Should the left be fucking nerds?
:yes-sicko:
We can barely get people to read the history and political theory under-girding our whole ideology, and you want people to read metaphysics?
Seriously though, I feel like epistemology would be more useful to a leftists than metaphysics if you want to go out of your way to learn philisophy, at least thinking in terms of leftism in the US.
Im a marxist-leninist-mohist, i believe we can quantify socialism in bushels of rice.
Monism is materialist. The environment shapes the mind, and thus there is no separation between the mind and body
no? People need food, water, shelter to live. You don't really need to take a stance on if those are all the same thing or not to say the amount one has influences their ability to succeed.
Monism, to my understanding, has many definitions, one of which is that the world is primarily material (i.e. materialism).
So you mean like mind-body dualism versus mind is part of body monism? Even then, the idea that there is a spirit separate from the body doesn't necessarily not work with materialist thought. It depends on if you think that spirit, or mind or what have you, can change your world without resources. If you think meditation allows you to float or prayer can cure all wounds, that is anti-materialist. Even then you can just give primary consideration to material politics and still work with it.
Doesn't Parenti address monism in one of the opening chapters of Blackshirts and Reds?
Lets ask will. I am pretture sure he said gnostic acid marxism is a strictly materialst philosophy .