[LBird]

So ALB won't answer the social question about his political epistemology.No surprise, there, eh?

[LBird]

LBird wrote:

ALB wrote:

Here's a prime example of his intellectual dishonesty

ALB wrote:

read the article on the following page on "Men, Ideas and Society":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-829-september-1973/men-ideas-and-societyHe will see that it ,too, specifically repudiates the view

Quote:

that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world

Dishonest Intellectual wrote:

when you have a consciousnessless access to matter.

Hmmmm…OK, let's take ALB at face value.How can you consciously know 'matter', ALB, without a vote being taken by your fellow social producers?

Let's hope ALB gets back to us, soon. Perhaps then we can all form an opinion upon just who is the 'Dishonest Intellectual'.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

 Say 'hello' to 'matter', the next time it talks to you

Hello! from more matter

Yes, and we know from which end this 'matter' is talking through, don't we, when it comes to epistemology?The 'Engelsian End', of course!No doubt, the cruder elements from Tim's neck-of-the-woods had a more 'profound', earthy, answer.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

They all, including you, Tim, turn to abuse – and I return it. I'm a working class bloke, and when 'fools, morons and clowns' think that they can be funny with me, I'll be funnier.

so presumably that makes you the specialist when it comes to being funny. Perhaps you might even consider yourself to be amongst the elite of funny people. 

No, where I come from, Tim, being funny isn't a 'specialism'. It's a common-or-garden 'generalist' ability we all have.No doubt, your categorising of 'funny' as something that only belongs to an 'elite', says more than I could about your 'people'. I can't say that I'm surprised at this, though, having read what passes for 'humour' from you. If you are amongst your 'elite'… [snigger]…… I suppose that your 'materialism' ensures that your 'humour' is a simple, honest, 'pies-in-the face', physical, slapstick, sort of 'humour'.You really should try 'consciousness', sometime, Tim. Y'know, ideas, wordplay, inventiveness… there's a whole world waiting out there for you, to go alongside your 'materialist' reality. Perhaps, after the revolution, we Marxists can bring some levity into your dour 'material existence'.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Here's a prime example of his intellectual dishonesty

ALB wrote:

read the article on the following page on "Men, Ideas and Society":http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970s/1973/no-829-september-1973/men-ideas-and-societyHe will see that it ,too, specifically repudiates the view

Quote:

that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world

Dishonest Intellectual wrote:

when you have a consciousnessless access to matter.

Hmmmm…OK, let's take ALB at face value.How can you consciously know 'matter', ALB, without a vote being taken by your fellow social producers?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Tim, and he's intellectually dishonest with it. He's just now accused us of being sympathetic to Trotsky's politics. Imagine.

Imagination requires an active consciousness, ALB, and according to you Religious Materialists, there is no need for that, when you have a consciousnessless access to matter.Just like Trotsky and Lenin argued to the workers who wanted a democratic say in their own production.Trotsky argued for a politics which separated a 'specialist' elite from a 'generalist' mass, with power being held by the former.'Accusing the SPGB of being sympathetic to Trotsky's politics'?Imagine. Indeed.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

…L Bird talks extensively about the need for Socialists to be anti-elitist, yet as soon as anyone disagrees with him he accuses them of being fools, morons and clowns, of being his intellectual inferiors and not being worthy of taking him on in argument (I have been target of L Bird's elitist ire on many occasions)

More re-writing of history by a 'materialist', eh?I've tried many times to raise the debate to a philosophical level, about the post-Kantian relationship between subject and object, which informed Marx's ideas, but the 'materialists' really hate this, because it questions their 'faith in matter', a 'matter' which supposedly has no relation to 'faith' or any other 'conscious activity'.They all, including you, Tim, turn to abuse – and I return it. I'm a working class bloke, and when 'fools, morons and clowns' think that they can be funny with me, I'll be funnier.

TK wrote:

The term hypocrite comes to mind.

And the term 'Religious Materialist' comes to the mind of any Marxist, who unlike Trotsky, Lenin, Kautsky, et al, argues that only the producers can determine their product.I don't expect you to understand this, though, Tim. Back to the 'materialist' mud pies and rocks for you lot, eh? Say 'hello' to 'matter', the next time it talks to you, Tim.Pre-Kantian!Take that for an insult!

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

This article in the Socialist Standard at the time of his assassination indicated a more sympathetic view of Trotsky by the SPGB."So ends the amazing career of one of the outstanding men of to-day.""It is curious, therefore, that a man so gifted as a writer as Trotsky undoubtedly was, has left little, if any, literary trace of his Marxist education.""Trotsky's personal qualities are of minor interests to Socialists. As a political pamphleteer he was outstanding and he was also a first-class orator. But unless the world-proletariat can harness such gifts to serve the struggle for Socialism, they will be wasted and even harmful to workers' interests, although, and as in the case of Leon Trotsky, there is no doubt that his whole life was sincerely dedicated to their cause."

[my bold]The reason, isn't so 'curious' as the SS wrote, Vin.The reason there is 'little, if any trace' of Marx left in Trotsky's works, is that it wasn't there in the first place.And we can also doubt the 'sincere dedication of his  whole life'. It wasn't to the class conscious proletariat, the producers of their own reality. Trotsky's 'dedication' was to 'matter'.Which, he alleged, he and Lenin, to the exclusion of the workers, just 'knew' it, 'as it is'.So, I would argue that the SS was too sympathetic, even in 1940, to Trotsky's politics.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

Whether or not Stalin was personally a sincere democrat or  Marxist for that matter, in 1906, is a different question.I think not.

