LBird
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Thomas More wrote: “…to take up the same struggles fought by Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin.”
Err… the class struggles fought on behalf of the bourgeoisie, and its making of our contemporary world?
Both ‘reason’ and ‘science’ have a class component, so, as a democratic socialist, I’m all in favour of ‘Bourgeois Reason and Bourgeois Science‘ being ‘in Danger‘.
Any apolitical, ahistorical and asocial ‘defence’ of ‘Reason and Science’ as being about ‘Objective Truth’, ‘Eternal Verity’ or ‘Absolute Knowledge’, places us into the hands of the bourgeois elite, and helps support capitalism.
Of course, that is not to say there isn’t a danger from ‘conspiralunacy’, flat earthism and Illuminati-ists – and indeed postmodernism – but unless we locate the origins of ‘reason and science’ in an historical and social context, and the political forces involved in their creation, and why they did so, we risk becoming advocates of the mythical ‘politically neutral science’ which supposedly ‘impartially discovers the existing world’ by the agency of an elite of ‘disinterested scientists’.
This is 2020, not 1820. Even by 1920, the myths of ‘Objective Science’ were obvious, to anyone who followed Physics, Mathematics and Logic. All three, as depicted in the 19th century, turned out to be untrue.
Fighting mysticism by supporting elitism is not the answer: democratising ‘Reason and Science’ is.
alanjjohnstone wrote: ”
Joseph Dietzgen said it for me
“If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself.”
”
Bingo, alan!
Bijou Drains wrote: “So if we cannot learn from others, who or where can we learn from. You yourself repeatedly report that Marx says this or Marx says that, so you are using Marx in the expert role. You have set up Marx as the expert specialist educator, yet you reject specialist educators.”
This is completely untrue, BD, as I have written many times about Marx’s failings.
I could accuse you of trolling, but I’m prepared to put it down to simple forgetfulness on your part.
I’m tempted to argue that democratic socialists can criticise Marx, because they regard truth as a social product which changes, and so can point out Marx’s mistakes, whereas the ‘materialists’ cannot do this, because they must have ‘Truth’. For them, Marx’s ‘materialism’ can’t be challenged, for ‘Matter’ is their God.
For democratic socialists, who think Marx’s ‘idealism-materialism’ puts humanity in the driving seat, not ‘divine matter’, we can determine Marx’s status – and, indeed, change it. 😛
rodshaw wrote: “Indeed, the more you know, the more sceptical you can be about other’s views or the information they give you. But we’re never all going to know the same things. We’re not telepathic. We can’t absorb information by osmosis. There would have to be ways for people with more knowledge in a certain field to be able to make it available to others. Of course, it would then be up to the others to decide whether they accepted it or not. But why wouldn’t they? And how would they know any different?”
rod, this is a conversation I’ve been trying to have here for years.
At one time, I thought robbo203 was going to engage, but he kept seeing problems in ‘democracy’, and it’s hard, as a socialist, to have a serious conversation about political issues whilst ‘democracy’ is seen as a problematic issue. I’m afraid if socialism can’t be discussed in terms of ‘democracy’, it’s not my sort of socialism (nor Marx’s, I might add).
One thing I really like about your post is the emphasis on ‘we’ (rather than I’).
All the points you rightly make about difficulties, apply just as much to ‘specialists’ as to ‘generalists’ (to use SPGB terminology). There are no ‘educators’ who ‘know better’ than the ‘others’. This is a basic political principle of Marx and ‘Democratic Socialism’. If one wants to argue that there is an elite of ‘educators’ who ‘know better’ than the rest of us, then that’s fair enough, but one should be aware of the political implications of that ideological belief, and be open about it with others and oneself. ‘Materialists’ have this ideological belief, as Marx himself pointed out.
The key political point you rightly make is that “Of course, it would then be up to the others to decide whether they accepted it or not.” The ‘others’ (ie. non-specialists) must have the power to decide. This would be democratic science, and a suitable ‘scientific method’ for socialism.
