twc
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stuartw2112 wrote:To believe thatsocialist reforms are not possible due to the nature of capitalism, you’d have to believe that Marx’s laws of capitalism are basically the same in nature as Newton’s laws.I don’t share this faith.To believe that it was the crisis itself that opened up the space for radical criticism is fair enough, but then again, someone had to move into that space – and the people who do that most energetically and successfully are probably those not burdened with beliefs in iron laws.It’s people like that that will find the way out, if there is one.
Before you get carried away with advocacy of anti-scientific pre-SPGB possibilism…Clearly demonstrate one anti-scientific possibilist success story out of the hundreds of thousands of anti-scientific possibilist legislative promulgations, anti-scientific possibilist charitable acts, anti-scientific possibilist human-lives sacrificed, that was not totally hijacked by capital and so rendered scientifically impossible.Just one, from way back to 1904, from anywhere in the worldI’ve earmarked your anti-scientific possibilist claims for future discussion.It ill behoves you, in response, to parade your accustomed moralism, when your declared aim is to unburdon your moralism’s miserable demoralization upon the SPGB.
In the 1983 Tasmanian State referendum to damn the Franklin River in a World Heritage wilderness [see “Franklin Dam Controversy” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Dam_controversy%5D, 33% of the electorate wrote No Dams across their ballot paper, so “spoiling it” but in the process saving the wilderness and bringing down a Federal Government.One-third of the electorate, given Tasmania’s compulsory voting, was a resounding vote of no confidence in a State government, cynically prepared to turn a referendum for yes-or-no into an above-or-below the junction of the Gordon river with the Franklin.Here is what those who “spoiled their ballot paper” saved http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rock_island_bend.jpg
By the way, DJP, do you accept my position on objective truth and formal beauty?I pointed out that scientific theory arises by abstracting away inessentials through analysis of the objective world. That is pure Marx.Scientific beauty arises by abstracting away inessentials through secondary analysis of the form of the abstract theory itself. Beauty is truly the wonder that arises when this secondary abstraction process reveals a deeper insight into the objective world from which the theory, in its original form, was abstracted.Einstein, in his formal description of general relativity, allowed his pursuit of abstracting away the inessentials to mislead him into tossing away an apparently innocuous constant, formally demanded by the theory, but upsetting its apparent “beauty”. He set a formal constant to zero. That, by the way, mirrors straightforward thoughtless practice, engaged in all the time in the vain hope of simplifying a problem.Unfortunately, the objective world was not quite so beautiful as Einstein’s original formalism. He missed the expansion of the universe and so the Big Bang.My point is not to denigrate Einstein’s general relativity formalism, which is one of the true wonders of human achievement. My point is otherwise.I want to encourage conviction in scientific formalism, the only sure-fire conviction we have.Dirac, when he introduced electrodynamics into quantum theory had the courage of conviction in his abstract formalism, and so comprehended his formal analysis to directly express objective nature. And, to the amazement of all, he formally discovered anti-matter.So far, “half” the world was missing, even though the anti-“half” was always present, though formally concealed, in the original formalism abstracted from the concrete world.Such stunning formal discoveries of the objective world are the life blood of abstract formalism. Mathematics thrives on them.Now, the socialist party too survives by conviction in its abstract formalism in its Obj and DOP. And there’s a helluva lot of implications lurking in that formalism.I fully understand those who feel uncertain over what appears to be “mere formal” conviction. If it helps, every scientist must first go through this native distrust of “mere formal” conviction before coming out the other side convinced of its efficacy. [We saw the miserable Sorel repudiating it earlier on.]Regarding conviction in theoretical formalism, the great mathematical physicist Lagrange offered the following advice to a doubting colleague, which I freely paraphrase:“Scientific formalism is practical. Use it, and conviction will come if it’s a correct understanding of the objective world. If you don’t use it, you aren’t in a position to judge.”Our Obj and DOP predict so much. They are formally potent. There is nothing more powerful than to “use” our abstract formal principles practically, as they were intended to be used by the party, in order to comprehend the capitalist world and to lead us into socialism.This has always been the party position, and no capitalist assault upon it has so far toppled it, but has merely sidelined it for immediately appealing sophisticated insipidity.
stuart wrote:The essay on Marx was by me – thanks for sharing, I'm glad you liked it. I wrote it just before joining the SPGB for the second time, and I can't find much to disagree with in it now.Sorry, Stuart, I misread that to imply you had rejoined the SPGB, and were still a member. Please accept my apologies for any implied slur upon your integrity. I respect your integrity, and honour it, even if I consider it misguided, as no doubt I have no need to tell you.Having followed your references, I imagine that I comprehend your political and intellectual stance.I wrongly assumed that I was defending the party from a determined internal attack upon it. Once more, please accept my apology.