I agree with you, Dave. Stalin was never a democrat.And neither was, I think you'd agree with me, Lenin.The 'different question' that you allude to, though, is also a fundamental question.What united Stalin, Lenin, all the Bolsheviks, Kautsky and all the Second International, was the issue of why they weren't democrats.They all sincerely believed that the fundamental determinant of 'reality' was 'matter'.Of course, once 'matter' determines 'reality', then clearly there can be no question of producers determining their reality, because there is no such thing as a 'reality' that is produced, a 'reality' that is socio-historical, a 'reality' that is a product of a specific mode of production, a 'reality' that is determined by the producers as their reality.Stalin, Lenin, etc., etc., as sincere believers in 'matter' were 'materialists', and as such opposed Marx's views. They wouldn't agree with what I've said in this post, and regarded themselves as 'democrats and Marxists', but we workers should know better, in the 21st century.Oh, one more thing……since Marx was right, that modes of production do consist of producers who produce their own reality, the 'materialists' had to come up with the 'active side', the conscious agent of production. They had to lie about 'matter' determining, and replace Marx's 'active side' (the class conscious proletariat) with an elite minority who had a 'special consciousness' who could determine the production of 'reality', a 'reality-for-them', within which workers had no power to determine their own product.Why the SPGB identifies with this essentially bourgeois ideology of 'materialism' beats me. But, we can see the same developments happening in the SPGB, too, as happened in the early 20th century. The SPGB has started to argue for 'specialists', who are not under the political control of the 'generalists'.This is Leninist politics by another name.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

The point is that in 1906 Stalin was … a democrat.

You're not really telling me, are you, Dave, that you really think that Stalin was a democrat in 1906?Y'know, in any sense meaningful to a discussion about workers' democracy?I have to believe that you're letting your hyperbole get away with you… otherwise, you'll probably go on to claim Hitler was a socialist and an advocate of workers' power, because his party was the NSDAP.

[LBird]

Well, I never thought to get the Religious Materialists within the 2017 SPGB to openly display their support for the position that 'Stalin was a democrat'!No defence of workers' democracy, just a continued defence of 'Matter'. Not only have you lined up with Lenin on this issue, but now workers' democracy is slated as Stalinist!And robbo keeps up his elitist claim that the 'science' done by a minority outweighs the opinions of the majority of producers.Oh, I do wish it was 1973, when the SPGB apparently had thinkers who could do Marx justice. But the 20th century is over now, so it's back to the 19th, where 'democracy' in both science and politics was just where the SPGB of today would have it again!No doubt, this is what passes here for 'Historical Materialism'. 'Matter' going backwards in time!

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

The truth is, Stalin did argue for democratic workers power…

I'm beginning to think that you're unhinged.

[LBird]

Is this what passes for political debate in the SPGB?Accusing those who argue for democratic workers' power as being Stalinists? That Stalin was a 'democrat'?This is the most effective answer to Tim Kilgallon, who asked earlier, as to why I won't be joining the SPGB in 2017.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Just checked and it seems that the famous article was not in fact written by Barry McNeeny. He didn't join the Party till 1974. The article was signed B.M. There was another member with these initials who wrote articles for the Socialist Standard. So BM will be Brendan Mee ( I think he was a member of our then Bolton branch). ….PS These misattributions will have to be corrected on on archive site.

Can the mods change the name in the title of this thread, to correct the misattribution?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…it's always been noticeable that philosophies that deny the realness of the real world tend to be highly reactionary…

Marx does not 'deny the realness of the real world'.Marx argues that we create our reality. 'Realness' is 'realness-for us'; the 'real world' is 'our real world'. The 'objective world' is the one we create, by our social theory and practice.

YMS wrote:

The idea that power structures eality (and allows it to restructure reality) tends to stem from those wishing to deny the experience of living in the world people have.

Ahah! 'Experience', the old standby of the US pragmatists and Dewey's instrumentalism. Of course, this is 'individual, biological, personal sense experience', not anything whatsoever to do with Marx's 'social production', which argues that 'individuals' in different productive societies have different 'sense experiences' (our senses are social products, too), so that 'experience' is always a 'socio-historic experience', rather than just something 'people have' [notice, YMS never refers to any socio-historical subject, just ahistoric and asocial 'people'] 

YMS wrote:

Look how much Stalin loved such thinking, the history fo Bolshevism was that by will alone we culd reshape the world, a far cry from Marx' description of his own method…

The old trick of all anti-Marxists, anti-Communists, anti-Democrats: sully those ideas by associating them with Stalin.Stalin never argued that workers could (or should) democratically control their production.I always (unlike YMS or the SPGB generally) always emphasise democratic control of production, which doesn't intend to 'reshape the world' (itself a bourgeois concept, 'in itself'), but 'reshape our world'.

YMS wrote:

The greatest trick the devil ever invented was pursuading people they could change the world just by thinking about it hard enough.

The 'devil', eh?And him 'persuading people' (all those thick workers, I presume, unlike you and your elite). Revealing turn of phrase, 'devil', for a supposed 'socialist'.And there we have it: YMS's bogeyman (garnered from Engels) – The Idealists, and their 'just by thinking'!Of course, Marx never, ever, argued that workers 'could change the world just by thinking about it hard enough'.Marx always argued for social, democratic, THEORY and PRACTICE.The 'highly reactionary' are the Religious Materialists – they will always deny democratic production of our world, and will always argue for a 'knowing elite'. That's why Lenin had faith in 'matter', too.

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