wrote:

"Joe has injected the Khazar connection into the issue of the Jewish genetic
base, intriguing but unscientific."

Well, I don't always agree with Joe, but he has a point with the Khazars.
The Khazar theory is not 'unscientific', there are indications (no proof) that
 Jews
of Eastern-Europe had no connection with the diaspora; they are descendants of
converted slavic tribes. Obviously, Israel opposes the idea.

I found Koestler's book  fascinating. Also, a fictional Khazar dictionary was
recently published by a serbian writer.

By the way, there is Khazar History Forum on Internet
To join, send a message to:  
Your message should say:  subscribe eejh

In an ongoing debate about Anarchismm Jeliko replied to me:


> [snip]

>I have no problem with anything good folks write as long as the items are
>shown as opinions (when they are in fact only that) and do not try make
>their opinions into a holy writ.
>

I have difficulty figuring out what you mean by 'opinion', 'fact', or 'holy
writ'
I tend to favour the ontological and epistemological position of the
American Pragmatist Philosophers who point out the paradox that no
individual can discern the difference between illusion and what they name
'fact' except in retrospect.  This results in the situation that any
statement can be no more then a more or less well stated or more or less
better supported opinion.  A scientific opinion differs from a common sense
opinion or a personal opinion only in that it is underpinned by evidence
which is deemed valid by the community of scientists.  The methodology for
the evaluation of the validity of an item of evidence is based on past
experience of whether the given opinion worked in practice.  As for holy
writ, if I were quoting the Christian Bible, Koran, or Bhagavad Ghita, I
would so indicate, and since I never claimed to be endowed with prophetic
power, I don't see how I can be acused of  making my knowledge claims
appear as holy writ.

then I said:

>> I make no bones about it, I think we would all be better of without the
>> state.  However, I understand that the state evolved some 6,000 years ago
>> and is therefore a historical social reality, we can't just wish it away.
>

and you replied

>If anything, I prefer the libertarian approach to that of the anarchist
>approach.
>

Libertarianism is sometimes called 'right wing anarchism'.  As I pointed
out before, anarchism is extreemely heterogenous.  Personally I lean
towards syndicalism, since I find the notion of natural property rights as
Ayn Rand and other libertarians conceive of it about as reasonable as the
concept of the divine right of kings.

 Then I wrote:

>> If the state hadn't evolved, the density of population on the planet
>would
>> never have reached its present level.

and you replied:

>This is an assumption that is not necessarily valid. It is likely that the
>population growth of the planet led to the establishment of the government
>and not the other way around. Of course some governments tried to
>contribute to it a la Ceaucescu, but those were later effects.
>

Here I must insist that the archeological and anthropological opinion based
on the observation of stateless social formations and analysis of the rise
of cities in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, supports my opinion.  To be more
precise, populations get denser in the course of time until the carrying
capacity of the land is exceeded after which population density decreases.
Thiss is a cyclical process and well known and uncontroversial principle of
demographics.  The carrying capacity of a given area of land can increase
with the introduction of new means of production, for example, plant and
animal domestication in the late neolithic.  This doesn't neccessarily have
to take place.  In the Pacific North West, it appears that hunting and
gathering and demographic stability existed for some 4,000 years prior to
contact with Europeans  and was maintained by social arrangements.  The
increase in carrying capacity, only exists while the given technology is
practicable.  One factor that endangers the practicability of horticulture
is lack of control of land.  It is true that some degree of territorial
control is neccessary for gathering and hunting, but the intensity of
control needed is much less, and the consequences for a given group of
failing to control is much less crucial, (one can more easily move one's
range, but if other people or even animals destroy your crop, you could
starve, especially if you have already reached a population density level
that prevents you from resuming gathering and hunting.)  To deal with this
problem, defensive measures must be taken and surplusses must be
accumulated and reserved.  From the point of view of gatherers and hunters,
on the other hand,  settled people are an obsticle, their activities skew
the hunting environment.  As they fail in hunting, they are likely to blame
the agriculturalists and attack them and steal their goods.  We have the
first arms race, and archeology can follow the development of technology
and the emergence of the state.  Without the state,  horticulture as a way
of life, cannot continue for a very long time, thus we see states emerging
independently in different parts of the world: Egypt, The Tigris Euphrates
Valley,  S.E. Asia,  Northern China (Yellow River), India, Central America,
Mexico, Peru, ect.  The emergence of the state is a neccessity for the long
term practice of horticulture, and later, agriculture, and without it,
given premodern technology, population density would decline to what can be
maintained by gathering and hunting.  Whether increase in population leads
to the state, or the state allows population to increase, therefor is a
chicken and egg question, but one thing is certain, population density of
the levels reached in early history would have been impossible without the
state emerging.

