needs more work done on it ] but he says "I love it very much" [and why not?]. But, Fodor fears Putnam's ''externalism" could put the kibosh on this love affair. According to Putnam the meaning of the words you use and the concepts you use depend not only on what goes on in your head but also on the external world as well.

I don't see what is so upsetting about that. It is not the meaning as meaning that is at issue but the correct use of the concept. The glass appears to me to have water in it, or H20, two different concepts for the same thing but I am only correct in applying these concepts if the glass is not a glass of XYZ but one of water. How does this threaten representationalism? More specifically, how is Putnam justified in saying "externalism" means that the "mental representations of concepts" are not in your head because the meaning of the extension is not. What is not in your head is what is really out there in the external world-- a glass of XYZ. The fact that "externalism" has to be taken into account with respect to the truth conditions of your use of the concept WATER or H20 does not justify Putnam in saying the "meaning" of your concept "ain't in your head." It does justify your saying the truth of the correspondence of your judgment that your concept applies to the external world "ain't only in your head." I don't think either Putnam or Fodor is on base here.

Now we get to Tye's book. Fodor tells us that in both empiricism and rationalism "perception" goes like this: i get a percept [bow-wow] and I infer a nearby animal [dog]. Tye, however doesn't like the "infer" part in the above. Fodor quotes him: "it seems natural to suppose that vision involves direct contact with external things in standard veridical cases." Well, maybe-- but after introduction to philosophy we are supposed to understand that the image or sound of a dog is mediated by our senses and the brain infers what is out there. There is mediated contact not direct immediate contact.

Tye goes on: "When I perceive a tomato, for example, there is no tomato-like sense impression [this is just an assertion by Tye] that stands as an intermediary between the tomato and me. [I hope he doesn't think a tomato is in his brain!] Nor am I related to the tomato as I am to a deer when I see its footprint in the snow. [ You are related to the footprint and the tomato in the same way, however.] I do not experience the tomato by experiencing something else over and above the tomato and its facing surface. [Fodor asks is it the tomato or its facing surface we experience. I wonder if Tye infers the tomato from the facing surface?] I see the facing surface of the tomato DIRECTLY" [and infer the tomato indirectly.]

Fodor has a lot to say about this. "Experiences," he says, "are themselves modes of awareness; one doesn't INFER them, one just has them." Yes, but I do, consciously or unconsciously (it's up to the brain) infer from them to the external world. Fodor suggests the OBJECT of the experience is the tomato but I think that is an automatic brain inference we become conscious of the tomato we look at it--oops, better lighting, it's a really red apple.

I think I am not on board with Fodor when he writes: "THE MIND IS ACTIVE IN PERCEPTION; but it is PASSIVE IN EXPERIENCE; which is to say that PERCEPTION IS INFERENTIAL BUT EXPERIENCE ISN'T." I'm not sure you can separate EXPERIENCE and PERCEPTION this way. Fodor asks how do we become aware of the phone ringing and says we don't "hear it (as one might say) 'directly'." But is it not more natural to say( after Philosophy 101) I become aware of the ringing because my brain picks up an auditory sensation, translates it, and makes my consciousness aware that the phone is ringing?

A few lines above I jestingly hoped that Tye didn't think the tomato he was looking at was in his brain. Fodor thought that Tye did believe something like that but then said to himself it wasn't possible for a philosopher to hold such a position-- that a tomato could be part of Tye's phenomenology (not a CAUSE of it but a CONSTITUENT). But he finds the following quote in Tye's book: "An object's looking F ... [isn't] a matter of an object's causing an experience which represents simply that something is F. The experience one has of the seen object is one into whose content the seen object itself enters." Hmmmm.

Following Fodor's lead let us assume that F is the Chrysler Building (CB). Fodor says Tye is trying to expound a theory of the PHENOMENAL CONTENT of our experiences. Fodor says only God knows where the phenomenal content of the CB is [well when I look at the CB it is in my mind i.e., the result of a brain event in my head] but there is no question where the CB is [42nd Street and Lexington in New York City]. So Tye can't really mean what he says-- i.e., that the CB is itself a constituent of my phenomenal content of it. I know that philosophers can be big headed, but they don't have heads big enough to contain the CB!

