Marx and dialectic
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We already had a long discussion about dialectic named: Do we need the dialectic ? , post #439
Wez:"I've never really understood why intelligent people have any interest in the works of Lenin or Trotsky. The Bolsheviks were political opportunists who, when not persecuting workers, spent their time justifying their coup d'etat as some kind of socialist revolution. Their theoretical works offer nothing to the traditions of socialism and their actions have only served the purpose of alienating the working class from socialism. Unfortunately because of the anniversary this year of this non-event we'll have to endure endless coverage of this anti working class movement that ended in an historical dead-end – yawn."What is it with you lot? Do you have a problem understanding the phrase "off-topic", or the word "relevant"?What has this got to do with Marx and Philosophy, Wez?
mcolomei:"We already had a long discussion about dialectic named: Do we need the dialectic ? , post #439"Do you have a link?It's OK, I have just found it, and remember contributing to it.
Wow, what we need is Lbird to join this thread and we could watch the charge of the hobby horse cavalry.Appropriately enough, the same passage is antidote to both:"My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite."So, Marx, in his own unambiguous published words, has a dialectic method.Short version: he looked at things in thir relationships and how they develop.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Wow, what we need is Lbird to join this thread and we could watch the charge of the hobby horse cavalry.Appropriately enough, the same passage is antidote to both:"My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite."So, Marx, in his own unambiguous published words, has a dialectic method.Short version: he looked at things in thir relationships and how they develop.If we could get Rosa Licthenstien and L Bird into a room together, we could create a pro-epistemology/anti epistemology generator (a bit like the matter anti matter generators in Star Trek). We would then have an endless source of hot air for power generation and bullshit for fertiliser, which could act as a demonstration of the possibility of free access in a socialist society.
We started out by talking about Marx and philosophy and now we've been switched to Marx and dialectic. My post about bolshevism was a response to Ms Licthenstein's website which suggests they had something to offer in that original debate. She asked me why the compartentalising of intellectual Endeavour was 'so heinous'. I just think that specialisms sometimes mask the truth that a wider multi disciplined approach can reveal. Such a division of intellectual labour always strikes me as rather 'bourgeois' and unhelpful – Ollman has interesting thoughts on this – courtesy of a dialectical approach. Why, Ms Licthenstein, do you have such contempt for philosophy? Surely it's just one of a number of approaches to life's challenges?
Wez wrote:Why, Ms Licthenstein, do you have such contempt for philosophy? Surely it's just one of a number of approaches to life's challenges?Philosophers seem unable to accept the "long littleness of life" and imagine life is some romantic adventure. There is no purpose in life other than what we make of it.If I'm allowed to join the philosophical bandwagon, here are a few of my observations:“You can’t philosophise on an empty stomach”"Philosophy is not for shelf-stackers and washer-uppers"“I’ve nothing against philosophers, but object to them being paid for their utterances”“I refuse to take the world seriously. Nobody else does, otherwise it wouldn’t be in such a mess”I suspect what philosophers are trying to say is how to succeed in life by treading on other people's toes, but aren't prepared to say it out loud.
Tim:"We would then have an endless source of hot air for power generation and bullshit for fertiliser, which could act as a demonstration of the possibility of free access in a socialist society."So, other than abuse, you dont have anything useful to add.If what I have to say is such b.s., then someone as knowledgeable as your good self should find it laughably easy to show where I go wrong, shouldn't you?The fact that you resort merely to abuse suggests to me that describing you as "ignorant" might be to praise you too highly.And I say that with all due disrespect.
YMS, quoting Marx:"'My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite.'"So, Marx, in his own unambiguous published words, has a dialectic method.""Short version: he looked at things in their relationships and how they develop."We covered these points, and this quote, in that thread back in 2013:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/do-we-need-dialectic?page=2Where I pointed out that if we begin with Marx's own descriptipon of his method (which you lot systematically ignore — so much for your Marxism!) — the only summary of 'the dialectic method' he published and endorsed in his entire life — which I have quoted yet again for you in an earlier reply in this thread, then his other comments about 'the dialectic' take on an entirely differet aspect.In that summary, not one single Hegelian concept is to be found, upside down or 'the right way up', and yet Marx still calls this 'the dialectic method' (note, not part of, or one aspect of, 'the dialectic method', but 'the dialectic method'), and 'my method'. So, Marx's 'method' is a Hegel-free zone ('upside down or the right way up').In which case, it isn't possible to have a method that is more opposite to Hegel's than one that has excised his influence root-and-branch.How do we know? Well, that summary tells us this, for it is totally bereft of Hegelian concepts, and yet Marx still called it 'the dialectic method'.But, what about this?"Short version: he looked at things in their relationships and how they develop."Perhaps he did, but if he did he didn't need 'dialectics' as it has been handed down to us via Engels; indeed, if we needed a theory that 'looked at things in their relationships and how they develop" 'dialectics' (as Engels interpreted this word) wouldnt make the bottom of the reserve list of viable candidates. It is far too vague and confused.
Ironically, The Marxist-Humanists have made a big deal about Engels, and they have said that he is a Post-Marxist, ( the same concept used by the Lacanian left ) but they have adopted the Hegelian dialectic like a religion which was also adopted by Engels. Frederick Engels was the real dialectician, it was not Karl Marx. The Marxist-Humanists are the one who have combined idealism and materialism. Marx never created the concept of idealism-materialism, or materialism-idealism
Wez:"We started out by talking about Marx and philosophy and now we've been switched to Marx and dialectic. My post about bolshevism was a response to Ms Licthenstein's website which suggests they had something to offer in that original debate. She asked me why the compartentalising of intellectual Endeavour was 'so heinous'. I just think that specialisms sometimes mask the truth that a wider multi disciplined approach can reveal. Such a division of intellectual labour always strikes me as rather 'bourgeois' and unhelpful – Ollman has interesting thoughts on this – courtesy of a dialectical approach. Why, Ms Licthenstein, do you have such contempt for philosophy? Surely it's just one of a number of approaches to life's challenges?"The moderators switched the title.1) So, you admit that your comments about Bolshevism were off-topic. Let's see if you can remain on topic from now on.2) I fail to see anything in your reply that tells me why specialisms are so heinous, except, they somehow 'mask the truth that a wider multi disciplined approach can reveal.' But that is no argument against specialism, merely that it needs augmenting from time to time.But what about reversing what you said: "multi disciplined approaches sometimes mask the truth revealed by specialists"?They both need each other. What's wrong with that?So, the next time you need to see a speicalist in hospital, just tell her that you don't need her specialist knowledge, a multi-disciplinary expert in ancient Chinese pottery and its relation to the demise of Feudalism in Europe and Cosmic Inflation will do nicely, thank you very much.3) "Ollman has interesting thoughts on this – courtesy of a dialectical approach."Ah, I see, a specialist in that useless discipline, 'dialectics', tells us that such specialisms are 'bourgeois', eh? That makes sense.4) "Why, Ms Licthenstein, do you have such contempt for philosophy? Surely it's just one of a number of approaches to life's challenges?"Because, as is relatively easy to show, it is incoherent non-sense:http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/Why_all_philosophical_theories_are_non-sensical.htmAnd that is quite apart from the fact that Marx had this to say about it:"Feuerbach's great achievement is…. The proof that philosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned…." [Bold added.]"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Bold added.]"One has to 'leave philosophy aside'…, one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an ordinary man to the study of actuality…" [Bold added.]You can find the exact references to Marx's work, and more details, in Section 3a), here:http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/was_wittgenstein_a_leftist.htm
I can see it would be pointless in continuing a debate with you Ms. Lichtenstein as you are contemptuous of any ideas you don't agree with. This forum is a strange place. I've been informed here that Marx was not a materialist and now that he was not a philosopher – it's like a parallel universe. At least the old boy would be pleased that we're still talking about him – whatever he was or was not. I still believe that without Kant and Hegel there would be no Marx and that politics is a synthesis of economics, history, science and philosophy. I take my leave of you before the moderator gets me.
Wez:1) "I can see it would be pointless in continuing a debate with you Ms. Lichtenstein as you are contemptuous of any ideas you don't agree with."I humbly accept your abject capitulation.2) "This forum is a strange place. I've been informed here that Marx was not a materialist and now that he was not a philosopher – it's like a parallel universe."It's all the same to me if you ignore what Marx himself said about philosophy.3) "I still believe that without Kant and Hegel there would be no Marx and that politics is a synthesis of economics, history, science and philosophy."Assertion isn't proof. Even a smattering of Philosophy 101 should have taught you that.4) "I take my leave of you before the moderator gets me."I'm sure there will be an unbelieveably badly attended farewell party held on your behalf.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:If we could get Rosa Licthenstien and L Bird into a room together, we could create a pro-epistemology/anti epistemology generator (a bit like the matter anti matter generators in Star Trek). We would then have an endless source of hot air for power generation and bullshit for fertiliser, which could act as a demonstration of the possibility of free access in a socialist society.Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:Tim:"We would then have an endless source of hot air for power generation and bullshit for fertiliser, which could act as a demonstration of the possibility of free access in a socialist society."So, other than abuse, you dont have anything useful to add.If what I have to say is such b.s., then someone as knowledgeable as your good self should find it laughably easy to show where I go wrong, shouldn't you?The fact that you resort merely to abuse suggests to me that describing you as "ignorant" might be to praise you too highly.And I say that with all due disrespect.
I've obviously hit a nerve there, haven't I. Perhaps it's a nerve that's been hit before. It seems to me (which is why I use the traditional working class tactic of taking the piss) that you (and L Bird) take yourselves just a little too seriously.Perhaps I can put it another way. When you are being evicted from your home, when you are about to lose you job, when you are faced with the news that you will probably have to work until you are in your seventies before you can afford to even think about retirement, when you lie awake worried about debts, when you cannot make the bills balance at the end of the month, in short when capitalism is shitting all over you. Philosophy , the dialectic, epistemology, etc. are not the topics that fill your mind.The traditional Trotskyist/Leninist approach of producing long winded tracts about angels on pin heads, designed to do nothing but bolster the egos of the authors, does nothing but obscure the real Socialist task, that is putting forward the case for a Socialist transformation of society.If the hot air, you and your fellow Trotskyist obscurantists, put into discussing arcane disputes from the past, could be used effectively in communicating the urgent need to change the social system which is destroying our planet, killing our children and blighting the lives of millions of humans, then perhaps we would be closer to achieving that goal.All due disrespect? I take your disrespect as a badge of honour. You mistake lack of interest in what you are saying, with lack of knowledge of the subject matter. I have the former, but not the latter. However if it makes me ignorant, to view your petty self esteem building activities as contemptuous (I mean calling yourself Rosa Lichtenstein, no signs of bigging yourself up there, is there), I plead ignorance, glorious, glorious ignorance. Yours for the revolution
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