Whether the state is still useful in the post industrial age, is another
question.  Liberals and conservatives and fascists all agree that it is.
Marrxists, libertarians and anarchist beleive the opposite.  I  have
indicated why I disagree with libertarianism.  Marx  predicted a certain
sequence of events for the way the state would disappear.  Something about
violent revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, and withering away of
the state.  This was a pretty good first approximation of what would
happen.  But because he couldn't have known about the depth to which
activity controls consciousness,  he didn't realize that as soon as
something like a dictatorship of the proletariat is established (assuming
that a proletariat can establish such a dictatorship)  the folks who do the
dictating, because they are engaged in management instead of labour,
experience a change of consciousness with their change of social situation.
 And, to carry out a successful revolution, one must organize violence, and
as one does that, one's consciousness becomes violent.  This is why
"actually existing socialism" failed and this is why it failed by a
"revolution from above":  from management's perspective, capitalism is a
lot more convenient (I hope I needn't list the advanteges, the main one is
that the rulers abdicate responsibility for the livelyhood of all the
citizens;  labour discipline can then be maintained by indirect force (i.e.
market forces) instead of direct force and the costs of technological
progress can be transferred to the unemployed.)


I also wrote:

>>Perhaps modern technology would not
>> have evolved either.

To which you reply with hairsplitting:

>Lets see first the clearing up of some terminology, at which point does
>technology become "modern"? There were major advances in technology,
>before the state got itself involved in technology promotion and even then
>it was selective in its promotion.

This is a good question but not revelant to the argument.  I was originaly
responding to your argument that as an anarchist I had no right to take
advantage of computer networks because it, was a creation of, or made
possible by the, state.  We were speaking not of technology in general but
modern technology and computer technology in particular, which originaly
*you* credited to the achivement of the state.  I merely said that since
both the state and the technology was there, I would not disadvantege
myself against the former by refusing to use the latter.  Nor would I
disadvvantage myself by refusing any possible benefirs the state may offer.
you continued

>To the best of my knowledge, items like
>the reaper or the citton gin or treshing machines did not come out of
>government laboratories. The greatest achievements in technology came from
>individual minds. Or is that an anrchist tenet? :-)

But the state maintains patent laws.  It was Karl Mannheim who pointed out
that it is incorrect to maintain that any individual thinks, it is more
correct to recognize that people think further what others have thought
before.  Einstein too, recognized that he would have had no great
achievements if he hadn't been "standing on the shoulders of giants".


I also remarked:

>> That fact, however, does not imply that we have to like it, [modern technolo
g
y]

And you replied:

>No, no one is forced to use it. You could walk to UBC or Simon Fraser
>(whichever it is) wrapped in furs and make note on a stone tablet (Oops,
>that maybe considered as "technology" already, it certainly was new
>technology in the first modern states, i.e. Sumer and Elam. On the way you
>could gather some pinenuts in Stanley Park instead of eating in the
>cafeteria. And who would be giving the lectures and from what? Do you want
>me to go on? I do not think so.
>

Everyone has existential liberty.  Even a concentration camp inmate is free
to disobey and be killed or run for the electric fence.  But I see no
reason, other then maybe symbolic why I should put myself at  disadvantage
in my struggle.  Opting out is possible, but not a solution - the behemoth
rolls on.  There are people who do withdraw (Though not as far back as you
suggest)  the Amish, for example.  But their solution is based on the
belief that they are the saving (and to be saved) remnant and  God will
destroy the rest of us. :-(


[snip]


I pointed out:

>>  Historical experience tells us that it cannot be done violently, for two
>> reasons: 1.)  The state arose as a method of organizing violence and
>
>That is again your opinion. My study of history led me to a different
>conclusion.
>
>> organized violence beats unorganized violence every time - that is why
>> states exist;
>
>Now on a relative basis I can look at Haiti and Rwanda which are much less
>organized compaired to probably the currently most highly organized society
>Japan and not agree with your opinion.
>Looking at the Viet Cong and the Afghan rebels versus the US and Russia
>again does not validate your argument.
>

I was not speaking of the degree of violence at any particular time and
place, but the relative effectiveness of organized violence as opposed to
unorganized violence in the long run.  Violence, like energy can be
potential.  The level of social control by the state is dependent on the
level of violence the state is *capable of* and known to be capable of.
While empires are powerful, they appear to be peaceful.  Active violence
breaks out when the opressors weaken or loose resolve.  The Afghanis and
the VietCong were not unorganized, they were just more flexibly organized
and they were dependent on outside powers:the Soviets in the case of
Vietnam and the Americans in the case of Afghanistan.  What these two
encounters demonstrated is that well motivated third world peoples fighting
on their home ground can defeat poorly motivated imperialist forces, if
they are armed to some degree by another imperialist power.  IMHO, Now that
there is only one imperialist power, this situation will not arise again.
For the forseeable future, wars will end up the way Americans want them to.

there is a song I like that goes:

The roving gambler,
He was very bored,
Trying to promote
Our next world war,
He found a promoter,
Who nearly fell on the floor,
"No I never engaged
In this kind of thing before,
But, yes, I think
It can be easily done,
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun,
And have it out on highway sixty one" (Robert Zimmermann)

In other words, states need wars to justify their existence, and arrange
for them to happen somwhere, hence former Yugoslavia, Somalia, ect.

