[LBird]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

But ok so instead of relying on experience you just rely on theory.

You'll fit in very well on this site, CP. The rest here can't read my posts, either.Let's try again. Not just 'theory'.Theory and practice.Some bloke called Karl Marx, apparently.

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

I'm sure it has occurred to you, LB, that your own political ideology is playing a massive role in your insistance on this claim…

That's perfectly correct, and I clearly and openly tell everyone what ideology I am employing.I'm a Democratic Communist, and a Marxist.But… no-one else will declare which ideology tells them what to say. They all appear to believe that they are all individuals, and their opinions are their personal thoughts. Crazy, isn't it, to anyone who's lived through the 20th century. But there you go – a site which claims to be giving a lead to workers in the 21st century actually espouses 19th century scientific thought. Y'know, 'academics' are outside of political ideology, and 'science' has an 'objective method' which is a 'neutral' route to The Truth.Einstein, never mind Marx, would weep. Over a hundred years later, and workers still look to 'elite experts' to 'tell them The Truth'. Who'd've thought it?And mention 'democracy' in the production of social knowledge, and the 'individualists' really start to protest!

Hud955 wrote:

In general, I would agree with you.

Yes, everyone who has read any methodology at all says this. It's in the preface of every academics' book. And every student genuflects to the 'theory-ladenness of facts'. Some here have actually read Carr's What is History?But… when it comes to their 'practice', proclaimed 'theory' goes out of the window, and we return to 19th century science, within which the 'facts' speak for themselves, and if we just stick to the empirical detail, the correct theory will emerge.If I ask what ideology they use to critically understand a rock, they all appear completely baffled. 'Rock?'. 'Theory?' And worst of all, 'Criticism?'.No, they always say 'I know what a rock is when I see one, and I'm not having a democratic commune telling me otherwise!'. Who shall gainsay individual experience and sensual feeling?

Hud955 wrote:

In the individual instance, though, the influence of a political idieology on a train of thought…

Ahhh… the 'get-out clause'. Lip service to 'theory', then return to 'facts' and 'individuals'. Which 19th century ideology stressed facts, individualism, and 'amateur experts'? Liberalism, perchance?

Hud955 wrote:

I've put this challenge to you before. Show us exactly how Chomsky's political ideology plays a massive role in his views about linguistics and you will have made a substantial contribution to the discussion.

Let's see. Chomsky stresses 'individuals', their 'biology' (not their socially-produced thought) and the role of 'elite experts' like himself, in the production of social knowledge. Chomsky would shit himself at the very idea that a vote by workers should determine whether his ideas have any 'truth' or not. Some here would, too. So much for socialism being workers' power.But you apparently can't see this, Hud. You can't see how Chomsky's political ideology plays, not only a massive role in his views on linguistics, but also a massive role in his so-called 'Anarchism'. We have quite a few here who also subscribe to 'free individuals', rather than 'democratic control of production'.

Hud955 wrote:

As a matter of fact I do think Chomsky's politics have a bearing on his linguistics and vice versa but perhaps not in the direct way that I think you are insisting on here.

Well, you'll have to explain to me how you conceive of 'politics having a bearing' in a 'non-political' way.Perhaps you have a 'theory' of 'indirect ideology'? I've never heard of this, but I'm all ears, for yet another attempt to remove social theories from individuals' thinking.Why not just assume Chomsky isn't very bright? Academics, in my experience as a worker, have an inflated sense of their own abilities, and dislike us talking to them they way they talk to us. Y'know, condescendingly.

Hud955 wrote:

As I have already said, although my conclusions are not exactly the same as Chris Knight's they are heavily influenced by the contents of his forthcoming book, and I don't want to take advantage of  the massive amount of work he has put into it or his resulting insights by commenting on that now.  But watch this space.

