|
uh, you really didnt understand, did you cyn?
first off, what could possibly be vaguer than some "human nature"? what is it? a series of features that you get from parables--you know, the stories that start off by telling you THIS IS A STORY ABOUT GREED or LUST or blah blah blah and then provide you with "details" about greed or lust or blah blah blah. what does it do? well in most situations, it does nothing. in political contexts, it erases the fact that human beings live in communities and that communities are built around particular types of social relations that may or may not be functional. like private property: what would greed mean in a context without private property? or pride: behind this is the assumption that every human being has a "place" and should stay there. lust? same business. most of the conditions these vague categories point to are SOCIAL are the results of political choices--and what these categories and the stories that they are embedded in tell you is STAY WHERE YOU ARE. the order of things is necessarily good because god sanctions it unless it isnt good in which case god does not sanction it (depends on which side youre on i suppose). what they tell you is: THE EXISTING ORDER IS LEGITIMATE BECAUSE IT EXISTS----so crap like "sin" or "expressions of human nature" function to eliminate the fact that we live in social systems which may or may not be functional, may or may not be desirable and push all political thinking and action back onto pathology, deviance, error.
so this notion of "human nature" functions to erase the possibility of thinking in political terms.
and every one of the categories involved with this "human nature" is hopelessly vague. every operation involved with application is entirely circular.
so no, cyn, you really didnt understand.
maybe this helps.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|