I maintained:

>2)  human consciousness is determined by human activity (and
>> not, as is commonly thought, the other way around) so that violent
>activity
>> leads to a violent consciousness which will lead to more violence and the
>> state will always reconstitute itself.

You challenged that:

>Again you stating this as a fact does not make it into a fact. I disagree.
>

There are two ideas here:

1.  consciousness is determined by activity

This is an opinion supported by the latest research in cognotive science
and developmental psychology.  I refer you to the early work of Piaget on
intellectual devcelopment in children and genetic epistemology.  In
Sociology, the Sociology of Knowledge shows the same thing.   In order to
make sense of the data our senses give us, we need, what Kant and following
him Piaget, called 'a categorical apparatus'.  Kant believed that such an
apparatus was in part innate  he called these innate fundamental categories
the  _a priori_  categories,  Piaget showed with experimental evidence (he
used his own children as subjects, but his experiments are replicatable)
that something like the _a priori_ categories develop in the course of play
- infact, this seems to be the function of play.  More complex categories
are learned from culture (parents, peers, teachers) but cultures develop
these categories in the course of their history.  Mannheim has shown in
studies such as "Conservatism", "The Interpretation of Weltanchaaung","The
Problem of Generations", "Competition" and "Ideology and Utopia",that  in
highly differentiated societies, different social groups experience
different realities.  The germans call this 'Weltanshaaung' (world view).
It can be shown that different world views correlate to different social
classes or strata and this is because members of different classes have
different experiences in the course of their activities and in the course
of history.

2.  violent activity leads to violent conscousness which leads to more
violence

this is MHO, but many philosophers share my opinion and I challange you to
show the contrary.  Cite examples when violent means resulted in lasting
and just peace.

Cheers,

Tibor Benke

Among other things, I wrote:
>
>> But be aware that Hobbes was wrong.

Greg rebuked me:

>
>What is Jeliko's mantra, Delenda est Carthago?  No, sorry,
>it's That is your opinion, don't state it as a fact.  :-)


but as I said to Jeliko:

I have difficulty figuring out what you mean by 'opinion', 'fact', or 'holy
writ'
I tend to favour the ontological and epistemological position of the
American Pragmatist Philosophers who point out the paradox that no
individual can discern the difference between illusion and what they name
'fact' except in retrospect.  This results in the situation that any
statement can be no more then a more or less well stated or more or less
better supported opinion.  A scientific opinion differs from a common sense
opinion or a personal opinion only in that it is underpinned by evidence
which is deemed valid by the community of scientists.  The methodology for
the evaluation of the validity of an item of evidence is based on past
experience of whether the given opinion worked in practice.

 In this case I gave fairly detailed anthropological evidence to support my
claim, now the ball is in your court, Just because Hobbes said the clever
misanthropic thing he said, doesn't make it true.

>
>> ...which institutionalized the only
>> property system he could conceive of, namely, bourgeois
>> property relations.
>

Bourgeois property relations are what is referred to by some as,'natural
property rights'  which really are absolute property rights.  Such a
concept of property is what capitalism is based on.  IMHO, property
relations in any particular social formation must include a redistribution
system of some sort to be sustainable on the long run, and the capitalist
property system is unsustainable on the long run because only steady
economic growth which exceeds the rate of population growth plus the
average rate of profit would keep the system going forever and that is only
possible with unlimited potential resource inputs which do not exist, since
the biosphere is finite.


>Perhaps you should define "bourgeois property relations",
>or "conceive".  I find
>it hard to believe that Hobbes wasn't aware of feudal property
>relations, relations during Roman time, during pre-Roman times,
>and among what he would no doubt consider the uncivilized savages
>of the New World and Africa.  But I could be wrong, so I'm open
>to correction.

I guess, here I may stand corrected, my knowledge of Hobbes' work is from
secondary sources.  Nevertheless, he did somehow privilige  this form of
property, did he not?


>PS hugging is OK, planting trees is better

You are absolutely right :-)

Tibor

On Wed, 26 Oct 1994 16:55:23 EDT marc said:
>marc wrote:
>
><I am so sick and tired of people who vote for politicians based on their
>ethnic
>>backgrounds.  That is not how democracy is supposed to work!  At least not in
>>America.  We should vote as Americans, not ****-Americans.   Pataki should be
>>running as a representative of the people of New York, not Hungary.  I am not
>>Italian but I would vote for Cuomo anyday over Pataki and his pro-death
>penalty
>>friends...marc

