LBird
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jondwhite wrote:What else is the answer to charges of sectarianism? Or the charges put by George Walford herehttp://gwiep.net/wp/?p=387As you can imagine, it takes a good deal to leave me speechless. But that did, the first time I heard it. The blind, unthinking conceit of that answer! If you disagree with the Socialist Party that shows you don’t understand them. They have nothing to learn from anybody. There is no possibility of anybody knowing more than they do and no possibility of them being wrong.
Pretty impressive case, from Walford.He even points out that the SPGB quote Engels as an authority!The SPGB are in effect a religious sect. What's worse, not even a modern sect, but one the looks to the 19th century for its fundamental ideas.I think that the 'Science for Communists?' thread displays this sect-like inability to accept a simple answer: proletarian democracy.Of course, the SPGB pays lip service to this ideal of 'democracy', but in any manifestation of social power, they reject democracy, and turn to an elite of experts for their answers, rather than to the democratically-organised proletariat.Much the same as the SWP, Militant, CPGB, WRP, etc., etc.They all have the same god to follow: 'materialism'. Workers can't argue with the 'material', can they? 'Reality' can't be subject to a vote, can it? So, we have the experts tells us what 'reality' is, whether in science or politics, physics or sociology.Until a Socialist/Communist organisation puts 'proletarian democracy' at the heart of all their theories and activities, we'll remain on the sidelines.Engels argued for 'materialism'; Marx argued for 'production'.And since 'production' is social, it can be subject to democratic methods, unlike 'materialism'.It's odd, isn't it, that 130 years after Marx's death, there isn't a single political organisation that puts workers' democracy at its heart. The fruits of Engels' version of 'Marxism', and the dead hand of 'materialism'.
YMS wrote:…it determines what we can say about it…[my bold]This is the 19th century positivist ideology, followed by Engels.Naive Realism.Empiricism.Why won't you discuss epistemology, YMS?You're not following Marx (and his rejection of 'materialism'), but simply repeating that which science has proved is untrue.Rovelli.You won't tell us the 'method' that you employ that allows the external world to talk to us.You can't, without being anti-science.Science is a human activity, not the passive contemplation of 'it'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Chuckie wrote:is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively.the above does not invalidate the notion that there is an exterior world, merely that the interior, the thoughts and ideas are part of the lived material world as well. Realism commits you to a real empirical world.
No-one says there isn't an 'exterior world'. Critical Realism or Historical Materialism or Idealism-Materialism all state that. Why do you, after more than 1000 posts, return time and time again to the accusation, constantly disproved, that anyone is arguing that the 'exterior world' does not exist? That accusation is a straw man.And once again, in dismissal of all that I write, you return to 'realism'.That's the 'Engelsian Step'.Marx wasn't a 'materialist' in the Engelsian sense. For Marx, 'materialism' was inextricable linked to human production. Thus, 'critical', 'historic' and 'ideas'.Critical Realism, Historical Materialism or Idealism-Materialism.Not 'Realism' or 'Materialism'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Critical is the adjective, realism the noun, you are still committed to all the tennets of realism. Especially as the existence of an exterior world is an essential premise of realism.Your move to grammar doesn't change the epistemology of it.Call it 'realistic criticalism', if you wish.And your continued use of 'realism', on its own, shows that you're ignoring what I write.
Marx, Theses, 1, wrote:The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively.[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htmTo talk of 'material' or 'real' outside of humanity is an epistemological error.So, 'critical realism' or 'historical materialism' (or, even, 'idealism-materialism').Not, 'realism' or 'materialism'.For Marx, to talk of 'material' outside of humans and their practice, is a 'defect'. In fact, the 'chief defect'.Engels reverted to 'materialism'.Thus the problem of 'being' and 'consciousness' reappeared.
YMS wrote:Which, as a critical realist you also hold to, that's what realism means, that thre is matter outside of human consciousness.[my bold]Can't you see what you're doing here, YMS?You start off with the term 'critical realism' and then equate it to 'realism'.Engels does the same to Marx.
