A Credo
Continuing the theme of political engagement, here’s a quote I’m fond of from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s 1945 essay ‘The War Has Taken Place’, included in his collection Sense and Non-Sense, which I think still makes a lot of sense:
…those five years have not taught us to think ill of what we once judged to be good, and in the eyes of conscience it is still absurd to hide a truth because it harms one’s country, to kill a man because he lives on the other side of the river, to treat another person as a means not an end. We were not wrong, in 1939, to want liberty, truth, happiness, and transparent relations among men, and we are not now abandoning humanism. The War and the Occupation only taught us that values remain nominal and indeed have no value without an economic and political infrastructure to make them participate in existence. What is more, in actual history values are only another way of designating human relationships, as these become established according to a man’s mode of work, the nature of his loves, and the shape of his his hopes; in brief, according to the way he lives with others. It is a question not of giving up our values of 1939 but of realising them.
Mark: read The Great Disruption yet? I’d be interested to know what you think of Fuku’s thesis about people’s abandonment of social and political engagement after 1965. He makes a case for that being the key year – after it several statistical representations of community-mindedness and participation drop sharply.
Mark: read The Great Disruption yet? I’d be interested to know what you think of Fuku’s thesis about people’s abandonment of social and political engagement after 1965. He makes a case for that being the key year – after it several statistical representations of community-mindedness and participation drop sharply.
Nope, C.L., but I’ve dug it out of storage and plan to have a look soon.
Nope, C.L., but I’ve dug it out of storage and plan to have a look soon.
On the other hand, the best of the sixties taught people how to be activists, and eventually within their own suburban communities, and/or/despite the messages and attitudes purveyed through those times. You really saw the social and political engagement kicking in post 1965.
Think of all the NIMBY and Proposition 13 style citizen power groups since then – that couldn’t have arisen without the examples and action templates first sorted out in the mid to late sixties.
Or for that matter, could Devo have existed without Sparks’ “Cool World”.
In fact the more I read of you CL, the more I realise yer a crappy historian as well.
On the other hand, the best of the sixties taught people how to be activists, and eventually within their own suburban communities, and/or/despite the messages and attitudes purveyed through those times. You really saw the social and political engagement kicking in post 1965.
Think of all the NIMBY and Proposition 13 style citizen power groups since then – that couldn’t have arisen without the examples and action templates first sorted out in the mid to late sixties.
Or for that matter, could Devo have existed without Sparks’ “Cool World”.
In fact the more I read of you CL, the more I realise yer a crappy historian as well.
” In fact the more I read of you CL, the more I realise yer a crappy historian as well.”
I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that at all, Nabs. Though I often (but not always) disagree with C.L.’s politics, I think his writing on history shows insight and erudition.
Don’t forget – alumni of the Santamaria socialist group stick together
” In fact the more I read of you CL, the more I realise yer a crappy historian as well.”
I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that at all, Nabs. Though I often (but not always) disagree with C.L.’s politics, I think his writing on history shows insight and erudition.
Don’t forget – alumni of the Santamaria socialist group stick together
Glad yer a devoted reader Nab. Yer can’t be all bad. Yer still hurting, though, and that makes me worry about yer welfare old timer.
Glad yer a devoted reader Nab. Yer can’t be all bad. Yer still hurting, though, and that makes me worry about yer welfare old timer.
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