Abraham Rotstein, Weekend Notes

Overview

This page contains question(s)
that we should discuss
in the Talk Page!

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

Text in English to type

Text in English to re-read

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):

[…]

Robert Owen held that the individual was not responsible and therefore denied Christianity. Society was real and responsible.

Comte had a vision that Society was real.

Quetelet - 1837 - the founder of statistics, held that society was real.

Marx, through economic determination believed almost in the elimination of the individual.

Hegel had the elimination of the individual in another way.

Spencer had the organic concept of society, but at the same time it was ridiculous to argue for liberal competition.

[…]

Society should be thought of like Hamlet (ie the play).

You don't start with the individual but with internalized values and mutual role expectations. Their relationship creates …

[…] [12] An English philosopher said to Polanyi of the G.T. that P. was able to link up the economics and politics of the era with the actual facts.

• We must recognize the inherent limitation of anarchistic freedom.
• We must waive the efficiency principle (e.g. the Russian can offer foreign at low interest rates, good terms).

The Market and a Theory of Nationalism

[19] Jews: one hears of chosenness more and more. Their guilt is not in the death of Jesus but with rejecting the teachings of Jesus which are superior. There are their own teachings but [20] why don't they claim it? The idea of love is frontally directed against selfishness. It is not clear what it is, but if you get rid of selfishness, you are happy, and these are the laws of inner life. You are happier if you forgive your enemy. If in your own heart you reject the truth of this directive it means you exclude yourself and are in the wrong gratuitously. In this interpretation of life is the hope of mankind.

In Central Europe tje Jewish community claimed that at the heart of Christianity there was nothing but a lie - that their behaviour was full of hypocrisy. But the teachings can be accepted. History runs on subtle distinctions. In America the Jewish Community is internalizing the gentile attitude. Civic behaviour of Americans is based on the church meeting. This is called American without knowing that American means the Christian way of life. It is a question of higher standards.

Discussion oy My Letter of Dec. 17/55

[18] Barbara Ward's discussion of the gold gap is utter nonsense.

II

The Reality of Society [II]

This page contains question(s)
that we should discuss
in the Talk Page!

My Essay (April 30/56) has linked the concept of the Reality of Society with the new institutional theory. P. used the concept only metaphysically. I used it naturally in a sociology which is not atomistic.

[…]

[9] Owen said… […]

Bernard Shaw is the only thinker who thought of it in this way, that society was limited in the possibility of its ideals but he never drew the conclusion to leave things as they are - on the contrary.

[…]

[11] There are two rationalities, the survival of society, and that of the individual, and here you have the general problem of political theory.

[…]

In Paul: what does he mean when he brings in the idea of Christian freedom? It has something to do with the opposite, with death of sin. It is a metaphor of emancipation. The slave, when {fread} ceases to be a slave. It is a metaphysical experience.

[10] In Westermann: description of emancipation through the Delphic temple - Paramonai.

The Christian idea of society is that it is a relationship of persons. The revelation of the reality of society impiges on Christian freedom. It takes away the immediate topicality of the second revolution. (The latter was about 1935, the reality of society about 1942.)

In the "Essence of Fascim”, Polanyi didn't have the position he reached later. He was strongly influenced by Macmurray's Personalism - the individual in the community is real, the isolated individual doesn't exist. Personalism is not individualistic, but from the point of view of sociology it is.

In 1936 P. was under a strong religious influence in viewing the reality of society. P. had presented such an idea to his English friends in Vienna in the late '20's', so that it wasn't new. The ideal was of a community of persons which was instituted. The there was a society which broke up this ideal. The idea was to achieve a community of persons - which was naive. It took a complex society to reveal the concept of inevitable alternatives.

The "individual-in-community" concept protects one from slipping into an atomistic conception. The Christian conception is that the individual doesn't exist outside the community. He exists through others in the community. No one is alone, because then the concept of life would disappear.

[13] There is nothing of this penetration in the Jewish position. The the people as a whole exists in relation to God. In the Christian position the individual has his being in and through the other. It is not the same as loving one's neighbour as oneself. Loving is not clear unless it means selflessness. […]

[14] Alle personal faith consists in knowledge that things have a meaning.

This is what John's epistle says. John starts, "In the beginning there was the logos”. The Dead Sea Scrolls are along John the Evangelist line. This was a Jewish line of thought, not the Synoptics. The sentences are similar to the Essenes. Tolstoy regarded John as the essence of Christian teachings. (See book by Toltstoy on the reconstruction of John). The Synoptics are the rest of the teachings. The nearest translation of "logos" is meaning. Cf. John: "In the beginning was the Word (logos) - the meaning of things. (Without meaning there would be no persons). "The light shineth in darkness: and the darkness comprehend it not". (i.e. did not encompass it). The first five sentences sum up what must have been the Essene creed. "The light shineth in darkness is not like the Zoroastrian creed of light and dark. Life was like light. The more life the more light. Life equals light equals meaning. These are metaphors for the happy being of inner life. Darkness is passive and doesn't put out or take in light. It is not a matter of belief or faith-moanig is reality. It is what consciousness means. Meaning means getting it and passing it on. No principle can create forms meaning because that principle itself must have a meaning.