Tye's view is very counterintuitive and Fodor takes the time to tell us how Tye tries to make it more easily understandable. He draws an analogy from the philosophy of BERTRAND RUSSELL. Russell held that the things propositions were about were parts of the propositions about them. Fodor says that John is part of the proposition that John sneezed. It's true Russell talked that way but Fodor says, rightly I think, that Tye can't really make this appeal to Russell because the analogy between parts of propositions (Russell) and parts of experiences (Tye) "doesn't really bear much weight." Saying John is a part of a proposition simply means the truth value of the proposition depends on something about John. This "doesn't license claiming that John is part of an experience of his sneezing...."

What is the point of all this? Fodor says Tye wants to reconcile a physical metaphysics with a Realist [materialist] account of consciousness, of our conscious experience. The way to do this, Tye thinks, is by an EXTERNALISM which holds that the OBJECT of a veridical experience is part of the phenomenal content of the experience. [I'm not even going to discuss the problems of "illusory" experiences although Fodor does in his review].

Fodor says that a big problem for materialists is that since a conscious experience is, for them, the result of a brain state "assumed to be material through and through" the question is HOW CAN A BRAIN STATE BE CONSCIOUS''? Tye wants to solve this problem by making the content of direct perception is both part of the experience and "BY ASSUMING THAT THE CONTENT OF AN EXPERIENCE IS IPSO FACTO CONSCIOUS CONTENT." But Fodor thinks the available evidence is against this idea. He says that Tye is aware of this evidence and tries to explain it away but he has to add ever more "wheels and gears" to get his theory to run.

An aside here. Materialists need not ask the question as to how a materialist brain state can be conscious. Consciousness is a PROPERTY of matter-- for humans a property of the brain. It is not a KIND OF MATTER. According to Lenin, "To say that thought is material is to make a false step, a step towards confusing materialism and idealism." [CW vol. 14 M&E-C quoted in FML p. 116, see below].

I don't think we need to go over all the cases discussed the case of the CB was enough to make Tye's theory seem impossible. Fodor concludes that the evidence we have from psychology and other sciences indicates the what "perceptual experience delivers to the perceptual belief is not the X but the X experienced-as-such-and-such; and it's what the X is experienced as that determines what belief is formed in consequence of the seeing." This is a perfectly good position that a materialist can take and there is no need to try and construct a counter factual "Materialism without phenomenal concepts."

Fodor concludes that "externalism has just about outlived its usefulness. It looks as if its recent incarnations are just complicated ways of restating its premisses. In fact, he decides that Putnam's form of externalism is not needed to explain the meaning of having conscious content in the mind [brain] because REFERENTIAL CONTENT is all that is necessary for any philosophy of mind or language. And this is how Marxists, at any rate, in holding to DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM would put it: "It is not the things themselves, or their properties and relations that exist in man's consciousness, but mental IMAGES or reflections of them, which convey more or less accurately the characteristics of the objects cognised and are, in this sense, similar to them [Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninsm, Moscow, 1961)

Conditions for the Success of Socialism

by Thomas Riggins

Since the collapse of the socialist experiment in the USSR and Eastern Europe the question of how to make socialism successful has become more pertinent than ever before.

I believe that the observations made by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) as a result of his 1920 trip to Russia and his interview with Lenin are relevant to this discussion and should be given serious consideration by socialists.

This article is based on the last chapter of Russell's book THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF BOLSHEVISM. I must note that his views pertain to the conditions to be met while still under capitalism so that when socialism comes it will be able to succeed.

"The fundamental ideas of communism," he says, "are by no means impracticable, and would, if realized, add immeasurably to the well-being of mankind." So, at least, communism is a worthwhile ideal to struggle for it seems.

It is strange, however, for a logician such as Russell not to realize that the fundamental ideas of communism logically rest upon Marx's theory of value and since, in other places, he rejects that theory he should think them to be impracticable.

Be that as it may, Russell finds no fault with the fundamental ideas, the problem is "in regard to the transition from capitalism." The capitalists may put up such a fight to maintain power that they will destroy what is good in our civilization and "all that is best in communism." So this must be avoided.

