robbo203
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As far as explaining crises is concerned , Kliman belongs to the (somewhat dodgy) "falling rate of profit" school of thought.. This might be an opportunity to question him on that and on the merits of disproportionality theory which is I believe the theory that the SPGB endorses. See Simon Clarke's cogent defence of the latter here https://marxismocritico.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/the-marxist-theory-of-overaccumulation-and-crisis.pdf
Meel wrote:I am wondering why we should be too bothered about the decline of religion, though. I would only think it mattered if, when religion declines, socialist consciousness increases, or at least some kind of conscious understanding of how society is constructed.Is there any evidence that this happens when beliefs in religions decline? Have they developed a higher socialist consciousness – as it would be defined on these pages – in China or Japan?I would have thought the opposite has been the case, on the face of it. Secularisation as a long term trend has coincided with a long term decline – relatively speaking – in socialist consciousness. What, for example, is the extent of socialist consciousness in formally secular or atheistic states? Some of the most ardent pro-capitalists I know of are convinced atheists Of course, correlation does not signify causation but we should be wary of any claim that the growth of secularism is something to be welcomed because it facilitates the spread of socialist consciousness. There is the counter argument that it far more likely facilitates the spread of "materialistic values" in the vulgar sense of the word i.e.. consumerism . To put it differently, an invisible god might very well simply be replaced by money as the focus of this new religion.
Meel wrote:If not, why should we worry about ordinary, "common or garden" religion? I do not mean the murderous fundamentalist or "intelligent design" kind, we can do without them.Absolutely. Couldnt agree more. It is simply not possible to generalise about religion or spirituality. Not every example, necessarily prevents one from wanting and coming to understand, the socialist objective or what is required to achieve it and we all know of personal examples where this is the case.
More on the subject of ritualistic cannibalism in the Paleolithic period here http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150416093928.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News+–+ScienceDaily%29 As article suggests cannibalism may have been "part of a customary mortuary practice that combined intensive processing and consumption of the bodies with the ritual use of skull-cups" A case of waste not, want not , I guess….Anyone for Seconds?
Richard wrote:Bingo! Give that man a cigar! That's what I've been trying to say all along! Different societies have placed different emphases on individuality but it was always there. We are individuals; to deny this is to deny our basic Humanity.Yes. I would say that this "over-socialised" model of the individual as lacking in individuality is something that sprang from 19th century sociology in the shape of people like Comte, Durkheim Tonnies etc. This marked a shift away from the 18th century Enlightenment idea of society as a contract between (rational, self interested and fundamentally atomised) individuals to the idea of society as a community bound together by moral obligations. You can see this in Tonnies very important distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft . Durkheim too, with his emphasis on the division of labour, sought to show how the form of solidarity between individuals (without which no society was possible) was changing: the mechanical solidarity of traditional societies based on the idea of similarity between individuals was being replaced by the organic solidarity of modern societies based on an advanced division of labour and hence marked differences between individuals – individuality! The religious ties that kept people together in traditional society (the word "religion" comes from the world " re-ligare" meaning to re-bind or re-connect – like the “ligament” which joins the muscle to the bone) were weakening in an increasingly secularised and mass urbanised society and people like Durkheim fretted over the implications of this development for the maintenance of social order. For that reason he advocated a kind of secularised religion in the guise of the state. The state should increasingly play the role that religion had played in traditional society What I'm trying to say here, and what this illustrates, is that the 19th roots of much contemporary sociology are in a sense fundamentally conservative and reactionary and we should be aware of this. The big theme of 19th sociology was, as I say, how to maintain social order in the context of a society undergoing disintegration with the rise of industrial capitalism. To that end the logic of the argument deployed by sociologists like Durkheim required that traditional societies be portrayed by way of contrast as completely lacking in individuality compared to modern societies (and, by implication, the expression of individuality was posited as being somehow problematic for modern societies). This was armchair Sociology based on theoretical deductions and abstract reasoning, not empirical investigation. 20th centruy Anthropology has repudiated this idea of traditional societies as lacking in individuality. However back in the 19th century Anthropology , Sociology's cousin, which focussed more directly on these supposed primitive traditional societies had clear links with the whole imperialist project and the "white man's burden" which it sought to justify in social darwinist terms. It too had a reactionary aspect to it – like Sociology Ironically, there is a sense in which it can be said that the greatest threat to individuality was capitalism itself – in the conformity it sought to impose in era of "Fordist mass production" and standardisation ( in the early 20th century). These days we have supposedly moved beyond this centralised "Fordist" conception of society in which "big is beautiful" into a post modern era underpinned by computer technology and the Internet , in which differences are supposedly celebrated and individuals are encouraged to "do their own thing". But while that seems like a good thing there is a reactionary twist to this as well in postmodernism's abandonment of all "grand metanarratives" (including Marxism for example) and in its determination not to see the wood for the trees. But thats another subject for another thread I guess….
