[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I'm not being self-depreciating out of modesty, Stuart.As you point out in your example of the debate the SPGB missed an opportunity and that is my problem. Too often i miss the real argument because i'm not an original thinker…(as i keep saying, a proficient copy and paste artist )- and end up concentrating on a secondary, side-issue.

For Marx, alan, the main issue was 'social production' (ie., humanity and its own creativity and creation), not the 'side-issue' of 'matter'.My simple advice is to focus on 'the real argument', because it doesn't require 'original' thought on your part, just your willingness to balance the arguments that you're hearing, in relation to any socialism that you'd wish to be a part of.

ajj wrote:

But i'd like you take up LBirds invite and set up a new thread on Marxism and Buddhism, and i'm sure DaveB can bring in early Christianity.

I'm all for it, alan, but I think that we'd fall at the first hurdle – a definition of 'Marxism'.I define 'Marxism' as 'Idealism-Materialism' (or, 'theory and practice'; or, 'social productionism'), which is in line with Marx's usage, but not with Engels' confused writings.Once that is accepted, then we'd explore Marx's views about the ideology that taught him the value of 'the active side'. That is, the value of (some of) 'Idealism', and so potentially, some of Buddhism.

ajj wrote:

I tried that book link. LBird…lost.

Yeah, it was meant more for those who do claim to have some active curiosity about epistemology, alan – I know that you've admitted in the past that you're bewildered by these issues.But… not so bewildered that you take Engels' claims for 'Materialism' without too much criticism!

[LBird]

stuartw2112 wrote:

LBird: I probably broadly agree with you, at least on the limitations of "materialism" and on the similarites between Marxian/Hegelian thought and that that tends to get thought of as mystical, eg Buddhism.

Bloody hell! Agreement all round, today!And the sun is shining.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I've been trying to tell you that for months.

But what happens when we don't agree with the experts?First of all, how would that 'disagreement' be politically expressed, if not by a vote?And if the expert was disagreed with, what happens next for the expert? Surely the expert is removed from any position of 'their expertise' (which the vote has shown to be nothing of the sort), and replaced by an expert who can explain their area of 'expertise'?These political issues about 'power' and 'expertise' are the ones that emerge from your post above.I've been trying to tell you that for years.Any 'expert' can only be an 'expert-for-us'; any 'expertise' can only be 'expertise-for-us'.There is no politically neutral 'expert/ise' who/which is above democratic control.It's an elite bourgeois ideology that claims that there is – a ruling class idea.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Part of the point of democracy is to force experts to explain their ideas to idots like me (hence why I opposed changes in the co-op to get rid of the lay board in favour of technical experts running the show).

[my bold]We're singing from the same hymn-sheet, YMS, if you really believe what you've written here.

[LBird]

The points being made on this thread about experts and democracy are precisely the points that I've made, about the power of 'science' and the need for a democratic epistemology.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Apologies. I thought message #7 was from Stuart.But as it was from you LBird, i was correct in message #8 that you would be better discussing the topic with Stuart

My posts were for any comrade who's interested in exploring the connections (and divergences) between Marx and Buddhism, whether economics or epistemology.As for stuartw2112, they share the same 'materialism' as the SPGB, so they won't be interested in any ideas that question that faith, just as you aren't, alan.It's ironic, as I've said before, that religious thinkers today are far ahead of the 19th century 'materialism' that the SPGB espouses, given the supposed dislike of religion by the SPGB.Anyway, if there's any taste for a discussion, we can start a new thread. I only mentioned it because of your exploration of Buddist economics, as there are wider links between Marx and Buddhism (as I've said, the latter is closer to the former than is 'Religious Materialism').

