Materialism, aspects and history.

[moderator1]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

You do talk a load of tosh at times LBird, as well completely evading my central point…

And talking to you is like trying to reason with a particularly dense boss, robbo.The 'central point' of a thread about so-called 'materialism' is that Marx wasn't a 'materialist', but an 'idealist-materialist', not your individualist incomprehension about workers' power, collective action, and democracy.And, by god, my 'cheap and empty smears about "elite experts" '… you won't have a bad word said about the bosses' ideologists, will you, robbo?Stop tugging your forelock, loser.It's a shame that the thread has taken the usual turn, where the so-called 'materialists', when confronted with texts written by Marx, always resort to personal abuse, about my 'idiotic, kneejerk'… errr…. evidence.And when I return to insults in kind, the dickheads come out of the sun in squadrons, complaining about my behaviour.I can feel yet another ban coming on… to keep the site safe from critical thought, and safe for the Religious Materialists, like robbo, who won't have workers' democracy in truth production.

 1st Warning: Rule 6. Do not make repeated postings of the same or similar messages to the same thread, or to multiple threads or forums (‘cross-posting’). Do not make multiple postings within a thread that could be consolidated into a single post (‘serial posting’). Do not post an excessive number of threads, posts, or private messages within a limited period of time (‘flooding’).

[LBird]

How come the Religious Materialists get to repeatedly post the same old crap, whilst avoiding responding to Marx's words, and so I have to keep responding to their nonsense, and none of them get a warning?Are you an RM-er, mod?

[moderator1]

Reminder: 14. Rule enforcement is the responsibility of the moderators, not of the contributors. If you believe a post or private message violates a rule, report it to the moderators. Do not take it upon yourself to chastise others for perceived violations of the rules. 15. Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.

Shirley, you should be calling the theory naturalism, or humanism, since those are the terms Chucky expressly uses in the above. In the same text, Chaz also praises Feurbach for :

Quote:

The establishment of true materialism and of real science, by making the social relationship of “man to man” the basic principle of the theory

so instead of idealism-materialism, maybe we should use Marx' own word: true materialism?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Anyway, we seem to be there now!

 What happened. You call it ideal-materialism, I call it materialism. You have already admitted that much. Your only bone of contention is that you wish to change the name. So move on.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Anyway, we seem to be there now!

What happened. You call it ideal-materialism, I call it materialism. You have already admitted that much. Your only bone of contention is that you wish to change the name. So move on.

We can't 'move on', Vin, because all the socialists who think that they're 'materialists' are talking shite, and workers won't fall for it any more. We're discussing this 132 years after Marx's death, and we have less influence in the working class than ever.You naively think that it's just a 'word', but it represents so much more, and until you confront the nonsense of 'materialism' you'll remain in the bourgeois world.What's worse for me, is that I think that you, personally, are a sincere socialist, and I can't understand why you won't listen to other workers, like me, who've sussed the Leninist philosophy.FFS, I've been in the SWP, almost everybody I know has been in one Trot sect or another, and they've all left. Why is the SPGB following a philosophy (Engels' "materialism") that leaves us workers disarmed?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.

Shirley, you should be calling the theory naturalism, or humanism, since those are the terms Chucky expressly uses in the above. In the same text, Chaz also praises Feurbach for :

Quote:

The establishment of true materialism and of real science, by making the social relationship of “man to man” the basic principle of the theory

so instead of idealism-materialism, maybe we should use Marx' own word: true materialism?

So, it's not 'materialism', then?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

I can feel yet another ban coming on… to keep the site safe from critical thought, and safe for the Religious Materialists, like robbo, who won't have workers' democracy in truth production.