alanjjohnstone wrote:http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150416-our-ancestors-were-cannibalsOf course cannibalism may not be a result of any violence but simply a utilitarian tactic for survival…why let potential food go to waste.It probably also has religious significance as seems to be the case for a number tribeshttps://spirituality.knoji.com/ritual-cannibalism-past-and-present/
Richard wrote:I'm tempted to just make a big bowl of popcorn and sit back and watch the fur fly, but I'll try to contribute! I think somewhere in here LBird mentioned "biological existence" and the "ideological concept" of the individual and maybe that's the key, or at least one number in the combination for the lock.How about this: I am a biological entity, an individual human being. However, since roughly the Renaissance the idea of individuality has been promoted for various reasons. Maybe the social concept of individuality was needed for the development of capitalism. From what little I know of Medieval society it was probably a more organic society than ours and as the influence of the Church declined in Europe that organic cohesiveness fell apart and before you could say "Protestant work ethic" everyone was buying smart phones! That's my version of Western history – eat your heart out, Kenneth Clark!So, we have biological individuals who came to see themselves more and more as socio-economic individuals. This socio-economic concept of individuality may be unique to Western society or it may be spread as capitalism spreads; maybe it's part and parcel of capitalism. I don't know.Hi Richard If you can get hold of a book called "Sovereign Individuals of Capitalism" by Abercrombie et al it is worth a read. The authors make a distinction between individuality and individualism – the latter being an essentially outer-oriented socio-economic concept whereas the former has to do with one's inner subjective life, one's apprehension of oneself as a distinct thinking feeling being There has always been individuality in this sense but the social emphasis placed on it has varied historically . For the overwhelming bulk of our existence as hunter gatherers , human beings exhibited a very marked degree of individuality. It went hand in hand with a fiercely egalitarian way of life. It was the rise of class society that brought about the attempt to suppress individuality – though as I have argued, this could not ultimately succeed and for which reason you had such things as "slaves revolts" predicated on a sense of outrage on the part of the slaves at the treatment they received The medieval organic society you refer to was a rigidly hierarchical one in which individuals were expected to know their "place". But even back in the 12th century or even earlier there were cultural inklings of developments that were to come like the practice of taking private confessions in church which was symbolically quite an important shift You saySo, we have biological individuals who came to see themselves more and more as socio-economic individuals. This socio-economic concept of individuality may be unique to Western society or it may be spread as capitalism spreadsThis is correct as far it goes except that what you are talking about is individualism not individuality! In fact , in many ways individualism pits itself against individuality and you cannot begin to understand the whole backlash of the Romantic movement against a "soulless" industrial capitalism without recognising this difference. It is absolutely key to everything about that movement It is individuality, not individualism, that socialists should be stressing and it ties in completely with our egalitarian ethos (remember the point about hunter gatherers!). What we oppose is individualism which is predicated on the idea of the self-interested atomised individuals competing with his or her fellows. Individuality is something totally different and ties in with the humanistic concept of the individual striving for self actualization (Maslow's hierarchy of needs)Marx and Engels were fierce advocate of individuality but opponents of individualism. This is absolutely clear from comments I have already posted like this oneWe have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces (German Ideology) In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”, (Communist Manifesto) My emphases
Dave B wrote:I think there is a natural bias in the way we look at things in an attempt to predict events from the starting or present position. Whether that is an accurate reflection of ‘reality’ is another matter.DaveThere is great quote from J.B.S. Haldane for you to savour“Teleology is like a mistress for a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public” (https://biologistsmistress.wordpress.com/)
Capitalist Pig wrote:ok so you guys are basicly saying that all science is formed from ideologies, which means there is no such thing as objective thinking because everything we know is based on ideologyHmm. I would put it somewhat differently – that there is no such thing as purely objective thinking. In the social sciences this refers to the problem of "reflexivity"- that we are part of the very thing we are meant to be "objectively" observing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_%28social_theory%29) But even in the physical sciences there is the "observer effect" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_%28physics%29) – that is quite apart from the other factors I mentioned and which Kuhn touched on in the formulation of scientific theories… Hope this helps!