--And Paul answered:
>
>I absolutely agree!!  ...but do you think this is the first time a candidate
>has run on his ethnicity?  Many minority candidates have done for many years
>now - nothing new.  But I agree it is unfortunate.  I even got a fundraising
>letter from Pataki, and I live in NJ, not NY.  'guess my name was on some
>Hungarian mailing list some place.
>
--I try not to post anymore, since I was flamed for raising non-Hungarian
issues, but I simply cannot sit on my hands on this one.  Please, guys,
read Moynihan & Glazer's *Beyond the Melting Pot* published some 20
years ago.  American politics has always been ethnic politics, particularly
in the East, and especially in New York.  It is as American as apple pie.
Moynihan has a new book, published a year or so ago in which he reaffirms
that the principle still operates.  The melting pot never was.  A man
called Israel Zangwill wrote a play by that name shortly after the turn
of the century.  Zangwill himself, however, became a Zionist shortly
after and rejected the theme of the play himself.  The fundamental
idea that an American was a new creature to whom ethnicity and national
heritage were irrelevent is old enough, going back to Crevecouer's
*Letters from an American Farmer* in the 18th century.  But it never
was true in the real world.

>Charles

Subject: Re: Red terror and white terror
From: greg
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 16:27:49 -0700
In article > ,
 writes:
>d.a. writes:
>
>> does this mean that there was no racialism directed against the blacks
>> of mississipi, for example, because its black population (quite large
>> by southern standards) would have emigrated in hordes. this obviously
did
>> not happen.
>
>And where, pray, did Northen blacks come from?
>
>--Greg

it is a tedious task to have to constantly remind some of our learned
correspondents of the rudiments of logic. perhaps high school was too
long ago, or years of intemperance have left their indelible mark upon
the upper reaches of the spinal chord, or maybe there's too much
aluminium in the drinking water. whatever, the posting to which i am
now responding is a paradigm example of either disengenuity or dyslexia,
for the posting which is the subject of this one was:

Subject: Re: Red terror and white terror
From: IMRE BOKOR, 
Date: 26 Oct 1994 21:49:20 GMT
In article > IMRE BOKOR,
 writes:
 wrote:
>
>: And one more thing. Since I got on this list last February we have had
>: several rounds on anti-semitism in Hungary. To tell you the truth I
find
>: these discussions quite fruitless and boring. There are antisemites
>: everywhere, including Hungary. But I would not call Hungary an
anti-semitic
>: country per se. Indeed, if it were, Hungary's Jewish population (quite
large
>: by East European standards) would emigrate in hordes. This is
obviously not
>: happening. Eva Balogh
>
>does this mean that there was no racialism directed against the blacks
>of mississipi, for example, because its black population (quite large
>by southern standards) would have emigrated in hordes. this obviously did
>not happen.
>
>
>d.a.

now, as mr helm, our english teacher pointed out in a similar situation
when i was twelve years old, the last paragraph --- that is to say, the
one of d.a.'s authorship --- copntains a rhetorical question, the purpose
of which is to show that the "argument" by implicit modus nolens offered
by the  previous poster, namely

a.    if were hungary an anti-semitic country, then its jewish population
      would have emigrated in hordes.

b.    (and this is the implicit assumption) hungary's jewish population
did
      not emigrate in hordes.

*ergo*

c.    hungary is not an anti-semitic country.

is not, in fact a sound argument, for the same formal argument,namely


d.    if mississipi were an anti-b;ack state, then its population of
blacks
      would have emigrated (from mississipi) in hordes, .

e.    (tacitly assumed to be a well-enough known fact about us demography)
      mississipi's black population did not emigrate in hordes.

*ergo*

f.    mississipi is not anti-black state.

if this is too controversial, we could try


h.   if south africa had been a racialist society during the years of
     apartheid, then the blacks would have emigrated in hordes.

i.   the blacks did not, in fact, emigrate in hordes from south africa
     during the years of apartheid.

*ergo*

j.    south africa was not a racialist society during the years of
      apartheid.

since propostion i is a historical fact, and  j  demonstrably false,
either modus nolens is not a valid form of argument, or propostion h
is false.

now careful consideration of propositions a, d and h shows that each of
them is an instance of a single schema:

if it were true that society x were anti-y, then the y population of x
would emigrate in hordes.

(if the x's and y's cause trouble, just think of x as an abbreviation for
"hungary" in a, for "mississipi" in d and for "south africa" in h, and
think of y as an abbreviation for "jews" in a and for "blacks" in
d and h.)

so, d.a.'s response was an attempt to show that the schema is not a
universal truth.

notice that the fact that more blacks live outside of south africa than
inside it does not bear upon whether south africa under apartheid was
racialist or not, and so the black population of detroit, say, is not an
indication of racialism in mississipi, unless, of course the blacks of
detroit are refugees from mississipi.

so i hope that clarifies a few things.

as to where the blacks in the northern states come from, i would guess
that they are largely descendanbts of blacks brought from africa
as slaves.i would guess that some would have been inhabitants of the
northern states for several generations, and some wopuld have migrated
north at soem time or other. i don't know. i am guessing. but from what i
have remember of the current affairs of the sixties, there was a large
black population in mississipi which was definitely discriminated against,
murdered, raped etc. and which did *not* "emigrate in hordes".

i venture to guess that the lack of mass emigration is due to causes other
than the lack of racial discrimination.


so let's recapitulate. d.a.'s previous posting was intended to show by
example the prior contributors contention was false. as both our physics
teacher and our mathematics teacher taught us in high school, one such
counter-example is sufficient to invalidate the claim of universality
for a conjecture or principle.

d.a.

d.a. writes:

> it is a tedious task to have to constantly remind...

