Abraham Rotstein, Weekend Notes

Overview

Part	Date	KPA
I	February 25, 1956	45/02
II	May 5, 1956	45/03
III	July 14, 1956	45/04
IV	August 25/26, 1956	45/05
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX	April 6, 1957	45/06
X
XI	May 25, 1957	45/07

I

The Reality of Society

[5] The characteristic of Christianity was there in the beginning-compulsive and looking to the future, eschatological. Jesus thought that the end of the world was imminent, but it is not imminent.

The Dead Sea Scrolls change the position of Jesus. If Christianity was really the Essenes, he wasn't the founder, and Christian doctrines are undermined. It is of no great importance whether the founder was Jesus or another Jew, except it will make some Jews proud of their history if it is proved that they originated Christianity. The mystery of Jesus' mission is greater than before. Now he is not "one man" who created out…

P. doesn't believe in Jesus as the son of God. There is no clear meaning in this statement. The christological aspects: Christianity not based on the teachings of Jesus, but who he was.

By man resigning himself to society a new concreteness is born. Man's objective is to reform society and change it to its limits. Unless we do that we have the whole responsibility which recognition puts on us. The first two revelations of physical and eternal death are no less true, as they lead to the restriction of an illusion. The first two are not invalidated by the reality of society.

That man must die doesn't do away with his concern for his soul. Man's eternal soul doesn't permit him to be rid of all moral bonds, and if he denies these he loses it. Eternal doesn't refer to time, but timelessness - of infinite value. (Greek "ions" - timeless). This is not a speculative or metaphorical question. (Life after death is a theological speculation.)

Jesus pointed out that there things you are yourself responsible for and not the tribe. Existence is personal and is different from what happens with things. That which makes it so different can't be said about a lamp or a table. This personal existence is the only one man is interested in, and the only one man can mean when we say: the things that matter is his relationship to other persons. The very heart of life is the personal existence. This assumes persons and personal interest.

Mind and power are the same thing. Thinking is a creative power. When we say mind we mean the compulsive element in thought.

The modern consciousness of society is comparable to the revelation of the finiteness of life and the revelation of the individual's moral existence. There is not even a hint of this consciousness in Plato. The third revelation did not come through particular persons, e.g. Marx, Sorel, Hitler, etc.

This is an insight which the technological environment created through the new conditions of life in a complex society.

It is childish to think that a person follows his own conscience alone, since this is limited by the reality of society. It is like a child who doesn't know that life is finite - like a tribal member who has corporate and collective responsibility. Ultimately man is responsible.

It is the institutional bent that puts order into Polanyi's moral world.

Christians rest their case on an inner absolute freedom. It doesn't mean that man is released from responsibility. It doesn't mean that man is released from responsibility. (My question on the relation of Hobbes and Locke to the idea of the reality of society):

IV

G[eorge] B[ernard] Shaw

[2] Every major thinker has two opposite ideas e.g. Marx, Hegel, Rousseau, and also Jesus and Paul state opposites in an indissoluble unity of temperament.

[6] P. once wrote on Shaw, just about fifty years ago in 1906, ”The Drama of the Economic Interpretation of History”. He read all that Shaw had then written.

Technology and Utopia

P[olanyi] doesn’t take Owen as Utopian. He was full of realism but in one of his sentences he said that there are limitations and these would have to be accepted. [23]

The Revelations

(From P.'s discussion of the dangers of science, my comment of Eve's apple to Adam).

[…] The one sentence of Owen’s says that we cannot appeal to the reality of society for disregarding the Christian commitment until the we try to see if the reality of society is a limitation for equality and justice. The reality of society is the third horror we are confronted with – being a number of society and not doing anything about it. [38-39]