[15] Modern positivism… […]

The Messianic aspect in Jewry was not in the Prophets. It existed in strong movements in the third and second century B.C. revealed by the Dead Sea Scrolls. A messianic leader in the past lost his life like Jesus. But in the turn which things take in Jesus, it is doubtful that anything of the kind was present before. The Essenes belief was eschatological, otherwise he banning of women was not possible.

Christianity reached a low again and again but had the power of retrieving itself - St Augustine, the Monastics, the Benedictines, Cluniac, the {friurs} Reformation, Counter-Reformation, then [16] the various secular movements that came with the Enlightenment.

In America, Porestantism created novel movements in Western christianity of the pioneer type from the 18th century on - Benjamin Franklin (?), the Mormons, Shakers, Quakers.

The was an incredible capacity of the Christian church to start afresh being covered with crime and slime, through an expansion or an inward movement. There were frequent mystic periods.

Science revolutionized Christianity. Calvinism was an outgrowth of the scientific spirit, a turning against supernaturalism, the priesthood and miracles. The beginning of the scientific turn was about 1530 and hasn't stopped for a day. Protestant Calvinism as its height was anything but enlightened, but the scientific spirit caused an explosion of a general religious kind. We have to be cautious here, since the more you look into the more puzzling it is. Only in the present you can speak about certainties. (As long as you're sincere you can't go astray).

[…]

Politics and the Current Crisis

[21] Clausewitz' book is still the best one written on power.

The danger in the post-war…

Background of the Great Transformation [II]

[24] … P. wrote in 1909 (or 1912) that growing monopoly capital would bring a ruling class sociology instead of an atomistic sociology and develop a ruling class morality. …

The Exchange Triad and the Gold Standard

… [28] P. got his gold standard position from Keynes.

[…]

[29] Bishop (c.f. G. Trans.)

Remarks

World Religion

All World religion developed within about 500 years of each other. Jesus doesn't st this date but the Essenes do 200 years earlier. The Jews set the date in Palestine in the 6th century. One relates the Essenes to the Prophets and one gets this range from 8th century - Buddha to the 6th century - Lao-Tze.

What caused this great religious epoch throughout the whole world? It may be a cosmic event, such as cosmic rays. The earth may have got a cosmic shot in the arm. More probable than not something happened and you cannot exclude the whole realm of the earth being influenced from outside.

III

Religion and Revelation

[4] Christianity was not understood by the Apostles or since. It was carried along by the Christological element. Only exceptionally did we get Christian heresies such as communism? The Apostles met Jesus alive after the crucifixion and then preached that he was the son of God and this story spread. There is nothing of the meaning of Christianity in the Crusades which was long sustained movement.

Amon the Jews there was an intolerant eradication of their idolatrous sects to the extent where no trace of them remains although they are referred to in the Old Testament. This seemed to go with a strong religious sense.

The Essenes didn't with to continue. They didn't marry nor have children. There is a strong feeling in Christianity that the end of the world was imminent. The Acts was the only contemporary recounting of events.

Polanyi has spent several years in all of the world religions. Then Well's Outline of History came out. Each religion talked about the 'Path', the 'Way', 'the 'Road'. This leads to the question of whether there was a common problem for the world at this time.

Confucius had no notion of theism or God. He was in the great Chinese liberal tradition - not to label. The English also have this aversion to labelling - it is limiting. This Chinese idea of [5] allowing and wanting all opinions is an expression of the reality of society.

The teachings of Christ were not understood - were called the interim ethics.

P. Thinks my last draft (July 12/56) reveals that my grasp of the revelations is complete - I have it all internalized. What I wrote in my letter reveals that I see things the same was as P. does - things are in the same sequence and context in which they belong and everything else is incidental.

P. Personally tends to keep to a minimum of assumptions and starts on the inner insights. He does not tend to link them, nor give than an etiology - a causal background. This is probably because any causational background brings in definite assumptions of a historical or literary kind.

For exemple, if you link something to the Old Testament, then the truth of what you say hinges on the criticism of the Old Testament, e.g. do Fundamentalism and the Synoptic agree, or what about John's view?