Yowza, am I sorry for suggesting that Blacks did leave the South.

How silly of me, anyway, to compare Jewish emigration from
minority status in C-E Europe to majority status in Israel to the
emigration of blacks from one state of the USA to another,
with no change in status.

Oh, now I feel better, it was d.a. who did that.  Good, now I
can go back to Beavis & Butthead.

--Greg

> >What is Jeliko's mantra, Delenda est Carthago?  No, sorry,
> >it's That is your opinion, don't state it as a fact.  :-)
>
> but as I said to Jeliko:
>
> I have difficulty figuring out what you mean by 'opinion', 'fact', or 'holy
> writ'

Yeah, me too.  I was trying to be funny.  I plead the smiley defense.

>  In this case I gave fairly detailed anthropological evidence to support my
> claim,

Yes

> now the ball is in your court,

and I'm not qualified to question your evidence.  So I'm reduced to
questioning the premise that the "quality of life" in a stone age
culture can be meaningfully compared to what we use the term to
describe today.  *That* is only my opinion, of course.

I think I understand the point about people like the Bushmen
actually expending very little labor to sustain themselves, and
I don't dispute that this has meaning to us.

I don't have time just yet to read your reply Jeliko, but it
definitely looks interesting.

--Greg

> =============================================================
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> =============================================================

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If you have answered yes, then I would like to invite you to
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HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE EEJH LIST:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
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We look forward to your participation in the EEJH conference!

Could someone please advise me on the optimal way to send money
to a foreign currency account in Pecs?  The OTP bank in Pecs
charges 1%-3% commission on all overseas checks and there is a
waiting time of 1-3 months for the check to clear.  Is there a
better way?

Will be thankful for any information.

Regards,

A.R. Korukonda

>Be1la writes:
>
>> Tibor Benke that Hobbes was wrong in his assumption of an
>> original "social contract...
>
>If we grant that this is a proper subject of philosophy,
>then consider:
>
>Of the subjects that concern me nothing is known, since there exists
>nothing in writing about them, nor will there ever exist anything
>in future....For there is no way of putting these things in words
>like other things that one can learn.
>
>(Plato as paraphrased by Arendt)
>
>To me there is a danger when we say there was, or wasn't a
>contract.  It seems to me that we can model our own (or our
>ancestor's) political reality as we choose, but it'd
>be folly, IMHO, to say we "know" even our own situation, much less
>one a few thousand, or more, years old.
>
>

We have a question.  What is the nature of human nature?  We can speculate
about it.  Real clever speculation is called philosophical anthropology.
It is concerned with enumerating the possible answers and assessing the
logical status of possible answers to each other -  whether two answers can
or cannot be simultanously true and so forth.  From philosophical
anthropology we can have no positive conclusions.  After philosophical
anthropology has surveyed the territory, so to speak, the next question is
a question of the philosophy of science:  can there be a scientific
anthropology and if there can be such a thing, what can it tell us?  In
other words, what kind of empirical evidence can we study and what kind of
inferences can we legitimately make from that empirical evidence?
Finally, we can attempt actual scientific investigations and return with
answers, which will be controlled by the normal processes of scientific
discourse and by the critiques of philosophers of science and philosophical
anthropologists.  I feel qualified to give you a current status report,
though both space and my level of training  limit me to an introductory
level.


Hobbes' remark is as good a place to start as any.  There are four claims:
In the state of nature:

1. humans are solitary
2. their life is nasty
3. their life is brutish
4. their life is short

Of these statements the second and third are moral valuations, and without
some kind of operational definition, they cannot be addressed
scientifically.  They tell us no more, then that Hobbes did not think much
of 'natural man' , not even what he considered natural and what he
considered a perversion. The fourth question is relative - that is, we need
to know what long would be, before we can evaluate its truth content.
Compared to the present life expectancy of 60 to 70 years, life in the 19th
century in England was short.  Compared to life in 'civilized' 17th
century, the life of say kalahari !Kung was probably comparable.

Statement one, is a question that can be scientifically evaluated by
turning to the following empirical considerations:

1.  culturaal anthropology can look to the varieties of ways that humans
live in contemporary times and tell us whether there are presently any
humans who live without social groups.  The answer we have is that there
are such people, they are hermits, they are pretty rare, and all have at
one time lived a social life of some sort before they became hermits.
Otherwise, all individuals of all contemporary human populations live a
social life.  It seems to me, that unless one takes an extreemly sceptical
stance, we can declare that the following statement is a scientific fact:
all members of the species homo sapiens sapiens live in social groups  for
a significant precentage of the length of their lives, though they are
capable of living alone, if they choose to or are thrown into solitary
circumstances.

