Bijou Drains
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Unfortunately, my feathered friend, your elite view of yourself reveals itself so readily, sadly it is just as easy to see your overwhelming need for intellectual recognition. This does make me wonder where your deep seated sense of low self esteem comes from, your apparent need to be recognised as an all conquering genius. You need to know that we are here to help you. We feel your pain, it's ok to share it with us we understand. Was it your friendless childhood, the family who kept moving without telling you? Getting your packed lunch given to you wrapped in a road map? The family pretending that they only spoke Swedish, just to avoid talking to you? it must have hurt so much.I can imagine you, sitting with your imaginary friend Mr Bucket, him telling you how clever you are. Then even Mr Bucket got pissed off and hung himself.But you need to know, that's all behind you, you're amongst friends here. Me, Vin, YMS, ALB, etc. we might seem like we think you're a bit of a bellend, but honestly, we think you're really, really, clever. Honestly, cross my heart and hope to die. So snuggle down tonight, safe I the knowledge that after all these years you were right, you're dead clever, honest.Much loveTim
Vin, I think it was a friendly jest from Adam, following your comments on another thread. I'm sure it wasn't meant to offend
L Bland wrote "The SPGB intends to……………Keep the production of ideas in the hands of a minority" – So the production of ideas, in Bland's opinion must currently be in the hands of a minority. so if the production of ideas is controlled by the "educated elite" how then can the production of ideas be taken from them? If only they produce ideas, which of them produced the idea of Socialism and why didn't they keep it to themselves?Bland clearly considers himself to have, quote the confidence, ability, intelligence and interest to produce his own ideas, is he therefore part of the minority who produce ideas. If he isn't then how did he produce the ideas he has. Happily the reality is somewhat different. Workers all over the globe have the confidence, ability, intelligence and interest to develop their own ideas, without the elitist help of our latter day Lenin, L Bird.
L Bird – You might be interested in the Walsby Society, founded by the late George Walford. They used to send around the incredibly turgid "ideological Commentary" to any one on the Socialist Standard contact list in the 80s and 90s. when Walford died he left some money to the SPGB and also set money aside for the George Walford International Essay Prize (I shit you not). The prize is £3,500 to spend on the college course of the winner's choice. The subject is Systematic Ideology and from reading through the essays it seems that pseudo-intellectual sophistry is the name of the game. You may want to enter, although when it comes to pseudo-intellectual sophistry you may be over qualified.Anyway here is a link -http://gwiep.net/wp/to be fair, Walford did come up with one reasonably funny joke, which was – A Martian lands in Clapham High Street, knocks on the door of number 52 and says "take me to your leader"
Robbo 203 wrote
“If you are going to argue that socialism is purely a matter of our own “self interests”.then this leads to directly into the kind of thinking that lay behind Adam Smith’s model of the invisible hand of the market. You might as well give up propagatng socialism and focus on becoming a rich capitalist.”The point is that if we ALL could become rich capitalists, then this would be the best route forward. The propaganda of capitalism puts forward the view that if we all tried hard enough we could ALL be Bill Gates. However we cannot just choose to become rich capitalists, to propose this is as ridiculous as suggesting that we choose to be member of the working class. The point is being born between the right pair of thighs is not a matter of choice.
The cold facts are that socialism is in the self interest of the majority, because the majority, no matter how hard we try cannot all be Bill Gates.
Also Vin, I think Prozac and Whiskey make the perfect combination, it’s the only way to survive 40 years of disappointment at Joker Park/Stade de Merde or Sid James Park
British Culture -Fish and Chips – JewishSt George – TurkishThe Royal family – GermanRock and Roll – African AmericanBeer – EgyptianTea drinking – ChineseNumerals – Hindu ArabicScript – LatinLanguage – Saxon, Celtic, French, Germanic, Greek, Latin, etc. etc. etc.Looking back on the history of the British Isles is looking back on a history of population movement, integration and cross fertilization of ideas. The idea of a single culture, held in aspic, whether that is white working class culture or any other culture is ridiculous. As a white working class Geordie, I have seen my culture change profoundly in the last 50 years; that in an area without high levels of immigration. Poss tubs, leek clubs, coop dividend, nit nurses, drinking Fed Special, proggy mats, whippets, etc. etc.Society is constantly changing, constantly adapting, constantly integrating, constantly innovating and a big part of that process has been due to multi cultural cross fertilization. No doubt the same would be the case in a Socialist Society.
