LBird
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
alanjjohnstone wrote: “LBird. i think i have made my position clear. As i said, i don’t really find any of this debate fruitful because i don’t believe it convinces people to become socialist nor is necessarily needed to be a socialist.
You may believe it is crucial…”
Yes, I do think that ‘it is crucial’.
As an example, ALB is currently arguing that ‘mind’ is ‘individual’, which undermines Marx’s theories, which concern social production.
I think democratic socialism involves social production, so if we don’t thrash this out, there won’t be any socialism, just more bourgeois individualism. If that’s what you, ALB, robbo and the SPGB stand for, fair enough, but why claim to be socialist, democratic or following Marx?
Why not just say that the SPGB thinks that ‘mind’ is individual? And merge with the Lib-Dems.
ALB wrote: “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t conceive of a what “a social mind”, as distinct from individual minds with ideas derived from society, would be.”
Let me help you understand, ALB.
It’s from the Socialist Standard, 1973, quoting Marx: “Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all.”
See, it doesn’t say ““a social mind”, as distinct from “individual minds with ideas derived from society”.
What are these ‘individual minds’ which ‘derive their ideas from society’ but also, which no-one, including Marx, has mentioned, have another ‘internal mind’ which doesn’t ‘derive ideas from society’?
What you are writing is incomprehensible, ALB.
Either ‘mind’ is ‘social’, as Marx and the Socialist Standard argue, or ‘mind’ is ‘individual’, which is what the bourgeoisie argue.
Marx, The German Ideology, p.51, quoted in the Socialist Standard, No. 829, September 1973, ‘MEN, IDEAS AND SOCIETY’:
“Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all“.
ALB wrote: “The argument is not over whether or not the contents of the human mind is a product of society but over how the mind interprets the information conveyed to it by the senses and the brain.”
But ‘the mind’ of any individual is a ‘social mind’, ALB.
That is, it’s the ‘interpretation’ (which is social in origin) rather than the ‘conveyance’ by senses and brain (which are biological), that is fundamental.
Really, this rests on your interpretation of your own words ‘”how the mind interprets“‘ – is this an ‘individual mind’ or a ‘social mind’?
If it’s a social mind then the argument is over.
The ‘social mind’ is an inescapable input into any ‘reality’ that we know. Thus, nothing can ‘exist’ independent of society – that is, independent of the active consciousness, theory and practice, social production, of humanity.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “According to yourself now, the SPGB has indeed been correct in its interpretation and reflects much of your own thinking.
In view of this admission, I consequently await your Form A, LBird.”
Thanks for your admission about the SPGB, alan! [joke]
Indeed, I think that the 1973 article is very good, and perhaps would amend only some expressions, rather than the political content.
However… given the response to my quoting of the article, I’m not sure if the current SPGB actually still supports that article. Do you, for example?
Still, there would be more chance of me joining, if some other posters now start to support those arguments. Let’s see how things develop, eh?
You’ll have to take up your argument with the SPGB, robbo, if they stand by their Socialist Standard article of 1973, that ALB quoted.
For Marx, ‘objects’ are socially created, and the SPGB appear(ed) to agree with him.
You appear to have a ‘correspondence theory’ of ‘truth’, which argues that the ‘idea’ reflects the ‘referent’. The article specifically mentions this, and specifically rejects it.
SS 1973 wrote “…talk of ideas “reflecting” social processes must not be misunderstood as a theory that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world. It is a theory of the social origin of ideas.” [my bold]
The fundamental problem with your ideological method, robbo, is that your ‘active subject’ is you, as a biological individual, who determines what’s ‘real’ by your ‘senses’.
If one employs this method, Marx’s analysis of ‘value’ falls, because he argues that society is the active agent that creates value.
Your method compels a return to an ‘individualist’ determination of ‘value’, which is, in short, the Thatcherite view that ‘value’ is what one thinks it is, in one’s own opinion – it is ‘valuable for me’.
So, one can either reject Marx, or separate ‘economics’ from ‘science’.
But Marx argued for a unity in method (social theory and practice), so the latter option (the bourgeois separation of mind/matter, sociology/physics, individual/society, fact/opinion, arts/science, dinosaur idea/dinosaur referent, etc.) involves a rejection of Marx’s ‘unified science’.
