[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I came across this thought on my web travels and thought it was of some import. 

Quote:

This is no mere matter of “difference of opinion” or opposing beliefs. What separates genuine egalitarians and democrats from the mainstream goes much deeper. Political education is an essential part of organizing and movement building. It is not sufficient to expose people to more and different facts and “information.” That’s necessary, but not sufficient. It’s about a very different way of thinking about politics and economics, including that we inhabit a very different world, a different political universe, from what the mainstream political commentariat put across in every word they utter.

Importance of ideology again in understaanding, isn't it?

But 'ideology' has no importance for those who've accepted the central myth of bourgeois science, that it is not 'ideological', but a 'method' that ensures a 'true' account of 'reality outside of human creative activity'. This is the complete opposite of Marx's views on 'social production', of course.In fact, your quote could be slightly edited to say… 

Quote:

This is no mere matter of “difference of opinion” or opposing beliefs. What separates genuine egalitarians and democrats from the Engelsist Materialists goes much deeper. Political education is an essential part of organizing and movement building. It is not sufficient to expose people to more and different facts and “information.” That’s necessary, but not sufficient. It’s about a very different way of thinking about politics and economics, including that we inhabit a very different world, a different political universe, from what the Engelsist Materialist political commentariat put across in every word they utter.

…and it would help clarify even further.'Materialism' denies democracy. 'Materialists' are elitists.Every word that the 'materialists' here utter, makes that plain.'Materialism' is neither egalitarian nor democratic.It can't be the ideological basis of socialism and workers' power.And so, the 'materialists' deny that they have an ideology.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

We're talking about your ideology. 

No, you're wrong, yet again, YMS. You must get fed up with being wrong, eh?We're talking about my ideology of Marxism from the perspective of your ideology.It seems only fair that you openly state your ideology, after all, since I openly state mine.I won't take this any further with you until you do so.My good advice, though, is for you to discuss your views with someone who shares your own ideology, because you'll gain nothing from a discussion with a Marxist.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

If not, where am I going wrong?

You're concealing your ideology from us, and, I suspect, from yourself.Tell us your ideology, and we can examine your axioms and assumptions, and then we can make some progress.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Yes, our social theory and practice is our only limit.

So, we could blot out the sun, travel faster than the speed of light, travel through time and have immortality, if we made that our social theory and practice?

You really do struggle to read what's being written, YMS.Which bit of 'social practice' do you not understand?You seem to be some sort of 'idealist', who thinks 'ideas alone' constitute 'theory and practice'. You should read Marx some day.Right, unless you read and respond to what I write (rather than what you want to read), I'll halt our conversation here.Your choice, YMS.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Are there any limits to what we can decide to socially produce together, or is our social theory and practice the only limit?

Yes, our social theory and practice is our only limit.But, with social theory and practice varying throughout history, clearly differing modes of production have different 'limits'. So, 'limits' are socio-historical, and change.Perhaps you don't recognise the category 'mode of production' (or 'history', or 'change'), but then you'll clearly have a different ideological opinion to me.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

 These are all amenable to democratic control, and will be in a socialist society, which will ensure that its social production is democratically controlled.

Two questions: are there any limits to what we can decide to socially produce together, or is our will and imagination the only limit?

I'm a Marxist, YMS, and you're not. That's not a problem, you're entitled to your opinion, but, for clarity for other readers, why not just say so?Your individualist and idealist concept of 'will and imagination' is not Marx's.Marx's starts from the axiom of 'social theory and practice'.So, if you want to discuss 'will and imagination', you need to find someone, unlike me, who doesn't follow Marx on these points.

YMS wrote:

Second question: if there is not, why do we need democratic control?  Couldn't the minority group choose to construct a reality of their own alongside the majority reality?  Why do we need democratic decisions?  (Is this something to which we are constrained, or could we choose to abolish this requirement?).

