Friday, August 30, 2019
Gay Science: Public or Private?
It doesn’t really matter if being gay is a genetic trait (biology is destiny) or a lifestyle freely chosen as human beings have to be regarded as free agents with the right to live their lives as they wish as long as they don’t harm others: this is covered by the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights (universal in the sense that everyone violates it). This is an impotent article because the scientific information will be misused and defenders of human rights have to to know how to defend the science and confound those who pervert it. This is why the following quote is disturbing: “I deeply disagree about publishing this,” said Steven Reilly, a geneticist and postdoctoral researcher who is on the steering committee of the institute’s L.G.B.T.Q. affinity group, Out@Broad. “It seems like something that could easily be misconstrued,” he said, adding, “In a world without any discrimination, understanding human behavior is a noble goal, but we don’t live in that world.” Not only is understanding human behavior a noble goal it is necessary in order to construct a rational social order that supports the human rights enunciated in the Universal Declaration. We have seen the damage done by suppressing scientific information (the smoking issue, climate change, racism, etc.). The world without discrimination will never come about through the suppression of science but only through its propagation and the enlightening effects it can produce when people are properly educated and correctly understand the nature of the world in which they live. What needs to be suppressed are those in authority who use their power to disseminate ignorance and anti-scientific views: in 2020 the people of the US will have an opportunity to do so.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
The Need to Understand Mao
You can't understand the CPC without comprehending Mao's understanding of Marxism-Leninism. The Chinese have said that Mao, Like Stalin, was 70% good and 30% bad (not as a moral judgement but in terms of PC correct and incorrect actions). Both, while living, were the subject of personality cults and were treated as if they were 100% "good." Both were fierce enemies of capitalism and sought to lay the foundations for the future communist society free of all human exploitation but found themselves in historical circumstances that overwhelmed them at times, and in the case of Stalin eventually led to the destruction of the socialist state he created, preserved from Nazism (along with the rest of Europe) and tried to defend in the cold war to which his successors succumbed. Mao too faced Incomprehensible historical contradictions that Marxist theory was unprepared to answer at the time ( a split with the USSR and an internal CPC civil war expressed as a cultural "revolution"). So for us to understand just what and why the 30% was and came about is vitally important. But also we must study the 70% as well as it was the basis of all the past successes of the world communist movement and is the foundation of its future possibilities of victory. That 70% was based on a correct understanding and application as a guide to action of the theoretically sound foundations laid by Marx and Engels and creatively developed by V.I. Lenin and which our task today is to further develop and adapt to historical conditions in which we find ourselves. We must, of course, study other progressive thinkers within and without the Marxist tradition, but the works of the founders and their flawed great continuers in the past century will be important weapons for the communist and workers party to wield to attain victories over the capitalists and imperialists who dominate the world today and for us in the USA to bury the forces represented by Donald Trump and his enablers (conscious and unconscious) in the Republican and Democratic parties.
Monday, August 19, 2019
The Case of Placido Domingo
Whatever the circumstances, Placido Domingo is not Hitler, Epstein, or Weinstein and the fact that these are the types of comparisons in the comments that pop up is a problem. Many, if not most people, in my generation (Placido's as well) were brought up by our parents, churches, and public schools (mine were segregated) and were instilled with many values and beliefs that are, correctly, no longer politically correct or morally justifiable. The phenomenon of Trumpism indicates that millions of people still operate with these superannuated values. But people can change, and learn, and both atone and redeem themselves. Sartre has shown that we are works in progress not unchanging essences such as rocks and trees. Placido Domingo appears to be in that gray area where his consciousness today is no longer that of the past in which his alleged negative conduct occurred. Enlightenment offers redemption and should be encouraged and people should not be cast into the outer darkness for the mistakes of the past if they have sincerely changed and are no longer the same. Any real harm done must of course be rectified as far as possible and hopefully followed by reconciliation: what more can be expected?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)