: : We don't disagree. Again, utilitarian collectivism always defeats egalitarian collectivism. No value judgements here. Pure observation of verifiable and predictable phenomena.: No, thats a hidesou abstraction which does not conform to teh facts. Egalitarianism has always come acropper when it has existed as a minority, thus it could be defeated by the military might of teh ruling class. this is not verfifiable, nor falsifiable- empiricism is bad for human sciences...
SDF: I think the word Red Deathy is looking for is "world-historical" -- the world will not come to technological consciousness again as it once did in 1917-1920 or 1939-1945, and so political theories of the predominance of fascism or communism aren't "testable," because Nazism, Leninism, Stalinism, etc. were "world-historical" social movements. All of the above and doubtless capitalism(s) as well were, and are, responses to varying social and technological transitions between pre-modern and modern societies.
When we change a society by instituting a particular type of political regime, that society can't just "change back" in a way that would make the type of political regime in question into a "testable" quantity. Imagine trying to reintroduce Nazism into German society today, in order to test a theory about the susceptibility of German society to Nazism. Would you be doing science? I don't think so. People do not make lab rats for ideological experimentation, because collectively they live through a non-repeatable history.
: : And, additionally, if I'm spouting a social construct so are you. In fact, under this assumption, we were destined to have this conversation. We had no choice in the matter.
: We're not 'constructs' so much as processes, hence I prefer the term 'practical consciousness' to your ahistorical utilitarian consciousness...
SDF: The confusion here appears to be about what words are as social constructs. To say that words are social constructs is to say that the intersubjectivity of society, society as it participates in conversation, sets the meanings of words, it is to say that the meanings of words are set by socially-constructed conventions. This is to say NOTHING about the agencies responsible for conducting individual conversations. Just because the vocabulary, our tools of communication, are themselves social constructs, does not mean society constructs conversations independently of the individuals themselves. Similarly, just because Crescent once constructed my adjustable wrench and Schwinn once constructed my bicycle, doesn't mean that my attempt to fix my bicycle today is itself a corporate-authored action.
None.