There can be no success for a communist revolution if industry is paralyzed. If that should happen the economy would breakdown, there would be mass unrest, starvation, and the communists would have to resort to a "military tyranny" to retain power and maintain order and the utopian ideals of communism would have to be practically junked. This is arguably what happened in the Soviet Union as a result of forced collectivization and industrialization and the mass destruction suffered by the Nazi invasion in WW2.

So the success of any true communist revolution depends upon the survival of industry. This means that poor countries, small countries, and countries without fully developed economic power cannot have successful revolutions because the capitalists of the advanced countries would overthrow them or subvert them. Now, of course. this may be less true than when Russell wrote because there is at least one economically advanced country professing socialist ideals that could aid an under developed country, namely China

There is only one country large enough and powerful enough to have a successful revolution. "America, being self-contained and strong, would be capable, so far as material conditions go, of achieving a successful revolution; but in America the psychological conditions are as yet adverse." He further remarks that, "There is no other civilized country where capitalism is so strong and revolutionary socialism so weak as in America." This still appears to be the case.

Wherever socialism comes to power the bourgeoisie will but up a fight, and Russell says the important question is how long the fight (he uses the word 'war') will last. If it is a short time he doesn't see a problem. If it s a long time there will be a big problem involving the ability of socialism to maintain its ideals.

Therefore, Russell draws the following two conclusions. First, there can be no successful socialist revolution unless America first becomes socialist or is willing to remain neutral with respect to a socialist revolution. He dosn't mean socialists can't come to powe, but that they will not have the material means to create socialism. World history since 1920, when his book was written, would seem to give some credence to this view.

Second, in order to avoid the kind of civil war that would effectively cripple the realization of the the ideals of socialism, communism should not be set up in a country unless the great majority of the people are in favor of it and the opponents are too weak to initiate violent opposition or effective sabotage of the process.

The problems with the distortion of socialist values associated with so called "Stalinism" and "Maoism'', for example, can perhaps be attributed to the backward economic conditions of Russia and China respectively. Communists were able to take power but were not able to bring about the justice, equality and prosperity for all that was hoped for. The Russian experiment is over for now but the Chinese one is still a work in progress.

Russell also says the working class should be educated in technical matters and business administration so as not to be overly dependent on bourgeois specialists. This would imply an advanced industrial society, which was not the case in Russia or China at the time of their revolutions.

With respect to England, actually any advanced country-- especially the US-- is meant, Russell maintains the best road to socialism should begin with "self-government" in industry. The first industries to be taken over would be mining and the railroads (transportation) and Russell has "no doubts" that these could be run better by the workers than by the capitalists.

The US is actually in a position to this now that the government effectively owns the auto industry and some big financial firms (AIG). What is lacking is what Russell called the psychological preconditions by which is meant advanced class consciousness on the part of the workers. It is PAs function to help bring that about so lets hope our readership goes up!

Russell says the Bolsheviks are against self-government in industry because it failed in Russia and their national pride won't allow them to admit this. This is misleading. The Bolsheviks certainly favored workers control and soviets being in charge of industry but the civil war made this difficult to establish in practice [thus war communism]. They had no objections to workers self-government, that's what the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) was all about.

As far as having nationalized industries in capitalist countries being governed by worker's councils was concerned, this was permissible as a transitional stage to full socialism but not as an end in and of itself. Besides, a capitalist government would be unlikely to let the workers actually have the determining voice. Russell's suggestions, however, still make sense and the labor movement should be making this demand. No one is better equipped to run the auto industry than the UAW.

Russell thinks capitalists only care about money and power And we have seen this to be so in just the last few years with out current crisis.

So socialists should first take over the industries by means of self-government and allow the capitalists to keep their incomes then,when all can see that they are drones, they can be dispossessed without too much trouble. In this way we could have a relatively peaceful transition to socialism without the collapse of industry. Historically, Social Democrats have supported this but have in practice, in almost all cases, betrayed the workers and helped out the capitalists instead.