The IQ intelligence argument comes up time and again. The IQ test itself is culturally biased in as much as those who devise the tests are generally based in one culture that measures intelligence within the cultural norms of that society. therefore, for example being able to correctly tessellate may be consider part of intelligence, as defined by the IQ test, the ability to relate to ones colleagues, empathise, or even the creative ability to make an object such as a pot. is not measurable on an IQ test. Our friend Ike who has an interesting blend of nationalism and socialism (can't help but think I've heard of that combination somewhere before), whilst dismissing IQ appears to want to base his argument on IQ. However even in this, he is looking in the wrong direction when trying to find the main factor in the development of intelligence, personality, language use, vocabulary, cognition, etc. Time and again studies have shown that the major factor in the development of not race or culture, but attachment.Studies of children with poor attachment styles have repeatedly shown that, in comparison with those with secure attachment , they have smaller and less well developed brains, that they have smaller vocabularies, they have less complex cognitions, etc. etc. This has also been shown to continue into adult life. (Dimitrijevik, Dimitirjevik and Marjanavic)Social class, race and culture have also repeatedly been shown to be a very minor factor in the development of secure relationships. can I suggest our noble correspondent Ike would be better off reading "the making and breaking of affectional bonds" by John Bowlby than his current booklist.
L Bird wrote:"what I read here scares the shit out of me."You must scare really easily". If reading the views of a few Socialists on a web page scares the shit out of you, you should come with me to a few of the bars in the East End of Newcastle, you'd die of fright!I have to say I have rarely read such a lot of self praising, narcissistic nonsense in my life.The only way you support any argument is through self assertion. Your approach to debate appears to be that if you say it and keep repeating it, then regardless of how stupid it is, eventually people will get sick and then humour you saying "yes you were right all along". I've got to say, this approach to logic is usually tackled with children when they are 2-3 years old. It is sometimes described as "narcissistic wounding".Can I suggest a simple and practical way of examining just how much you really are a "materialist-idealist"?I propose that as an example of workers' democracy the workers who use this forum have a vote on the following scientific theory "The number 47 bus is made out of marshmallow". If all of the workers on this forum voted democratically in favour of this scientific theory, would you be prepared, backing up the process of workers democratic control of science, to then go out into the middle of the road, stand in front of said number 47 bus, travelling at 40 mph and allow it to hit you. (don't worry it's made out of marshmallow)
There appear to be a couple of issues here with regards to Party democracy and accountability. If as DJP states "Like most all other committees internet committee activity is conducted via email and all decisions arrived at through these means." As these emails are part of the Party business, can North East Branch have copies of the emails. In the interests of democratic accountability, it is important that members are aware of what decisions are taken, the reasons for this and who took those decisions.On a slightly different note I think there are some issues about internal democracy raised about the way the forum is developing. Is the forum the official source of information about decisions taken by Party sub committees? If so how do members who are not part of this forum access information about these democratic processes?On the same theme, if members of sub-committes or members of the EC are reporting on the forum about their activities as part of those committes, surely in the interests of internal democracy those postings should be made in the name of the individual who is reporting back, rather than user names, etc.There is a current issue going on re the use of the twitter account. If I as a member disagree with the decisions made by members of the internet committee, surely I have the right to know which members of that committee are taking these decisions, or posting in support of these decisions. At the moment there are posts from DJP and also the moderator. Are they one and the same person? I have know idea. I also have no idea who these members are and also for the sake of clarity moderators should be posting on issues which relate to moderation. If they want to contribute to debates, surely they should log in under their personal user name?
Robbo 203 wrote "That means quite literally 7 billion individuals voting upon thousands upon thousands of scientific theories to decide whether or not they are "true" ."You forgot to mention that Mathematics would also be involved in this process, so there would be thousands of Mathematical theorems to vote on as well. I'm not sure if it would only be the theories developed in the Capitalist era that would need to be democratically decided upon or whether the theories from Classical societies would be up for grabs as well?It also begs the question, at what stage of the development of theory is it put to the vote, as no theory is ever complete.I suppose we could organise a kind of TV show format around the vote. We could call it the X x Y = 1 Factor. I can't see it being huge Saturday night viewing though. No doubt there is some twat at Channel 5 reading this thinking, "oh now, that could work"
I think the inclusion of Andrew Neil et al adds a bit of credibility to the average viewer. the fact that it comes from a "serious politics" programme gives the message that we are a serious political party. I think it's an excellent piece of work, my only other thought is how well Cliff Slapper has aged, he doesn't look a day over 30.
