[ALB]

Tommy Robinson has just found out that the neo-Nazis are like the Trotskyists: they infilitrate other organisations and try to take them over (only they regard themselves as a "spearhead" rather than a "vanguard")::http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24442953

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

I plead guilty to counter-revolutionary relativism and post-modernist revisionism.And I'd like one count of 'capitalist-roadster-ism' to be taken into consideration, too.

But you are guilty neither of being a "counter-revolutionary" nor a "capitalist-roadster", so these charges have never been brought. We all know you are a "free-access communist".Brian, to help you understand the whole debate, have a look at this:http://voices.yahoo.com/7-steps-understanding-characteristics-postmodernism-3730670.html?cat=4

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

OK, I'm a counter-revolutionary relativist.

I'm afraid you have pleaded guilty to the wrong charge. What you stand accused of is "post-modernist revisionism".

[ALB]

Endorsement of the book by the Scientific American herehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=book-review-behind-the-shock-machine

[ALB]

By coincidence, someone has left an old copy of Workers Solidarity published by an Irish anarchist group lying around Head Office which happens to have an article on referendums:http://www.wsm.ie/c/referenda-strategy-success-anarchismInteresting is the conclusion where they see the ruling class offering a referendum on some reforms to try to buy off a militant workers' movement:

Quote:

Our tools are the strike, mass demonstrations, assemblies and mass organisations that we build and have some control over. When we fight for reforms it may well be that when we show our strength, the state will seek to compromise and diffuse that through offering referenda but, if so, that is something we have won not through seeking a referendum but by frightening them into calling one.

What if they offered a general election instead ….. ?

[ALB]

Hrothgar wrote:

I assume you are referring to Marine Colliery

Why this assumption? I think that despite his self-proclaimed superior intelligence he is confusing Cwm and Cwm Beddau.

[ALB]

In case people couldn't read all the way through what he wrote, here's how, towards the end, he re-states his basic premise:

Hrothgar wrote:

What I am suggesting is that, first, if humanity is to go down a mixed-racial route of development and, in effect, devolve its racial types, this could be both socially- and developmentally- damaging.  Whites and Far East Asians are civilisationally superior, reflecting a higher mean average intelligence than other races. 

Hrothgar wrote:

if whites mix with other races, this will lower the average intelligence level in European societies,

[ALB]

To show that TUSC can sometimes do as well as us in council by-elections, see this:http://democratic.lincoln.gov.uk/mgElectionAreaResults.aspx?ID=1&RPID=28039

[ALB]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Oh what an evil man Ralph Miliband was:

I think that, if he was still around, he'd be a supporter of the Left Unity project as before he died he'd already seen through the Labour Party.And, if you read the Daily Wail allegations against him, what he hated was not Britain but "Tory Britain" with all its archaic "class" privileges, a view shared by millions of Labour and other voters (and whose abolition would make no difference to capitalism). After all, it was a Labour politician Nye Bevan who once described the Tories as "lower than vermin", since toned down to "the nasty party". But, then, that's what the Daily Wail likes about them.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

If I explain it in terms of my 'NHS Computer System', an analogy with which you're familiar.The system is a 'true' representation of the NHS for the purposes for which humans created it.But it's clearly not the whole 'truth' of the NHS, because the NHS consists of innumerable 'facts', the vast majority of which are meaningless for human purposes.But another set of humans could write another system, which focussed on different aspects of the NHS, a second system which we would also regard as 'true', but which is different from the first 'truth'.

But wouldn't this just be knowledge about a different part of NHS (standing for the world of reality)? Why would it have to conflict with the first, different knowledge about a different part?

LBird wrote:

So, the 'truth' of any scientific knowledge has to be related to the humans who constructed the 'knowledge', and 'why', and 'how', and a later better theorised and executed process could produce another true representation which is then considered by humans to be better for their new purposes, and thus succeeds and replaces an earlier truth.[emphasis added]

Ah, now we are getting somewhere ! "Better for their new purposes" (or even for their old purposes?). But what purpose? It would have to be something like "surviving better"? In which case, it would fall into the category of "instrumentalism" or "pragmatism" (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that).And wouldn't you have to say more than "humans" and say something like "human society" to avoid any arbitrary group of humans with some arbitrary purpose creating their own "truths"? Which raises the question of who, in the scheme, is the subject: any group, a class, society as a whole?

[ALB]

jondwhite wrote:

Lots of leftcoms run stalls and meetings there, on the technicality that they say they are not a party.

Not yet … and, hopefully, never !

[ALB]

I don't think they'll ever let us have a stall and it's a bit undignified and even unprincipled for us to keep begging them. Better to simply set up a stall outside as we do at other such events organised by other opponents such as the SWP's "Marxism".  Over to the campaigns committee, then.

[ALB]

It appears(though not sure how reliable this source is, but it was also reported in the papers yesterday) that the rebels in Syria are now just rival brands of fanatical Islamists striving to impose their brutal rule on the people of Syria, particularly on women (Saudi Arabia is financing and arming one of these gangs) and minorities:http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-the-army-of-islam-saudi-arabias-greatest-export/5352638Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire.

[ALB]

Brian wrote:

From my recollection LBird has many times pointed out the distinction between what was 'thought to be true' and the actual 'truth' becoming revealed through further scientific discovery and investigation.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick, Brian. This is precisely the position LBird is arguing against, as I assume he will confirm by return of post. I'm not sure I'd defend it either.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

So, to return to ALB’s essential question:

ALB wrote:

But, in turn, I put a question to you: what in your view are the criteria by which to judge whether a theory or view is "knowledge" or just fantasy or wrong/inaccurate/inadequate?

Given my beliefs as a Communist and following the outlined theory of cognition of science, I’d argue that the only ‘criteria’ which can ever be acceptable for humans are those arrived at by the society that is doing the human social activity of science. The current ‘criteria’ of the bourgeoisie won’t be the future ‘criteria’ of the proletariat.

But what would you say are the current criteria by which capitalist society distinguishes between "knowledge" and fantasy or a wrong/inaccurate/inadequate theory?

[Author]

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