[LBird]

Vin wrote:

Yawn

Yeah, I feel the same way, Vin.Why you and YMS don't just say that you won't have ideas interfering in matter, and have done with it, and leave the field of ideas to the nationalists, I don't know.At least then you'd know why the nationalists, and their 'ideas', continue to trump your materialism, and its 'matter', hands down, in the world of humans and their political and scientific ideas.Yes, yes, I know, I'm an 'Idealist'.Yawwwwwn…

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

'Humans' are actually 'social products', and so different societies will produce different 'individuals'. Unhappily for your bourgeois liberalism, which insists to you that 'you are an individual', Marx's ideas insist that if you had been born in a different society, you would be a different person. And you wouldn't regard yourself as 'an individual'.

There seems to be an echo in here, since that was exactly what I was saying, that humans are basically identical, and the offspring of one "nation" transplanted into another would grow up exactly the same as their fellows.  All humans have basically the same bodies and the same brains, and will react to the same circumstances and material conditions in roughly the same ways, so that social being will determine social consciousness, or something like that.

[my bold]You must live in a different universe, YMS, never mind in a different ideology, if you think we're 'saying the same thing'.As for the much misunderstood "social being will determine social consciousness", the first term is 'social being', not simply 'being', as the materialists read it.So, your notion that "All humans have basically the same bodies and the same brains, and will react to the same circumstances and material conditions in roughly the same ways" is complete bollocks.In fact, humans 'react to the same circumstances and material conditions' in totally different ways, because those 'humans' live in different societies and thus have different 'social beings'.You're basically claiming, YMS, that 'the rocks talk to humans', and we must listen to them and obey them.Bourgeois science at its very best. You can predict 'human behaviour' from 'material conditions'. And bollocks to ideology, ethics, beliefs and the social production of understanding.And any affront to this 'materialist ideology' is damned as 'Idealism'. Because it involves 'ideas'.Marx, the original idealist-materialist, would weep.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

If humans are not basically the same the world over…

Further to my previous post, it's this ahistoric and asocial attitude to 'the world' which is 'basically the same' for all 'humans', that simply can't understand why other, non-bourgeois societies, like Native Australians, Americans and Canadians, turn to drink when confronted with 'The Bourgeois Truth' about 'reality'. These pre-capitalist societies simply don't understand 'rocks' in the same way, and so regard what they are told, and how they are told to live and understand the world, as simply 'madness', and so descend into social chaos, and their societies fragment, relationships break up, involving drunkeness, etc.Unless 'science' is located in historical and social context, and its products, like 'knowledge of a rock' are regarded as social (not The Truth), and so are criticiseable and changeable, then drunkeness will seem like the best option to many, who regard bourgeois science as a form of madness.I myself have drawn this herioc conclusion…

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

If humans are not basically the same the world over, how can they be expected to have any equality of say in running society?

The usual ahistorical and asocial estimation of 'humans the world over'.Have you never heard of Karl Marx, and his theory of 'modes of production'?'Humans' are actually 'social products', and so different societies will produce different 'individuals'. Unhappily for your bourgeois liberalism, which insists to you that 'you are an individual', Marx's ideas insist that if you had been born in a different society, you would be a different person. And you wouldn't regard yourself as 'an individual'.And societies 'change'.Your ideology disagrees with this view, and so you can ask questions about 'expectations' in a universalist fashion, whereas Marx would have situated any 'equality of say' within a social context, different from the one we live in, now.'Equality of say' would be a product of a class conscious proletariat, in its attempts to build for Communism. This 'equality of say' will apply to all products of their society, including scientific knowledge.

YMS wrote:

It's not a coincidence that a lot of effrot went into nationalism…

But, according to your materialism and scientism, this 'effort' is not required by the mass of workers, because either 'the rocks put in the effort, as the active component in knowledge', or the 'elite-experts put in the effort, which can't be expected of the mass of thick workers'.You won't have democracy, YMS, because you see yourself (and academics) as 'special individuals', who, because they have acess to a 'neutral scientific method', don't require, and can ignore, the views of the 'mass'. You won't have a vote on your 'Truth'.Unless workers challenge philosophers and scientists on the level of ideas, they will always be in thrall to 'elite-experts'.At least Adolf and Benito openly claimed to be the one 'elite-expert'. In that particular sense, they spoke more truly to workers than your bourgeois science does.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

 Of course, Marx flirted with Tremaux, until (it seems from correspondence) saved by Engels, on the very connexion between rocks and people.