CP, I think what LBird is trying to say but in his usual offensive and patronising manner is quite simply that science is not "value free" – that its agenda is shaped by economic interests and that the practice of its practitioners (the scientists) are ideologically informed. We can see this in the way scientists will cling on to their pet theory in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, for example T S Kuhn's famous 1962 work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is a seminal source in this regard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions) and is worth a read if you can get hold of a copy..Although the thought will horrify LBird, I actually agree with him on this point although I think on a quite a number of other points he is daft as a brush – particularly his unbelievably silly idea that the entire world population should vote on the "truth" of thousands upon thousands of scientific theories. Can you ever begin to imagine it … Its just that LBird has a habit of rubbing people up the wrong way. But don't be put off by his mannerism; on this point at least there is some sense in what he is saying
LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:Why won't you address these points?Because they are irrelevant.I've tried to talk to you about hunter gatherer society on a thread dedicated to that, but got nowhere.
Well ,you are the one who claimed that individuality and the concept of the " individual" was invented by "bourgeois society". I merely pointed out to you that that claim is patently false (see post 38). If you want to bury your head in the sand and continue ignoring the evidence on the grounds that it is "irrelevant" then that is entirely up to you. Ignorance is bliss but who am I do deny you a bit of bliss in your life
LBird wrote:I've tried to talk to you about 'individualism' on a number of threads, but got nowhere.You won't discuss your ideology.Rubbish. I have several times pointed out to you that my ideology is libertarian communism. I am neither an "individualist" (as you continue to misrepresent me as being) nor a holist (as you are) but take the view that individuals constitute society AND are constituted by society. Surely this will ring a few bells – even for someone as forgetful as you evidently are!
LBird wrote:You apparently think 'scientific knowledge' is 'true', rather than a social construct, created by 'theory and practice'.Rubbish again! And it all goes to show how little you bother to read what other people are writing. You criticize without attempting to get to know the first thing about what or who it is you are criticising.I have never said scientific knowledge is not a social construct or that it is somehow "value free". I am as strong an opponent of "positivism" as you are if not more so. All I did was to criticise your crackpot idea of 7 billion people democratically voting on the truth of thousands of scientific theories which totally ignores the reality of the social division of labour and the simple fact that no individual however scientifically gifted can ever acquire more than a tiny fraction of the sum total of scientific knowledge
LBird wrote:I've asked you to say what ideology you use to understand hunter gatherers, individualism, and science. But you won't answer.as above
LBird wrote:I've tried patience, comradely appeals, abuse, contempt, fawning, trickery, blackmail, violence, gang warfare…You've forgotten "misrepresentation" in that list but I suppose "trickery" might cover that
LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:I didn't say that LBird. Stop misrepresenting my position!Don't take things too seriously, robbo.Although I'm pretending that you've said things that you haven't, the purpose is to illustrate where what you are saying leads.
That too is a misrepresentatation LBird . Because where you claim what I am saying "leads to", doesnt actually lead to at all but in quite the opposite direction as I explained And I'm still waiting to hear from you regarding 1) the question of individuality in a hunter gatherer society and 2) what you make of Marx's view that the establishment of socialism/communism presupposes the development of the fully rounded individual rather than the other way round Why won't you address these points?
