Young Master Smeet
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Nicely avoided. Lets examine the assumptions here. 1)That there are a very wide number of areas of enquiry which we will need, in a socialist society, to explore.2) Not everyone will want to be scientists, or to explore certain topics of interest.3) Some scientific equipment takes time and training to learn how to use (some, like the CERN Collider take years of planning to use).4) It takes considerable time to read through raw data, sort it and turn it into useful information.So, lets look at socialism. Lets assume that we have reduced the working week to two days (a not wholely unrealistic assumption) and we have decided, collectively, that science work is not included in those two days (it can be people's hobby). We collectively decide to make resources available, in terms of libraries, communication technology, conference facilities, competitions, laboratories with equipment (and we provide that in abundance, abundance in this sense being that supply meets demand).Some anally retentive types will spend time simply collecting data, assiduously drawing every leaf they can find, or looking at the crystaline structure of rocks, classifying beetles.Their science, being necessarilly social, will be communicated to otehrs, others who have not done the experiement, studied the beetle, smushed the rock, they will produce data from which otehrs will draw inferrences, or find refutations of their own hypotheses (or confirmations), which will also be communicated, people would then make up their own minds, possibly using critical realism, which posits a real world upon which our investigations works, and whilst acknowledging the historicity of knowledge attained also does allow us to draw value judgements between scientific investigations. the real world will constrain the things we can say about it, no science can make the moon to be made of cheese (unless we decide to build and launch a cheese moon).That I what i think science for socialists looks like.
Gnome: There is no obligation on members to be hostile to all other parties, that is an obligation on the party and functionaries of the party. The only obligations of membership are to pay a voluntary contribution and not join or assist any other political organisation. A vote in a referendum or plebiscite is not supporting or assisting any other political organisation, but making a political decision as a member of the community. Let's not forget that voting no would be 'support' for a different political set up/nationalism.There is a difference between supporting a national liberation movement, and voting in a referendum. So we'd not expect our members to campaign for an independence referendum, and I would expect our mandated speakers to oppose nationalism, and give the class perspective (and urge a spoilt ballot).We've identified that there is no class issue at hand here, workers neither benefit nor lose from independence. Some might have strategic/tactical reasons for voting yes (creative chaos, destroying British military and diplomatic power on the world stage, a hatred of Berwick, etc.).
SP, at the risk of verging off topic: no I don't consider socialism to be an ideology. I consider it to be the reutation of ideology. One of the problems with the concept of ideology, is that if it is eternal, and everyone is wrapped up in it, then how can some people claim to see out of it? It seems a ready made gift for Leninist vanguards (and, indeed, did become an issue when the vanguards seized power, and found themselves fighting the workers, the vanguard were free of ideology, and needed to rule against and over the workers blinded by it). The point of socialism is to free us from the distortions of power (and the need to maintain power) and instead live our lives in conscious accord with our own experience.Lbird: back to topic. Let me ask this. In socialism, in your democratic model, we'll still need technical experts to oeprate delcate experimental equipment, to conduct experiements and survey correctly: we can't all do the experiements and collate the data. So what we'll be voting on would be the 'selected facts'. Since we're rational people, we'll come to the conclusion the 'selected facts' demand: so won't we still be enslaved to the "enlightened" scientists? After all, we all know how appointed staff can end up controlling their oversight committees. Won't the vote, which will make all of us complicit in their facts in actuality make it harder to oppose and dispute with the scientists?
Alan, the party is the tool of the class, not the otehr way round, whilst we try and educate and inform workers of their interests, in referendums and plebiscites they make up their own mind on a given issue, and vote as they see fit on a case by case basis. The party campaigns as they instruct, not vice versa. The only obligation on membership is not to belong to any other political organisation.
SocialistPunk wrote:Ideology is in essence a word that refers to human ideas and concepts in a way that forms a joined up thinking, such as a world view or belief system, usually with a goal in mind. This is the meaning of the word ideology to most people. I say most people because philosophers do not behave as most people do, they seem to see the world in an ever more complex spiral of hidden meaning and can wax lyrical about the most banal everyday words adding multiple meanings and a myriad of contexts.Or, the word has been moved from its original uses, to simply mean any set of ideas, itself an ideological move to robn the word of meaning and to protect ideologists. Common sense is ideology, so you generally have to step away from copmmon meanings of words. If ideology is a system of ideas, then we need some other term for the process of the imposition of class dominance i the domain of ideas.
"…we know reality because it's before our eyes …"Our*ahem*Our.But what you're saying isn't really any much different from the standard hypothesis-experiement-knowledge schema of standard science (they just don't delve very far into where the hypothesis comes from, but we can say it stems from either experience or theory). Through knocking rocks to dust, experiementally, we've found and observed crystaline structures, chromatic signatures, fossils (yes) and we've had to account for them and learn about them at each stage. What you are saying is not radical, not over throwing the domiant ideas of science, or changting anything. All you're doing is knocking down empiricism, which nobody really holds any more.The scientific debate, ruthless criticism of all that exists, is open ended.
LBird wrote:YMS wrote:Answer, it doesn't matter, so long as the same shade/wavelength is consistently called the same thing by both of us.So, the answer is a popular vote?
No, the answer is ongoing dialogue and discussion.