2.  archeology can tell us that for the last 30,000 years at least the
above anthropological fact seems to have held.  Evidence from times prior
to that is not quite as certain, but what there is, overwhelmingly
indicates that we have no reason to doubt that humans were anything but
social for as far back as the species existed (probably about 250,000
years).

3.  human paleoontology tells us that  as far as we can tell from evidence
that paloontologists accept,  (i study cultural anthropology, so my
knowledge here is more diletantish, but I do keep an ear open to
developments) the fundamentally social nature of humans from pre-human
Australopithecus  Africanus through Homo Habilis and  Homo Neanderthalis
Sapiens to Homo Sapiens Sapiens, all individuals of each species lived a
largely social life.

4.  physical anthropology, tells us of the physical characteristics of
humans which neccessitate that humans live in social groups.  The most
important is the long period of development that humans must undergo until
they reach maturity.  This neccesitates that  humans live in at least
minimal diads, mother and child, for the first seven to ten years for each
child a mother may have.  In addition, mothers need the assistance of other
individuals, either their older offspring or their siblings or partners or
parents or social group while they have children that must be carried (for
2.5 to  years until they can walk).

5.  finally, cognitive scientists (this is another field I merely watch
from the outside) tells us that high level consciousness and intelligence
is intimately  connected with language and communication skills, which are
inherently social.


The above considerations all put the fundamentally social nature of humans
beyond any *reasonable* doubt and this is *not* merely my personal opinion
or speculative.  There is, however a question of philosophical anthropology
that arises, and that is the variability of human behavior and the rate of
change in the cultural and physical characteristics of human beings.  To
put it another way, Hobbes' 'state of nature' may refer to (and probably
does refer to) present human nature, and it is conceivable that in the
course of human history, given that humans are capable of living in
solitude,  human nature may have become solitary?  This question is in part
philosophical: what do we mean by 'solitary' in this context, part
methodological: how do we measure solitariness ?  While I, myself, live
alone and like it,  it is alone within a society without which my life
would get fairly uncomfortable but not impossible.   Hobbes was a
philosopher and not an anthropologist and he may well have been refering
to a logical and not some empirical 'state of nature'.  And if, as some
pointed out, he formulated his opinion in the English Civil War, it could
well be, that  what he was really talking about is what happens to people
when social restraints are suddenly withdrawn.  That is, to Hobbes
'natural' was merely the logical opposite of 'social'  and he *assumed*,
from his civil war experience that the state is needed to maintain social
relationships.  While this may have been a reasonable assumption in his
situation, IMHO it was a false assumption, but I am forming my opinion
after the information I listed above has been discovered.

Cheers,

Tibor Benke

Tibor Benke writes:

> We have a question.  What is the nature of human nature?

Here is another question, is the nature of human nature expressible?

But don't answer!  Take pity on a harmless drudge; I'm barely
through reading your first piece.

--Greg

[What fun.  Too bad it's a Way Off Topic Post.]

Tibor Benke writes:

> A scientific opinion differs from a common sense
> opinion or a personal opinion only in that it is underpinned
> by evidence...

However, we ought to be careful (IMHO) to distinguish between
opinions about matters of cognition, and those concerning
matters of meaning or understanding.


> the observation of stateless social formations...

Definition time?  How do we define "state" and "social formation"?


> In the Pacific North West, it appears that hunting and
> gathering and demographic stability existed for some 4,000 years prior to
> contact with Europeans  and was maintained by social arrangements.

By this you mean they were stateless, I take it.  Could you perhaps
describe the notion of authority these people used, and how decisions
affecting the group were reached?


> Whether increase in population leads
> to the state, or the state allows population to increase, therefor is a
> chicken and egg question, but one thing is certain, population density of
> the levels reached in early history would have been impossible without the
> state emerging.

I like this formulation much better.  :-)


> Whether the state is still useful in the post industrial age, is another
> question.  Liberals and conservatives and fascists all agree that it is.
> Marrxists, libertarians and anarchist beleive the opposite.

Come, come; libertarians, in my experience, simply want to restrict the
state to enforcing anti-fraud and anti-violence laws; this is not an
elimination of the state.


> [capitalism's main advantage] is
> that the rulers abdicate responsibility for the livelyhood of all the
> citizens

And under which pre-capitalistic system was it that rulers accepted
that responsibility?


> Einstein too, recognized that he would have had no great
> achievements if he hadn't been "standing on the shoulders of giants".

Not Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton:
"If I have seen further it is by sotsog"


> Active violence
> breaks out when the opressors weaken or loose resolve....[The Afghani
> and Vietnamese] encounters demonstrated...that well motivated third
> world peoples fighting
> on their home ground can defeat poorly motivated imperialist forces, if
> they are armed to some degree by another imperialist power.

I thought the American revolution proved that.  :-)


> 1.  consciousness is determined by activity
>
> This is an opinion supported by the latest research in cognotive science
> and developmental psychology.

