LBird
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Vin wrote:Democratic control of science and scientist ( Doctors, Brain Surgeons, researchers physicists etc )? Or democratic control of 'truth'. There is a massive difference.
Yes, I know there is, Vin.That's why I keep answering 'both'. Science is a social activity and the production of truth is a social activity, and all social activity must be under the control of society, not an 'expert elite', who thus can retain power and authority over the rest of us.
Vin wrote:You have still not answered the basic question. Is it because you don't have an answer?I keep giving you an answer, Vin, but you don't like it. 'Truth' is a social product, with a history. It is not a 'reflection' of 'reality' or a 'copy' of 'nature'. 'Truth' changes with societies, over time. Bourgeois scientists claim to have a 'neutral method', to be used by a 'special elite', which gives them access to a 'Truth' that is not available to all of society, and so can't be 'voted' upon, by a necessarily ignorant majority.If you disagree, we can discuss it, on the 'Science for Communists?' thread, rather than here.Apologies to mod.First warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
alanjjohnstone wrote:The list of current influential thinkers 7,8,9 and 10…no idea about them in the slightest so their influence certainly passed me by. Prospect readers’ top 10…7. Jurgen Habermas, German philosopher…Although I haven't read anything by Habermas yet, he's on my 'to-do' list, because he's one the the philosophers who've apparently talked about the necessity for a link between democracy and science, I think.Not your favourite discussion, I know!
YMS wrote:What that would seem to suggest is that the widest dissemination of information is necessary, along with open debate that includes the maximum number of people.This conclusion of yours, YMS, lends support for the Communist view that, since 'truth' is a social product, that the 'truth' of any scientific knowledge should be decided by society, using democratic means.Thus, there would then be no separation between 'science' and 'society', between 'elite-experts' and an 'ignorant mass', between 'educators' and 'educated', the division that Marx warned about.
Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, III, wrote:The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htmOnce this view of Marx's is accepted (and the sciences, including physics and maths, seems to have produced the support for it), it only remains for us to specify what we mean by your "widest dissemination of information", "open debate" and "maximum number of people".
Vin wrote:Robbo, this question was asked of LBird at the start of the thread by myself and others. His reply to you and Dave B is the only answer we are going to get.Vin, I've tried endlessly to discuss this philosophical issue with you and robbo.I've given quotes, and recommended books and articles, and provided links to PDFs.Neither of you will engage, but continue to ask questions of the type I referred earlier, ie. those questions that avoid the issues involved.I'm not interested in trying to answer your 'questions' any longer.If Dave B, or anyone else who is interested in the philosophical problems within science, and the need for democratic methods to produce knowledge, wants to discuss these issues, I'll return to discussion.Whilst you and robbo think that 'democratic control of an aeroplane' has anything whatsoever to do with the production of knowledge, you'll both continue to be in the dark about the problems within science since Einstein.If you want to discuss 'nature' and the differing views of it by Marx and bourgeois science, read the PDFs I recommended.
Dave B wrote:Against this is the non macroscopic idea of; would planes be flown by a democratic committee or decisions about how to put out a fire not be left to the expertise of the trained fire fighters etc?This sort of 'question' when trying to discuss the philosophical issue of the democratic production of knowledge, is similar to the 'question' of 'why are you Commies going to make us all wear the same blue boiler suits, and be forced to share our underpants?', when trying to discuss socialism.The problems are contained in the question, which is made by those who've already made their minds up about the issues at stake.Ah well, let's just leave it all to the 'elite experts'. Separate society into two.The fact that Marx, in the Theses on Feuerbach, disagreed with this, is neither here nor there, eh?And bollocks to philosophy, Marx's or anyone else's, and stick to 'facts' and the 'real world'. And those nice disinterested scientists and their neutral method.
I have come across two articles regarding Marx’s view of ‘nature’ (which differs from the bourgeois concept of ‘objective nature’, because Marx viewed ‘nature’ as a relationship between humans and external reality, a necessary and inescapable relationship between subject and object, consciousness and being).These articles are available in PDF, from the links below.‘The Concept of Nature in Geography and Marxism’ by Rod Burgesshttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1978.tb00101.x/abstract ‘Geography, Marx and the Concept of Nature’ by Neil Smith and Phil O’Keefehttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1980.tb00647.x/abstractI don't agree with them entirely, but they are closer to my thinking, than I am to the thinking of most 'materialist' posters, here.
moderator1 wrote:Reminder: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.Right.I'll leave the thread to the 'materialists' and their mystification of Marx's theoretical ideas, which apparently have failed to challenge nationalism.
Vin wrote:YawnYeah, 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…
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.
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…
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.
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'.
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.
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.