Russell says that another reason industrial self government is a good idea is that it would forestall the type of over centralization found in Russia. This should not be a real concern as Russia was backwards and Russell's plan assumes an advanced economic basis. The important thing is that it would be a support for democracy.

Russell makes an important distinction about democracy. There are at least two ways we can think about democracy One is parliamentary democracy, or in the US the type of representational democracy set up over two hundred years ago basically to protect slavery. Russell says this type of democracy is "largely discredited" and that he has "no desire to uphold" it as "an ideal institution."

He may have felt it was discredited in his day, but what about now?
Polls suggest that many Americans, at least, have a low regard for Congress and are becoming more and more aware that it is a tool for the corporations and their lobbyists Workers in the European Union are also waking up to what is happening in their respective countries. So socialists, perhaps, both here and abroad should be agitating for Russell's second kind of democracy.

He calls this "self-government." However. Russell doesn't give a more specific name for this, but today we use terms such as popular democracy, direct democracy (as opposed to representational democracy) or participatory democracy. The Russians tried soviets but the conditions on the ground made this impracticable. For the US, probably, some sort of mixture of popular democracy and parliamentary democracy (with the right of recall) would come near to what Russell had in mind. William Z. Foster once wrote a book called "Towards a Soviet America"-- I am not quite advocating that as a first stage!

Russell gives three main reasons for ensuring that socialism is based on his notions of self-government. 1) No dictator, no matter how well intentioned, "can be trusted to know or pursue the interests of his subjects [Stalin?]. 2) A politically educated population depends on self-government [the Soviet working class was unable to defend its gains against Yeltsin and Gorbachev and Co.]. 3) Self-government promotes order and stability and reinforces constitutional rule [the Soviet constitution was just a piece of paper]. As far as I know these reasons are all valid.

Russell's reasons are no doubt correct and successful socialism will be more likely if, when the time for the transition from capitalism comes, "there should already exist important industries competently administered by the workers themselves." This is certainly the ideal situation. But history does not always deal us the ideal hand. Sometimes, we are forced to play the hand we are dealt as it is not realistic to constantly fold your cards unless you have a royal flush.

Besides rejecting Bolshevism because he does not think it compatible with the type of stages and gradualism with respect to self-government that he has outlined [what the Bolsheviks questioned was if the ruling class would resort to violence if socialism won peacefully], Russell has another big problem with the Third International and that it is that its methods are based on coming to power as a result of war and social collapse, whereas socialism can only work, i.e., keep its ideals intact, by coming to power in a prosperous country-- not one destroyed by war and social upheaval.

Let us say that this is an alternative peaceful, and preferred, method. In 1920 the Bolsheviks had no way of knowing if this [violence] was a doomed project. It appears to us now that Russell may have been correct. Socialism can come to power by this method, but it cannot succeed in building a real lasting and popular social order without an already exisiting industrial infrastructure. Russia and Eastern Europe seem to have confirmed Russell's fears. The jury is still out with respect to the remaining socialist countries as I indicated earlier with respect to China.

Russell ends by saying the Bolsheviks are too dogmatic and what is really needed is an attitude that is more patient and takes into consideration the complexity of the international situation and rejects "the facile hysteria of 'no parley with the enemy'". By 1948, when his work was reissued, Russell could have read Lenin's "Left Wing Communism An Infantile Disorder" and he would have realized how inappropriate his description of the thought of the Third International was.

He then says, Russian Communism "may fail and go under, but socialism itself will not die." True then, true now. The Great War, Russell says "proved the destructiveness of capitalism" and he hopes that the future will not show the "greater destructiveness of Communism" but rather the healing powers of socialism.

What came was another world war of even greater destructiveness and the entrenchment of capitalism and its destructiveness. It now threatens the very Earth itself-- its atmosphere, its oceans, and its rain forests and all life on Earth. Now more than ever we need "the power of socialism to heal the wounds which the old system has inflicted upon the human spirit."

LOGICOMIX: A REVIEW

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, Art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna (New York, Bloomsbury, 2009) pp. 347.

Reviewed by Thomas Riggins

This is an excellent graphic novel, Howard Zinn calls it "extraordinary," about the life and times of Bertrand Russell and his search for the foundations of mathematics. Believe it or not, this is a really good read and not a dry and esoteric exercise in the history of mathematics.