L Bird wrote:'Ideas' are not 'material' (ie. being, of 'matter'); they are 'ideas' (ie. consciousness).If ideas, part of our mental processes, part of our consciousness are not material, perhaps you could explain the following:http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/meet-two-scientists-who-implanted-false-memory-mouse-180953045/?no-ist or is that just another example of Bourgeoisie science
I think L Bird is confusing the concept of thought and the concept of consciousness. Thought is only one aspect of consciousness, it also includes feeling, perception, etc. He appears to further compound this by assuming that all thought takes the form of language, which clearly it doesn't. If you consider a baby before it develops language, it still has thought, however it doesn't have language with which to think, this is known as pre verbal thinking. This leads us to the conclusion that human consciousness is far more complex than L Bird appears to consider. It also follows that the development of consciousness, what we could consider to be cognitive development, is more complex and complicated than L Bird's bizarre reductionist theory that consciousness can be divided into Bourgeoisie consciousness and Proletarian consciousness. That is not to say that aspects of consciousness have their roots in social class and the relationship between workers and the means of production, however that is not the only aspect of cognitive development. Environmental facts may have an impact on cognitive development, for example a child may suffer from Feotal Alcohol Syndrome, which may impact massively on their cognitive development. There are many theories of cognitive development, for example according to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, intelligence is the basic way in which we manage interactions between the ourselves and our environment. This is achieved through the actions of the developing person on their world. At any moment in development, the way the outside world presents is in terms of our individual understandings of the individual objects and people we encounter. If our understandings are not completely accurate we need to alter our understandings. In this theoretical approach the development of intelligence is a continuous process of assimilation and accommodations that lead to increasing expansion of the understandings of the world with increased coordination between them, increasing internalisation of understandings. These mental operations are gradually coordinated with each other, generating structures of understandings. These structures of mental operations are applied on representations of objects rather than on the objects themselves. Language, mental images, and numerical notation are examples of representations standing for objects and thus they become the object of mental operations. It has been argued that we develop schema, models of the world and areas of the world that fit represent our experience of a particular area of our existence. As my personal schema of supermarkets has elements of geographical layout, how to park, how to get in and out as quickly as possible as well as the associated feelings of dread and loathing which accompany my experience of going to the supermarket. Similarly one of the biggest factors in cognitive development is the attachment that develops between the growing child and their main carer. Attachment has been shown to have impact on vocabulary, cognitive development, brain development, memory, physical growth, etc. etc. Developments of John Bowlby's original theories of attachment have been developed to explain the cognitive, social and other differences between children with different attachment patterns (Van Ijzendoorm and Sagi) have led to the competency hypothesis. Similarly Lev Vygotsky put forward the idea that there is an explicit link between language and both inner and external speech and the development of mental concepts and cognitive awareness, as our internal speech (intra psychic conversation) is the basis of most of our mental activity and given that language is developed socially it follows that thought has developed socially and can be only understood socially. (interestingly Vygotsky was accused of idealistic aberration in the 1930s Stalinist USSR and his work was suppressed until the 1990s) However the social aspect is much more complex that social class, for instance it may include family composition, culture, etc.etc. How we understand and relate to the "material" world is far more complex and nuanced than L Bird's rather infantile ramblings.
alanjjohnstone wrote: People with empty bellies don't hunger for a head full of ideals.L Bird wrote: Just as easy to say: People with empty heads don't hunger for a belly full of ideals.it may be just as easy to say it, but saying it doesn't mean that it makes any sense, like most of the pretentious drivel you write. However let me see if I get this right, every idea you have is, without question, in line with the thoughts of Marx, is therefore correct and is a proletarian idea. In contrast ideas that contradict your ideas are not in line with the thoughts of Marx and are by definition a bourgeois idea.You then go on to state"whilst workers are reluctant to engage in the drawing of the architectural plans, that Marx argues are required for the creation of the new building, then the plans will be provided to the intellectually passive"So presumably the provider of these plans will be the intellectually active, the vanguard party, the elite. I wonder who you envisage at the front of this intellectually active elite, leading the way with his proletarian ideas, perhaps it will be L Bird, hero of the revolutionary working classes. Talk about delusions of grandeur!