Old Testament criticism was created by Wellhausen and the Jews didn't take note of it, when less than had the Christians didn't taken note of the New Testament critics. German Fundamentalist, preferred obscurantism to New Testament criticism, but the English took up the New Testament criticism. The Jews decided for obscurantism all the way and took no note of Wellhausen, nor of Weber and Meyer's books on the history of Judaism. The Jews said that this was antisemitic and therefore anti-progressive and anti-liberal. The Deuteronomy story wasn't taken note of.

[6] Its discovery in the temple in 621 was slurred over. The post-exilic and pre-exilic part of the O.T. was not noted. After the Codex Hammurabi's discovery - 1902, a fashion spread generally that Judaism was Babylonian. There is a Babylonian origin of the story of Eden. Jewish scholarship stopped and retired into obscurantism.

The post-exilic period - 445, corresponds in time to Periclean Athens. Egyptian literature takes us back 1000 years and Ugaritic literature echoes another 1000 years (It is a lovely literature in which much is entirely enchanting.)

The point is, that if the structure of human consciousness is analyzed, the changes and sequence of revelations, in a sense, the historicity in terms of race is irrelevant, because it may be the individual who goes through them. The phylogenetic hold - every child has the fear of death experience and it would be irrelevant whether the race went through it in the Paleolithic or Neolithic or when in history. We are much more sure that these elements exist than when and how they originated.

The certainty, validity and dignity of this knowledge is of a different order than the kind of knowledge about the origins or causes and this inner knowledge is the only evidence we have for religion. It is called revelation because we can't deduce it from anything. Revelation implies that it wasn't there before, or that it doesn't exist in other cultures. It is knowledge which comes about, but when it's there it's certain. In religion it os natural, because these are the concepts that apply to the subject. There is nothing more certain than the knowledge of inner experiences, since outer experiences are only mediated. It is knowledge, not faith or belief. It doesn't differ from knowledge as faith differs. It is not that we only believe it - this is a misconception about religious knowledge. It is external knowledge that is mediated. It is just that the subject is different, not the certainty of the knowledge.

[…] [7] Some religions would be shattered if miracles proved true and others would be affirmed. Jesus refused to do miracles, although he could do them in the then-accepted sense. It meant rare powers of influence and these powers were not infrequent in the East - psychologically and physiologically rare phenomena. They couldn't understand then what e.g. the physiologist means by miracle, since nature's laws were not formulated. […]

There are no adequate theories of mind and consciousness. The mind is an English word and other words exist in other languages, [8] e.g. "Geist" and spirit or mind don't mean the same thing. Their real importance lies in their use and the situation in which they are used. This is an Instrumentalist idea which is near the Pragmatist or Dewey position. In the theory of knowledge there are many sound elements in the Nominalist rather than the Realist position. P. is not a Pragmatist nor an Instrumentalist, although there is some truth in both positions. P. only says this to excuse himself. The distinction of the basic terms consciousness and mind and the term "awareness" are important (what most people mean by consciousness).

P. thinks… […]

For Macmurray, the movement of the mind as pure dialectic was shown in the dream - moving according to its own inner law - that is dialectic.

[9] The theological content or revelation doesn't mean anything and there is no point in it. If God was revealed to you, you think of God. Revelation is a personal event. It happens to you (?). God is the meaningful entity in the world, or the world is a meaningful entity. Otherwise we could never have found meaning in it. Yet that is what we do. The one thing that is certain is that we can't originate meaning. "Logos” in John signifies means meaning. Any other belief is either illogical or nonsensical.

The philosopher says that this is nonsense. In terms of his discipline he has excluded the assumption on which P. rests - the mind satisfied with the certainty that he participates in the meaning of the world. That we couldn't have invented meaning is obvious to P. It is obvious that the sphere of existence with "You" being "I" to yourself is different from a mechanical or organic event. Nor is there this meaning in growth e.g. the apple tree is the seed of last year. In the world of the organic, different things are the same, and in the mechanical world, measuring of effect is meaningful. Gravitation is statement of causation in the mechanical world. There is also a statement of identity in the organic world e.g. my friend at the age 3, is now 68.

Personal meaning is the third type of statement. What is more certain its the meaning? Otherwise you get into the crazy behaviouristic circles of George S. Mead - two people communicating like two dogs illogically conceived as machines. Meaning doesn't bear explanation i.e. reducing it to something more familiar. One can't reduce meaning further. It is the basic element in the theory of knowledge.

P.'s scientific training and inner life coincide. There is no contradiction here. That comes from formulating religious knowledge not as [10] making society all that it can be we are free to resign ourselves to what it is and live the light of our freedom. This is a different existence.