LBird wrote:For those who can't understand what a 'relationship' is, yeah.You'll be telling us next that, as long as a slave or a worker FEELS 'free', they ARE FREE!Individual feelings, eh? 'They can't imprison our minds!'I didn't say that LBird. Stop misrepresenting my position! What I said is that the slaves' reaction to their class exploitation in Ancient Rome would have been fuelled by a sense of anger at the treatment meted out to them. In fact the very opposite of what you are saying, is my position – namely the fact that those slaves would have reacted in the way they did because they consider themselves to be NOT free but, as you put it, a mere tool of the ruling class. My interpretation is thus fully compatible with a structural analysis you claim to present – though your conservative and ahistorical way of approaching the whole question completely prevents you from explaining why those slaves would have reacted in the way they did in the form of a slaves revolt. That is because you deny to them any semblance of individuality, any kind of inner subjective life at all. You are at one with the Roman ruling class in regarding them as mere "tools" in your mechanistic worldview. Your position is an elitist Leninist one whether you recognise this or not. Incidentally, I'm still waiting to hear from you regarding 1) the question of individuality in a hunter gatherer society and 2) what you make of Marx's view that the establishment of socialism/communism presupposes the development of the fully rounded individual rather than the other way round Or have you chickened out of volunteering a response? It wouldnt surprise me and it wouldnt be the first time either….
LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:the point is how did they FEEL about it.Yeah, individual feelings.Not an analysis based on socio-economic exploitation, ie. 'the point is' class.
Is that the best you can come up with, LBird?No response to my detailed argument about hunter gatherer society exhibiting a marked degree of individuality?No response to my argument that your mode of explanation makes for a thoroughly static and ultra conservative view of history?No response to my suggestion that contrary to you, Marx and Engels saw the all-rounded development of the individual as a precondition of communism rather than a result? Of course, I haven't gone into a detailed analysis of the socio economic exploitation of the slaves in Ancient Rome (I rather assume that on this forum we can take this for granted!). That doesn't mean i don't think they were exploited as a class. Certainly they were and I am not denying that in the least. But in the context of this debate we are talking about their sense of individuality which you deny they had ("the individual" was only invented by bourgeois society, you claim). I say your whole argument is thoroughly flawed from start to finish and that you could not begin to explain why the slaves occasionally revolted if you suppose that they had no feelings about the treatment they received but just meekly accepted or internalised the ruling class view of them as "tools"The feelings of resentment they undoubtedly felt (which presuppose a subjective inner life and thus a sense of individuality) are inseparable from the fact that they are exploited as a class,. The two things go hand in hand but as usual you cannot see this in your simplistic black-or-white, all-or-nothing view of the world…
LBird wrote:Richard wrote:Individuals obviously exist and have existed since before capitalism.You're wrong, Richard.You're making a common mistake, based upon your socialisation/education/brainwashing, which we all suffer from, and have to fight, of equating 'biological existence' with 'ideological concept'.The universal statement that 'I'm an Individual', which everybody is taught to repeat like a mantra, would not be made in other societies in the past. In a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual' (an concept which contains the belief in autonomy, which they knew that they didn't have).
Not this again. I repeat again the point that has been made on numerous occasions to LBrid which he still does not seem to have heeded. For the vast majority of existence on this planet we lived in a hunter gather form of society. In such a society individuals exhibit an extremely high degree of individuality. I can cite numerous sources in support but just at random check out this excellent article by Peter Gray http://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/1-4-article-hunter-gatherer-social-existence.pdf. It is a long article but well worth reading through…. Gray contends that a hunter gatherer mode of governance is characterised by voluntary participation, autonomy, equality, sharing and consensual decision making. He compares this mode of governance to social play. There are numerous passages in the article that illustrate the individuality of hunter gatherers but at random here's one"A crucial ingredient of play is the sense of free choice. Players must feel free to play or not play and must invent or freely accept the rules. Workers who must follow blindly, step-by-step, the directions of a micromanaging boss are the least likely to consider their work is playful. Hunter-gatherers have developed,to what our culture might consider a radical extreme, an ethic of personal autonomy. They deliberately avoid telling each other how to behave, in work as in any other context. Each person is his or her own boss." "Individual autonomy" is the essence of their individuality and goes hand in hand with their "fiercely egalitarian" (Richard Lee) culture. It is also the basis of their mode of conflict resolution: internal conflicts within the band are resolved through a process of group fissioning. The aggrieved individuals