ALB
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I wish I'd never mentioned "naive realism" as there was always the risk that it would set you off again. And it has. I've no interest is discussing epistemology with you, at least not on this thread (having discussed it with you for over a year I know perfectly well what your position is) but I will explain what I was saying and what I was not saying:1. I was making the point that, in their daily life, everybody is in practice a "naive realist", i.e assumes that the world is more or less as they see it and that the parts of the observed world they use are separate objects. You do. I do. We all do. Humans always have and no doubt still will in socialism.2. I was not saying that workers are incapable of understanding the inadequacies of "naive realism" outside the field of everyday living.3. I was not saying that "naive realism" is at all adequate when it comes to explaining what science is trying to do.4. I do not think that the socialist-minded majority needed to establish socialism has to have a knowledge of epistemology at least not more than a passing knowledge. Some, perhaps many, no doubt will but, in any event, it would be an optional extra not a necessity.I am only interested in discussing point 4 here.
SocialistPunk wrote:The socialists/communists on this site and in the SPGB and WSM are a tiny minority among a minority, and we are drowned out by the mainstream. Every now and then a person looking for an alternative comes in contact with us or some literature, internet site and so on, and may decide to dig deeper. Only then are they in a position to be able to agree or reject.We are of course not the only people proposing world socialism (as a classless, stateless, moneyless world community, whatever the term used) as the alternative to capitalism. I'm thinking of groups like Zeitgeist and its offshoots, some Left Communists and Anarchist-Communists, even though they disagree with us over how to get there. So the position is not that bleak.
LBird wrote:I can accept this as a reasonable criticism of my position, that I'm 'placing the bar too high', but then that leaves me wondering about Marx's view that 'the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class'.I don't see that not knowing about epistemology prevents the workers from emancipating themselves. It doesn't follow. There's no connection between the two.
LBird wrote:No, I think that the bar has to be set high, and workers have to voluntarily want to hit the high bar, and want more from their lives than 'better daily living'.Ok, socialism is about achieving the best possible daily living.
LBird wrote:No, my slogan is still 'Smash Naive Realism!'. Errr… not very catchy or attractive, is it?No, but it's not possible anyway. Most people will still be naive realists even in socialism, just as you and me are in our daily, practical life. We wouldn't survive if we weren't. Imagine trying to live if you thought food was a mental construct and not a separate thing to eat.
No, I am not saying that left to themselves the workers can only attain a naive realist consciousness and that critical realism or "materialism" or whatever other philosophy has to be brought to them from outside the class by an elite.I'm sure most workers could understand epistemology. What I'm saying is that they don't have to any more than they have to understand algebra. You're placing the bar for "socialist consciousness" far, far too high. All that it required to establish socialism is the understanding of a majority that(a) capitalism can't be reformed to work in their interests;(b) only socialism, as the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production, can provide the framework within which problems can be solved;(c) that this is something they are going to have to do for themselves by their own actions (nobody is going to do this or could do it for them);(d) that democracy is the way to decide what to do.As to epistemology, to be perfectly honest I think that naive realism for all its philosophical inadequacy will do. At least it works for daily living. And making that better is what's socialism is all about.
LBird wrote:'Materialism' is, yet again, seen to be unable to be defended against the criticisms of workers who've seen through its nonsense.I think you're exaggerating here a bit. "The criticism of workers" (plural)? As far as I know it's the criticism of just one worker unless you know of some others. Most workers couldn't care less about epistemology, materialism and other philosophical issues and as the majority can't be wrong. Can they?
LBird wrote:The thread title is 'Can the workers ever be wrong?'To answer the question 'who determines 'wrong'?', we have to answer the epistemological question of who or what determines 'wrong'.Is it an elite minority?Is it 'reality'?Is it a social majority?Thus, since I argue that the latter is the correct epistemological and political answer, the answer to the title is 'No'.'Wrong' is a social idea, not a property of matter or the opinion of an elite.That's better, i.e stopped the thread veering off track down a dead-end siding or, to be more charitable, on to another thread.I thought that was your answer. So your slogan is "The Workers United Can Never Be Wrong!" whatever the view they are united on (eg war, discrimination) — and I thought you were among those who think that socialism is a moral as well as a class issue. The trouble is of course they never are united, not even in supporting wars or governments or even capitalism in general. Some support one view, others another, others yet another. So how do you decide what is the workers view that can never be wrong?
LBird wrote:The rest of your post, YMS, is nothing to do with the epistemological question of 'knowledge'.That sounds good as that's not what we are discussing here as there's another long-running thread on this which (just checked) has 233 new messages unread by me on it since I stopped following it a few weeks ago.
