Marx, and the myth of his ‘Materialism’

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

We don't demand intellectualism of Marxist theory but simple acceptance of the world any conscious worker can see around him or her for themselves.

What was it Marx said about 'science'? No-one simply 'sees the world around', but understands it through ideas, and I think your term 'conscious' here, can be read as 'materialist'.

ajj wrote:

If, as you say, the Party and members exhibit Engelsian-cum-Leninist ideas, just what has been the manifestation of this within the Party over its 100 year of existence?

The 'materialism' that is clearly rife within both the Party and its close supporters.

ajj wrote:

Nor has the SPGB advocated substituting itself for the working class as a whole and directing fellow workers actions.

On this very thread, individual members have advocated that elite scientists (mathematicians and physicists, especially, but also the other so-called 'hard' sciences) substitute themselves for the proletariat. These members say that 'democracy won't work' in the production of the very ideas that we need to construct our world. So, the 'theory' will be provided by an elite, to a mere workforce who simply 'practice'.

ajj wrote:

Of course, i endorse what you say " full heads' can only be provided by workers' self-activity, their own 'theory and practice'." That is not a point of departure between you and i and the Party. I don't understand why you think it is. I often say to people…forget marx…forget engels…act if they hadn't been born.

Yes, there are, as you have said before, many points of agreement between us. Not least, I'm always criticising Charlie for being a shit writer, who is the real root of our problem, because even his close mate Engels couldn't properly understand Marx's works. If only Marx had used the term 'human production' for his 'materialism' and 'divine production' for 'idealism', we wouldn't be still debating it 150 years later (although, many writers have said much the same thing that I'm saying, since the late 19th century, that 'materialism' makes 'matter' the 'active side', as we can see from YMS's claim that 'inorganic nature' has fixed 'qualities', rather than 'qualities' being produced dynamically by the 'active side' of human 'theory and practice': that is, 'qualities' sit in 'organic nature'). But for all this, I regard the SPGB as the best of a bad bunch (of 'materialists', Engelsians just like the SWP and the other Trots), who seem to have a political structure at least changeable (unlike the 'democratic centralists').

ajj wrote:

Nothing in what you have written it seems to me avoids the fact that other ideologies can take root and divert workers from the goal of self-emancipation…nationalism…reformism…It was not Lenin's 'Materialism and Empirio-Criticism' that provided the blueprint to the Bolshevik dictatorship. But 'What is to be Done', and the inspiration for that was Kautsky and the German SPD…It was more a practical manual than philosophical treatise…Even our enemies ideas are not so complex…And many have seen through them in the past without the assistance of others …

Yes, and the 'other ideology' that has 'taken root to divert workers' is 'materialism'. When Lenin wrote WITBD he was already a materialist (which he confirmed in M&EC), and he got all this from Engels, Kautsky, SPD and the entire Second International. As I've already said, "many have seen through them in the past", and gone back to read Marx, through the lens of workers' self-activity. That destroys the 'myth of Marx's materialism'.

ajj wrote:

Of course i am at fault sometimes by over-simplifying my case…ideas are important for change, vital, in fact…and we should be refuting rival theories on the battlefield of ideas…We have to challenge and defeat other ideologies…one currently of importance being the yoke of religions in the Middle East…

The most dangerous religion to the conscious proletariat, though, is Religious Materialism, which claims 'matter' tells us 'what it is', and so we can't change it, as YMS claims when he says 'qualities are within inorganic nature', rather than are created by our relationship with it.

ajj wrote:

But i simply sought to say that the priority of people is first to fill their bellies to permit them to think…which is again a truism..

Yeah, but Leninism can do this. Surely our particular task, in a world that increasing the problem for workers is over-full bellies, is helping to produce class consciousness, that is, 'full heads'?Many have argued, prior to me, that 'materialism' empties workers' heads of their own self-creation as a class, and puts power into the hands of a special elite who tell the producers what 'the world is', a world of elite thinkers who provide the 'theory' for workers' 'practice', a world of 'scientists', of mathematicians and physicists, of a 'technocracy', who abhor the 'fetish of democracy'… and thus the workers' heads remain 'empty' and their practice is not self-developed, but guided by the 'theory' of an elite.Thanks again, alan, for a thoughtful post, which helps us all to get to the core of the debate. We might disagree, but it's important to find out precisely what we disagree about. I think that, with your help, we're getting there, to the 'Heart of Darkness' of 'materialism'.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

"just what has been the manifestation of this within the Party over its 100 year of existence? The 'materialism' that is clearly rife within both the Party and its close supporters."

