Dear Bill,
Thank you for your response.I am sorry about the Wiki
reference.The reason for the reference is to avoid someone
trashing my quary, A possible reference between Praxis and
Fascism.
[Ethics, then, is nothing but the pursuit of the
non-fascist life].
You summed up beautifully.
You said-
Stated as an epistemology, praxis rejects any notion of The
Material elaborated beyond the raw, unformed Aristotelian
variety.
On the contrary Praxis does not deny Transcendence as a
possibility, in the sense it holds a view which is not
limited by time and space, hence what you mentioned as a
Raw Aristotelian variety can be ever evolving in plurality
of truths and life forms. - A creative dynamic, a living
epistemology or an “Ontological self reflexivity”, in the
biological sense reflexivity of heart.
Your quote,
“I furthermore believe that Prof. Paxton errs in stating
that fascism arises due to social stress”.
Is in itself an explanation of ground reality for the
emergence for all kinds of ideological struggles (left and
right wing, including class and caste struggles) need not
be or necessarily be born out of prevailing or historical
social conditions?
So the logic and the explanation of such developments
depend on the temporality of the power structure that
operates, either in creation of the crisis or the probable
solutions or providing a direction. This possible drives
all existing Human dynamics in to the will for power,
leading to further asymmetry as a further reaction- A
crisis leading to another crisis, a chain of events where
past gets replaced by the future (A theory of chaos, which
is what a popularly held assumption and a possible
Intelligence fallacy of the empiricist driven material
world).
In short, fascism’s camouflage the protean nature of human
truths by desiring a one-ness. Fascists know the truth, and
are willing to kill those of more flexible mind in order to
terrify the ignorant into acceptance. Behind these phony
truths lie the will to power over others.
The fascist knows the truth.
The problem does not lie in perception of truth. The
process of annihilation of the other (truths, lives) is an
act of aberration of reality (presupposed primitive
instinct to survive), an unethical biological and moral
condition, which in its presupposition of primacy or
superiority of one or any truth over the other as opposed
to coexistence many is self destructive in nature as
engaged by the self (subjective self), which is an anathema
to reflexivity (Biological) or epistemology.
As you mentioned, “Behind the phony truth lies the will to
power”. Is it not an apparent contradiction of fascism
while it knows “the truth and Its protean Nature, but
instead it chooses to subjugate all other for the desired
one-ness and terrify the ignorant in to acceptance, which
in itself is a self destructive agenda/idea as there would
not only the ever presence of other truths and besides
resistance to the one being imposed.
Does this in the first place explain the necessity of
praxis as a constant (ever present Raw truth), where the
possibility of finding the lost ground beyond material
conditions presupposing that “Human” (Life forms) is/are
central to the nature, where all or everything is self
contained, including the morality or right to Life.
You said-
As a genre of knowledge-justification, praxis truth- claims
lack foundation, and are therefore said to be coherentist.
This is to say that reflection on what we've done only
requires us to assert that we're better off having done X
rather than y. Moreover, a strong praxis approach claims
that systemic, foundationalist, and laws-driven ideologies
are the mortal enemy of Praxis...as it knows itself to be.
The question of retrospective reflection is rooted in
conditioned consciousness (as all consciousness in
conditioned), which is limited in its perception, hence
subject to error, further leading to separation between the
subject and object( where harmony of relations and
understanding is lost), It creates altered states of
reality as an observed and observer, further distancing the
dynamics of already flawed subject –object realities, and
in a distortion of collective reality channels all life
and material forces in a direction, creating vicious self
destructive cycle/s.
As mentioned, There is no claim to truth as “all positions
of life are self contained in their Raw in an Aristotelian
sense, The evolution of historical process which includes
the presupposed states of material conditions for Fascist
dynamics and ideologies are a conscious aberration of
reality in its dynamic forms is nothing but a reflection of
those anomalies which either distance themselves or
separates from The (Raw nature As mentioned)ontological
self reflexivity of Praxis as a self contained.
In short, Every new generation confronts a material reality
created by their predecessors; to which they're forced to
adhere ...or alter.
What is the foundation for envisaging such adherence or
initiating change?
You said,
In passing, I might mention that the citation of
"biological necessities" only serves as a hopeless
reductionism for the intellectually hopeless. The fact that
we do eat, sleep, and have sex says nothing of the
particular how's. To causally distinguish infrastructure
from superstructure is nonsense.
True. But what is it that makes it possible for the essence
of Human existence, which can be elevated beyond the
mundane, in which there is no doubt one cannot causally
distinguish infrastructure from superstructure.
But how is one to define this contestant dynamic or change
and what is the ground reality for it to exist, operate and
evolve?
To be continued………..
Please send me your views and comments……….
regards,
Indrakaran.
Boston.
--- bill harris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Indra,
>
> With respect to Philosophy, Wikapedia's stab is more
> confusing than "standard"; so I'll try to sort it out:
>
> "Praxis" means practical activity that moulds our
> perception of reality as we develop. Ostensibly, this
> blurs the subject/object distinction, as well as calling
> into serious question the category of The Natural with
> respect to human existence. Stated as an epistemology,
> praxis rejects any notion of The Material elaborated
> beyond the raw, unformed Aristotelian variety.