The growing… (…) We can't resign ourselves to the reality of society limiting Christian freedom, in the sense in which the responsibility to our conscience requires it, unless we do what we can to ensure the right, the just and the demands of love. (…)

Owen says we have to resign ourselves to these dangers. P. agree… […]

Owen suggested that we put machines in a village to alleviate conditions. He only tried to answer the question that reform are no good [11] anyway since you can't remove the curse of labor. […]

[12] Perhaps other things are like law - if something is objectified for a third person is a law. The Objectification is Hegelian term. He said that spiritual realities like law are the objectification of spirit or 'geist'. P. doesn't share this form of the idea but it comes into the argument as the reality of society and you can't contract out of it. […]

[13] P. has these things on record 30 years ago. It is not possible to contract out of society. (Cf. Tolstoy and "nicht tun" - not doing, i.e. doesn't need machine, power and police - doesn't work).

The Christian idea that every individual is unique may now be grounded on the permutations and combinations of genes. […]

P.'s friends were then on the non-resistance line of Ghandi. His doctrine was directed against the Gandhist utopia, which was the same as Tolstoy's.

[…]

[15] institution meaning privileges - auto nemos, you own land to yourself (?). Luther's "Christian menschen freiheit" is a theological concept.

[…]

…meetings (Jews had similar idea in spring?)

Paul activates the life of the spirit.

[16] (My letter July 10/56):

The first industrial revolution was tillage. […]

Jesus said man may be washed out forever right away and this is a terrible message. He said to resign yourself but if you do it you are in state of the life of the spirit, and this gives you abundance of life.

P. points to each of the terrible revelations because it is the beginning of life, and this is the real meaning of Christianity. It reveals something man is not conscious of and the very resignation is the fount of the life of the spirit.

Buddha is very similar to Jesus but Buddhism has nothing much else to say either. […]

[25] It was the corporatists who reversed the position and said go back to the biological basis.

Christianity never accepted that and the Communists couldn't accept Socialism as a Christian derivation.

[26] As far the Fromm position is concerned we must mobilize the essential Christian position as being a limited one. The Christians don't realize it and don't like it. They say that Jesus didn't mean it in the social sense. One centers here on nuclear phenomena like power or economic value. The inevitable alternative is that whether you do something or don't, you are affecting other peoples' lives. […]

IV

G[eorge] B[ernard] Shaw

[…]

[3] 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. That's why innumerable interpretations are possible on one line or the other: life and logos. There are always some who embody the life force. There is the creation of a baby, but the imagination is also conceptual. Conception is both biological and logical - body and mind.

[…]

The whole mystery of saints is that there are saints e.g. Joan is an obvious situation discovers the obvious - the French nation. But the Roman church can't have nations and so sh's burned. She was [4]supposed to work miracles but didn't. She was beginning to do what every Frenchman had to do. We describe these as miracles by pretending not to understand. […]

[5] Man exists on three levels:

• The body. If you kick or pinch it hurts.
• Psychological mechanism. You may hit him in hi vanity in a psychological or emotional sense
• Life is nourished from internal sources of faith and conscience which he can't contradict without destroying himself.

The secret of Shaw…

[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]

Rationality

[35] What are ends of the rationality movement? (my question)

The nearest to a philosophy of rationalism ever built was the Enlightenment. It was only a counterphilosophy to a theologically interpreted world.

The Encyclopedists via the Enlightenment represented rationalism. They claimed that the universe and existence can be understood and is in harmony with reason. It probably means the unaided mind does not seek support in revelation.

It may organize itself as humanism - man is the ultimate explanation and value. This got terrific secret

The Revelations

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

P. is not really thinking of the symbolic expression of reminiscences. Man awakened out of his vegetative soul to the consciousness of death which created what we call man. The knowledge is here a reminiscence of man as we know him, being born and reshaping his consciousness. But to P. these revelations have always had meaning. Revelation does not come in a special or specific way or we wouldn't know it. The importance is its truth and we must know our life is limited. There is no use denying that and therefore the emphasize is its consequences.

Everybody knows he can extinguish the meaning of his life by denying his inner nature and it wouldn't be in the same sense as physical death. Revelation only means the consequences which are irreversible and that is true of the reality of society.

We can't say who told you or how do you know? That's why we speak of revelation, because once there, its irrevocable.

That's why the Old Testament or Babylonian story meant something different, such as whether sex is a danger and contradicts man's nature by his being ashamed. P. is not keen on this side of the matter. Other people might be concerned with the structure of human consciousness and the way it is linked here.

Both sex and hunger have this awkward character about them [38] and every human society deals with them.

[…]

[38] 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 [39] with – being a number of society and not doing anything about it.

IX

Notes

Jews and Christianity

[28+57] The reason for anti-semitism is that Jews are rightly charged with having brought Christianity into the world and then evading the consequence. (P. thinks it is true). The Jew thinks that the Gentil is pretty silly to be saddled with the religion. It is an unbearable burden.

P. always thought so. The Nazis said that Bolshevism was Christianity all over again and the Jews ought to be destroyed because they are responsible for Christianity.