LBird
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Bijou Drains wrote: “So just to clarify, L Bird, for those of us who haven’t been following this thread particularly closely, your view is that Marxist theory states that all science is social produced and that it therefore follows that as it is socially produced it, alongside all theoretical approaches, should be subject to democracy, and not to follow the outcome of that democratic decision would not only be anti democratic it would be anti socialist?”
If you don’t agree with ‘democracy’ in all social production, BD, you’ll have to tell us all what you do propose for ‘democratic socialism’.
Are you going to propose that, for example, Mengele should be the arbiter of his own science?
So, if ‘anti-democratic’ is not ‘anti-socialist’, who are the ‘anti-democrats’ that you support?
alanjjohnstone wrote: “And MS is right…without action, without translating ideas into practice…”
But MS, like robbo, doesn’t argue for ‘translating ideas into practice’, but for ‘practice’. That is, supposedly ‘theoryless’ practice.
Because, if they did argue for that, they’d have to explain their ‘ideas’ to us – which is just what they refuse to do.
Marx’s point is that ‘theory’ precedes ‘practice’. And the proletariat has to consciously produce its own ‘theory’, before it ‘practices’.
Or, we could leave the ‘theory’ to The Party, and just do what they say. I’m not convinced, and I don’t think history aids your case, alan.
robbo203 wrote: “I, by contrast, am saying there is simply no need for democratic control to be exercised in this case. It serves no useful purpose”
Yes, I know your political position.
Marx’s political position is that ‘democratic social production’ does serve a useful purpose.
His whole political output was based upon that premise.
You don’t agree – fine. It’s just pointless arguing that Marx supported elites controlling social production. You’d be better outlining what/who you think should control social production.
To some extent, you already have – and it’s not ‘humanity’, but sections of it. If you honestly believe that, argue for ‘sectional political control’, in contrast to my ‘democratic political control’.
We have a political disagreement, robbo. No amount of debate is going to change our contrasting opinions. We’d be better arguing openly about what our politics are. We don’t share the same politics.
MS wrote: “What peoples must do at the present time is to take consciousness and overthrow capitalism and create a new society, to eliminate hunger, unemployment, homeless, and diseases, we are not going anywhere with theoreticians and philosophers”
But what would you do if Lenin declared that he was employing ‘Scientific Socialism’ (Engels’ term), and following robbo’s recommended ‘scientific method’ (let the ‘scientists’ determine for us, because we’re busy with our individual ‘each to our own’ activities), and he decided to ‘eliminate hunger, etc’ by instituting an undemocratic Party regime?
If we were living in such a system, we’d have no theoretical basis on which to base our reaction. How could we argue with Lenin’s ‘Scientific Socialism’?
Unless we clearly root our politics in ‘democratic social production’, we’re going to come unstuck. This isn’t just a pointless ‘theoretical’ debate. It concerns the whole of humanity.
robbo203 wrote: “…it is this interaction between them that makes this cognitive process a “social product”” [my bold]
But this ‘them’ is not ‘society’, robbo.
It’s the ‘interaction between humanity’ that creates social products.
All you’re doing, as Marx warned that all ‘materialists’ will do, is ‘separating society into two’, the one (an elite) above the other (the masses).
So, for you, ‘physics’ is an elite activity (thus not requiring democracy), and not a social activity (which would require democracy).
robbo203 wrote: “I dont see the point.”
As I keep emphasising, robbo, it’s a political point. About power.
robbo203 wrote: “Instructing a scientist to discontinue pursuing a particular line of scientific enquiry because a majority of her colleagues had “democratically decided” it was not worth pursing seems bonkers to me. And against the whole spirit of scientific enquiry”
That’s what every political supporter of bourgeois methods says: that ‘democracy’ equals interference in ‘individual freedom’. And they’re correct, it is.
Let’s take a ‘scientist’ – err…. Mengele, for example. Fully trained, academically-qualified, supported by his professors at their university, conducting cutting-edge research. If I was an occupant of his research facility, the least that I’d vote to do is ‘discontinue his line of scientific enquiry’. In fact, I’d probably vote to discontinue him.
I’m afraid Mengele, and every other scientist on this planet, must be subject to the democratic control of the masses.
We get to choose: theories, methods, philosophies, practices, universities, curricula, funds, actions, matters, allocation of resources, ideas, applications, developments, technologies… these are not in the hands of an elite.
That’s democratic socialism, robbo. The democratic control of all social production.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “Hegel and Marx are a mystery to me but i somehow think that the answers LBird looks for are hidden there.”
If it works for you, alan, and helps you to understand Marx’s fundamentally social perspective, that’s fine by me.
robbo203 wrote: “Also LBird I still want to know from you is whether you believe the cognitive process itself of contributing to scientific theory is something that ought to be subject to “democratic control”.” [my bold]
Well, I thought I’d answered this, but once again, yes.
‘The cognitive process itself‘ is a social product, not the product of an isolated, biological, individual.