As to ‘why would they’ override ‘specialists’ and ‘how would they know any different’ – simple answer: many/most/all (delete to preference) ‘specialists’ don’t actually understand the wider political/social/ideological/cultural/scientific implications of their arguments. ‘Eugenics’ is only one (minor?) example of this; perhaps ‘nuclear energy’ is even more important.
It’s a basic principle of democratic socialism that the many ‘know better’ than the few. The term ‘better’ is value-laden, and values can only be decided by society itself, not by an elite.
Why would we challenge Nobel prize winners? Because many write and talk nonsense – history constantly proves this. How would we know any different? Because we’d be products of a democratic education system that teaches critical thought, democratically controls academia, and produces social individuals with a healthy scepticism of ‘experts’.
Really, this conversation would have to expand to discuss ‘education’ within a socialist society, because so many assumptions by ‘materialists’ are made based upon the present education system. Our universities would be very different, in content, structure, and power, to today’s bourgeois, undemocratic, institutions.
Matthew Culbert wrote “As he says, it raises ‘ethical’ questions and these would be requiring society as a whole to make the decisions, as to whether such a thing should be implemented.”
Yes, as you argue, any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ or ‘objectivity’ or ‘fact’ “raises ‘ethical’ questions and these would be requiring society as a whole to make the decisions, as to whether such a thing should be implemented”.
You seem to agree with Marx’s political analysis, Matthew, except for one slip of the typing finger, perhaps.
The ‘material’ can only be determined democratically. ‘Matter’ would be subject to a vote.
The 18th century ‘materialists’, like Lenin, are determined to divide society into two, an elite of ‘educators’ (who claim to already know the ‘material’, before it has been socially produced, and so can ‘educate’ the masses), and a mass of ‘educated’, who must obey the opinions of your ‘specialist interrogators’.
Only society as a whole employing democratic methods can determine ‘science’. Any ‘specialist interrogators’ will be elected, and if their opinions don’t fit with the opinions of the mass of society, they will be democratically replaced.
We cannot allow ‘specialist’ educators. Socialism is the self-education of the whole of society.
There is no separation of ‘is’ and ‘ought’.
That belief, in a separation, is a part of bourgeois ideology, to buttress bourgeois ‘science’.
This applies to all ‘science’, and obviously ‘eugenics’. There is no ‘good’ (‘objective’) or ‘bad’ (‘morally objectionable’) eugenics. We humans determine.
Any ‘is’ is premised upon an ‘ought’ – that’s what Marx’s method of ‘theory and practice’ is all about.
To argue for an ‘is’, is to argue that there is an ‘unchangeable’ – which is the polar opposite of Marx’s social productionism.
If we don’t create our ‘ises’, based upon our ‘oughts’, someone else will – an elite, who claim to be the ‘educators’.
Hiya, Bijou Drains, thanks again for your kind sentiment.
Here’s Marx, on the elitist socio-political consequences of ‘materialism’ – it ignores ‘change’ (and prefers ‘prediction’, as ALB pointed out, earlier), denies ‘change’ is socially produced by humanity (after all, ‘matter’ is an unchanging stuff, outside of our brains, which simply sits there, awaiting ‘discovery’ by the superior sort in society), and has no time for the practice of revolutionary democracy.
Marx, in his Theses on Feuerbach, III, wrote:
“The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm
It seems clear to me, that Marx was a democrat and a communist, who believed that it was possible for humanity to revolutionise its own universe. After all, any ‘universe’, that we know and can know, is our creation.
After all, if we didn’t create it, how can we change it?
Of course, the minority ruling class wish to deny this ‘creative role’ to humanity, and so their ‘science’ simply argues that they are simply discovering ‘reality’, a ‘reality’ that pre-exists its maker. This is a ruling class idea – and a successful, continuing, and seemingly all-powerful one. Even the breakdown of that ideology in the late 19th century didn’t break its hold on ‘common sense’, and school teaching of children.