[LBird]

I found this link useful in stimulating my thought about comparing and contrasting Marx's and Buddhist epistemological approaches, "An Analysis of Madhyamaka Particle Physics":http://www.tibet.org/dan/madhyamika/index.html#ch

[LBird]

As an aside, alan, I think that it's worth having a look at Buddhist-inspired physics, too.In my opinion, this view of 'reality' is far closer to Marx's ideas about our creative production of our 'nature', than is the Engels-inspired 'Materialism' of 19th century bourgeois physics, which pretends to 'Know Reality In Itself', to the omission of human conscious 'theory and practice', which is socio-historical, and changes, as does its social product 'nature-for-us'.

[LBird]

Perhaps I'm being too generous towards you, Tim, and it's not forgetfulness or conscious political tactic, but that you simply don't understand discussions about epistemology, and are not capable of following a political argument.The surprising thing is that it appears to be widespread within the SPGB, if this site is anything to go by.It's a strange political party that can't discuss issues surrounding social power.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

So what you are saying is. is that there is a small group of people (possibly only 1) who understnad Marx, and the rest of the population of the earth do not understand Marx. Sounds like you've identified an elite group with specialist knowledge, there, matey.

I've clearly answered this point many times, and I can't believe that you and the others are so forgetful, so I have to assume that this is a political tactic to discredit those who are critical of the SPGB's elitist support of unelected 'Specialists'.So, to add to robbo's version of 'What LBird says', we now have Tim's version of 'What LBird says'.If anyone is genuinely interested in critically assessing my views, and want to ask further questions about them, I can only ask that they first read what I write, and not what SPGB members and supporters make up, to hide their own inability to understand and debate.As I've said, this is a political tactic to discredit criticism, not simply personal disagreement or dislike.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

…you are an idiot…I wont expect an answer just your usual personal abuse which the Mods seem to let you off with.

Without provocation, I'm an 'idiot', but I'm being 'let off' with 'personal abuse'?

Vin wrote:

NB your post does not answer the question. it is a personal attack. Stop being a C@nt

For a mythical 'personal attack', now I'm a 'cunt'? Because you can't understand epistemological issues?Is this the political method of the SPGB for dealing with political criticism?

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

This is completely untrue – 

How do you 'know' that? Has it been voted on? If you can claim something is 'untrue' then surely you can also claim something is 'true' but as you argue 'truth' must be voted upon. Or are you using 19th century 'religious materialism' to claim you 'know' something not to 'true'?

I'm afraid that you're going to have to read some books on the subject, Vin.About 25 years' worth.I've tried to help you make the leap, by providing a shortcut, many times, but you're ideologically unwilling to learn.Doesn't it worry you, that you'll probably die not understanding Marx, his social productionism and his democratic science? So many have already done so, mate.

[LBird]

moderator1 wrote:

This bit reminds me of something:  They claim to be “scientific” and to “use science”, but at the same time, they also say they actually use “rational consensus”, a concept philosophic in origin which has no basis in scientific fact, to make decisions.

It has to be said, for those unaware of intricacies these issues, that mod1's claim is also 'philosophic in origin'.And, indeed, the 'philosophic origin' of that claim is an elitist one, well suited to any ruling class, especially the bourgeoisie. All ruling classes wish to claim that they alone 'know facts', to the exclusion of the exploited class (ie. the majority), and in opposition to any 'rational consensus' that the exploited insist that they alone can consciously build (for example, Marx's claims for the class-conscious proletariat).

mod1 wrote:

They believe the Technate Administration Chart and its personnel selection system is “too hierarchical”, even though it is the same vertical alignment procedure of promotion used by [bourgeois] industry for selecting its supervisory staff in the technical departments. It is a technique which has proved remarkably successful despite Price System interference. It is the [bourgeois] method responsible selecting the personnel responsible for developing, installing, maintaining and upgrading all the complex technology which is currently keeping us all alive.

[my bold and inserts]mod1 is remarkably sympathetic here to capitalism, which, indeed, is 'currently keeping us all alive'. But, for whose purposes, and in whose interests?

mod1 wrote:

 TVP believes that thanks to their education system everybody would be "generalists" and would all be "equally qualified to make decisions" …

As do any socialists worthy of the name 'democrats'.

mod1 wrote:

…(They believe that given equal education and equal opportunity, everyone will perform identically, which is of course false; in their information presentation, they do mention what we call today "epigenetics", but only stress the part about external conditioning and minimize the effects of biological inheritance as much as possible).