I have no problem at all with you being circumspect about Chris Knight's work. We all have a crust to earn.But my questions aren't really about the intricacies of a single, modern academic's attempt to justify their existence to their bosses, but about why 19th century scientific method, which is entirely outdated, has such a hold over socialists, now.How can't you see that 'theory' precedes 'practice'? Regarding Chomsky, and Knight, and you, and me, and all humans.And if you can, tell me your 'theory'. This does not require 'empirical facts', 'anthropological details', or 'subtleties of linguistics'.Chomsky is an individualist, and assumes that the answer to social questions lies in 'biological tissue'. He has an ideology, and that provides the basis for his research. As Lakatos called it, 'negative and positive heuristics': 'what' to look for, and 'what' to ignore. We all do it, we all wear ideological blinkers, and that's the human condition.That's the lesson of the 20th century, and why it seems not to have any affect on socialists and so-called 'Marxists', baffles me. Our answers lie in criticising Chomsky's ideological beliefs, not in trying to disprove his wacky ideas. They can't be disproved, because we don't share the same ideology. There are not a set of undisputed facts 'out there' waiting to be 'discovered', which will allow us to show him to be wrong.And anyone who argues that 'we need to keep an open mind', as if that's what scientists do, needs to read some philosophy and methodology. The 20th century kind. Marx and Einstein have been dead for years, and yet we're still under the influence of the ruling class ideas that their work undermined.'Academics'?Mengele.

[LBird]

steve colborn wrote:

What I would say, is that one asks people to look around at the contradictions Capitalism throws up by its very existence.Homeless people alongside empty unoccupid properties.Hungry, starving people, alongside destroyed food. Fields left fallow to keep prices high.Sick people, denied drugs because of "cost", when the ingredients of the same, cost pennies.These are just a few examples. As one lives ones life, these contradictions leap out at you.

I disagree that 'these contradictions leap out at you', steve.That's to assume the same method that CP was arguing for: 'experience alone'.That is, that 'experience' of all the things you mention by 'looking around' will make the 'contradictions' clear.All these (to us, terrible) phenomena can be explained away if one uses the 'theory of the market'. Since we live in a society that tells everyone from birth that 'the market works – how else would we eat?', these phenomena can be explained away as just 'unavoidable consequences', just like 'death is an unavoidable consequence of life'.Unless 'people' 'look around' with a different theory (ie. socialist theory), then the conditions you describe will remain 'horrible but necessary' to those just using their eyes.The material conditions do not speak to us, matter does not tell us what it is.The correct method, as I've said to CP, is Marx's 'theory and practice'. 'Practice/experience alone' will not do this. 'Experience' means 'capitalist understanding'.

[LBird]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

I don't understand the point your trying to make from 'experience alone'.

Simply, that 'experience alone' doesn't exist for humans.If you think it does, I'd ask 'who told you so?', because you didn't emerge from the womb able to do 'experience alone', you had to be taught by, initially, your parents and close relatives, and later, by teachers, priests, politicians and scientists.They were all already brought up in a society, consisting of the same influential roles that you and me were brought up. So, they learned and taught, as do you and I. Humans are social animals.One of the ruling class ideas within our society is that 'we are all individuals', and that 'individual experience' is the source of knowledge (what you called 'experience alone').In fact, all humans have always learned from the society in which they have grown up, and so the notion of 'experience alone' is not only invalid, but also a ruling class idea to help prevent all of us asking 'where do we get our ideas from?'.If the source of an individual's ideas are 'experience alone', then they don't have to even ask that question, never mind try to answer it.My advice to you is to ask further why you think 'experience alone' is even possible.The socialist answer is 'it isn't', and we live in a society where knowledge is produced by society, and so has social characteristics.If you conclude that 'experience alone' is valid and possible, then I think you'll have difficulty coming to understand the socialist viewpoint.Hope that helps, CP.

[LBird]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

…experience alone seems to be the best modal now.

No, Marx argued for the view that humans do 'theory and practice'.'Experience alone' just means that the 'theory' part of the inescapable couplet is provided by a hidden, unacknowledged, ruling class theory.All humans use theory and practice.So, 'experience alone' in our world is actually 'ruling class ideas and ruling class practice'.I think that this is reflected in your questions, which contain assumptions (ie. a 'theory') which socialists don't share.

[LBird]

I'd like to support mcolome1's view that Chomsky's political ideology plays a massive role in his views about linguistics. It could not be otherwise.The view expressed earlier on the thread that Chomsky is an 'apolitical academic', a 'scientist simply seeking the Truth', and that his notion of a 'universal grammar inherent in biological individuals' is not political, is simply laughable. Science is political.I gave up commenting when that view seemed to be expressed as the agreed way to understand science, Chomsky, and 'LAD's.I leave it at that – good luck with the 19th century ideology, comrades!Perhaps you'll have more success than me, mcolome1. I hope so.

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

Structurally induced warfare on the other hand seems to be related primarily to delayed return systems and so includes states, tribes and delayed return hunter gatherers.  In other words delayed return hunter gatherers do sometimes make war, though less on the whole than tribes and states.