Totally, 100% determined?  With 0% in the reverse?  I'd be a
happier with a little more chicken and egg here.

> It can be shown that different world views correlate to different social
> classes or strata and this is because members of different classes have
> different experiences in the course of their activities and in the course
> of history.

Surely you see these are truisms?  Nevertheless, we still don't want the
inmates running the asylum.

> 2.  violent activity leads to violent conscousness which leads to more
> violence
>
> this is MHO, but many philosophers share my opinion and I challange you to
> show the contrary.  Cite examples when violent means resulted in lasting
> and just peace.

First you have to tell us if this thing called "just piece" exists
anywhere, or has existed anytime.


--Greg

Andras Kornai on 25 Oct 94 wonders why Gosztonyi "describes himself as a
"veteran of 1956". What did he do?"

The explanation can be found in Gosztonyi's essay "Talalkozasom Maleter
Pallal" ("My Encounter with Paul Maleter"). There, Gosztonyi recounts
how at the end of July 1956 he was called to military service in
Hungary. Having been commissioned as reserve officer during his
university studies as a second lieutenant, he was detailed to the Kilian
Barracks to a unit designated as PF1200 (Muszaki Kisegito Zaszloalj) of
about 900 men. These were the units to which were assigned, under Rakosi,
"osztalyidegen" soldiers, i.e. those whose families belonged to the
middle or upper classes before 1945.

After 1953 these units were reorganized and in the fall of 1953 Pal
Maleter became the commanding officer. Gosztonyi's service in this unit
under Maleter and some of the events surrounding Hungary's fight to
throw off the communist yoke and foreign domination are related in the
essay.

Gosztonyi truly deserves to be called a "veteran of 1956".


C.K. Zoltani

Subject: Re: Red terror and white terror
From: ibokor
Date: 27 Oct 1994 09:36:17 GMT
In article > ,  writes:
>Subject: Re: Red terror and white terror
>From: greg
>Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 16:27:49 -0700
>In article > ,
 writes:
>>d.a. writes:

>......  modus nolens ....

when d.a. clearly means "modus tollens".

maybe it's because

>... years of intemperance have left their indelible mark upon
>the upper reaches of the spinal chord, or maybe there's too much
>aluminium in the drinking water.


whatever, d.a. sure made a fool of himself!!


d.a.

On Thu, 27 Oct 1994 20:34:57 GMT > said:
>when d.a. clearly means "modus tollens".
>
>maybe it's because
>
>>... years of intemperance have left their indelible mark upon
>>the upper reaches of the spinal chord, or maybe there's too much
>>aluminium in the drinking water.
>
>
>whatever, d.a. sure made a fool of himself!!
>
--Not in my book.  But maybe it is the Australian wine.  Your
recommendations are outstanding for the price.  Keep the faith.

Charles

Andra1s Kornai asked about Pe1ter Gosztonyi,

>The
>reson for this post is that at the end he describes himself as a "veteran of
>1956". What did he do?

He was indeed a veteran of 1956. Anyone interested in his activities during
October-November 1956, there is an interesting article by him in the 1993
Yearbook of the 1956 Institute (pp. 229-244), "Emle1keim a Kilia1n
laktanya1ro1l" (My Memories of the Kilia1n Barracks). He was 24 years old at
the time and during the summer of 1956 the army called him up for reserve
duty. He was a sub-lieutenant (alhadnagy). For a few days, he served Pa1l
Male1ter as his "chief of staff" (iroda-fo3no2k). He was one of the last
persons in the building, which was abandoned on November 7. He left Hungary
on December 10. It is worth reading.

Andras further down talked about members of the Kun government who ended up
in the Soviet Union.

>Since she [meaning me] put down "must've been a real rat" to the person
>preceding Gyo2rgy Luka1cs, I'm tempted to ask why not Luka1cs himself?

Well, here it is. He was a real rat, too. He was one of the worst infighters
in Hungarian communist emigre circles. I also had a very low opinion of him
as a so-called philosopher and literary theorist. I have a memory of him,
indirectly, though, which still makes me laugh. Luka1cs and I had a mutual
friend, who was obviously an admirer of his. One nice day this mutual friend
inquired from a friend of mine, an American philosopher, whether she would
like to meet Luka1cs because he could certainly arrange it. For which, this
very polite American, without batting an eyelash, said simply: "No." My
Hungarian friend was so taken aback that he could hardly speak. To tell you
the truth I was sorry that she said "no," because if she had accepted the
invitation, I am sure I could have tagged along. And I was curious enough.
But he still was a rat. Oh, he knew darn well what was going on in the Soviet
Union but for one reason or other, chose to ignore it. Perhaps he was loath
to admit that he dedicated his life to a bankrupt ideology. Or simply, after
a while, he was afraid that he might end up in one of those mass graves.
After all, there were other famous people who ended up there, Mandelshtam,
for example. Stalin wasn't too picky: fame didn't influence his decisions.