[my bold]Again, your focus on a 'minority group' choosing outside of democratic controls, is not a concern for those who are Democratic Communists, and think that all social production should be under the democratic control of our society.Should our society choose to delegate a measure of power to a 'minority group', then of course that can be done. But, clearly, if the 'minority group' try to follow a 'theory and practice' that is dangerous for the interests, purposes, needs and desires of the majority, then that delegated power will be withdrawn. So, 'democratic control' is an axiom for the social production of a socialist society.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Like Dave B, i don't know why people are getting het up in this discussion. I don't think there is such a chasm between us and LBirdScience is determined by politics, by democracy and by beliefs. … It is our task to create a society where when we do debate and discuss scientific "truths", that it is a level playing field and part of it is promoting democracy in science… So- called scientific "reality" is found wanting when applied in the world of people and not of profits LBird is right to emphasise in the end it is going to be us who determine truth by votes and political action and when socialism is established this process is not going to cese and we will require to develop structures and means better than to-day's clumsy democracy for us to exercise this peoples' control over science. It is going to part of Industrial Democracy, we will assume full and deeper direction of all industries, including as he said previously, the universities and the research labs  – those seats of learning are not neutral and perhaps will neve will be…and it takes heretics to shake them out of prevailing ideas. I don't think we and LBird have any serious disagreement on this and i have a thick enough skin to let his debating style bounce off and just giggle to myself when he has accused us of being Leninists. If he really thought that why is he on this forum so often trying to get us to mend our ways…he recognises the affinity he shares with us and not with the SWP or SPEW.

alan, I clearly agree with most of what you've written, but I still don't think the others (or you, even?) appreciate the implications for our revolutionary view of 'science'.'Reality' is a what we create, a 'reality-for-us'.'Nature' is what we create, a 'nature-for-us'.'Truth' is what we create, a 'truth-for-us'.The problem is, Lenin didn't agree with this – he held to a 'reflection theory of knowledge', as do all those who argue that they 'know' nature 'as it is'. And unfortunately, Engels also (at least in places, he was far more confused) argued for this 'copy or mirror' theory of knowledge.This is why I argue that those who don't accept Marx's method, that we create our world through social theory and practice, and so can change it (by different theory and different practice, producing a different 'object'), are in fact following Lenin and Engels.But on this issue of 'Leninism', the difference between the SWP and SPEW is that they are not democratic parties, and so minorities of workers arguing what I'm arguing cannot survive long enough to convince the cadre and thus remove the CC, but the SPGB, being democratic, has the possibility of being convinced to ditch 'Leninism in science'.Whether it does or not, of course, is yet to be decided.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

…what scientists are doing is not so much "discovering" the ouside world "as it is" as describing its course in a way that it can be more or less accurately predicted and so used to serve human purposes. …

ALB is correct here that "discovery as it is" is not what scientists do, but rather it is "creation as it is for us".This fits with Marx's claim that we create our object. Thus the 'objective world' is a world-for-us, our creation, a 'socially-objective world'. This is what Marx means by his differentiation of 'inorganic nature' (the ingredient into our social theory and practice) and 'organic nature' (the socially-objective world, created by us, for our social purposes).

ALB wrote:

In this sense, what is "true" would be what is "useful to human survival". That's my view but other members may have a different approach. I think it has something in common with this view of Marx's that  "truth" is demonstracted by practice.

Yes, but for Marx, the only 'practice' is social practice. This is not individuals' practice, but a social activity (ie. social labour). Thus, only the producers of their object can determine what is 'true-for-them'. Social labour produces 'truth-for-us'.