Social production must be subject to democratic control.
If not, who is to control, and how, ‘the cognitive process itself’?
I’ve given a clear answer to your question, robbo, so I hope you give one to mine.
Who? By what political process?
robbo203 wrote: “It is in this sense that theoretical physics is a “socially constructed body of knowledge” which is not the same as saying that the entirety of human society contributed to this body of knowledge. ” [my bold]
But it’s not your ‘this sense’ that counts, robbo.
It’s Marx’s ‘this sense’ that we’re discussing.
For your ‘this sense’, there would have to be an elite separated from ‘the entirety of human society’. Thus, your concept would, as Marx warned, divide society into two, one of which (the elite) is superior to the other (humanity).
So, for Marx, ‘the entirety of human society’ does contribute to any body of knowledge.
All you are doing, just as any ideological individualist would do, is dividing the entirety of humanity into discrete individuals, of which you are one, and claiming that because one doesn’t supposedly contribute, that this means that the entirety doesn’t.
‘Society’ is a political concept, as indeed is ‘individual’.
But Marx’s views are based upon “social production”, not on “an aggregate of individuals production”.
That’s why democracy can’t be removed from any social production.
It seems to me, robbo, that your fundamental disagreement is with Marx’s social perspective, rather than with me.
robbo203 wrote: “If you think Max did say something along those lines then can you provide some evidence please?”
For example, “revolutionary science“.
If you think that is equivalent to ‘science’ (what I’d call the ‘socio-historical product, bourgeois science‘), then that’s fair enough. I don’t share your political and philosophical opinion. I believe in the ideology of ‘revolutionary science’, which, because of Marx’s politics, I assume means ‘democratic science’.
If you disagree with this political interpretation of Marx’s ‘revolutionary science’, you should explain how your notion of ‘revolutionary science’ differs from mine.
robbo203 wrote: “If will not suffice to argue that all knowledge is a social construct because I fully accept that this is the case. What I wanted to know from you is whether you believe this cognitive process itself is something that has to be subject to “democratic control”.” [my bold]
I find your statements contradictory, robbo.
If ‘all knowledge is a social construct’, what is this ‘itself’ that is outside of ‘all knowledge’?
You must believe that ‘this cognitive process itself’ is outside of ‘social activity’, and that ‘itself’ means ‘inside an individual’ or ‘inside the brain’.
As you must know, that belief is an ideological belief (which has political ramifications), which I don’t share.
To democratic communists, following Marx, any ‘cognitive process’ is by definition a ‘social process’, not a simple ‘biological’ one.
robbo203 wrote “…practical…”.
I’ve already mentioned this political difference between us, robbo. I’d replace it with ‘…theoretical and practical…’, which is closer to Marx’s views, than merely ‘practical’. The use of ‘practical’ suggests that there is no ‘theory’ behind it – which is an ideological opinion itself.
To L.B. Neill – I’m afraid this is a political and philosophical debate about ‘democracy’ within social production, and it’s been going on for years, so often my posts are very truncated, because of what’s been discussed previously. Hence, your valid opinion about ‘vague remarks’. I haven’t got the energy to go back to the start in about 2015, and repeat all the explanation again to you.
Suffice to say, the ‘material’ is a political and philosophical debate going back thousands of years to Ancient Greece, and is nothing to do with ‘rocks’.
‘Material’ is a human social product, and humans change it. The key argument is ‘who’ should have the power to ‘change’ it – an elite, or humanity as a whole employing democracy.
I, and Marx, argued for ‘democracy’.
The ruling class argue for an elite, and their ideas are widespread and widely accepted.
robbo203 wrote: “LBird
I dont think democracy has got anything to do with it. ”
I know, robbo.
That’s where you differ from Marx and me – we both think ‘democracy’ does have something to do with it.
Which is fair enough, it’s your personal political opinion. But why the SPGB seems to agree with you, is less clear, especially since ‘democracy’ has always been allegedly one of its fundamental concerns.
Thanks for that, YMS.
I’m glad that you’ve acknowledged that, within a democratic socialist society, humanity will democratically control its own production.
I’m not quite sure why it took so long, though. Better late than never, eh?
YMS, quoting Engels: “We shall be satisfied when we have placed the means of production in the hands of the community…”
Does ‘physics’ count as ‘means of production’, YMS, or was Engels only talking about ‘factories’, and intending to keep the universities in the hands of an elite?
alan, the ‘monism’ of Marx is ‘conscious activity’, or ‘social production’, or ‘Labour’.
It’s nothing to do with choosing between ‘mind’ or ‘matter’, to give one priority.
As I’ve said before, this ‘battle between mind and matter’ is an erroneous product of Engels’ views.
Marx ended the dualism of Descartes, not by choosing one, but by reconciling them, following the German Idealism of his forebears, in activity.
Marx’s great advance was to determine that this ‘activity’ was an attribute of humanity (not god, not individuals, not an elite).
