GRGR(24): Tchitcherine, Wimpe, Marxism, and you

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, one million billionth of a millisecond on a sunday morning wrote:

> We also get a little bit of philosophy-of-the-self (p. 702):
> 
> 	"Then, right up till the point of decision," Wimpe curious but
> 	careful, "a man could still be perfectly pure . . ."
> 
> 	"He could be anything. _I_ don't care. But he's only real _at_
> 	the points of decision. The time between doesn't matter."
> 
> 	"Real to a Marxist."
> 
> 	"No. Real to himself."
> 
> 	Wimpe looks doubtful.
> 
> 	"I've been there. You haven't."
> 
> Why doesn't the time between matter? And what are these points of
> decision? Apparently the ones where a person must decide whether or
> not to die for History. [Does the System really offer a choice?]

Well, except for a slight problem, I would have said Vasclav was merely
alluding to dialectical materialist thinking under which any
intentionality  behind an historically significant act (that which might
occupy 'the time between' and could be pure or impure) is
irrelevant.  Only the significant action itself (say, the blowing up of
the bridge that saved the battalion) has meaning. 

Problem is, why does Vasclav expressly deny the Marxist angle and
seemingly putting it into the realm of subjectivity? Reverting to
bourgeois morality.

Dunno.

		P.