Conversation between Mod1 and LBird
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Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:You, like robbo, YMS and the others, mcolome1, should actually start to read what I write, and not live in a mythical world of outrage, ignorance and misunderstanding.
Elementary science suggests we have read what you wrote, and reacted to it: so maybe the problem is with how you communicate your ideas. Or maybe the problem is with the ideas themselves. It is a key feature of elitism to assume that your audience is at fault for not understanding your arguments, don't you think?
Absolutely YMS, The problem is not that we dont read what LBird has written but that he does not grasp, and does not want to grasp, the utter stupifty of the implications of what he has written. And he hides this behind the mock protest that others have misunderstood him. Poor misunderstood LBlrd! Of course it doesnt help when he refuses to answer a straight question with a straight answer which is the typical strategem of somebody who has something to hide. In LBird's case a piss-poor argument in favour of Leninist-style society wide decisionmaking over everything. That is what he really advocates when he says democracy should have no limits
Young Master Smeet wrote:It is a key feature of elitism to assume that your audience is at fault for not understanding your arguments, don't you think?But I do think that you understand my arguments, from your anti-democratic, Engelsian, Religious Materialist perspective.That's what I keep telling you, that you need to examine your own ideology.The reason you don't like my arguments, is that they are democratic, and you all seem to want 'specialists' to make our social production decisions for us.So, YMS, read this post, and stop making up stories about what I'm supposedly writing. As for robbo's "Outraged Individualist!" account of 'my ideas', I've given up trying to correct him. If you and the others want to attack robbo's account, be my guest.The problem is, as anyone who's reading these exchanges, and has read Marx, Engels, Gramsci, Pannekoek, etc., is that they can see why I'm writing what I do, and why I'm critical of the SPGB, as its supporters represent its ideas here. I'm inclined to think that I'm justified in thinking that these online views represent the wider SPGB, because not one other SPGB-inclined poster has shown any critical awareness of the 'mainstream' SPGB view of science, epistemology, maths, logic, etc.
LBird wrote:I'm inclined to think that I'm justified in thinking that these online views represent the wider SPGB, because not one other SPGB-inclined poster has shown any critical awareness of the 'mainstream' SPGB view of science, epistemology, maths, logic, etc.jondwhite wrote:I have found the excerpt in question and actually it comes from an article I used as a preface in the printed book.Quote:The conviction that not merely dialectical materialism but materialism in general was inherently self-contradictory (in the sense, for example, that it postulates a completely objective reality independent of or essentially unrelated to the knowledge of it, which however is and can only be a mere abstract concept and thus completely subjective) brought Harold Walsby to a general systematic critique of Marxist political assumptions, especially in far as they turn on the view that men’s consciousness is basically formed by or dependent on their material conditions of existence. Insisting that consciousness, or thought, also had its own independent nature and laws of operation, and thus was in a vital sense self-determined, Walsby eventually arrived at the concept of a hierarchy of forms or modes of thinking such that each level or “layer” of thought is more highly organised, more systematic, more detached and rational, especially in its view of society and social problems, than its predecessor – and also less extensive quantitatively (i.e. held by fewer people). Thus he held that the programme of such a body as the S.P.G.B., resting as it did on the assumption that a majority of people could become imbued with a critical, rational view of the social order, was vitiated by the inherently self-limiting nature of the development of thought.The trouble is, JDW, we've discussed Walsby's views before, and whatever they represent (even if they are critical of the SPGB), his views are nothing to do with the views that I've put forward, or of Marx, Gramsci, Pannekoek, etc., etc.Unless someone takes note of what I'm writing, rather than a 'myth' of robbo's making, or a 'Walsby' that I've already dismissed, then I'm still entitled to draw the conclusion that the SPGB are adhering to Engels' 'materialism' (whether Walsby opposed it from his own particular viewpoint or not).
LBird wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:It is a key feature of elitism to assume that your audience is at fault for not understanding your arguments, don't you think?But I do think that you understand my arguments, from your anti-democratic, Engelsian, Religious Materialist perspective.That's what I keep telling you, that you need to examine your own ideology.
I am a democratic communist, unlike you, Lbird. I'm not the one who has to twist Marx's words so that when he says "material" he means "social".
Lbird wrote:The reason you don't like my arguments, is that they are democratic, and you all seem to want 'specialists' to make our social production decisions for us.Go on, find one quote where I actually said that?
LBird wrote:So, YMS, read this post, and stop making up stories about what I'm supposedly writing.But you have just said I do understand what you are saying?
