LBird
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
ALB wrote:Although sympathetic to postmodernism (as reflected in his views on science) he is another example of how we have more influence than we sometimes realise..
I'm not so sure about this, ALB.His views, as expressed in the selections I quoted, are far closer to mine (with the emphasis on ideology in theory and science) than that of those opposed to my views on this site (your 'we').I'm not sure about po-mo, either. One of the key tenets of that is individualism, whereas I think he was arguing for democracy. No po-mo that I've heard of has argued for 'truth being decided by a vote', they all seem to think it's all to do with individual minds and experience.Perhaps your characterisation of 'po-mo' is more to do with your views about science, rather than his?After all, Marx was a relativist, as was Einstein, but neither would be characterised as 'po-mo', if they were alive today.I think po-mo has more to do with the belief by academics that workers can't take democratic control of the means of production, and thus can't take control of science. And since everybody knows that science doesn't produce 'The Truth' (including many physicists), it thus seems a small step to locate 'truth' in individual minds (especially in the minds of 'academics', like the po-mo crowd).
stuartw2112 wrote:I predict that you won't answer this question but will merely reiterate your position. Either way, my question will be answered.Got you, stuart. An answer which doesn't re-iterate, but leaves you unanswered.The third option, unforeseen by you.Bit like idealism-materialism, for the Engelsists.I'll leave you to your sarcasm and irony. Or mine.
That's a shame, stuart.I thought for once I'd been able to have a reasoned discussion with one of the positivists, who argue that science is non-political, without any nastiness.I haven't 'put words in your mouth', simply teased out the implications of arguing for non-political science, presided over by an unelected elite, who produce 'knowledge' without democratic controls. And 'free individuals' is what most bourgeois ideologists keep stressing, not socialists who think workers can run both their own lives as individuals and their society as a collective. The former in fact depends upon the latter.Well, you haven't actually called me any nasty names, so I'll just bid you a reluctant farewell.
stuartw2112 wrote:Actually, yes, I do believe that rational thought, Enlightenment values and science should be independent of political control – that it should be pursued by independent, critically aware, free individuals, who combine for the pursuit of common interests, and not be placed under the control of or be subservient to any collective ideology.Thanks for your very clear statement here, stuart.You're arguing that science is non-political, should be controlled by an elite of special individuals, 'free' from society, who themselves define 'common interests', and that they shouldn't be under democratic control.This is the antithesis of any idea of socialism, which argues for political self-control by the whole of society of all of society's doings.I can only asume that your version of socialism would be similar to your view of science: control by an independent elite of experts, following an individualist ideology.
stuartw2112 wrote:That's Lysenkoism.I'm afraid that's the Soviet Union, stuart, and nothing to do with 'workers' democracy', but control by a party separate from workers' democratic control. In fact, a party 'independent of political control' by workers, a cadre of 'individuals' who were 'free' of workers' power, and not 'under the control of or subservient to a collective ideology', like democracy.Leninism and positivism are closely aligned.
stuartw2112 wrote:…rational thought, Enlightenment values and science…It's possible to read this as meaning 'positivism', stuart.For me, the only way to realise the ideals of rationality, values and science is through democratic control of the means of production; and this clearly includes scientific knowledge and truth.Science is a social activity, an activity which has changed through history, and must be under the democratic control of society.Unless one identifies "rational thought, Enlightenment values and science" with academic experts and an elite, who are out of the control of workers.
stuartw2112 wrote:"Chomsky and Kropotkin, for example, both display an immense faith in rational thought, Enlightenment values, and science."What's the alternative to such "faith"? Surely not all that continental theory twaddle?"Faith" in the proletariat, organised democratically, stuart?And by 'continental theory twaddle', do you mean Marx's ideas?
Chamsy Ojeili seems to be influenced by Inclusive Democracy, and we've had our differences with them, but, on the whole, a good article.Thanks, alan.
C O wrote:The enlightened modesty and libertarianism demonstrated by some libertarian socialists does not, however, mean that these thinkers are interesting merely for approximating currently fashionable post-modernist positions. By avoiding the anti-political, particularistic, and romantic-individualist tendencies of post-modernism, libertarian socialists have something more to offer. All traditions cannot be of equal value for the intellectual committed to extending democracy in all directions. That is, strong evaluations must be made.Like it!
C O wrote:Libertarian socialists have been forced to tread an uncertain and difficult path. Consistent critics of representation (viewing it, like Marx, as “something passive”), libertarian socialists have eschewed directorial pretensions, while nevertheless finding themselves propelled into political contestation by their own commitments. At numerous instances, then, libertarian socialists have tended to go beyond the bind of the fetishism of party and intellectuals versus the fear of party and intellectuals. The political path for libertarian socialists could, then, be described as an “advance without authority”.Such an advance entails a scepticism towards the vanguardist tendencies of intellectuals and a realisation that, in Castoriadis’ words, “the great majority of men and women living in society are the source of creation, the principle bearers of the instituting imaginary, and … they should become the active subjects of an explicit politics”.[my bold]Spot on!
SocialistPunk wrote:Hi LBird,If you remember, no that long ago several SPGB/WSM members argued that socialism/communism was not an ideology.Yeah, it baffles me, SP!Of course it's an ideology – ideologies distort, and distortion is inevitable in science.There is no 'copy' of reality, or absolute Truth, produced by science.To know is to distort.
C O mentions Inclusive Democracy and Fotopoulos, alan! I think we (and Adam) had a debate with him on LibCom. That's where I got to follow you two, here, for better or worse.
C O wrote:Korsch wanted to save Marx from his scientistic Kautskyite and Leninist interpreters, denying that these interpreters had described the real Marx. Simultaneously, however, Korsch periodically found Marx too positivist and too uncritical of bourgeois science.We've examples seen this positivism in Marx, but the opposite strand is far stronger.
C O wrote:In a similar vein, though turning to Joseph Dietzgen rather than Hegel, Pannekoek accepted the relativistic view of human knowledge that followed the collapse of faith in naïve positivism.[101] In this vein, Pannekoek claimed that Marxism, though a science, was not outside of evolution and regression. Marxism’s importance lay in its partisan nature, as the ideology of the revolutionary working class movement.Ideology and relativism in knowledge. Marxism as an ideology.
C O wrote:If the anarchists made a rather early and clear break from the notion of liberation as the rule of intellectuals and parties, such a turn was slower emerging within the Marxian tradition. One does find early expressions of such perspectives in Morris and the Socialist Party of Great Britain (the SPGB)…Sadly, now lost in the SPGB, if YMS, robbo and their 'elite, expert, academic' cadre, who will tell us dumb workers the Truth, are anything to go by.
