[LBird]

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!

[LBird]

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!

[LBird]

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.

[LBird]

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.

[LBird]

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.

[LBird]

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.

[LBird]

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.

[LBird]

C O wrote:

Today, no one believes that theory can escape ideology and that we might someday achieve closure and scientific certainty on social matters.

Quite. Let's hope the 'non-ideological' anthropologists are reading, eh?

[LBird]

Chamsy Ojeili wrote:

This second tendency posits Marxism as a hard science in line with the natural sciences ― complete, objective, and able to unproblematically guarantee the truth of its theoretical propositions. This science is developed and expounded by the communists, “the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country”. And, because these communists “have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole”, because “they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement”,[12] they appear to have an independent authority over the working class.

This 'second tendency' is the one followed by those who are arguing with me, here, alan. That is, the 'materialists'.On the contrary, I've argued for reorienting 'hard science' as a 'social science' (and so achieving Marx's aim of methodological unity, not on the basis of 'physics' (as for positivism), but of sociology and history; that is, seeing 'physics', as did Einstein, as not dealing with 'hard truth', but with the social and historical production of a series of 'relativistic truths': this fits with Marx's schema of modes of production).And, rather than 'Communists' being 'over the mass', and having 'an independent authority' of elite experts, like scientists and academics, I've stressed the necessity for the proletariat to take democratic control over the means of production, including scientific knowledge and truth.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Yes, I have tried, and I know that, with you at least, I've failed. That makes me unhappy.

This observation from a non-member of this forum should make you even more unhappy:

Quote:

I am a loyal reader of the forum. Sometimes I recommend threads on it to friends — such as the thread on hunter-gatherers. (But then I have to warn them to not read any postings from or back to the tiresome maniac LBird.)

 

Another individualist, materialist, who deosn't do critical thought or philosophy, I presume?Just wants 'The Truth', eh?Let them not read my tiresome posts, then. Diddums.

[LBird]

stuartw2112 wrote:

LB: Have you considered that it is your very ideology and your insistence on the importance of it that makes discussion with you so fruitless?

Of course it's 'my very ideology' and my 'insistence on its importance'!I keep saying this, and exposing what my ideology is, because that is the scientific method.The 'fruitlessness of discussion' doesn't stem from that, though, but from the avoidance of the issue by you and the others.

stuartw2112 wrote:

After all, if you've got your ideology and I've got mine, and this rules our perceptions, and there's no such thing as individual opinion or any objective reason why we should believe one thing rather than another, what purpose conversation?

Talk about 'from the horse's mouth'!What ideology, stuart, tells you that we've all got our own individual opinions?I haven't 'got my ideology', I've 'got a socially-produced ideology', which has a social origin and a historical development.You've got one, too, but it tells you that you haven't, and that you're an individual, and that your opinion is yours.So, it will be 'fruitless' trying to discuss with someone who insists that 'they have their very own ideology'. People who insist that haven't lived in society, apparently. Yeah, right.That's why it's 'fruitless' discussing with you, stuart. Wake up and smell the coffee.  Pehaps a nice American chain brand, which no doubt you believe is 'individually' produced just for you. And bollocks to the notion that it's a commodity, eh?

stuartw2112 wrote:

And what could "workers power" based on such unthinking ideology be other than a grotesque tyranny – one indeed that the world has only in living memory seen the back of?

Bingo! What a rich seam we're hitting today!So, you think (individually of course, with no social input from the bourgeoisie) that the Soviet Union et al were examples of 'workers' power'?This just gets better and better!'Fruitless'? I get more sensible political discussion, and experience of the world we live in, from the family dog!Yeah, stuart, you're totally correct – it's fruitless discussing with an ideological Democratic Communist like me. Especially with you being so untainted by the world and its dirty social ideologies.In fact, I should defer to you as St. Stuart, since you have such insight into politics, economics, philosophy, history…Amen.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I know you have tried, LBird, and have done so on several occasions to simplify and explain the debate but yet the more topics it has encompassed, the more i feel distanced from the discussions…an outcome i think you most definitely would not wish to happen

Yes, I have tried, and I know that, with you at least, I've failed. That makes me unhappy.

ajj wrote:

And i see little evidence of any political action stemming from all these exchanges we have been having…Not even suggestions or proposals of how to communicate these ideas to the people that count…working people.