[my bold]This is completely untrue – no democrat claims that 'everyone will perform identically' – only that 'everyone has an identical right to participate in decision-making'. It's up to 'experts' to persuade the majority – if the so-called 'experts' can't  do so, then the 'experts' are removed, and replaced by 'experts' who can explain to the majority.FWIW, I'm beginning to see why so many of the SPGB and its supporters (including robbo and YMS) sing from the same hymn-sheet as mod1. They all share a common ideology, which is totally unrelated to Marx's views, and totally unsuitable for a democratic socialism.As for 'biological inheritance' (which we can't change) playing a major role, whatever happened to the revolutionary notion that 'socio-historical inheritance' (which we obviously can change) forms by far the greatest part of any human 'inheritance'?

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

We haven't advanced far in this debate, have we, after what now has been years of exchanges and screeds of words….I think i mentioned that quantum physics is all gobbly-gook to me because their truth does not correspond to my own reality. I recuse myself from such conversations. You ask who controls truth…i do as an individual. I choose what i consider true. My neighbour possesses his personal world-view of his reality. That is our battlefield in politics.

[my bold]The reason that we haven't advanced far, alan, is that you don't realise that 'knowledge production' is part of the class war. You subscribe to the bourgeois ideology that 'knowledge' is an 'individual' product (or, at best, a product of 'elite individuals').That is, you're ignorant of the politics of the social production of knowledge, and that ignorance is reinforced by the social ideology that you've had given to you ('ruling class ideas'), one that stresses 'individuals' in both the production of commodities and of social ideas.So, if what I'm claiming is true, then I'd expect your version of 'knowledge production' to be 'individualist', rather than 'social'.And when we examine your ideological statement, above, we find only reference to 'I', 'me', 'my own', 'personal' and 'as an individual'. It's clear that if you were referring to economics, you'd clearly be a bourgeois ideologist, arguing for 'individual' judgement of 'value' in the marketplace.

ajj wrote:

Challenging the common-sense truth of our fellow-workers in what they believe to be the truth…. When we all begin to share an understanding of social relationships and how our ideas arise from those and a consensus begins coalesce we can say we have a grasp on truth. 

That's precisely what I'm doing on this site, alan. I'm 'challenging' your 'common-sense truth', and trying to build a 'consensus' about the need to challenge 'individualism' in science. All science is social, and has power, and must be socially controlled – which within the workers' movement building for socialism, must mean 'democratic control'.

ajj wrote:

No idea who will control what is seen as truth in a socialist society, or how it would be done. There are limits to my imagination and how people will change and how they will think once freed from capitalism and its conditioning is beyond my ken. I can't even have a good guess. 

[my bold]That's an abdication of political responsibility, alan, which is to argue that only the social producers will control truth production in a socialist society. It's not even much of 'a good guess', to say so. For socialists who are democrats, it should be "stating the bleedin' obvious".

[LBird]

You're still avoiding my political question, alan.Who controls the social production of truth?One thing that I have learned in my decades of discussing politics with so-called 'Marxists', 'Communists' and 'Socialists' is to get to the nub of the issue, which is 'what actually are you proposing that workers will control?'All the flannel to avoid answering this political question (like the red herring 'there won't be workers in socialism') is simply that: flannelling of workers now. Even when I change the historically-specific term for 'social producers' within capitalism ('workers'), to the more general 'social producers' who will still exist within socialism (as they have within every human society), the flannellers still avoid this question.Who are the social producers who will democratically control the social production of truth within socialism?The Leninist/Trotskyist parties can't say the 'social producers', because they don't in their practice have a theory of democracy where all workers in their party have the same vote, but, like the SPGB apparently, have 'Specialists' to determine truth for workers.Who controls the social production of truth?

[Author]

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