>
> Praxis is therefore the idealism of early Marx,
> Humanism, and The Philosophy of Science of Neurath's
> Boat. There are no natural laws in the human sciences to
> which we humans are necessarily bound. In short, Every
> new generation confronts a material reality created by
> their predecessors; to which they're forced to adhere
> ...or alter.
>
> In passing, I might mention that the citation of
> "biological necessities" only serves as a hopeless
> reductionism for the intellectually hopeless. The fact
> that we do eat, sleep, and have sex says nothing of the
> particular how's. To causally distinguish infrastructure
> from superstructure is nonsense.
>
> As a genre of knowledge-justification, praxis truth-
> claims lack foundation, and are therefore said to be
> coherentist. This is to say that reflection on what we've
> done only requires us to assert that we're better off
> having done X rather than y. Moreover, a strong praxis
> approach claims that systemic, foundationalist, and
> laws-driven ideologies are the mortal enemy of
> Praxis...as it knows itself to be.
>
> Therefore, the first fascism was the Social Evolutionism
> of late Nineteenth Century Capital. This was followed in
> turn by the the red variety of Engels and Lenin.
> Laws-driven, both; each with their own sense of
> historical inevitability buttressed by the
> pseudo-sciences of racism, genetic elitism, and class
> struggle. In short measure, fascism is The Enlightenment
> gone haywire.
>
> Fasci, of course, means "bundle", and is nominally
> associated with the 1920/30-ish beliefs in Spain, Italy,
> and Germany that claims nationhood bestows its own
> essence. Yet as one can easily observe huge distinctions
> of wealth and behavior among members of said countries, a
> cult of violence--or purification--is implied as part
> and parcel to this bonding. Fusion, as we know, takes
> place only under the most severe of thermodynamic
> circumstances.
>
> I furthermore believe that Prof. Paxton errs in stating
> that fascism arises due to social stress. This is the
> standard Churchillian/naturalist model of economic-
> materialist stimuli > ideological response that must be
> rejected. Unless one has been sleeping under a
> Friedmanite rock, it's quite obvious how the wealthy,
> financial set orchestrate financial crises; which is to
> say, likewise, that the material cause of the '28 crash
> was the amount of unsecured credit that human-made laws
> permitted to be speculated upon in the first place.
>
> In short, fascisms camouflage the protean nature of human
> truths by desiring a one-ness. Fascists know the truth,
> and are willing to kill those of more flexible mind in
> order to terrify the ignorant into acceptance. Behind
> these phony truths lie the will to power over others.
>
> Eco offers a behavioral representation of what Deleuze
> describes in a more philosophical vein. Humans, being
> desiring machines, are immanently capable of turning
> their energies against others; and fascism of the state
> is nothing but the micro-fascism of the individual
> projected upon on a larger canvas. The disconnected
> individual--the Body without organs--will always have the
> capitalist machine available as a hook-up: a means of
> gaining power over others by financial means.
>
> Ethics, then, is nothing but the pursuit of the
> non-fascist life.
>
> Bill Harris
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: indra karan<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> To:
>
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
> Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:32 AM
> Subject: Praxis - Fascism.
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Given the standard definition and understanding of
> PRAXIS
>
>
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis>_
> (process), can one
> possibly say or assume a political ideology like
> FASCISM
>
>
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism>)
> is a product of
> Praxis.
>
> Can Fascism under the guise of Praxis address the core
> issues that are central to Humanity or an individual
> correspondingly in the spiritual, ideological or
> pedagogical processes that are part of critical or
> evolutionary consciousness?
>
> Does Fascism effectively camouflage the "Truth" or the
> Facts in a manner that is distortion of "reality" or of
> "self identities" and a sham scientific process in the
> evolution historical processes, where in humanity,
> given
> its imperfect nature of self is led in to self
> deception or
> false beliefs based on identities of gender, class,
> race,
> culture, religion and national Identity?
>
> Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton
> has
> written that:
>
> Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior
> marked by obsessive preoccupation with community
> decline,
> humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults
> of
> unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party
> of
> committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but
> effective collaboration with traditional elites,
> abandons
> democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive
> violence
> and without ethical or legal restraints goals of
> internal
> cleansing and external expansion."[11]
>
> Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:
>
> 1.A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of
> traditional solutions.
> 2. Belief one's group is the victim, justifying any
> action
> without legal or moral limits.
> 3. Need for authority by a natural leader above the
> law,
> relying on the superiority of his instincts.
> 4. Right of the chosen people to dominate others
> without
> legal or moral restraint.
> 5. Fear of foreign `contamination."[12]
>
> Semiotician Umberto Eco attempts to identify the
> characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of
> tradition,
> rejection of modernism, cult of action for action's
> sake,
> life is lived for struggle, fear of difference,
> rejection
> of disagreement, contempt for the weak, cult of
> masculinity
> and machismo, qualitative populism, appeal to a
> frustrated
> majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy
> enemies,
> education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in
> his
> popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking
> at
> a Blackshirt.[15] More recently, an emphasis has been
> placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric
> that
> argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and
> ethnic
> people.[16]
>
> I welcome your views and thoughts,
> Regards,
> Indrakaran.
> Boston.
>
>
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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