how things naturally were, right now, in the primitive present
From an article entitled “Celebrate huge salaries, minister tells Labour” in The Guardian:
In a speech to the Labour organisation Progress, [business and enterprise secretary John Hutton] will say: “Aspiration and ambition were natural human emotions – not the perverted side effect of primitive capitalism.”
How to parse this curious quotation, if it is in fact accurate? Aspiration and ambition were natural human emotions, that is to say, presumably, present from the start, but… aren’t now? On the other hand, the scapegoated capitalism is [would be] scapegoated as “primitive,” and we should abandon this line of critique in favor of… the endorsement of the effects as even more primitive (natural) than primitive capitalism? So is he saying that, sure, capitalism is primitive, just not primitive enough for his taste? Or primitive things get perverted when they encounter primitive periods of…
…you know what, forget it.
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