Thus, for Marx, both ‘value’ and ‘matter’ are social products, which have a history, and can be changed by their creator, us, humanity.
robbo203 wrote: “The “idea” of a dinosaur is different from the object to which the idea refers – the referent.”
How do you know the ‘referent’, robbo, without using your mind?
And your mind, as the Socialist Standard article says, is socially produced.
So, any knowledge by you of any referent requires society.
You’re arguing against the Socialist Standard now, robbo. You might as well accuse the SPGB of idealism and Berkeleyism.
robbo, you’ll have to explain how you know what a dinosaur is, without using your mind.
And if you’re using your mind, as the Socialist Standard says, it’s a product of society.
So, ‘real’ anything is determined by a society, which is where all individuals in that society get their ideas from – including those of ‘dinosaurs’.
Thus, it’s clear that “Nothing can have a ‘real existence independent of humanity because humans couldn’t know it” is a scientific statement.
You think that a dinosaur is outside your brain – no shit, sherlock.
robbo, you’ve given up sane discussion, for a fight with your own imagination. Good luck.
Me? I’m off to read the Socialist Standard of September 1973, where there’s a excellent article that all posters here should read.
robbo203 wrote: “Yes, but since you reject Marx’s “new materialism” in a favour of straightforward idealism…”
This is a figment of your own imagination, robbo, and doesn’t reflect anything that I’ve written here.
‘Idealism’ is the ideological belief that ‘God’ is the active consciousness, not ‘humanity’.
It’s very similar to ‘materialism’, which is the ideological belief that ‘Matter’ is the active consciousness, not ‘humanity’.
On the contrary, Marx’s ‘new’ made ‘humanity’ the active consciousness, which is why he argued for ‘theory and practice’.
Here’s a quote from the Socialist Standard of September 1973:
“German idealist philosophy made ideas the driving forces of history. Marx and Engels did not deny that the real men who made history were conscious beings who had ideas about what they were doing; their point was that these ideas did not come from nowhere and were not arbitrary. Ideas, they said, arose from material social conditions so that men’s ideas reflect their material conditions of life, their activity in society. Consciousness in the abstract did not exist: “Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life process” and “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life”.
The theory advanced here is not a theory of the physiology of perception and thinking (which Marx and Engels knew they were not qualified to formulate) so that talk of ideas “reflecting” social processes must not be misunderstood as a theory that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world. It is a theory of the social origin of ideas.” [my bold]
You should read and follow the Socialist Standard, robbo.
robbo203 wrote: “…there was stuff that Marx wrote that was clearly wrong and that I am quite happy to ditch.”
I agree, robbo, there’s the basis for a very interesting discussion, on the view that we could update Marx for the 21st century.
For example, if only Marx had made clear that his ‘new materialism’ wasn’t just ‘materialism’ with a meaningless prefix, like ‘chocolate materialism’, but that the content of his ‘new’ was revolutionary.
Perhaps we should have been able to suppose that revolutionaries would assume that ‘new’ meant ‘revolutionary’, but unfortunately Engels reverted in his texts to ‘materialism’ (ie. ‘old materialism’).
Still, your impulse is correct. Critical thinking has to be the basis of our self-emancipation.
Wez wrote: “How was the English Revolution defeated?”
Read any textbook, Wez, but Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down is as good a place to start as any.
Chapter 14, ‘Mechanic Preachers and the Mechanical Philosophy‘, pp.287-305, is especially pertinent to your question.
ALB, your quote from the SS Sept ’73 is spot on.
It consistently emphasises the ‘social’ (or its synonym, ‘material’) and production, as did Marx.
The key statement is:
“Human beings are born with brains, but not minds. Men only acquire minds in and through society, the content of their minds reflecting their social life and experience. A man outside society, could he exist, would have a brain, but no mind. Which is why physical theories of the mind are inadequate.”
‘Minds’ are socially produced, not ‘physical’.
The routine identification of ‘brain’ with ‘mind’ by the materialists is ‘inadequate’.
‘Minds’ are socially produced, and don’t pre-exist their maker.