Marx, of course, prefigured that breakdown by 70 years, and paved the way for Einstein’s revolutionary science – the effects of which we are still assimilating. Well, revolutionaries are – those wanting an elite to retain political control of physics, maths, logic, etc., simply deny ‘revolutionary practice’ (active conscious change) and try to bolster existing reality.
But try to tell the ‘materialists’ that they espouse a conservative ideology and method, suited to the division of ‘society into two parts’, as Marx pointed out, and they not only won’t believe you, or even read Marx, or think critically about their beliefs and where they came from, but simply close their minds.
Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Stalin… all ‘materialists’. An ideology which divides society into two, as befits the interests and purposes of a ruling class.
They won’t have democracy in science. Without democratic science, society is divided into two.
ALB wrote: “‘and so is of more practical use.’”
To who?
Who is the active subject, for whom this ‘human construct’ of ‘science’ is ‘of more practical use’?
Materialism, as Marx said, regards the ‘active subject’ as an elite, and so cannot allow democratic methods to be employed. Hence, the materialist SPGB’s rule of science by ‘Specialists’. Hence, as Marx said, society divided into two, ‘specialists’ and ‘generalists’, with the ‘specialists’ in political control of social production.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “LBird, i think i have raised the point of your own lack of action to change the world by declining to join the only political organisation i think you empathise with, despite your disagreements.”
But I haven’t been ‘inactive’, alan. I’ve spent several years, with much input from the posters here (many who have now left), trying to get to grips with Marx’s development and creation. It’s become very clear to me (perhaps too slowly, unlike Marx’s very quick reaction of “All I know is that I’m not a ‘Marxist’! “, when confronted with the fruits of Engels’ teachings within the French Materialists) that what passes as ‘Marxism’ has nothing whatsoever to do with Marx.
But, for a worker who has had to struggle to throw off the imbecilities of the ‘Trotskyists’, who were completely dominant in the schools and universities when I first started to enquire about ‘Marxism’ and communism, I haven’t done too badly. I got my first degree at 32, so I’m hardly a ‘quick developer’, more of a ‘relentless plodder’. But such is the life of workers under capitalism.
As for the SPGB, and my joining, you’re correct that I’m attracted to your openness and willingness to sustain criticism, and alleged commitment to ‘democracy’, which are all the complete opposite to the Trot parties. But…
… my attempts to point out the contradiction between ‘democracy’ and ‘materialism’ (as Marx also pointed out) have been met with simple hostility. It would seem pointless to join a party that says one thing, but thinks another. I must say, too, that it’s a very big surprise that not one other poster has even attempted to discuss this political problem. It seems that the ideology of ‘materialism’ is at the very roots of the party (which is fair enough if that’s what’s honestly believed), but it would seem to preclude the joining by a Marxist, who would insist on the democratic control of the social production of ‘truth’.
So, I do ’empathise with’ the ostensible ideas of the SPGB, but to me, the membership don’t!
BTW, Bertrand Russell was talking through his arse, as even he himself later admitted (regarding the ideology of mathematics in the late 19th/ early 20th centuries). Perhaps it’s unnecessary to say this, but most mathematicians are ‘materialists’. Marx and Einstein seem to have been left to rot. Capitalism, eh?
ALB wrote: “What we are looking for is a description that reliably predicts…“.
This is not what Marx was concerned with, ALB.
He was concerned with our human power to actively ‘CHANGE’ our world, not to passively ‘PREDICT’ the world.
Marx wasn’t a 18th century materialist, as Engels erroneously thought.
Of course, ‘materialists’ regard any reference to Marx’s ‘conscious activity’ as simply ‘idealism’. That is the fruit of Engels’ misunderstanding: a supposed ongoing ‘great battle’ between ‘ideas’ and ‘matter’. Marx disposed of that ideology in the 1840s, but Engels resurrected it. That’s the tradition within which the SPGB stands, and it’s the same one as Lenin, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Trotsky, etc…
It’s a dead end, comrades.
marcos wrote: “Marx created the Materialist Conception of History, clearly and simply defined by Engels…”
This is a myth, marcos.