LBird wrote:So, YMS, read this post, and stop making up stories about what I'm supposedly writing. As for robbo's "Outraged Individualist!" account of 'my ideas', I've given up trying to correct him. If you and the others want to attack robbo's account, be my guest.LOL LBird you are a laugh-a-minute. If you think my interpretation of your worldview is incorrect and that you do not after all endorse the Leninist position of ultra-centralised society-wide decisionmaking – turning the whole of society into a single office and a single factory in Lenin's words – then you have a simple course of action available to you. – DENY THAT YOU ADVOCATE SUCH A THING! You say you have "given up" trying to correct me on this . Really? When have you ever tried to begin with, huh? By my reckoning you have not tried even once to "correct " me on this but have shied away from any serious debate on this matter every time . You never once said "I do not advocate society wide central planning". Not even once. I have given you opportunity after opportunity to say "I do not support such thing". But not once have you taken such an opportunity So here is a very simple question for you LBird – I dunno why I even bother asking you given your track record of evasion but what the hell. My question is simply this: Do you believe that in communism there will be local forms of democracy as well as regional and global forms? In other words, will there be cases where democratic praxis limited to local communities? Can you you answer this simple question without your usual equivocation?. Its a simple enough question, after all, and it will salvage your position at a stroke and send your critics into disarray if only you can answer it correctly. We will no longer have grounds for calling you the orthodox Leninist you appear to be
It is ironic. On his little mental world, LBird has said that we are Leninists, but he is rendering worshipping to Leninists like Gramsci, and Luckacs, a member of the School of Frankfurt, a center that has been supported by many Trotskyists personalities, and the Marxist-Humanists.Those groups have considered that the Soviet Union was socialist until Joseph Stalin took power, and that State Capitalism was established in 1930, and that Lenin was a socialists. Gramsci has been rejected by Leninists organization like the International Communist Current, and they have rejected most of the thinkers of the Italian left. Leninists rejecting LeninistsBoth individuasl have supported the Vanguard Party concept which is a conception of the Jacobin, praised by Karl Kautsky, Ferdinand Lasalle, and Vladimir Lenin, a very super-democratic concept which says that workers must be controlled from the top to the bottomLike they says, the killer of the cow is the one that hold knife and the one that holds the legs. If your support Leninists you are supporting Leninism.There is one thing that we must be carefull with him is that he like to makes up phrases and citation that members of these forum have never said, and he likes to take phrases out of context to prove his invalid allegations
Lukacs on his book on Class Consciouness he indicated that the Vanguard Party was the class consciouness of the working class which means that the workers can never obtain consciouness by themselves, that is the same thought of Lenin, and Ferdinand Lasalle. Isn't that an elitist conception ? Isn't LBird constantly saying that we are elitists, and he is recomming elitist thinkers ?
This is the opinion of a Marxist-Humanist organization like News and Letter, who also advocates for the conception of Materialism-Idealism, This is what they are saying about Gramsci:http://newsandletters.org/philosophic-dialogue-dunayevskayas-may-12-1953-letter-hegels-absolutes-gramscis-organic-party/N&L is an organization that since its very beginning rejected the concept of the Vanguard Party to lead, but like CLR James they never rejected Leninism completely. Have we ever supported the conception of the the Vanguard Party to lead ? So, who is the elitist?
robbo203 wrote:Can you you answer this simple question without your usual equivocation?.He can't, Robbo. I have been asking for a couple of years. He will probably call you a "anti-democratic, Engelsian, Religious Materialist "I have been called worse but that's all he has: Some stupid phrases he repeats when he has no reply. I am sure we materialists all have better things to do than waste our time on an elitist, leninist idealist.
mcolome1, I can only appeal, once again, for you to read what I write, rather than to use your imagination.I agree with your political criticisms of Lukacs, Gramsci, Kautsky, Lenin, Dunayevskaya, etc.I've never told anyone to agree with everything that those thinkers have written.What I've tried to do is to get you lot to actually read what these thinkers have written, as a basis for a discussion about Engels' 'materialism'. Many of the books they've written shed much light on the differences between Engels and Marx.But, because they are often critical of Engels, doesn't mean that their own political recommendations are any better.
Vin wrote:robbo203 wrote:Can you you answer this simple question without your usual equivocation?.He can't, Robbo. I have been asking for a couple of years. He will probably call you a "anti-democratic, Engelsian, Religious Materialist "I have been called worse but that's all he has: Some stupid phrases he repeats when he has no reply. I am sure we materialists all have better things to do than waste our time on an elitist, leninist idealist.
Well its a simple enough question – does Lbird support local forms ot democracy that limit decisionmaking to the locals who are affected by these local issues. Or is LBird a Leninist who advocates ultra centralism? Why is he so reluctant to answer I wonder?
robbo203 wrote:Well its a simple enough question – does Lbird support local forms ot democracy that limit decisionmaking to the locals who are affected by these local issues. Or is LBird a Leninist who advocates ultra centralism? Why is he so reluctant to answer I wonder?Yes, a simple, straight foward question. I eagerly await his reply.
LBird wrote:mcolome1, I can only appeal, once again, for you to read what I write, rather than to use your imagination.I agree with your political criticisms of Lukacs, Gramsci, Kautsky, Lenin, Dunayevskaya, etc.I've never told anyone to agree with everything that those thinkers have written.What I've tried to do is to get you lot to actually read what these thinkers have written, as a basis for a discussion about Engels' 'materialism'. Many of the books they've written shed much light on the differences between Engels and Marx.But, because they are often critical of Engels, doesn't mean that their own political recommendations are any better.LBird, I have read all of them, and I was part of that movement too, and they are wrong on many aspects. and I was mistaken too, and I wasted my time with them, and I used to know personally, the most distinguished members of that movement, even more, I should have encountered the SPGB when I was 18 years old. You are the one guessing and assuming, as a lawyer you will lose your case, because you are based on wrong facts and coming to conclusion without making the proper historical investigationYou are just doing what you have always done, which is to look for all kind of excuses in order to cover yourself. You do not have any intellecutal honesty. Those are arguments that we have discussed in another thread where you received several knocks out and you never ansswered back. This is like the old telephone taperecorder which operated on an endless repetition, and you always repeat the same arguments without solid foundationYou run away like a coward, and then, you comeback like a sniper shooting everything that moves in front of you. We already know your tactics. I repeat you do not have any intelectual honesty and you do not have any courage in order to recognize your mistakes. I have something better to do,
Vin wrote:robbo203 wrote:Well its a simple enough question – does Lbird support local forms ot democracy that limit decisionmaking to the locals who are affected by these local issues. Or is LBird a Leninist who advocates ultra centralism? Why is he so reluctant to answer I wonder?Yes, a simple, straight foward question. I eagerly await his reply.
Sit inside your coffin and wait for the reply. He does not have the balls to confront the true
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