simply break away from the group should others within the group seek to encroach on and diminish their personal autonomy. Punishment and revenge was also radically decentralised and typically concern only the immediate parties involved in a disputeIn his 1999 book, Hierarchy in the Forest, Christopher Boehm put forward evidence in support for what he called the "reverse dominance theory" – that is, early human society broke away from the pattern of primate society by instituting an arrangement which suppressed or negated the influence of alpha males within the group. In its place the personal autonomy, or individuality, of every individual in the group was fundamentally asserted LBird has asserted that " the individual" was something that was invented by bourgeois society a few hundred years ago. He could not be more wrong if he tried. A marked degree of individuality was a characteristic of over 95% of our time as a species on this planet and is inseparable from the egalitarian mode of existence that our hunter gatherer forbears enjoyed
LBird wrote:To the Romans, a slave was an instrumentum vocale (a speaking tool). An agricultural implement was an instrumentum mutum (a non-speaking tool), and a farm animal was an instrumentum semi-vocale (a noisy tool).In this society, many people were 'tools' not 'individuals'. We can analytically separate out them as 'biological individuals', and still understand that this is nothing to do with the bourgeois belief that everybody holds of being 'an individual'.Inadvertently, this reveals more about LBird's ideology than it does about anything else. To a Roman slave owner, a slave may well be just a tool but what of the slaves themselves? LBird is embracing the ruling class view of the slaves. He contendsIn a slaveowning society, for example, all the slaves did not go around declaring that 'I'm an individual'. It was as clear to them, as to the slaveowners, that they were the property of someone, not 'an individual'This is to totally miss the point. The slaves might have dully recognised that they were institutionally enslaved but the point is how did they FEEL about it. That is surely the litmus test of their individuality.. Did they or did they not have an inner life, a subjectivity, that chafed against the social oppression they endured? Apparently not according to LBird In fact what LBird is expressing here is an ultra conservative ideology of holistic totalitarianism -that individuals are totally malleable to the dictates of something called "society" . He is a Durkheimist, rather than a Marxist, who reifies this thing called society and invests it with an objective existence over and above individuals . A Marxist would take a radically different perspective to LBird and would see the relationship between individuals and society as a reciprocal one in which the individual both constitutes society and is constituted by society: Or as Marx put it "It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances. (German Ideology)LBird's ultra conservatism makes also for an utterly static conception of history. He cannot begin to explain why for example there was such a thing as slaves revolts in Ancient Roman if, as he contends, the slaves thoroughly internalised their masters' view of themselves as mere "tools" and disregarded their own feelings of resentment at the way they were treated
LBird wrote:Within this socio-historical framework of understanding ourselves as humans, we can see that only with the dawn of Communism will a society exist which aims from the start to produce all-round 'individuals'.Except of course and this is what is so damaging to LBird's whole thesis, Marx and Engels took the very opposite position to the one he advocates. The all rounded individual is a precondition for the dawn of communism to materialiseWe have further shown that private property can be abolished only on condition of an all-round development of individuals, precisely because the existing form of intercourse and the existing productive forces are all-embracing and only individuals that are developing in an all-round fashion can appropriate them, i.e., can turn them into free manifestations of their lives. We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces (German Ideology)
Thanks Gnome – that is a very useful quote, indeed.Atkinson's various points are quite damaging to the argument that Rifkin makes about the prospect of a so called "zero marginal cost society" but his passing reference at the end to the Communist Manifesto reminds me again that there is a school of thought out there that predicates the possibility of communism/socialism on precisely the kind of stuff that Rifkin is talking about – where there is a technologically based superabundance of everything and where the costs of producing anything is so low as to be hardly worth putting a price tag on them. I think we need to be very wary of these technological cornucopians and their techno utopian ideals. They are sending out quite the wrong message – that it is technology rather than human beings that is the master/mistress of our fate. I suppose I am like most people here in believing that a socialist or communist society was technically feasible decades ago – certainly long before IPads were a twinkle in somebody's eye – and that what was, and is, lacking is simply the subjective preconditions for such a society – mass revolutionary consciousness We don't need for capitalism to be so crippled by it's own contradictions to the point where it can barely function at all as a viable system in Rifkin's sense in order for socialism /communism to become possible. Because if we are going to have to wait for a "zero marginal cost society" to materialise under capitalism we are going to have to wait forever. At least in my book.