Theoretical beauty is not an end in itself.Compare the transformation laws of Galileo and Einstein’s special relativity.Galilean transformation [Galileo 1] x′ = x – v t , [Galileo 2] t′ = t .Einstein [Lorentz] transformation. [Einstein 1] x′ = γ (x – v t) , [Einstein 2] t′ = γ (t – v x / c²) , [Einstein 3] γ = 1 / √(1 – v²/c²) .Galileo’s are far more elegant than Einstein’s, but are less general. Formal beauty most abounds when the general, by theoretical abstraction, is made more elegant, but only as far as nature will allow. [The Lorentz transformation is as elegant as it gets for special relativity.]Interestingly, Einstein overplayed his hand when he later set up his, truly beautiful, equations of general relativity. Unfortunately, guided [or misguided] by formal beauty, he spirited away the, apparently to him, “inessential” cosmological constant, which over-zealous beautification he later regretted as his “greatest mistake” because it prevented him from predicting an expanding [or contracting] universe.Finally, perhaps the most astonishing something-for-nothing act of formal beautification was Dirac’s courage to predict anti-particles. That strikes most physicists as truly astonishing.Formal beauty is ultimately subservient to the world outside us ≡ objective truth.
Sorry Stuart, but that is utter nonsense.You earlier presented the case for the morality of Marx and Engels. Either you meant it, or you are deluding yourself.They had their value systems, but that didn’t preclude them from explaining human values materialistically. Explanation can only destroy values that are not worth keeping. Genuine values are enhanced by explanation.Because Marx is a materialist, he must first abstract from the social superstructure, including its value systems, in order to explain them. Thus, man, for Marx, is “economic man” in the sense in which Marx defines “economic” in his famous Preface to the “Contribution”. Look it up.For genuine respect for human values, reread Engels’s wonderful “Origin of the Family”, which is genuine anthropology. Don’t fall for the consciously anti-marxian vulgarities that parade under the name of anthropology—see the Chris Knight reference I gave earlier. [Anthroplogy became deliberately anti-marxian in exactly the same way that economics did.]As for even considering human values, apart from extraordinary fine and brave courage in the face of fear, within the Soviet Union!E. P. Thompson, great and all as he was, and superb as his biography of William Morris remains, was tainted by Leninism.Take heart from the fact that the socialist party is the only bearer of socialism, and its standard theory surpasses the vaunted writings of those who are ignorant of our standard theory. Defending our standard theory is surely one of the worthiest of human values, if not the very worthiest.As to artistic values, if you find love and beauty in oriental poetry and philosophy, grasp it with all your heart. But also acknowledge its social context and its historical limitations.Most of the best art is historical—museum stuff, I recall Hegel, who loved the stuff, saying. To appreciate it, we do need to perform a mental context switch to comprehend and enjoy it, in approximation to its originator’s intent and its intended audience’s conceptions. But you’ve already explained you are a practiced adept at that.I’m not trying to destroy human value, and neither were those big hearts Marx and Engels. They held the highest of human values, though not those appropriate to a capitalist world. I thought that was a given. Who would fight for mankind without a big heart for one’s suffering fellows.
LBird, do you seriously suppose that if Pannekoek had even a whiff of evidence, that Engels was the precursor of Lenin’s empiriocriticism rant, he would have let him off scott free?I have just reread Pannekoek’s “Lenin as Philosopher” and he provides not a whiff of such evidence. On the contrary, he refutes this bogus charge of yours.Pannekoek’s single charge against Engels refers to Engels’s assertion of the organic chemistry industry as a practical social demonstration of the refutation of Kant’s unreachable “thing in itself”.Pannekoek claims that historical materialism alone is the refutation of Kant’s “thing in itself”, but Engels had more than conceded that, as a given, and already reached back further in history by saying that there was little one need add to Hegel’s magnificent demolition job on Kant’s “thing in itself”.Pannekoek is clearly affronted, or unsettled, by Engels’s infra-dig lowly industrial application, but human social production is the true marxian arena of social practice, and it was deliberately chosen by Engels as a very, non-academic, in-your-face assault for those dualists who don’t comprehend Marx, that “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”.I am inclined to agree here with practical Engels over theoretical Pannekoek. Affrontery be damned! The dualism of the great Kant now deserves it, because it has become an intellectual academic obstacle to socialism.Now, Pannekoek shows Lenin referring to Engels’s “Anti-Dühring” and “Ludwig Feuerbach” everywhere. Nothing surprising, since these were the obvious texts on marxian science.However, and this is crucial, Pannekoek goes to great lengths to show how Lenin abuses Engels’s texts to refute Mach and Avenarius, whose texts he equally abuses. He deliberately distances Engels from Lenin’s abusive practice.Finally, as clincher, Pannekoek, holds up the contrasting exemplary practice of Engels’s “Anti-Dühring” to condemn outright the ignorant and unscrupulous practice of Lenin.At a superficial level, Lenin simply taints everything he touches. But Engels’s work is too great, and survives and annihilates Lenin’s taint, just as Marx’s does, and so too does socialism.