In a brief "Overture" we are told this is a real honest to God comic book and it has a real story line about real people and events (although some fictional elements have been added to juice up the story they are minor).

The framework of the book is a lecture given by Bertrand Russell at an American university a few days after the invasion of Poland in 1939. On his way to the lecture hall Russell encounters protesters who want the US to stay o ut of the war and they expect Russell, who was world famous for his opposition to WWI, to join with them. Instead he invites them to his lecture with the idea that his views on the new war will be revealed. They accept and they all go to the lecture hall together.

Russell's topic is "The Role of Logic in Human Affairs" but he actually recounts the major episodes in his life and his philosophical search to establish the truth of mathematics as a branch of logic. Actually the comic ends in 1939 and Russell lived another 30 or so years so there is room for a follow up comic.

His "lecture" (it's not an historical lecture just an excuse to introduce Russell as the narrator, is divided into six parts. The first, "Pembroke Lodge," recounts Russell's youth at his Grandfather and Grandmother's estate where he was brought up after the early deaths of his father and mother. In the second part, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", Russell goes off to the study mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge, meets his life long friend G.E. Moore, meets the woman who will be his first (of four) wives, and takes classes with Alfred North Whitehead with whom he will later collaborate in writing the three volume "Principia Mathematica" their magnum opus on the foundations of mathematics.

Part Three is called "Wanderjahre". Russell and his bride travel to the continent visiting Germany and France and Russell has fictional encounters with the great mathematicians Frege and Cantor (inventor of set theory). Although fictional these meetings further the plot by introducing some of the mathematical ideas that Russell was working on in the first decade of the 20th Century.

In part four, "Paradoxes," Russell and Whitehead work on Principia Mathematica, Russell's marriage cracks up, he attempts to seduce Whitehead's wife (and fails). The title of this part refers to certain logical paradoxes, especially "Russell's Paradox," which led Russell and Whitehead to conclude that without finding solutions to logical paradoxes they could never prove that the foundations of mathematics rested on logic.

Part five is called "Logico-Philosophical Wars." Ludwig Wittgenstein shows up to study logic with Russell at Cambridge and calls Russell's whole outlook into question. Meanwhile, World War I breaks out. Wittgenstein goes off to fight for Austria (not very enlightened) and Russell ends up in prison (for six months) for anti war activities.

In part six "Incompleteness" we find Russell married again, having a son, and running a progressive school based on his philosophical views on education. His and Whitehead's project for establishing the foundations of mathematics gets a fatal blow from a young mathematician named Kurt Godel who proves his "Incompleteness Theorem" which shows that the goal of the "Principia Mathematica"-- a complete proof that mathematics rests on logic is unattainable.

Russell ends his speech by saying to his American audience that he can't tell them what to do with respect to fighting or not fighting in W.W.II. They will have to logically think this out for themselves.

Anyone with an interest in 20th Century Anglo-American philosophy will really enjoy reading this book. I have only skimmed the surface in this review.

THE CASE FOR GOD

Thomas Riggins

"The Case for God" is the new book by Karen Armstrong the popular best seller writer on religion. This is an evaluation of her case as based on a review by Ross Douthat in The New York Times Book Review Oct. 4, 2009.

Douthat thinks this is the right time for Armstrong's book now that the Bush era is over and the country is focused on health care and the economy (he neglects to mention the two wars still raging from the Bush era) rather than right wing religious issues such as creationism and sex education based on abstinence.

Douthat says the book is a good history of religious thought in the West and also "wraps a rebuke to the more militant sort of atheism"--i.e., Dawkins & Co. Armstrong wants to make three major points in her book. 1.) The idea of "God" put forth by the new atheists as well as literalists and fundamentalists is wrong headed. 2.) Her idea of "God" does not conflict with science. 3.) Her views on "God" are more faithful to the ancient traditions of Judaism, Islam and Christianity than are those of the conservation literalists of today. In fact she says it is the moving away from the old time religion towards literalism that is "one of the reasons why so many Western people find the concept of God so troublesome today."