But I'm not likely to join a group, and again engage in 'political action', if I think that the group argues that it listens to the rocks, am I? That's precisely what the 'materialists/physicalists' are doing.As for 'communicating to working people', I know that my explanations do work with some people at least, because I've been praised many times in the past for my explanations of difficult issues, by relatives, friends, workmates, and even strangers in pubs.As I've said many times, I'm baffled why members and fellow-travellers of the SPGB don't seem to want to learn about a subject which, it's now clear to me, most have never read anything about whatsoever, and yet continue to argue an outdated 19th century view of science and knowledge production.It's very like dealing with a religious sect, unfortunately, alan. Perhaps that is a better explanation as to why workers like me aren't joining, and moving back into political action alongside you.That is, the real problem is an institutional one, not a failure of workers to act. You seem to be one of a tiny number that I can imagine acting alongside. That should be a worry for you, and the company you keep.

[LBird]

Review of Harari wrote:

The most likely scenario, he thinks, is that some human societies before agriculture were violent, and some were not, and that even the issue of which societies were violent varied over time rising and falling in respect to circumstances…

alan, this scenario fits well with my earlier suggestion of the concepts of 'peace-band' and 'war-band', and the view that their origins, and any inter-changing between them, is due to various environmental, social and historical factors, rather than genetic human disposition to violence.As I've said before, there are no anthropologists simply 'following the evidence', and the issue of 'concept formation' which allows anthropologists to selectively examine the evidence, is of fundamental importance, because the concepts used determine what one 'sees'.Of course, 'concepts' are always formed based on ideologies, because they are human constructs, not things that emerge from evidence.If you want to understand hunter gatherer society, you need to first understand the process of 'concept formation' by the anthropologist that you're reading. All anthropology is ideological, just like all science.If you choose to agree with an anthropologist who argues that 'violence is not natural', then you'll 'find' non-violent hunter gatherers. And equally, the opposite.

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

LBird wrote:

Hud955 wrote:

I'm very happy to discuss the matter with you, but I am not playing these kind of games.

What? The 'kind of games' that involve philosophical discussion?I had higher hopes of you, Hud, but I'm to be disappointed, once again.

Just stop playing these games, LB, and answer the question!  Either that, or tell us you can't.

Your one-sided condemnation of me, and ignoring of robbo's avoiding answering why he is contradicting himself, just shows me that I'm going to have the same problems with you as with the others.If you seriously were interested in discussing, you would have either been even-handed asking us both to 'answer the question', or you could have simply ignored robbo's confused views, and concentrated on our discussion.But no, you have to join the ignorant gang, who don't like philosophical 'kind of games'.Perhaps you should just stick to your simplistic world of 'evidence', and let it take you where it merely goes.As a method, it's laughable that educated people should still think that it's a legitimate method. Science shows us that humans are inescapably and actively involved in producing knowledge. You'll be telling us next that the police 'simply follow the evidence'.BTW, Marx didn't simply follow the evidence of the goverment books, as you seem to think. He used them to back up his 'theory', and that theory is heavily impregnated with ideological and ethical concerns.Sorry, I'm playing those 'kind of games', yet again, aren't I? Y'know, the grown-up ones, which you, robbo and DJP seem to abhor so much.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

Perhaps Ladybird do a 'Janet and John' book on the philosophy of science?

Having tried to follow and understand several threads for many months now and failing miserably, i hope they do have such a book. Alternatively, there might be something in the series "Ideology for Dummies" i can read…

I've tried to play my part in explaining some very difficult issues, alan, but there doesn't appear to be any taste for taking the discussion forward, here. I think that there's a fear that if the logic of scientific thought is taken to its conclusion, that it'll be the 'end of science'.I've given some analogies and metaphors to try to help. Remember my characterisation of three notions about the interaction between humans and the world:Idealism: reality is a blank sheet of paper, upon which humans anything freely write;Materialism: reality is a sheet of paper with numbered dots, which humans merely 'join up';Marx's idealism-materialism: reality is a sheet of paper with unnumbered dots, which humans must number themselves before 'joining the dots'.It might not be good, and surely can be improved, but it's as 'Janet and John' as I can get.I, at least, have tried.

[Author]

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