Y’know, YMS, Marx used ‘materialism’ as a synonym for ‘production’. It was Engels who came up with philosophical doctrine named ‘the materialist conception of history’. Marx merely referred to the ‘material forces of production’, ‘the mode of production of material life’ and ‘the material productive forces of society’. In this form, the concept ‘material’ production is human and social, and thus clearly contains ‘ideas’ as well as ‘things’.It’s as if you and the other followers of Engels have read about his insistence that ‘chocolate’ forms the basis of the canine world, and so when I want to talk about the proper treatment of dogs and insist that they should be kept warm, you insist that when Marx mentioned ‘Chocolate Labradors’, he really meant that dogs were made of chocolate, and so they should be kept in the fridge, so that they don’t melt. And I’m then taunted with accusations that ‘LBird wants dogs to melt!’ It’s a bizarre conversation that I’ve been having here.When Marx and Engels mention ‘material’, they are talking about different things: Marx is talking about humans producing their environment, whereas Engels is talking about ‘matter’, outside of human consciousness.In effect, Engels resurrected the old philosophical distinction between ‘being’ and ‘consciousness’, which Marx thought that he had overcome with his insistence upon ‘practice’ and ‘changing’, which require both ‘being and consciousness’; or, in terms we’ve been using, ‘reality and ideas’.Next time you hear someone claiming to be a ‘materialist’, think about Cadbury’s ‘Dialectical Milk’ chocolate bar. And then laugh at the simple sods.It really is that stupid to argue for ‘materialism’.
YMS wrote:I'd say if pushed that in general a certain "materialism" is now the predominate theory…It is amongst those who know nothing of epistemology. Oh yes, and those who follow Engels, like the Leninists.
YMS wrote:…even the Tories no longer maintain that problems are down to individual wickedness or original sin, even if they do not consciousless espouse materialism…I could weep at your ignorance. Especially after dozens of threads and a thousand posts here, in which I've given loads of detailed explanations, you still think that the only alternative to 'materialism' is arguing for 'original sin'.We're doomed.
YMS wrote:Maybe there is some miscommunication going on here.There's no 'communication' of any sort 'going on here', never mind 'mis'.I'm asking you questions about political power, and its underlying philosophy, but you haven't got a clue about those sorts of discussions. To you, this is all about you and the world of your day-to-day life, and your personal concerns.Your inability to have a fundamental discussion at a higher level than 'you' doesn't bode well for our class. If workers who are already in a party can't do this sort of thinking, 130 years after Marx's death, and a 100 years after the events of WW1 and 1917-19, then it just demonstrates to me, the tremendous distance we have yet to go.You keep saying 'people living in the real world will decide, just as they do now', seemingly oblivious to the obvious fact that the vast majority of 'people living in the real world', now, don't have any say whatsoever about 'decisions', whether political, scientific, economic, ideological, etc.Quite frankly, your naivety is in some senses touching, but mostly just frightening. You seem to know nothing at all about 'power' and the questions we have to answer.I just wish, for once, you'd question your philosophical individualism. Believe me, your views are nothing to do with Communism/Socialism. That is an issue about power, and who wields it. If we don't introduce democratic methods from the very start, in all aspects of proletarian politics, then some minority will take command. Not 'individuals', but an organised political force, like the Leninists.This all has to be done before you can have a political discussion about science, YMS.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Society will stop them reading books? Reading journal articles? Take out their eyes? Confiscate their pen and paper? Really? Will science databases be restricted? Datasets? Really?As for Mengele, what an absurd absurdum. There is no valid conmparison between experimenting on humans and sticking thermometers in waterfalls.Stop being a fool, and ask yourself: 'who decides?'As far as you're concerned, you decide.That's not Communism.You can't answer a philosophical and political question, and constantly resort to stupid 'real world' questions.Just like a true conservative.Are you representative of the SPGB's level of thinking, sophistication and understanding?Mind you, at least you can hold a conversation (at the simplest school-kid level, though), unlike Vin.Anyway, time to leave you two 'thinkers' to organise the class. I feel for them.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Won't be allowed to do science? Who will stop them? And how? What blithering nonsense.Society.Society will determine the parameters of science.Not your 'experts'.YMS, your understanding of science is that of Mengele.
Vin Maratty wrote:LBird wrote:Science is a social activity, and part of the training for scientists in a Communist society would be the ability to explain clearly to the workers whose interests are behind the research, and whose collective efforts make science even possible.You really haven't a clue
Another useful comment from the expert.