What is it you say…stones don't think or act…Nor do i think do words. Once again i'll try to ask…how does the materialism you say dominates the SPGB actually show itself in actions and deeds of the Party if as i persist in claiming, the Party's organisation and its attitudes are positive expressions of democracy. Where has been the negative effects of it in the way the SPGB operates under the influence of its philosohical materialist beliefs as defined by yourself? Is it the lack of members from the difficulty in conveying simple political positions to fellow workers? 

Quote:

No-one simply 'sees the world around', but understands it through ideas, and I think your term 'conscious' here, can be read as 'materialist'.

My rudimentary understanding is that ideas do not spring forth from no-where. My use of conscious should read "aware" resulting from experience and observation of ones social, political and economic interactions with environment and surroundings…Nothing in our knowledge test, which was the context, requires the necessity or pre-condition of input from outside agencies such as a political party or leader to instill this consciousness. All can be known by self-discovery, help from the SPGB only helps to speed up the process. My favourite quotation (well, one of them) is " If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself." – Joseph Dietzgen. I think you may be mistaking some members suggesting a continued division of labour is the same as advocating rule by technocrats and intellectual elites. Once again, i claim the actual evidence that is not so is before your own very eyes – the existence of a political party that has successfully shed the need for political leadership. If the SPGB adherence to materialism and elitism produces this failing where does it show in the practice of the SPGB. Surely the influence should be a tangible one.In the production of ideas the democracy i speak of it is people voting with their feet.An evidence- based scientist will say…alternative medicine simply become medicine when it is shown to work…It is adopted nd practised and prescribed. I agree with your very earliest statement…if people believe that the sun goes around the earth…then it is true…until we stop believing it to be true…Creation was in 7 days by God holds true for the believers in it. Those of us who do not subscribe to such a belief, go our own way, and our "secular revelations" on geology, archeology biology etc …will be our own truth that we actually get benefit from and don't end up in sterile 'scientific woo-woo' of intelligent design or whatever. That is the measurement of democracy…how much is  gained for the advancement of humanity from scientific truth… …and to be 100% honest …quantum physics with shrodingers cats – something exists and at the same time doesn't exist…is beyond me ..and i have no interest in it …i go all glassy-eyed…said the same whenever some Marxist uses algebra to explain things …the philistine in me, i know….abstract science is …abstract  but once again …who wishes to go there, i don't lock the gates.   

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

My rudimentary understanding is that ideas do not spring forth from no-where. My use of conscious should read "aware" resulting from experience and observation…

But your 'rudimentary' is not 'rudimentary' at all, but a well-developed, historical, class-based, view of the world. The fact that you don't recognise this, but think that it's just your own, personal, idiosyncratic, individualist, 'understanding', just proves my point.No-one argues that ideas spring from no-where.The idealists argue that ideas spring from divine consciousness.The materialists argue that ideas spring from matter (no consciousness involved).The idealist-materialists (Marx's misnamed 'materialism') argue that ideas spring from human consciousness.So, what ideology do you follow (whether aware of it or not)?You say ' "aware" resulting from experience and observation': this is 'materialism', or, in modern terms, 'induction'.'Experience and observation' are not the source of 'awareness', according to Marx, but 'theory and practice' is.So, according to Marx (and, indeed, Einstein), 'social theory' determines 'what' an individual of that society, during their 'social practice', 'experiences and observes'. That is, 'awareness' is a product of socio-historical 'theory and practice'.The bourgeoisie argue otherwise: they argue that 'individuals experience', as individuals, without 'the nanny state telling them what to think'. Materialism is a product of a class society at a particular point in its development. And as a 'ruling class idea', it is still a very widespread ideological belief. You, yourself, apparently hold to it. Just use 'common sense' and your own eyes, it argues, and don't be taken in by 'ideas'.

ajj wrote:

An evidence- based scientist will say…

More ideology, alan.'Evidence' is a product of 'theory and practice' (Marx, again, I'm afraid), so a scientist employing one ideology will come up with 'evidence' which differs from the 'evidence' produced by a scientist employing a different ideology.'Evidence' is not a reflection of 'out there', the 'external world', Marx's 'inorganic nature', but the product of a relationship between an active consciousness and 'inorganic nature', which results in 'evidence' in our 'organic' world.The materialist scientists hide this relationship, and pretend to you that they don't have a 'consciousness', but have a neutral method that allows them (and them alone) to passively listen to the 'material conditions' (or, 'matter'), and that they simply repeat what 'matter' says to them. They are either ignorant or lying. The mathematicians and physicists are hiding their 'theory and practice', their active production of 'scientific evidence'. And you, having been raised in a bourgeois society, which stresses respect for the opinions of elites, simply believe them.Whilst workers, like you, look to 'materialism' (whether you know that you follow that ideology or not), they will be in thrall to technocrats and those who regard democracy as 'a fetish'.It's neither class consciousness nor a theory for workers' power, but elite consciousness and a theory for elite control.As I've said, why the SPGB espouses 'materialism' (even if 'unofficially', in members like you), I don't know. The politics that fit with materialism are Leninist, and given what some members of the party have argued on this thread, the practice of the SPGB in power would be, not what you think, but the theory of an elite put into practice by uncomprehending workers.No, alan, it's vital that workers take some interest in these issues, because they must look to a 'theory' that stresses their own thinking and self-conscious activity. This includes maths and physics, too, because those disciplines are part of the means of production.The role of class conscious socialists/communists is to find ways of explaining these ideas to a wider audience, and to reject the priest-Latin of maths as an explanation of physics, and to insist explanations of our world are comprehensible to all. This, too, is a policy of the SPGB, to help our class self-educate. But that policy is at odds with materialism – why self-develop, when an elite can tell you what 'material conditions' say, outside of our conscious production? Your 'resulting from experience and observation' is precisely this 'materialism'.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

An evidence- based scientist will say…More ideology, alan.'Evidence' is a product of 'theory and practice' (Marx, again, I'm afraid), so a scientist employing one ideology will come up with 'evidence' which differs from the 'evidence' produced by a scientist employing a different ideology.

i would have thought evidence was theory confirmed by practice…or is that proof?However my concern is that you have now given a case for homeopathy and any number of other quasi-medical theories by merely asserting they are ideological and no more valid than non-evidence based "medicines." 

Quote:

the SPGB espouses 'materialism' (even if 'unofficially', in members like you), I don't know. The politics that fit with materialism are Leninist, and given what some members of the party have argued on this thread, the practice of the SPGB in power would be, not what you think, but the theory of an elite put into practice by uncomprehending workers.

One manifestation of Leninism is its organisational principle as a Party so we need not wait for the SPGB to acquire power to see elements of it in its present-day decision-making. We can see with Leninism, democratic-centralism, with the executive committee deploying power…This form of materialist "democracy" was also passed on to the Petersburg Soviet where the actions of "storming" the Winters Palace were taken not by the soviet as a whole but by its Military Revolutionary Committee. Again i fail to see how if your claim is correct that we suffer the disadvantage of  "materialism" why this has not showed in our Party…a clique forming to control it. Or are we so blind that we cannot perceive it…perhaps even the elite itself being oblivious to their rule.Therefore, i can't really get my head around the conclusion you reach by insisting the "materialism" philosophy that the SPGB possesses will also lead to it dominating  the working class and that the working class would not possess the power of decision making in the production of goods or in the production of ideas….where is the control mechanism to impose your will upon others?…The State is gone…the power to with-hold the necessity of life is gone with implementation from according to need…the only way an elite can impose its authority and will is by force of argument and the power of persuasion…and there has been many exchanges on the means of this …science will be subject to the same procedure as determining how much glass is produced and where it should be sent…by delegatory committees at local, regional and global level…and to again to be truthful, there won't be too much difference from today…a new surgical procedure will be assessed by hospitals and peer reviewed and patients feedback determined by outcome of such operations on their well-being. Surgeons and hospitals will make such new surgery routine…The decision is not one for society as a whole to make by poll…But if sudenly questions are raised by statistics on recovery or mortality rates, then   local communities with  the administrative power over the hospital can take actions as they see fit…as happens now withing the health system…No need to fix something that is not broken. Again the anarchist in me refers you to Bakunin and the authority of the shoe-maker and to Engels and his ships captainhttps://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htmhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htmI do defer to authority voluntarily …just as the airline pilot defers to air traffic control…

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

i would have thought evidence was theory confirmed by practice…or is that proof?

Yes, but 'theory', 'practice' 'evidence', 'proof', and indeed, 'truth', are socio-historical products, and thus change. It's only because you refuse to consciously acknowledge your own espousing of 'materialism' (which claims 'evidence', 'truth', etc. are qualities in matter, 'out there', and not social products), that means that you hold to an ideology which tells you 'what to think'. We all do; some acknowledge it, most don't. That's because bourgeois ideology tells everbody that they are 'individuals' and are not 'products of the nanny state' (ie. social individuals).

ajj wrote:

However my concern is that you have now given a case for homeopathy and any number of other quasi-medical theories by merely asserting they are ideological and no more valid than non-evidence based "medicines."