ALB wrote:

As he put it, in his Theses on Feuernach:

Quote:

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

For those unused to 19th century usage, when Marx write 'man' and 'his', he means 'humanity' and 'its'. Marx is not talking about individuals 'doing things', but about 'reality' being a 'reality-for-us'. The notion of a 'reality' which we can separate from our social practice, as Marx says, "is a purely scholastic question".But it doesn't stop the 'scholastics' talking about a'Mars' which is 'out there', which we 'know' simply 'as it is'.It soon becomes obvious that 'bourgeois science' is this 'scholasticism', which pretends to 'know'  a 'world' that is outside of our interests, purposes, ideas and practice. These are all amenable to democratic control, and will be in a socialist society, which will ensure that its social production is democratically controlled.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Your reply seems to indicate a grandiose sense of self importance and arrogant haughty behaviours. Two diagnostic points in one sentence. Well done, only 3 to go to meet the diagnostic criteria!

'a grandiose sense of self importance and arrogant haughty behaviours'?That sounds like two insults.Let's hope no-one is watching, eh?

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

Hi L BirdYou may find Brian's thread about Donald Trump provides you with a little bit of insight into your own life.

Hi TimYou may find engaging with this discussion provides you with a little bit of insight into your own ideology.

[LBird]

Quote:

…from around 1600 to 1700 a profound transformation in consciousness occurred, initially among the educated classes of Europe and England, but soon spreading, nearly everywhere through pamphlets, sermons, theater, and popular culture. In a nutshell, the new teaching was that nature consisted of dead matter. Through this lesson, a whole different understanding of "reality" was imposed on the population.

[LBird]

Some socio-historic context behind these issues.Dead on Arrival: The Fate of Nature in the Scientific Revolution

David Kubrin wrote:

The widespread social tensions, including the many dislocations, economic instabilities (rising rents, years of bad harvest, enclosures of common lands, etc.), growing landlessness among the peasantry, peasant uprisings, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, widespread religious warfare, and the various other transformations and upheavals of early modern times led to an actual Civil War and revolution in England. This lasted from 1642 until 1653. Then Oliver Cromwell took power as Lord Protector, replacing the monarchy, which was cut down with the revolutionary execution of Charles I in 1649.The Civil War appeared to pit Parliament against the Crown. But a number of truly radical groups, some on the fringes of power and composed for the most part of journeymen and apprentices, pushed for changes so revolutionary that they greatly alarmed the propertied classes represented by both the royalists and Parliament. These more radical groups, many holding to an absolute egalitarianism ("leveling") that to them was implicit in the Reformation, questioned and defied the most fundamental beliefs and customs. This included notions of private property and of sin (for a number of the radicals, the two were closely connected, if not indeed identical), as well as sexual behavior, the social role of women, and more. Some of the radicals were accused of engaging in group copulation in churches as part of their religious practice.

http://culturechange.org/issue20/deadonarrival.htmThese issues are related to 'materialism', which is a bourgeois ideology.

[LBird]

Sympo wrote:

Does the "correct" theory of truth have a name?

The problem is, Sympo, that 'correct' is a social judgement. What we're debating is the various 'social judgements' (or, 'ideologies') which produce the various 'theories of truth'.So, your 'correct' will be related to your choice of your own 'ideology'.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

This idiot should be banned permanently. And that's the truth.

[my bold]Another of the thickoes ventures an opinion, eh?Just because I showed that your ideological hero Searle was a bourgeois individualist, and you haven't the wit to argue back with me.Childish bastard.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

ALB wrote:

Actually, Sympo, while this theory, "naive realism" if you like, is alright for everyday living, it's not really adequate.  Our minds don't simply reflect or photograph the world out there "as it really is".

L.Bird wrote:

The difference in the ideologies of Engels' (and your) 'materialism', and Marx's (and my) 'idealism-materialism', is that the former sees 'external reality' 'as it is', outside of social activity (labour),…

YMS, I don't know why you bother to engage with this serial, and possibly congenital and attention-seeking, liar.

[my bold]You just can't help yourself, can you, and debate the philosophical issues, without insults?Here we go again.ALB, you're a clueless dickhead, who apparently is illiterate, and congenitally unable to control yourself.Try reading Marx, you wanker.

[Author]

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