Stuart, most of the above was directed at your lack of conviction in the DOP and Obj.If you think the party’s standard case is not worth defending, then you have a moral obligation to oppose it by bringing your objections out into the open, or a moral duty to the party to remove yourself from it, and set up or join an organisation whose objectives and principles you do find to be worthy of defence.Convince me why I should have any conviction in your case when you demonstrate such little conviction in it yourself. When asked why you condemn the party’s standard analysis of bolshevism, you refused to offer your own improved alternative. So far, you’ve supplied no more assurance than to accept on face value your own morality.
Then show us where the party’s standard theory is wrong. It deserves to know.Explain it clearly, and take your time.By the way, do you expect me to defend something I disagree with? Yet you apparently adhere to something you disagree with. If anyone has a moral duty to explain his action it is you.Please show us clearly where we are wrong. Start another thread, and I promise I’ll give you all the time you need, free of any carping interference from me, to make your case.
LBird, you’ve never once acknowledged Marx’s reference to objective truth, nor the countless times Pannekoek affirms his materialism, as I’ve just been reminded of upon rereading his “Lenin as Philosopher”.Surely such waywardness of erstwhile heroes deserves a snarl or bite from you.
It is historical social proof, the only one we know.No-one can historically know its ultimate status. Human practice, despite your carping, has no choice but to take it on trust as 100%. You and I act practically that way all the time, or else we would be practically paralytic before the possibility of uncertainty.Engels knows very well that he risks your variety of carping, but he is here prepared to challenge the dualists, like yourself, who stress the exact opposite of 0·000% proof, i.e. that we can never know, your very own defeatist slant, which he, as active agent of socialism, will have none of.If you were to apply your logic to the impossibility, and therefore the meaninglessness of Marxian proof by practice, I can just imagine you attempting to tie your own shoelace, assuming they exist with < 100% proof; < 100% certain they can be tied; < 100% confident they will hold your < 100% existing shoe in your < 100% actual foot, before you even < 100% walk out your < 100% door, never 100% certain of anything!Well, not everything. According to your crude economic determinism, you hold 100% irrefutable certainty that
wrote:any owner of socially productive property is a thief, a liar, and doesn’t have a clue about what they are really doing, and know nothing about the history of capitalism. That includes the queen, all religious leaders, The War Criminal Tony Blair, and The British, amongst others.Come on. Forget about psyching yourself up 24/7 [= 100%] to be an 100% ideological freak. Join the real world where people manage the possible with normal certainty. That’s ultimately what science is for. Science’s intellectual pleasure is a welcome byproduct.
By the way, it is your illusion that Engels is a naive realist. That is your Leninist-inspired prejudice.It is you who hold a direct correspondence “theory” of class/group/authority 100% determines “ideology”.
DJP wrote:What makes a theory beautiful?What is it that makes something seem true?Since we all survive because we can comprehend objective truth, however imperfectly, and because we can detect its opposite objective falsity, however imperfectly, the answer must be thoroughly prosaic.Setting aside our evolutionary heritage, the deepest, and unassailable, assessment was made by two well-known folks: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.Human action had solved the difficulty long before human ingenuity invented it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. From the moment we turn to our own use these objects, according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our sense-perception.If these perceptions have been wrong, then our estimate of the use to which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail. But, if we succeed in accomplishing our aim, if we find that the object does agree with our idea of it, and does answer the purpose we intended it for, then that is proof positive that our perceptions of it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside ourselves [≡ objective truth]. …In both materialist assessments, human practice is the ultimate arbiter. Theory is our necessary intermediary for comprehending
(1) “objective truth” ≡ (2) “reality outside of ourselves”.
All else is sophisticated blather.¹Beauty, in the context of theory, is a driving force, but ultimately practical, because theoretical beauty is a human construction designed to reduce the complexity of the form theory takes.Formal beauty is awe at our own creation when it turns out, by abstract excision of formal complexity, to reveal a hitherto undreamed of objective truth [≡ reality outside of ourselves]. It is the power of formal abstraction applied to formal abstraction [= theory] itself.There is nothing of deeper substance to add.If there is, prove it to me! ¹ Marx and Engels, like Hegel before them, treat “objective truth” and “reality outside ourselves” as historical social categories of thought.Stuart,I just reread your pleasant article. You know my quibbles over Lao Tzu, but I respect that you want his poem to be interpreted in its ancient context. I always consider that commentators overplay the seriousness of Marx’s critical-critic fisher scenario, forgetting that it’s also an intellectual joke at the expense of his young hegelian opponents.But, as a defence of the moral integrity of Marx and Engels, your article is first rate. Those two men are the most moral that society has ever produced. I won’t argue this here, but you have gone a long way towards proving it. Their activity and thought is our exemplary standard.