YMS wrote:Marx, when asked, did not state his goal to be the delineation of structures…More's the pity.Marx was a shit writer, and most of the problems we've had since he was alive and writing (never mind after he died, and Engels mangled his obscure and often meaningless works) were caused by his inability to state anything clearly. Marx never used one word where ten would do.We have to critically examine Marx's works, and dig out the suggestive and useful, and give it some meaning that workers today can understand.IMO, a large part of the reason for the state of the Communist movement today is the sheer inaccessibility of Marx's texts. Anyone who says that they understand the first three chapters of Capital and can explain them clearly is a bloody liar. I know, because I've been asking for years for an explanation, and have never received one in plain English. I've even had dickheads telling me to read Hegel first, before even attempting Capital! If there's one writer that makes Marx's texts seem like Janet and John kids' stories, it's Hegel.It's a condemnation of Communists since the 1840s, starting with Marx himself, that no-one has sought to make far simpler and understandable the central texts for workers to come to an understanding of capitalism. Like most workers, I suspect most 'Communists' (especially Leninists) have liked to keep it that way, so that only they (and not common-or-garden workers) actually understand their world.And you're a fan of this method, too, YMS, with all your talk of the mathematical inaccessibility of science to ordinary workers, hence your hostility to democracy within science.If a scientist can't explain what they're doing to everyone else, they won't be allowed to do 'science'.Science is a social activity, and part of the training for scientists in a Communist society would be the ability to explain clearly to the workers whose interests are behind the research, and whose collective efforts make science even possible.We should be starting this now, with a 'translation' of Capital. IMO, Critical Realism has the potential to provide this clear explanation of Marx's key work, for all workers to understand.I disagree with many posters here, including alanjjohnstone (who otherwise I agree with about many issues), who are of the opinion that a mass understanding of the method and philosophy of science is not necessary to building Communism/Socialism.If workers don't have that ability (and I think Communists should be developing that class ability, through education and propaganda), then they will remain in thrall to the 'Leninist-sciento-mathematico' elitist/expert ideology that you, and others here, espouse, YMS.
YMS wrote:…that my road to development lie through and with my fellows.That implies democracy, and not 'free individual'. You keep making the above statement, but denying its political implications.What your constant reference to yourself, as the final arbiter of what you will or won't do, means is:
YMS, to be philosophically and politically consistent should have wrote:…that my road to development lie through me.If you claim to be a 'social individual', YMS, you have to say what your social role is: either 'worker' or 'boss' (at its simplest). These are structural roles. In CR terms, our 'individuality' is at the 'component level' and our 'worker-ness' is at the level of 'structure'. So, as an 'individual', one is like a use-value (eg., a tin of beans, a component outside of any structure), whereas as a 'worker', one is like an exchange-value (eg., a commodity, a component within a structure).If one wishes to understand the two-sidedness of bricks/walls, use-value/exchange-value, tins of beans/commodities, individuals/society, that is, relationships, one should employ Critical Realism, the modern name for the method used by Marx's 'idealism-materialism'.Claiming to be a 'free individual' is bourgeois ideology, and ignores the inescapable social context for every human that has ever lived. It ignores relationships.
YMS wrote:…the free development of each will be the condition for the free development of all…[my bold]You recognise no 'condition' upon the 'individual'.For one's development, there is the condition that all must be able to develop.'The free development of each' (in other words, we must provide the conditions for the development of each and every individual) is a condition imposed on 'all'.The 'free development of each' can't simply be the lone task for each individual, as you allege, but is a social task for all.You pay lip service to the concept of a 'social individual', and claim to be one, but won't allow any claim of the 'social' half of the couplet to intefere with your 'biological' half of you as an 'individual'.As a 'social individual', I will comply with the democratic decisions of me and my comrades.As a self-declared 'individual', you won't.But then, I'm democratic Communist.You're a bourgeois individualist who doesn't like what he sees of bourgeois society in reality (because you are not 'free' to do as you want), and so wishes to realise the myth of bourgeois individualism in a non-bourgeois society.You mouth platitudes, but have no concept whatsoever of the political implications of those views.Communist society won't be 7 billion isolated individuals doing as they like, but 7 billion social individuals working to a common purpose, the social task of developing 7 billion individuals.Communism is not solipsism.
