Glorfindel

The guard is tired.

(This is an obscure historical reference.)

I think we can continue this and a range of other debates when other articles of mine are published.

Or when you publish something.

Thanks Passy - and good 1918 reference :-)

No *personal* offence was intended to be given, or taken either, in our interchanges.

I'm not tribal in my politics. The only thing that really upsets me is repressive intolerance of different views. I also focus on ends rather than technical means. So I equally dislike doctrinaire "socialization" prescriptions, and the neoliberal broken records played in the Australian's letters column over years by Victor Diskordia of Mackellar ACT. At an environmental economics conference in Sept 1990 I heard Alan Moran (Tasman Institute) deliver himself of the breathtaker: The solution to problems like the Franklin River is to put the river up for sale, see who buys it, and let the market decide. Duuhhhh !

Life and people are rarely just black or white. I generally despise the economic views of Jane Albrechtsen in the Oz, but see good sense in her writings against postmodernism in education and the craven cowardice of the West in dealing with aggressive fundamentalist Islam.

Radical socialists are surely scions of the Enlightenment; so I am bewildered at the Left's attitude toward Islam. Nick Cohen (What's Left? how liberals lost their way, 2007) said it all. If it's seen as anti-American, it can be forgiven ANY monstrous outrages of its own. That's intellectual hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy!

As I said before, I think we are individually and collectively LOST if we don't have an internal moral compass. "Whatever serves the revolution" is NOT an acceptable criterion for good vs bad. Dostoyevsky (Brothers Karamazov) puts it well: If God doesn't exist, then everything is permitted. Kant is a bit more subtle, perhaps: There can be no physical proof of the existence of God, but it is in ALL our interests to behave AS IF he does.

Another good book I like is Francis Wheen: How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world, 2004.

By the way, academically I'm a Russian specialist - language, history, culture, literature.

Thanks Glorfindel. Apart from your first post I enjoyed the debate.

As to a moral compass, where do these come from? From our minds, influenced and shaped by the society around us?

If they are external, then what explains the moral compass that produces for example on the one hand "thou shalt not kill" and on the other the just war, or which hangs (or used to hang) people for homosexual activity?

I haven't read it for some time, and forget the context in which it was written and its basic premise to be frank, but I'll have a look at Their Morals and Ours again.

The revolution right or wrong? The Communist Party right or wrong? I don't buy those prescriptions.

Of course socialists are children of The Enlightenment. I think you misjudge Socialist Alternative's views on Islamism. Chris Harman's the Prophet and the Proletariat is a good place to start. The argument we have is with islamophobia and its racism, and the use of the fear of the "other" to weld working people to the bosses' system.

I despise postmodernism. The current discussion in the Australian's Higher Education Supplement was started by a leftist who attacked postmodernism. What's that saying? Facts are difficult things?

That doesn't detract from the view that different societies have different values, I don't think, nor the conclusion that George Bush and his economic clique (or Obama or McCain) are the biggest threat (along with Putin and Hu and the European leaders) to peace.

I suggest you read Sandra's pamphlet on the 1917 revolution. I know you will vehemently disagree with the basic premise, but I think it makes a cogent case for the sorts of ideas I have been arguing here.

What was it Marx wrote? Men make history, but not of their own choosing?

Sandra Bloodworth Russia 1917: When workers took power (not sure about the title, but you can find it on the socialist alternative website www.sa.org.au I am sure.)

Glorfindel

I liked Don Watson's Weasle Words. And the head of the Commonwealth Attorney general's Department retired recently after 8 years and lambasted the public service for its bizzare and obfuscatory use of English.

I reviewed Francis Wheen's book on Marx many years ago. I think I was a bit harsh on him at the time.

Glorfindel

I liked Don Watson's Weasel Words. And the head of the Commonwealth Attorney general's Department retired recently after 8 years and lambasted the public service for its bizzare and obfuscatory use of English.

I reviewed Francis Wheen's book on Marx many years ago. I think I was a bit harsh on him at the time.