Lbird wrote:Will you abide by a vote, YMS, or return to the elitist insistence, constantly made by you on this thread, that your individual senses (which you also deny are socially-produced) are a better judge of 'reality' than a democratic vote?I have never denied that individual senses are socially produced, you'll not be able to find a single instance of such a statement, you'll only find your own erroneous interpollations. I've simply said that I believe a vote would be a hinderance to the social production of knoeldge, and undemocratic. Why do you p[ersist in wanting to curtail democracy?
Lbird wrote:Have you now accepted that 'truth' is a social product, and not a 'copy of reality' which allegedly can be determined by an elitist method, which is not available to the proletariat?Have you recanted your religious claims, YMS?Yes, I've also stopped beating my wife. That is, I never, I mean, I haven't…Anyway, nonsense aside. What I wanted to point out today was that Lbird first premise is flawed, practitioners of science, even simple advocates of induction, fdon't even claim to discover the truth, theyy all acknowledge that their discoveries are contingent and may be overturned by "ruthless criticism of all that exists", by the ongoing collaborative process that is science. That is, science is a proletarian product.
I mentioned the non-ideological methiod, the first premise being that reality itself sets limits on truth claims, not that truth claims copy or spring from reality. To take the old prblem of minds. If I see green, how do I know that you aren't seeing the colour I call red? Answer, it doesn't matter, so long as the same shade/wavelength is consistently called the same thing by both of us.
I don;'t see the problem with what thopse members are saying. AFAIK we haven't agreed action line on the referendum, and iot's been noted over recent years that we can and will vote according to how we perceive class interests in referendums and plebiscites. Memebrs are not mandated. I can't recall, I think I may have voted yes in the AV referendum. I have to confess, seeing the big guns of the establishment being briought to bear would make me think about voting yes to tweak their noses.
In some of the debates around ideology, a lot of time is spent on the phrase 'social being determines social consciousness' if 'determines' is taken as meaning causes, we have a problem, since that would suggest that social being will always produce consciousness and there is no way out of the consciousness of the reproduction of everyday life. One move is to say 'determines' means sets limits, as in determining a boundary. In this way social beiong just sets limits (which can be tested) and ideas can change and varyy with greater ease.It becomes valuable, therefore, to also say that reality edtermines science, i.e. that reality sets limits on the truth claims that can be made about it. We cannot claim that the Moon is made of Cadbury's Whispers. No amount of distortion can change that. Seen in that way, a science that corresponds with reality is possible, and a non-ideolofgical science is possible. This non-ideological science may well be historical, since the truth claims it makes are determined by its social being, but in the sense of limits, not causes.
I think this topic is slightly too important to let go, and get distracted with personalities.Marx' dialogue with Bakunin is highly relevent to thius topic. Indeed, Bakunin takes a science skeptic view:https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1873/statism-anarchy.htm
Bakunin wrote:We must respect the scientists for their merits and achievements, but in order to prevent them from corrupting their own high moral and intellectual standards, they should be granted no special privileges and no rights other than those possessed by everyone – for example, the liberty to express their convictions, thought, and knowledge. Neither they nor any other special group should be given power over others. He who is given power will inevitably become an oppressor and exploiter of society.But we are told: “Science will not always he the patrimony of a few. There will come a time when it will be accessible to all.” Such a time is still far away and there will be many social upheavals before this dream will come true, and even then, who would want to put his fate in the hands of the priests of science?It seems to us that anyone who thinks that after a social revolution everybody will be equally educated is very much mistaken. Science, then as now, will remain one of the many specialized fields, though it will cease to be accessible only to a very few of the privileged class. With the elimination of class distinctions, education will be within the reach of all those who will have the ability and the desire to pursue it, but not to the detriment of manual labor, which will be compulsory for all.Indeed, Bakunin was right that scientists should not be given special privileges, however, his rejection of the democratic method, which Marx also opposed, is his weak point (along with a his kind of romantic anti-science that rejects sociology on principle).Obviously, if we are to run society on rational lines, we need the best6 evidence we can get, and we would need a free and independent field of enquiry, else we'd be like foolish bosses who surround themselves with yesfolks.
Well, it seems to be Marx' theory
Quote:they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece.So Lbird doesn't agree with Marx, neither. I also have to wonder when "our" became a singular pronoun.In any event, the above extracts tell us a couple of interesting things. that Marx' socialism was not some sort of scientism (of which he has been sometimes accused) nor technocratic, but that "scientific" was merely a designator to oppose Utopian socialists, and also that Marx did not consider that any sort of superior elite would run society on everyone's behalf. Also, this relates to how democratic Marx' vision of revolution was, again, he puts the class, active for itself at the centre stage.That is the "social movement made by the people itself;" which does indeed include scientific workers of all stripes. The call is to be conscious of both what this movement does, and what it can achieve. But, note, Marx' call to "limit" that consciousness to that active role.
I thought we were discussing what Marx said: we know reality because it's before our eyes and we act upon/within it and change it (and in so doing are changed ourselves).
Quote:they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece.that's pretty unequivocal, wouldn't you say?Hang on a sec. You're a communist? When did that happen? I'm shocked. Shocked and surprised. I never knew.
I suspect your interpollations are slightly redundant, "historical movement" can be understood to include "class struggle", I'd have thought. It seems to me to be a call for the Socialists, "the theoreticians of the proletarian class" to align itself with the realiy of the class struggle, instead of aligning with abstract utopian models of how a society could work, and instead seek to understand "they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become its mouthpiece." The "Doctrinaire science" Marx is addressing is the utopian science of the working class, not the bourgeoisie. Teh reality of class struggle imposes itself above and beyond theory.That's how I'd read the section. Science has to follow reality.