Eva Balogh

In Kepujsag, the Hungarian-language news service on Internet, quoting Magyar
Hi1rlap, reported that Pe1ter Hack, during a discussion at an SZDSZ party
meeting, remarked that if the MSZP wishes to establish "democratic socialism"
the party should look for another coalition partner. I wonder what prompted
this remark.

Another piece of news which struck me as interesting appeared in Hirmondo,
another Hungarian-language news service on Internet, this time quoting
Nepszabadsag. La1szlo1 Pa1l, industrial minister, announced that the
government decided to subsidize the steel works in Borsod County. The still
state-owned company has been losing money steadily for a number of years.
Until the first quarter of next year the government will give 2.3 billion
forints (2.3 million dollars) to the factory plus an additional 1.6 billion
for purchase of iron ore.

Eva Balogh

A. R. Korukonda asks:

> Could someone please advise me on the optimal way to send money
> to a foreign currency account in Pecs?  The OTP bank in Pecs
> charges 1%-3% commission on all overseas checks and there is a
> waiting time of 1-3 months for the check to clear.  Is there a
> better way?

I think wiring the money would still be cheaper and as far as I know,
they won't charge the recipient account.  At least they didn't charge
me a couple of years ago when I called my US bank to wire me the funds
in Hungary.

Unfortunately, I noticed that Hungarian banks don't treat cashier's
checks much better than personal ones as far as the waiting period is
concerned.

Joe Pannon

C. Zoltani writes:

> The explanation can be found in Gosztonyi's essay "Talalkozasom Maleter
> Pallal" ("My Encounter with Paul Maleter"). There, Gosztonyi recounts
> how at the end of July 1956 he was called to military service in
> Hungary. Having been commissioned as reserve officer during his
> university studies as a second lieutenant, he was detailed to the Kilian
> Barracks to a unit designated as PF1200 (Muszaki Kisegito Zaszloalj) of
> about 900 men.

I've read about this, too.  Gosztonyi was in the Kilian Barracks during
the fighting at the end of October.  However, his account of that fight
contradicts of that given by the commander of the Corvin Place (Koz),
across the Barracks.  G. Pongratz, the commander maintains that Maleter
was really not on the side of the revolutionaries and only switched when
it looked like the uprising won.  The Corvin Place fighters actually had
to fight both the Russians and Malater's troops.

> These were the units to which were assigned, under Rakosi,
> "osztalyidegen" soldiers, i.e. those whose families belonged to the
> middle or upper classes before 1945.

Was this like the Jewish labor batallions during WW II?  (Except these
guys did not have to clear mine fields, of course, but in case of war,
who knows?)

Joe

> Here is another question, is the nature of human nature expressible?

Here is yet another one: just what does this thread have to do with
Hungary specifically?  Now really guys ...

Joe

Greg urges scepticism about any "original" social contract, on the grounds
that we can scarcely "know" our own situation--

Fair enough, although we do know some things, apparently--that the Massa-
chusetts Bay colony was begun with a contract, the famous "Mayflower Compact,"
signed, apparently, before the colonists ever set foot on shore.  But of
course Greg's point remains well-taken--what do we know of the origins of the
society formed on board the ship?

But the virtue of Hobbes and the other social contract theorists, it seems to
me, lies not in the facticity of their models, but in the challenge to thought
that their models provide.  Can we not think, e.g., that the "social contract"
in our own society has in fact broken down?  And might we not reflect on the
"ko2zo2s megegyeze1s" of the later Ka1da1r years?  Or even of the great Com-
promise of 1867 (sorry about forgetting the Hungarian term)?

But, again admittedly, all these refer to societies long after their basic
forms were established, about which we remain pretty ignorant.

Udv.,
Be1la

George Lazar writes about the Khazar origins of East European Jews, and
notes that there is some hint that East European Jews have no connection with
the diaspora, and that "Israel opposes the idea"--

Well, not only the State of Israel refuses to accept the Khazar theory, most
mainstream Jewish scholars also reject it, in part because it flies in the face
of historical fact--e.g., that large numbers of Ashkenazic Jews were invited to
Poland by King Jan Sobieski from the West, who then fell victim to massacres
during the Khmielnicky revolt against Polish rule.  In fact, Yiddish preserves
the memory of the "golden years" of the pre-Khmielnicky period in the stock
phrase, "in melekh Sobieskis yohrn," that is, "in the time of King Sobieski."

There is also the matter of the Yiddish language itself--from whom did East
European Jews learn it, Turkic-speaking Khazars?  No, its origins in north-
eastern France/northwestern Germany are well documented in Max Weinreich's
monumental "History of the Yiddish Language."  Why the great objection to
the idea that Jews, not converted Slavic Christians, brought prot-Yiddish
with them to East Europe from West Europe?

One wonders not only why Jews have been persecuted for being Jews, but why
they are not even allowed to be Jews when they are Jews!

Gey weyss!

Udv.,
Be1la

George Lazar wrote:

>Well, I don't always agree with Joe,

Why, have you ever?
(I mean before this one.)

Please, make my day!

Joe