Chris Hedges, Again
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I know you have had a few threads going on Chris Hedges before, and some of you have a reasonably favourable opinion of him – from what I could glean by a quick reading through.
I have come across a couple of Youtube videos by him recently which I have found very interesting.
In the first link below, he talks about “belief” and “morality” as being important components of the struggle. He clarifies that what he means by “belief”, isn’t necessarily a belief in a religion, but rather a holding on to a belief in such values as justice, truth and compassion – the way “good draws to the good”. Listening to how he explains this, it makes me think of how Robbo has treated the concept of “morality” in some of his posts. I must admit I struggled with this concept at first, but I think I am slowly getting a clearer picture of what he means. I know both these words are anathema to many people on this list, as they do not fit in with what it means to be a “materialist”. Don’t get me wrong, I also think that everything in the world can ultimately be explained in terms of sub-atomic particles – however, the whole is often “greater than the sum of its parts”.
Also, in the same link, he talks about the prison system in the US. He teaches in a prison, to “keep it real”, or however he puts it. His stories from the prison system are shocking. Black prisoners are routinely beaten to death – on their death certificates it says they “died of a heart attack”. He calls it neo-slavery – slavery has been abolished, but has been reinstituted by other means. The prison system has largely been privatised. The inmates are mostly black. Poverty has been criminalised. Prison governors actively invite large companies in, to take advantage of an enslaved, black, prison population. Why outsource your mind-numbingly boring jobs to Bangladesh, paying someone there 22 cents an hour, when someone in an American prison can do the same job for the same wage? 95% of the prisoners haven’t even had a trial.
Somewhere else (not in this particular link) he talks about the importance of being present at uprisings, like the Occupy movement; one important reason being for your own well-being, for realising that there are other people around thinking like you, for the sense of community (even if it’s brief), so that you gather psychological strength to carry on resisting.
In the second link he talks very movingly about what his father meant to him, about the sacrifices he made, in order to stay true to what he believed in.
They are both fairly long videos, but well worth sitting through, in my opinion.
meel2 wrote:… he talks about “belief” and “morality” as being important components of the struggle. He clarifies that what he means by “belief”, isn’t necessarily a belief in a religion, but rather a holding on to a belief in such values as justice, truth and compassion – the way “good draws to the good”. … I know both these words are anathema to many people on this list, as they do not fit in with what it means to be a “materialist”.Well, if one's starting point is the 19th century concept of 'matter' (which supposedly precedes 'consciousness'), then 'belief' and 'morality' are secondary concerns, at best.Materialists have Faith in Matter, not Faith In Humans, and their social production and its possibilities.
meel2 wrote:Don’t get me wrong, I also think that everything in the world can ultimately be explained in terms of sub-atomic particles – however, the whole is often “greater than the sum of its parts”.Oh dear… I think you've answered your own question, meel2.Good luck with finding 'consciousness', 'belief' and 'morality' in 'sub-atomic particles'.FWIW, Marx (unlike the 'materialists') started from both consciousness and being, and their relationship, and thus social production. It was Engels who had the 19th century bourgeois fetish for 'particles'. Why you also have this fetish, given the advances even in bourgeois physics, god only knows.I suspect that you, too, are an ideological 'materialist'… but you can get better from it, if you want to.
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