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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is "capitalism"?
Message-ID: <197@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Jun-85 14:49:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.197
Posted: Mon Jun 10 14:49:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Jun-85 03:57:49 EDT
References: <2876@sdcc3.UUCP> <2380026@acf4.UUCP>
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 41
Summary: many people don't know what they really want.  Others often help to sort out confusions.

In article <2380026@acf4.UUCP>, mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes:
> >/* baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) /  4:00 pm  Jun  4, 1985 */
> 
> >By the same logic, how can everyone know what's best for *themselves*?
> 
> Because each person CAN know what he really wants, even tho he MAY
> not know.  Others can never KNOW what another wants, except if he/she
> communicates this to them.
> 
> Of course, it is arrogant and presumptuous to say "I know what's best
> for you," (except of course when dealing with your own young child),
> as well as a manifestation of a nauseating personal quality.
> 
> 						Mike Sykora

Each person may know or may not know.  Others may know or may not know.
Others know to the extent that a person communicates to them.  A person knows
to the extent that he/she communicates to him/herself.

So?  Why the solipsistic presumption here? -- we all live in a real,
material world; we can be "known" by others in virtue of that.  And we
don't stop communicating just because we want to or not.  And why the
implication that the knowledge we have of others should be wiped out
in political ethics or policy?

What does "arrogance and presumption" have to do with TRUTH?  Certainly
people who don't know others and make critical suggestions are arrogant by
assumption, because they're too uninformed to hit the mark enough.  They
arrogate knowledge to themselves which they don't have.

But people who do know others and criticize based on that knowledge often
do others a service.  And if they are wrong, they get feedback to that
effect and learn thereby.

How the obtaining and communicating of information about the world, which
includes what people are thinking about you and what you are thinking about
others, could be labeled as a "nauseating personal quality" is beyond me.
Maybe Mike only knows people who abuse the practice.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw