Gnostic Marxist
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alanjjohnstone wrote: “I note, LBird, that my Pannekoek reference goes without comment that your seeming fixation with quoting Marx’s philosophical understanding is unnecessary for workers to make the socialist revolution, which was an earlier observation of mine that despite his contributions, the workers doesn’t require Marx or the turgid interpretations of his acolytes such as yourself to know what is in their interest and how to make a revolution by the intellectual intervention of any elite.”
My apologies, alan, but moving this conversation onto what parts of Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Pannekoek, etc., that we think are wrong/improvable/correct is pointless until we get to some point where we understand each others’ ideological perspective, as a basis of our differing assessments of wrong/improvable/correct. This is proving difficult because the materialists can’t recognise their own ideology, so they will have immense difficulties understanding any other, and comparing them.
Suffice to say, I have differences with Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Pannekoek, etc., as I’ve said before, so your dig about ‘seeming fixation’ just shows that you are still not reading what I write, but are siding with the ideology of ‘materialism’, but also pretending that you are too thick to question it. Your words, not mine, comrade.
But, on this particular point of yours, yes, I do think that “philosophical understanding is necessary for workers to make the socialist revolution”. This can be done quite easily, by making philosophy understandable.
Your view (and it seems Pannekoek’s) would leave the ‘theory’ part of ‘theory and practice’ in the hands of a ‘philosophical elite’, and so that elite would drive ‘theory and practice’, not the associated producers by democratic means.
You might be happy with your ignorance of philosophy, alan, but I think that you’re going to have to address the issue eventually. I’ve offered to help, but it’s your ‘materialist’ ideology which prevents you accepting both the need to learn and my help.
So, yes, mass understanding and criticism of Marx is required for a socialist revolution.
‘seeming fixation’
Almost eight long years on the same topic, and i was trying to soften the conclusion to fixation and not make any psychological diagnosis of OCD
There are many things in the universe that i am blissfully ignorant of, such as the molecular structure of COVID-19 virus and very happy to leave to those who make a specialised study of it after they have spent years gaining the basic biological background knowledge to even attempt to investigate it. I happily delegate the responsibility of that to a scientific elite.
What i will do, however, is use my own learned experience to try and create the environment for that elite to operate freely within, without the constraints of capitalism being imposed upon them. That is what i consider to be my function as a class-conscious socialist.
That does not put me at the mercy of any intellectual elite but both of us operating with reciprocity. I want to free the scientist so that they can begin to free me.
yes, I do think that “philosophical understanding is necessary for workers to make the socialist revolution”.
Ballocks.
Class consciousness and class interest will suffice.Class-consciousness. The objective social position of the working class is that they stand in an antagonistic relation to the capitalist class. When the working class become aware of this antagonism, the subjective dimension of class, they can abolish capitalism and establish socialism. As Marx put it, workers would develop from a class in itself (a common class position but without workers being aware of it), to become a class ‘for itself’ (a collective awareness among workers of their class position). (The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847).
Class-consciousness develops mainly out of the working class’s everyday experiences of the contradictions of capitalism (poverty amidst plenty, etc.). These contradictions are, in turn, derived from the most basic contradiction of capitalism: the contradiction between social production and class ownership of the means of production.
Class struggle. ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle’ (Communist Manifesto). Marx and Engels later qualified this to refer to written history in order to take account of early primitive communist societies in which class divisions had not yet emerged. In ancient society the struggles were between slave owners and slaves. In feudal society between lords and serfs. And in capitalism, capitalists and workers.
These struggles have been over the distribution of the social product, the organisation of work, working conditions and the results of production. The class struggle is more than a struggle over the level of exploitation, however. Ultimately it is a struggle over the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. Throughout history, classes excluded from the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution have been driven by their economic situation to try to gain such ownership through gaining political power.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “What i will do, however, is use my own learned experience to try and create the environment for that elite to operate freely within, without the constraints of capitalism being imposed upon them. That is what i consider to be my function as a class-conscious socialist.
That does not put me at the mercy of any intellectual elite but both of us operating with reciprocity. I want to free the scientist so that they can begin to free me.” [my bold]
I must congratulate you on your political and philosophical openness here, alan. At least we’re getting somewhere, “after eight years of my OCD” (LOL – nothing to do with your taking eight years to give a straight answer!).
But… anyway, we’re here now!
So, democratic socialism for you, is… an elite that operates freely!
But… even funnier, though they’ll operate freely, you won’t be at their mercy!
Whatever happened to Marx, democracy, and the self-emanicipation of the proletariat? Oh, sorry, you don’t do ‘philosophy’ – so it must be nonsense, eh? Yeah, let’s leave it to an elite to openly tell us what to think and do. And, by christ, you, as an individual, will do as they say. It’s called ‘politics’, mate, and it relates to ‘power’.
Why would they ‘free you’? Your naivete is, frankly, unbelievable. Why not just put your faith in priests, alan, and have done with it?
Anyway, it’s taken you eight years to be honest, so let’s hope your political confession spreads to the other ‘materialists’ here.
Happy Easter!
Matthew Culbert wrote “…objective…”.
But humans socially produce their ‘objects’, Matt.
Haven’t you read Marx?
Or are you, like robbo and now alan, now going to ditch Marx?
In retrospect i should have placed “elite” in apostrophes – “elite” for i was endeavouring to use your own terms which you favour when it comes to an understandable division of labour.
Whereas i don’t foresee specialised experts receive no special status or rewards to separate them from any others who may hold dedicated training or possess selected skills in the community to justify the term “elite”.
Geniuses like Da Vinci and Michaelangelo and Dickens and Shakespeare need fear nothing from being levelled down to mediocrity by us ignoramuses of the art and literature.
alanjjohnstone wrote “Geniuses like Da Vinci and Michaelangelo and Dickens and Shakespeare need fear nothing from being levelled down to mediocrity by us ignoramuses of the art and literature.”
The whole point of democratic socialism, surely, alan, is to ‘level UP‘ the associated producers, so that we socially produce more geniuses of art and literature?
Perhaps materialists really do have a low opinion of workers? Hence, the absolute hatred of any mention of democracy, where ‘geniuses’ are supposedly concerned.
Unlike you, alan, I think ‘genius’ is a socially-produced category, and I think that the ‘geniuses’ to fill that category are socially-produced, too. I’d imagine we’d expand the category to include anyone who excels at their social production, whether artist, scientist, teacher, nurse, carpenter, etc., etc.
Of course, a ‘genius’ would be elected by their peers, and also removed from that honour, if the ‘genius’ proved to be a ‘prick’. I can name a few.
Anyway, I’m sure that all the materialists here will be gossiping about ‘The Idealist LBird wants mediocrity forced upon Shakespeare, and genius allocated to all the ignoramuses‘. Really, it’s pitiful, the standard of political and philosophical responses on this site.
After eight years, alan, I think we’re getting very close to The Heart Of Darkness of your materialist version of ‘democratic socialism’: it’s a society for the elite geniuses of Science and Art, who tower inescapably above ‘us ignoramuses’.
All I can say is, ‘Speak for yourself, alan!’
Self-emancipation of the proletariat!
Haven’t you read Marx?
Or are you, like robbo and now alan, now going to ditch Marx?
Not so, for Robbo, Alan, or any of the SPGB.
” The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves. We cannot, therefore, co-operate with people who openly state that the workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and must be freed from above by philanthropic big bourgeois and petty bourgeois.”
(1879 Marx and Engels )
It is being an asshole of the highest order not to see scientists and other specialists as members of the working class, who will continue to render a service in the classless society, to participate within the multi-disciplinary workplaces of the new society, within the limits which proceed from an advanced, democratic, production for us,free access, commonly owned world.
But humans socially produce their ‘objects’, Matt.
Haven’t you read Marx?
Or are you, like robbo and now alan, now going to ditch Marx?
You get hung up on nonsense. Or you are just a troll.
As someone who thinks that humans create the objective world not wonder you object to the word!
Objective is defined as someone or something that is real or not imagined.
A thing or group of things existing independent of the mind.
Being, or regarded as being, independent of the mind; real; actual.
Of or having to do with a known or perceived object as distinguished from something existing only in the mind of the subject, or person thinking.
Anything external to or independent of the mind; something objective; reality.
Matthew Culbert wrote: “As someone who thinks that humans create the objective world not wonder you object to the word!”
That’s Marx’s view, Matt.
As for the rest of your post, you’re just showing your ignorance of the ideological meaning of ‘objective’.
Here’s the bourgeois definition:
“Objective is defined as someone or something that is real or not imagined.
A thing or group of things existing independent of the mind.
Being, or regarded as being, independent of the mind; real; actual.
Of or having to do with a known or perceived object as distinguished from something existing only in the mind of the subject, or person thinking.
Anything external to or independent of the mind; something objective; reality.”
I’ll bet that you’ve even thought where ‘your definition’ comes from, have you, Matt?
Believe me, mate, this philosophical conversation is passing over your head.
He’s an arrogant piece of guano, isn’t he, Matt?
He’s walled up so much in his
philosophical ivory tour that he is unable to distinguish between something “objective” like a zebra and something that only exists in the imagination like a unicorn as both are (in his view) creations of the human mind.In practice, when he comes down to earth, he will distinguish between the two even if he doesn’t use the word “objective” to distinguish the zebra from the unicorn. Otherwise the men in white coats would be coming to take him away.
There’s an interesting recent addition to the archives section here: a review from 1942 of a book on “The Myth of the Mind” by Frank Kenyon in the Thinkers Library.
Here are some extracts:
“his criticisms are equally pertinent to the philosophical word-spinners who seek to dazzle the eyes of the simple with their sophistries, the people who “prove” that the material world which surrounds and includes us possesses no reality that is independent of our sense-perceptions, and is but the eternal form of a supreme mental activity—absolute mind.
”Mr. Kenyon remarks, “The belief in the mind as an entity, is due to that principle which has drawn philosophy into such disrepute: the principle of generalising phenomena into an abstract term, and then treating the abstraction as a metaphysical entity governing the phenomena it was intended to describe.”
It is also a reminder that there are changes in the brain when someone is thinking consciously compared to when they are not. But of course what is thought is not determined by the brain any more than what is digested is determined by the stomach.
For materialists, ‘mind’ always equals ‘brain’.
Bourgeois individualism, since 1650.
The defeat of the English Revolution, for those not interested in history, society, philosophy… politics.
“Social Nature of Mind
German idealist philosophy made ideas the driving forces of history. Marx and Engels did not deny that the real men who made history were conscious beings who had ideas about what they were doing; their point was that these ideas did not come from nowhere and were not arbitrary. Ideas, they said, arose from material social conditions so that men’s ideas reflect their material conditions of life, their activity in society. Consciousness in the abstract did not exist: “Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life process” and “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life”.
The theory advanced here is not a theory of the physiology of perception and thinking (which Marx and Engels knew they were not qualified to formulate) so that talk of ideas “reflecting” social processes must not be misunderstood as a theory that the brain is a kind of camera photographing the world. It is a theory of the social origin of ideas. Though Marx and Engels did go further than saying merely that the particular ideas men held at any particular time depended on the particular society they were living in.
They also argued that “consciousness” (in the sense of the ability to think abstractly, to consider and plan future behaviour, to be aware of your own existence as a separate organism) as an empirical phenomenon was a social product:
“Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity of intercourse with other men . . . Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all” (p.51).
Language is obviously a social product, the outcome of men living together in societies and communicating with each other for co-operative activity. Language is not the only method of communication, but it is a highly-developed and specialized one and one which alone makes abstract thought possible. Language can be defined as an organized system of meaningful symbols (words) standing for abstractions and mental constructs from the ever-changing world of reality. Other animals can only react to their immediately-sensed environment; they cannot abstract parts of it so as to consider, delay or plan their response. The only animal that can do this is man and it is through language that they do it (of course this presupposes also a development of the brain and nervous system that makes language and abstract thought possible). Since abstract thought — “consciousness” in the sense used here by Marx and Engels — is impossible without language, since in fact language and abstract thought are two aspects of the same thing, and since language is a social product, it follows that thinking, consciousness, mind are also social products.
Once again this view is surprisingly modern, anticipating by over half a century its systematic elaboration by George Herbert Mead in his lectures at the University of Chicago (published in 1934, after his death, under the title Mind, Self and Society). It is a refutation not only of idealist theories which see mind as some mysterious intangible substance human beings are endowed with at or before birth, but also of crude materialist theories which seek to reduce thought to a purely biological, physical or chemical phenomenon. Thought of course does involve brain activity but there is more to it than that. Marx’s theory of mind was materialist in that it explained “mind” in terms of material social conditions rather than in terms of some mysterious physical substance called “matter”.
Human beings are born with brains, but not minds. Men only acquire minds in and through society, the content of their minds reflecting their social life and experience. A man outside society, could he exist, would have a brain, but no mind. Which is why physical theories of the mind are inadequate.”
From the Socialist Standard, September 1973
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