Completely correct.Which shows that Engels was confused (compare his critical views then, with his later 'materialist' nonsense), and that Marx could be wrong (which he seems to have accepted, and dropped the ideas of Tremaux).That's why we workers, today and tomorrow, have to think for ourselves, and stop putting any people on a pedestal.I put my faith in all humans using democracy, rather than an elite pretending to have a 'neutral method'.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

The fact is, it is science that punctures the lies of nationalism, and demonstrates that us talking rocks are all basically the same the world over.

That is 'materialism'. An ideology that denies ideas.In fact, we know that our human knowledge of 'rocks' is social and historical, and so is not 'basically the same the world over'.You're either ignorant or a bluffer, YMS. I'd warn workers off you.You won't have criticism and creativity in your understanding of rocks, and insist that, in a conservative fashion, that once known, rocks are known forever, and thus stop human progress.As socialists, we have to have a critical, creative and democratic method to understand and change our world.Once knowledge is fixed, as the materialists allege, then it can't be criticised or changed.The 'materialists' claim to know the mind of god. It is a religion.

[LBird]

BTW, regarding the thread title: "Nationalism – a failure of Marxist theory?".It needs to be read as "Nationalism – a failure of Engelsist theory?".Then we can get back to employing Marx's 'idealism-materialism', which places human 'theory and practice' (ie. critical ideas and creative change) at the centre of our philosophical assumptions.Whilst 'Marxism' is identified as 'Materialism', this can't be done, as many socialists have said since at least the 1920s.And why the SPGB, a party which claims to emphasise both the need for the conscious development of all workers and the need for democratic methods, adheres to a bourgeois science (which bourgeois thinkers have already broken) that undermines consciousness as 'idealism' and undermines democracy in favour of 'elite experts', then it will continue to attract 'individuals' who claim to know better than their comrades (these 'individuals' won't accept democracy in their own learning) and who claim to have a philosophy, 'materialism', which denies the power of workers' ideas for their criticism and creativity.At least nationalism lauds ideas and community, not rocks and individuals.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Given the choice between a 'nationalism', which gives room to human input, or a 'materialism' which tells us that the rocks speak to us, I know which any thinking human will go for.

But Nationalism doesn't give room to human input…

'Nationalism' is a human idea, YMS.The sooner we acknowledge that 'Socialism' is a human idea, and try to develop that, and stop pretending that 'material conditions' produce ideas, that, in effect, 'rocks talk to us' (which physics and mathematics tell us is not true), then the sooner we can make a start.The choice is: do we want 'national science' or 'socialist science'?There is no 'science' which has a method which avoids politics.Whilst socialists claim to be 'materialists', the nationalists will make hay.If I were a worker ignorant of social and historical development, I too would sooner listen to nationalists, who stress my humanity and community, than listen to materialists, who stress that I should listen to the rocks.I'd know that I can't hear rocks, and would have to listen to some 'special humans' who can hear the rocks. These are the very people who are telling me that 'rocks talk'. It wouldn't take long to figure out that, in reality, rocks do not talk, and the 'special humans' are bluffers, who can't hear rocks either, but just want to bulshit me, and take control for themselves.Cadre-priests, using Latin-maths, and denouncing democracy.At least the nationalists emphasise the vernacular and the need for unity between all of the nation.As liars, the nationalists' lies work; as liars, the materialists' lies don't.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

All of which brings into sharp focus the role of ideas, beliefs and values in changing society

[my bold]So, workers are confronted with only the choice of either regarding 'ideas, beliefs and values' as part of 'changing' things (like society and its knowledge) or of regarding 'materialism', which tells them that 'material conditions' (not 'ideas, beliefs and values') 'changes' society?Given the choice between a 'nationalism', which gives room to human input, or a 'materialism' which tells us that the rocks speak to us, I know which any thinking human will go for.And it's not 'materialism'….[the mod can delete this, too, and hide another criticism of the simplistic two-answer choice of 'idealism' or 'materialism'. Because that's exactly what the 'materialists' reduce 'nationalism' to, to a mere form of 'idealism', and so the 'materialists' are baffled as to why workers would choose an 'idealism' which goes against what the rocks are saying… 'why won't they listen to their 'material conditions'? They must be stupid…']Whatever happened to 21st century science, which can provide humans with social and historical answers?

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Science is the most subversive practice that humans engage in.In the long run, nature exacts her cruel vengeance on all mere human injunctions upon scientific enquiry, and defeats all vain attempts to gag scientific thought.

This is very confused, twc.'Science practice', as 'subversive' as it is, is a human, and therefore a social and historical 'practice'.Your contrasting of a 'cruel, vengeful, nature', as the active element in the interaction, with the passivity of the 'merely human', is a throwback to 19th century thought about 'science' and its supposedly neutral method, which trumps humanity and its democratic political arrangements.In any 'long run', of course humans can gag scientific thought (by thermo-nuclear war, for example, and the destruction of, never mind scientific thought, but all human thought).That's why it is necessary to stress the fragility of 'science' and defend it to the hilt as human 'theory  and practice', and move away from the religious belief in 'science' as 'nature', as the 'reflection' of 'nature as it is', of human passivity in the production of 'scientific knowledge'.Without humans, there is no 'nature to be explored'.Marx sought the humanising of nature and the naturalising of humanity, not a 'natural god', as for the positivists, like you.No subject, no object. Both are required to produce knowledge. And the subject is the active element, as Marx said in his Theses on Feuerbach.The only truly subversive science is human democratic science.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

The basic credo is that all scientific knowledge is tentative. Nothing is so firmly known that it cannot, in principle, be overthrown by new evidence.

Yeah, I tried explaining that the notion of 'the earth going round the sun' fits your argument, but it wasn't well received.Of course, we're talking philosophy, here, but many prefer 'hard science' which supposedly produces 'truth'.The things that you've said are more obvious when we look at other sciences, like sociology or history, but we're always met by the 'materialists/physicalists' who think that the only 'real' science is physics, and so I always aim my arguments at physics, because I know from experience that that's where we'll end up, when we argue that 'all scientific knowledge is tentative'.As for 'maths', that's a human creation, and doesn't have to have any relationship to 'external reality', and so 'proofs' of maths are much like insisting fairies exist, and that constitutes their 'proof'.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

I think the reputation when it comes to the pure sciences like chemistry and physics is much better.

Not according to physicists like Einstein, Rovelli and Smolin, Dave!Never mind philosophers of science like Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos.Or even, indeed, Marx.Still, it keeps the workers docile, to believe that the 'academics' (especially those in the 'hard sciences' [sic]) actually know what they are doing……just like those clever economists and mathematicians, eh?

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

There may also be some grist for our L bird ideology of science in this.Around 1979 an Australian scientist produced the ‘first epigenetic’ work.He was dragged before the neo-Darwinist papacy excommunicated for ‘Lamarkism’ and eventually sacked from his academic position.

What!!!'Scientists' and 'academics' not following their very own 'neutral scientific method', of 'openness', of 'merely following the data', of  'bluesky research', of refusing 'theory and ideology'…This can't be true, Dave, and the "materialists", physicists, physicalists and positivists just won't believe you!You're questioning the honour of science, of academics everywhere, who ceaselessly and impartially struggle to 'reveal The Truth', to merely detail 'the empirical facts', and to save science itself from the anti-scientists of Marx, who want workers to run the world, and want 'democratic science'.That is, those who proclaim the necessity for the proletariat to criticise what exists, to think creatively in new ways, organise themselves and produce class consciousness, and finally defeat the bourgeoisie, on every level, both philosophically and politically. Science is an ideological strut for capitalism, just like 'individualism' and 'the market'."No, No, No!", say the materialists. "We must stick with 19th century thought. We must trust and listen to bourgeois academics, who don't use ideology. Physics does not involve ideology, and the rocks talk to us! We can't hand human thinking over to the workers."That's what passes for the 'role of the party in relationship to the proletariat', here, Dave.It comes down to giving the advice to workers to 'Trust the Bourgeoisie and their academics'. Have a look at the 'Hunter Gatherer' thread, and the arse-kissing to 'academics', "who surely, must know what they are doing, and we must employ their categories!"Whatever happened to the notion of 'revolution', of 'The World Turned Upside Down'?

[LBird]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Anyway, I hope my admiting that I like Ayn Rand will help LBird see that actually I'm even worse philosophically than he suspected!

LOL!Touche, stuart!

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

The difference between us is, I don't hide my ideological beliefs.

But the point is Lbird, you do hide them.  Everything you say about your ideology contains hidden ideological elements.  You cannot expose your ideology, because that would be an non-ideological truth claim about the world.  Nor can you know whether your ideas are working class ideas, or ruling class ideas.

Hmmmm… perhaps stuart is actually more advanced, and can provide you with a philosophical lead, YMS…

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