Let's see what her argument is and if she can make her case. The pre-modern theologians (say the Fathers of the Church and even Thomas Aquinas) she says saw faith as a "practice" a set of beliefs not, she writes, "something that people thought but something they did." Well, this seems an odd thing to say. Christians have always fought over what CREED to uphold, calling each other heretics based on THOUGHT not practice. Burning at the stake was not a modern invention. So when Douthat says she holds that the old time religion was "a set of skills , rather than a list of unalterable teachings" I think she is just wrong. Persecuting heretics and weeding out wrong thoughts started with PAUL and has been with us ever since. And similar things can be said about other religions as well.

The conflict with science in modern time, she thinks, arose because theologians developed "a fatal case of science envy." How did this happen? Armstrong thought the religious thinkers became Deists in the tradition of Newton and William Paley (!), according to Douthat.

Impressed by the "natural theology" of the scientists Western Christian thinkers held "the natural laws that scientists had discovered in the universe were tangible demonstrations of God's providential care," Armstrong writes. This led the religious thinkers to give up their pre modern "mythic" and non literal approach and, as the reviewer puts it to adopt a "pseudo-scientific rigor." This meant "they had nowhere to turn when Darwin's theory of evolution arrived on the scene."

This is really revisionist history. Christianity and its leaders never adopted the Deism of Newton or Paley. Becoming literalists was just the opposite of the scientific approach. If they had been impressed by the "natural theology" of the Deists and they wanted to ape the scientists they would have rushed to adopt Darwinism and incorporate it into a scientific theology. They did just the opposite because this earlier pre-modern "mythic" form of religion based on practice not thought constricted by scripture is a figment of Armstrong's imagination. She is incorrect if she thinks Aquinas or Augustine would be "unfazed by the idea of evolution" as the reviewer puts it. They would have rejected the scientific theory of evolution and concocted some non scientific Bible based theory instead but they would never have accepted Darwin.

To avoid the fruitless arguments over religion versus science, Armstrong makes two recommendations. First, she writes to the atheists that there is "no use magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life. You will discover their truth--- or lack of it--- only if you translate these doctrines into ritual or ethical action." Well, this first one doesn't make any sense. How do you judge the "truth" of a ritual? And ethical "truths" are notoriously slippery and culture bound notions whose "truth" seems to depend on "feeling" more than on anything else. No atheist is likely to "embark" on a religious life style to discover religious "truths", especially when they already think there are no truths to be found. There are too many religions fighting not only among themselves but also internally with their own sects, as to make it seem a most unlikely prospect for an atheist.

Second, the fundamentalists and literalists are told to go back to the old time pre-modern religious outlook that recognized that "revealed truth was symbolic, that Scripture could not be interpreted literally.... [that] revelation was not an event that had happened once in the distant past but was an ongoing, creative process that required human ingenuity." This will go over like a lead balloon, especially with those who think revelation ended with Moses and a few Old Testament prophets, or with the New Testament, or the Koran. But atheists will agree that "human ingenuity" is the bases of revelation.

The reviewer also has doubts about Armstrong's views and mentions that rather than having her liberal outlook the old Christian sages [and others too] "were fiercely dogmatic." Some of them, Augustine for example, may not have been 100% Biblical dogmatists (with respect to Genesis for example) but still held literalist views as well (the Resurrection).

I have to conclude that Armstrong's God will have little appeal to most people who believe in religion-- especially since he is "mythic" and dependent on "human ingenuity." I think her case for God fails and the time one might spend in reading her book could be more profitably utilized in reading Spinoza.

Jerry Fodor and The Language of Thought

Thomas Riggins

Tim Crane has reviewed "LOT 2: 'The Language of Thought' revisited'" by Jerry Fodor in a recent issue of the TLS (9-4-09). Fodor is a leading philosopher of mind and this book is a follow up to his 1975 "The Language of Thought"-- which would be LOT 1. The purpose of this new book, according to Crane is to "stamp out" the philosophy of pragmatism which Fodor says is "perhaps the worst idea that philosophy ever had." Crane says Fodor in LOT 1 aimed at "reductionists, behaviourists, empiricists, operationalists, holists " and sundry Wittgensteinists. But all these "have become distilled" down to pragmatists. Fodor at least has good intentions!