Why wouldn't the concepts 'peace-band' and 'war-band' apply to these 'empirical facts'?

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

I'm not a biological determinist, I'm a cultural materialist.

Thank god, at last!Someone who agrees with Marx's 'idealism-materialism'.

[LBird]

Lewis Carroll wrote:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

The meaning of the term 'hunter gatherer' lies in the anthropologist, not in a simply observable thing, act or event.And so with the terms 'violence', 'individual', 'tribe', 'clan', 'band', etc., etc. Which is the 'master meaning'? It's a question of power and politics.Check out Humpty Dumpty's motives, robbo.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

But all the same it is a bit of theoretical puzzle.

This is your problem, robbo.Unless you use this insight to ask a few more questions about 'theoretical puzzles', rather than the 'details' of various groups, then you will remain 'puzzled'.The answer to your puzzle does not lie in empirical research, in the listing of 'apparent' characteristics of hundreds of groups that have been studied for a century, but in clarifying exactly what anthropologists mean by various terms.That is, the starting point for your solving of your puzzle lies in the anthropologists, not in the so-called 'empirical data', the pretended 'facts of the matter'.If one's method is to keep reading books, endless differing accounts of 'the facts', by numerous disputing anthropologists, as if 'The Truth' will emerge from detailed, academic study, without any reference to contending frameworks, then one is doomed to remain puzzled.Remember: Theory and practice.Both are required, in that order. Marx was onto something.The 'practical details' won't produce a 'theory'. Only you can provide yours, and you should be conscious of it.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I meant someone from his own field of linguistics on the basis of their research and theorising in this field or, if you prtefer, theorising, research and theorising again

I made some criticisms of Chris Knight's work, here:http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/jk1921/4410/chris-knight-marxism-and-science-part-one#comment-9494My comments are 4 & 5.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

It is this biological determinism that was why I was waiting for someone to refute him.

Well, since I regard 'biological determinism' to be a subset of 'materialism', and I've been 'refuting' that for 18 months here, I regard criticism of Chomsky to be criticism of materialism.It's for the other comrades reading this thread, who can see the problems with Chomsky, 'biological individuals' as a focus for research into social issues, and where it potentially leads (comfort for the US military and the bourgeoisie), to reconcile their criticism of him with their professed acceptance of Chomsky's science.

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

Sorry, LB I'd like to chat to you about this and clarify, but for the reasons just stated I feel a little constrained at present.

I've only just seen this addition to your post, Hud, and we've cross-posted.No problem – the issues that I've raised are pertinent to anyone who considers themself a socialist, so perhaps others can answer my question.That is: Is Chomsky an inadvertent model for this site?

[LBird]

Hud955 wrote:

Not only does Chomsky not connect his anarchism and his lingusitics, he has always attempted to erect an impenetrable barrier between the two, both professionally and personally.  He claims that the two parts of his personality, linguist and political activiest don't even talk to one another.

Isn't this separation between politics and science precisely what other comrades are doing on this site, every time I ask 'What ideology do you use to do science?'.When I ask what ideology does an anthropologist/psychologist/physicist use, that has been linked to by comrades, not only can no-one tell me their own ideology, but they can't tell me the academic's ideology, either.Chomsky's method of 'impenetrable barrier erection' is an unspoken element of the method of all who claim that science is not ideological, and merely deals with 'the real world'.Chomsky's ideological belief that "the one talent that I have which I know many other friends don’t seem to have’ is I’ve got some quirk in my brain which makes it work like separate buffers in a computer" is essentially that same belief of all who consider themselves 'individuals', and not ongoing products of society.This is a central ideological belief of academia, which is why they are opposed to democracy in knowledge production, because they truly believe that they have some special insight into truth that is not available to the rest of the proletariat, and thus open to a democratic vote.To be opposed to democratic knowledge production is to think oneself to be a 'separate buffer in a society'.

[LBird]

More:

Quote:

It is easy to understand why computer programmers and engineers might find it useful to treat language as a mechanical ‘device’. If, say, the aim were to construct an electronic command-and-control system for military use, then traditional linguistics would clearly be inadequate. Such engineers would need a version of language stripped free of ‘meanings’ in any human emotional or cultural sense, cleansed of politics – and stripped also of poetry, humour or anything else not accessible to a machine.

[Author]

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