LBird wrote:I've just chosen to focus on the dangers of 'Leninism', rather than 'spontaneism', because I think the former is the one being espoused by some here, with talk of elites, experts, academics, etc. in science.Actually, the traditional SPGB position (or one SPGB tradition) has more in common with "spontaneism" than Leninism. Early Party members considered socialism to be inevitable. It's rather more difficult for us, over a century later, to maintain this view (it also explains why the view that socialism is a moral as well as a class view has surfaced).Eve so, we do in fact hold that capitalism "spontaneously" throws up socialist ideas in the sense that it does so even if we had never existed (though I don't like the word "spontaneous" in relation to human ideas since none are; all have to be conscious and spread by argument, even Lenin's "trade union consciousness" is not "spontaneous"). Our argument here is that what we, as an organised group propagating socialist ideas, are doing is not creating socialist consciousness but merely speeding up its spread and, as YMS says, avoiding workers having to re-invent the wheel.So, accuse us of "spontaneism" if you want but not Leninism !
Anyway, to keep the new ball in play, I don't agree that the kind of crude"materialism" you are criticising (that sees consciousness as a mere reflection of material conditions) leads to Leninism (that requires the additional premise that some can have this reflected in them more or better than others). It can equally lead to an anti-Leninist position, i.e to "spontaneism" and the view that there is no need to try to spread "socialist consciousness" as it will spread automatically anyway out of material circumstances, i.e. material conditions reflecting themselves as consciousness in the whole class not just a select part of it.One example is the iconic 1969 ani-Leninist text The Eclipse and Re-Emergence of the Communist Movement by Gilles Dauvé and François Martin. Here's how they end the first article on "Capitalism and Communism" (their emphasis):
Quote:Those who already feel the need for communism, and discuss it, cannot interfere in these struggles to bring the communist gospel, to propose to these limited actions that they direct themselves towards "real" communist activity. What is needed is not slogans, but an explanation of the background and mechanism of these struggles. One must only show what they will be forced to do.and
Quote:The communist party is the spontaneous (i.e., totally determined by social evolution) organization of the revolutionary movement created by capitalism. The party is a spontaneous offspring, born on the historical soil of modern society.I don't agree with this and I don't suppose you do either because it denies the need for any propagation of socialist ideas or reduces the activity of socialists/communists to merely analysing what happens and is inevitably going to happen. It replaces so-called "abstract propaganda" with abstract theorising and passive waiting.
LBird wrote:You started this new thread, with a quote from me, and accuse me of 'going over this again'?I'm forced to ask, if there's 'no point', what was your point in starting it?Hey, stop shooting the messenger ! I only started this thread because the moderator asked one of us to move off the Piketty thread and merely selected something you had written to start the ball rolling. A new ball, that is
LBird wrote:Elitism is arguing that the minority should have the power to impose their minority opinion on the majority.Of course, but nobody here is arguing this. All we are arguing as democratic socialists is that the socialist majority have the right and should have the power to impose its will on the pro-capitalist minority. Which is not the same as having the right to impose its opinion on them. I think this is the issue between you and YMS (and twc). Not that you can impose opinions.We know your views on what you define rather narrowly as "materialism" and have argued about this to a standstill. So no point in going over this again.
Now it's Brand and Owen Jones:http://www.theguardian.com/membership/2014/sep/19/guardian-live-with-russell-brand-broadcasting-live-around-the-ukMight go and watch in Kingston. You don't have to be in London according to the list of cinemas.
LBird wrote:gnome wrote:Although this particular individual claims to be a communist he insists that the class struggle alone will be the basis for the change without the need for education by an external 'elite', by which he means, in this instance, the SPGB.What would your response to this person be?My response would be: "Communist workers are not an 'external elite' ".
Exactly. Those of us who have become socialists/communists are just members of the working class arguing the case for socialism with our fellow workers. We are not an elite from outside the working class, not even those of us who have got together in a separate organisation to do this more effectively.What in fact we are doing is trying to ensure that hearing the argument for socialism is part of the "experience" of the working class since (as all of us here know) there is no such thing as experience without thought. So the Trotskyists (and others) are wrong to argue that the working class can learn to be against capitalism through mere struggle or by the experience of failure to achieve some reform without them also hearing the case for socialism argued. Which they reject as casting pearls before swine.
Police intelligence must have got in wrong again. There were no anarchists on the march and so no danger of any "incident" as they were all at an obscure event in Mile End contemplating their navels.