In the 1975 work Fodor argued that when the brain thinks its thoughts the rules it follows are like a language (LOT= the language of thought). LOT is also known as "mentalese." The CONCEPTS of thinking combine in mentalese by rules just as words in a natural language combine by rules to make meaningful sentences.

A Marxist might think that the brain, through trial and error, simply learns whatever natural language it is exposed to and forms its CONCEPTS accordingly with no need for mentalese.

Fodor has some other controversial ideas in LOT 1, according to Crane-- such as the mind thinks as a computer, psychology cannot be reduced to a more basic science, and the simple concepts in the mind are INNATE not learned (the last, Crane indicates, is the most controversial).

LOT 2 revisits the main ideas of LOT 1 and Fodor has some second thoughts about some of his views but his attack on PRAGMATISM ("the view that thinking or having concepts is explained in terms of abilities to do things" is unwavering, according to Crane.

There are many shades of pragmatism and one of the most famous is that of the British philosopher GILBERT RYLE who attacked DESCARTES for his dualism-- matter and mind or the myth of "the ghost in the machine." Ryle also held that knowing how something is done comes before knowing that it "is the case." This riles Fodor to defend Descartes and he says "thought about the world is prior to thought about how to change the world. Accordingly, knowing that is prior to knowing how. Descartes was right and Ryle was wrong " [at least on this issue].

The two most important arguments against pragmatism in LOT 2 are 1) that since thinking is required for us to exercise our abilities it must be prior to them, and 2) since to think about the world with concepts the concepts have to relate to each other in a meaningful way ("be determined by the semantic properties of their parts") and this means, Fodor says, they partake of "compositionality" (i.e., the meaning of concepts is a function of the rules for relating them to each other, their "composition.") Pragmatism does not account for this property of thinking, Fordor says, so it must be wrong. This is a rather obtuse argument but there it is.

Thought consists of "aboutness". It is thinking about things i.e., it has reference. This is a position, Crane says, that Fodor has held for a long time. Crane maintains that there is a "tension" between Fodor's two arguments against pragmatism. The first argument has it that thought is "fine-grained" as thinking about George Orwell isn't always the same as thinking about Eric Blair. But the second argument is "coarse-grained" since references to Orwell are also references to Blair: "the thoughts have the same semantic properties."

Crane says the best chapter in the book is the one devoted to trying resolve this tension. He defends the fine-grained view by saying thinking about THE EVENING STAR is different than thinking about HESPERUS because there is only ONE concept in the latter and there are TWO concepts in the former.

But what about HESPERUS and VENUS? Well, Crane says, Fodor knows there is no difference in reference so the difference must be in how the content of the reference is presented by syntax. He quotes Fodor: "If there is something that it seems you need senses to do either do it with syntax or don't do it at all." All well and good, but Crane says this answer is also given by the philosophers Fodor opposes and although he has many differences with "pragmatists" and others, this use of syntax "is not one of them."

So the different ways we think about things is due to the different concepts involved and the concepts are part of the LOT going on in our brains [where else would it be?] What about PERCEPTION? This is discussed in "a much less satisfactory chapter."

Perception is NOT thought therefore it is non-conceptual. Crane says Fodor explains non-conceptual representation in two ways. 1.) Picture-like ("iconic") rather than linguistic and 2.) "in terms of the way it carries 'information' in a merely causal or physical sense." Crane gives the examples of smoke informing us of fire and clouds of rain.

These two arguments are also in tension according to Crane. "Informational content", he says, is indifferent as to how it is represented-- information about VENUS is also information about HESPERUS. Icons on the other hand are not indifferent as to how they are represented. The same cat can be perceived in different ways entirely.

Crane concludes that in Fodor's system informational content is "not well suited" for perception. He claims that perception can be as "fine-grained" as thought and that Fodor's "devotion to informational content" makes it difficult for him to see this.

So it appears that this philosophy has been found wanting. The LOT also appears to be a form of metaphysical speculation without sufficient empirical warrant.