I've done nothing of the sort, alan.The reason you think that I have, is that your Engelsian ideology tells you that their are only two philosophical choices: 'materialism' and 'idealism'. Since I reject materialism, you categorise me as an idealist, and that I'm arguing that 'mere assertion' is as 'valid' as 'evidence'.No matter how often I stress 'social theory and practice, which ends in a vote', you will read 'LBird is a anti-science quack who will bring down civilisation if he's allowed to let workers decide about medicine'. That's the voice of materialism speaking through you, alan.

ajj wrote:

Therefore, i can't really get my head around…

…lots of things, alan. But if you keep discussing, and trying to reveal your own ideological beliefs, then you'll get there in the end.Of course, 'materialism' tells you that it isn't ideological, but merely a reflection of 'reality', 'the real world', so if you can't locate 'materialism' hisorically, as a social product of a class, then you can't do this.But, if you look to Marx, and his notions of socio-historical relational products (including 'truth'), then you have a chance to think this through.Don't ask only me, though, ask others, and read some works on these issues.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

[On this very thread, individual members have advocated that elite scientists (mathematicians and physicists, especially, but also the other so-called 'hard' sciences) substitute themselves for the proletariat. These members say that 'democracy won't work' in the production of the very ideas that we need to construct our world. So, the 'theory' will be provided by an elite, to a mere workforce who simply 'practice'.

 Groan. The same old tedious nonsense from LBird who point blank refuses to explain how his own idealist pie-in-the-sky proposal of organising the "democratic  production" of scientific ideas could ever work or why it is even necessary. How are 7 billion people going to familiarize themselves with the concrete details of thousands upon thousands of scientific theories in order to be able vote on them when not even the cleverest scientist alive would be familiar with more than a small fraction of this gigantic body of theory?  What of the logistics of organising a vote right across the  the world, not just once but thousands upon thousands of times, a monumentally enormous effort that would probably exceed by several times the total amount of effort needed by the human population to keep alive? And why does he imagine that any more than the tiniest fraction of the population would be even bothered at all in participating in this pointless exercise, thereby calling into question its "democratic" authenticity?  LBird explains nothing .  He runs away from from every probing question that is put to him.  He is not an "idealist-materialist."  He is an idealist , full stop.  He believes in the equivalent of  the tooth fairy and harangues those don't share his nonsensically impractical view of the world as "Leninists" or "Engelists" In reality , he is the only Leninist here because, in de facto terms, his concept of "democracy " as a completely centralised society will place all power in the hands of a technocratic elite by default if not by design, using LBird's notion of "democracy" as figleaf to legitimise their class dictatorship

[Brian]

LBird wrote:

No-one argues that ideas spring from no-where.The idealists argue that ideas spring from divine consciousness.The materialists argue that ideas spring from matter (no consciousness involved).The idealist-materialists (Marx's misnamed 'materialism') argue that ideas spring from human consciousness.So, what ideology do you follow (whether aware of it or not)?You say ' "aware" resulting from experience and observation': this is 'materialism', or, in modern terms, 'induction'.'Experience and observation' are not the source of 'awareness', according to Marx, but 'theory and practice' is.

It seems to me you are forgetting that it takes the trigger(s)  of human matter interacting with the properties of organic and non-organic matter to produce human consciousness, which is just a chemical soup of energy transforming our senses into practical observations from which we can produce a theory and a social product.Like Tim mentioned earlier our materialism stems from the dictum, 'I am therefore I think'  – which you failed to respond to – in short humans must have something to think about e.g. matter in all its knowable forms.  Without matter ideas and theory have no substance to latch onto and no visible human consciousness to put into practice.Of course ideas spring from human consciousness, however without the triggers of matter we are just another in-organic blob. 

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

It seems to me you are forgetting that it takes the trigger(s)  of human matter interacting with the properties of organic and non-organic matter to produce human consciousness, which is just a chemical soup of energy transforming our senses into practical observations from which we can produce a theory and a social product.

Brian, you seem to be confusing the historical emergence of consciousness from inorganic nature, with the process of social cognition between consciousness and inorganic nature.Further, your use of the noun 'matter', as Kline points out, stems from Engels' usage (and the other 'materialists'), not from Marx's.Matter is not the 'trigger', as the materialists hold: this would make 'matter' the 'active side', which Marx denies, when he argues that consciousness is the active side, as for the idealists.Criticism of what exists is the 'trigger'. That's why Marx calls Capital  a 'critique', not a 'material trigger'.

[Dave B]

 L Bird will says matter or the material world is not the trigger for changing consciousness or scientific ideas; and gives us no examples. So lets take an example of one of the seminal or if not the seminal scientific consciousness changing moment in history. The Geiger–Marsden experiment at Manchester1908-13. Before that there was the plum pudding model of the atom; not totally without its critics but it wasn’t ‘criticism’ that changed it. It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you. On consideration, I realized that this scattering backward must be the result of a single collision, and when I made calculations I saw that it was impossible to get anything of that order of magnitude unless you took a system in which the greater part of the mass of the atom was concentrated in a minute nucleus. It was then that I had the idea of an atom with a minute massive centre, carrying a charge.— Ernest Rutherford If anything it was matter “criticising” consciousness; the active side being 15-inch shells bouncing back of pieces of tissue paper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger%E2%80%93Marsden_experiment

[Brian]

LBird wrote:

Brian wrote:

It seems to me you are forgetting that it takes the trigger(s)  of human matter interacting with the properties of organic and non-organic matter to produce human consciousness, which is just a chemical soup of energy transforming our senses into practical observations from which we can produce a theory and a social product.

Brian, you seem to be confusing the historical emergence of consciousness from inorganic nature, with the process of social cognition between consciousness and inorganic nature.Further, your use of the noun 'matter', as Kline points out, stems from Engels' usage (and the other 'materialists'), not from Marx's.Matter is not the 'trigger', as the materialists hold: this would make 'matter' the 'active side', which Marx denies, when he argues that consciousness is the active side, as for the idealists.Criticism of what exists is the 'trigger'. That's why Marx calls Capital  a 'critique', not a 'material trigger'.

I said "trigger(s) of human matter" not trigger.  There is more than one component of human matter which triggers human consciousness and ideas.  And there's more than one component of organic and non-organic matter which triggers human consciousness.  In the sense that we can see the organic grow and evolve and also determine the properties of the in-organic to establish their usefulness in social production and broaden our understanding of evolution.  Indeed in this sense we make the rocks talk by cracking their code of atomic structure and sub-structure for our benefit.All this discovery by science is of course not entirely free of its class ideology.  But what intigues me is that you purposely avoid accepting the dictum of, 'I am therefore I think' in fear I suspect of consciously admitting that without matter thinking is a non-entity.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

…we make the rocks talk…

Yes, the 'active side' is us, not 'matter'.

Brian wrote:

But what intigues me is that you purposely avoid accepting the dictum of, 'I am therefore I think' in fear I suspect of consciously admitting that without matter thinking is a non-entity.

I don't know where you've got this from, Brian.Besides the obvious bourgeois phrasing of your dictum (surely socialists should be saying 'we', rather than 'I'?), I keep stressing Marx's 'theory and practice' (idealism-materialism).I suspect the Engelsist ideology that you hold, but seem to be unaware of, which tells you that there are only two alternatives, materialism and idealism, leads you to always see only a dichotomy, and since Marx stresses 'theory and practice' (which requires both ideas (consciousness) and inorganic nature), you have to ignore this and categorise any talk of 'ideas' as idealism.The unity of 'being and consciousness' is the basis of Marx's philosophy. And 'consciousness' is the 'active side', not Engels' notion of 'matter'.

[LBird]

Dave, the issue between us is that you espouse Engels' materialism, whilst I don't.I look to Marx's idealism-materialism, and so my view of physics is different to yours.This philosophical difference between us can't be solved by appealing to physics, because one's view of physics is based upon one's ideology.So, we have to discuss our philosophical assumptions prior to discussing physics.I'm a Democratic Communist, and so this underpins my views of the social activity of physics.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

I'm a Democratic Communist, and so this underpins my views of the social activity of physics.

So how does 'democratic communist' differ from socialist?Can you give references where Marx differentiates between the two?  

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

I'm a Democratic Communist, and so this underpins my views of the social activity of physics.

So how does 'democratic communist' differ from socialist?Can you give references where Marx differentiates between the two?

Marx was a Democratic Communist, too, Vin.So, this will inform one's view of physics, as I said to Dave.Physics, being a social activity driven by social theory and social practice, is amenable to our proletarian democratic control.We have to decide 'what matter says', as Brian said. Matter does not speak for itself, especially not to 'physicists', who are a part of our society, and whose views emanate from our society. They are not a special elite, who have some form of consciousness which is not available to us, too.Lenin argued for that, and he based his views upon Engels' materialism, which makes 'matter' the 'active side', which is a nonsense, and so, since Marx was correct that theory and practice is the human method, the elite minority provide a hidden theory, but pretend to workers that 'matter' talks to them, and them alone (through 'practice and theory').So, anyone who looks to active, talking, matter will deny the democratic role of workers in creating our world (which includes the production of scientific knowledge).

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, anyone who looks to active, talking, matter will deny the democratic role of workers in creating our world (which includes the production of scientific knowledge).

I am active talking matter, so are you.

[Author]

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