All the evidence shows that Engels ‘created’ what he then ‘clearly and simply defined’.
I’d advise any comrades interested in this issue to read Terrell Carver’s Marx & Engels: The Intellectual Relationship, especially chapters 4 (The Invention of Dialectics) and 5 (‘Second Fiddle’?).
marcos wrote: “I threw it in the trash bin“.
That’s not a good method, marcos.
Critical thinking about scientific issues, and the ability to form persuasive arguments for other workers, is the method we should adopt.
You’ve often shown disdain for these issues, but I’ve never read any informed criticism from you, about why you reject Marx’s views, even though you’ve actually read what Marx himself wrote.
But, it’s your political choice…
Matthew Culbert wrote: “There will be no ‘elites’ having ‘power’ put into their hands.
We will require specialisms. But considerations about decisions about which applications of those will prevail, will reside within an informed society.”
It seems we agree, Matt.
A democratic socialist society will be ‘an informed society’ which makes its own ‘decisions’, not a powerful ‘elite’.
The implication of this is that ‘truth’ will be elected, by a democratic scientific method. ‘Truth’ will not be determined by an ‘elite’, and certainly not by an unconscious ‘matter’.
marcos wrote: “We have been dealing with this thing about idealism/materialism, or materialism/idealism for years, and most of the time the thread is taking out of context”
Perhaps some socio-historical ‘context’ can be provided, marcos. I’ve recommended this before, as reading for democratic socialists who are interested in the origins of ‘science’:
Connor, C. D. (2005) A People’s History of Science
Especially chapter 6, ‘Who were the winners in the scientific revolution?‘, pp. 349-421.
Wez wrote: “Either you believe that the class struggle is the dynamic element driving social change or you don’t. ”
I couldn’t agree more, Wez. But it’s the materialists who don’t believe that ‘social change’ in physics, mathematics, logic, etc. is driven by class struggle. ‘Materialists’ regard ‘science’ as an ahistorical, asocial, politically-neutral activity, which is best left to an elite. Of course, this is an ideological belief introduced by the bourgeoisie, with their class struggle victory during the 17th century, especially in England – for example, the setting up of the Royal Society with the restoration in 1660, after the defeat of the radicals during the class struggle in science, where the radical scientists argued for a democratic science. The key step in the counterrevolutionaries’ victory was the separation of ‘science’ and ‘society’ (or, ‘matter’ and ‘ideas’, or ‘being’ and ‘consciousness’, or ‘science’ and ‘art’, or ‘material’ and ‘ideal’, or ‘fact’ and ‘opinion’, etc.) – this ideological belief is still ‘the ruling class idea’ which dominates contemporary ‘science’. The ‘materialists’ abet this ruling class idea.
Wez wrote: “If you do it would be absurd to not mention Marx as one who developed this theory – why would you want to? It would be as ridiculous as discussing physics without mentioning Einstein or Biology without reference to Darwin.”
Yes, as ‘ridiculous as discussing physics…or biology without mentioning’ Marx. But the ‘materialists’ constantly do just this. They are ‘absurd’.
Wez wrote: “If you do not regard the class struggle to be of primary importance in cultural development then you are not a socialist.” [my bold]
The word is ‘scientific’, Wez, not simply ‘cultural’.
You are separating ‘science’ from ‘culture’, just as the bourgeois ruling ideas insist that you do.
As any Marxist, any democratic socialist, will tell you: “If you do not regard the class struggle to be of primary importance in scientific development then you are not a socialist.”
If you’re waiting for matter’s victory in the class struggle, Wez, you’re going to have a long wait.
You’d be better putting your faith in your fellow workers – which brings us back to MutualAid’s lack of this faith. MutualAid, just like all ‘materialists’ has faith in ‘matter’, not active conscious humanity, and their social production.
Marx re-unified where the bourgeoisie had separated. Why argue for the separation of ‘science’ and ‘society’, and against democratic physics?
Marx argued for a revolutionary science, not the mere acceptance of what ruling class scientists say.