 So not  content with dodging all my arguments and flinging round the odd cheap insult to cover your tracks , now your are resorting to down right porkies to plug the holes and stem the draining away of what little credibility you have left on this forum.   So I'm a  "religious Materialist" now meaning, in your terms, a positivist, some one who thinks that "rocks talk" as you put it.  Ill have you know, LBird,  that long before you announced your triumphal entrance on this forum in a fanfare of trumpets,  I was doggedly critiquing positivism and the so called "fact- value" distinction .  Your initial comments on the subject actually attracted my support, if you recall.  However, your pattern of behaviour since then – abusing those who dare disagree with you, twisting their arguments or just simply walking away from them when attempting to deal with them would expose your own argument for claptrap it is – has all but lost my sympathy vote.  A case in point  is is this idiotic mantra of yours –  "workers' democracy in truth production".  What the hell does that mean in practice LBird?  You wont say. You adamantly refuse to say time after time after time when repeatedly asked to elaborate.  Frankly, arguing with you is like debating with a Jehovah witness zealot on the merits of creationism. Are you seriously trying to tell us that 7 billion people are going to be voting on the "truth" of thousands upon thousands of scientific theories every year. (why they even need to vote on the truth of such theories is another matter).  It is not as you stupidly continue to assert that  I am saying workers should not be allowed to have an opinion on some scientific theory and that this should be left to expert elite. I have no problems with anyone whatsoever venturing an opinion. I'm just saying that no one individual, however clever or gifted, can ever acquire more than a tiny fraction of the sum total of human knowledge and that consequently for any theory it is more than likely that most people (including the experts in  some other field) will have neither the knowledge or the inclination to pass an informed opinion on the subject,  I  have precious little knowledge of, for example, molecular biology and wouldn't presume to pass an opinion on some theory  relating to this field.  Does that bother me? Nope.  Not at all.  I  am quite happy for the molecular biologists to discuss among themselves the rights and wrongs of this particular theory.  You on the other hand have no conception whatsoever of the simple fact  that there is such a thing as a social division of labour and that with advances in human knowledge this is becoming more and not less pronounced. Your head is completely  in the clouds and that is why you never seem to progress beyond the utterance of empty mantras My point is that there are structural limits to democratic decision making and my interest is in trying to delineate where these lie. I'm all for democratic decision making but where it is needed and  not where it is not needed. Are you trying to tell that global population should determine what I read, where I live , what clothes I wear , what music I should be allowed to listen to and so on,  No? Well then if you say no then you too by implication accept that there must be structural limits to democratic decision making.  That is why I mentioned local or decentralised decision making in a future socialist society.  You didn't seem to understand the point of this example. In fact it serves as an analogy  for the example of expert elites.  If you agree that a local community knows best what it needs locally and does not need the global community to determine whether it requires a local hospital and where to siute it then what is the difference between that and saying that some people know more about a particular theory than others and are therefore in a better position to pass comment. In principle not much  This is nothing wrong in admitting you know less about a particular subject than someone else and it is nothing short of arrogant self delusion to pretend that the situation is different Of course if you dont think there will be some degree of decentralised decionmaking in socialism then that makes you a central planner.  In which case would you care to demonstrate  how you imagine one single plan for the whole of global society is remotely practicable?

[LBird]

I'm not allowed to answer you yet again, robbo, on pain of yet another ban.Please stop asking me the same questions (founded upon your wish to deny workers' democracy), all the while continuing to ignore the same answers.This thread is about your Religious Materialism, and I wish to adher to that topic.If you wish to pursue your topic, please read the answers that I've given before, time and time again, on other threads.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

I'm not allowed to answer you yet again, robbo, on pain of yet another ban.Please stop asking me the same questions (founded upon your wish to deny workers' democracy), all the while continuing to ignore the same answers.This thread is about your Religious Materialism, and I wish to adher to that topic.If you wish to pursue your topic, please read the answers that I've given before, time and time again, on other threads.

 You are clearly suffering from some kind of delusion LBird.  No you havent given the answers to the questions I ve asked at all.  Not at all.  On every single occasion WITHOUT FAIL  you've simply run away from the questions asked.  And now you have the effrontery to lie through your teeth about  it all declaring that I wish to "deny workers democracy". Quite the opposite is true and I said quite explicitly Im all in favour of workers democracy but where it is needed and not where it is not needed.  So, I dont think it is needed to determine , for instance, what I should wear, what I should consume,. where I should live , what music I should listen to, what interests I should pursue  and so on. These are personal choices and it is ridiculous and totally impractical trying to subject them to "democratic decisionmaking".  The same is true of your utterly daft and ill thought out idea of democratic "truth production".  It is such a stupid impractical idea I can hardly believe any rational human being could come up with such a thing. You say this thread is about "religious materialism".  That is ironic because, compared to you, a devotee of the Hare Krishna sect or a Jehovah Witness, would come across as a positively reasonable. You are the quintessential expression of the religious dogmatist who has nothing useful to say and finds some kind of weird comfort in the repetitive utterances of mantras, boring the pants off .all and everyone around him/her in the process.  Youve completely lost the plot, LBird

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, it's not 'materialism', then?

hmm, "true materialism" would seem to be a species of materialism; and "naturalism" is also considered (in some forms) a species of materialism… could be materialism…

[LBird]

Read my last post, YMS.

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

Truth can be elected, and thus the good life for humans can be established, by active humans employing social theory and practice.

This is demonstrably untrue.A) A truth claim can only be verified by a vote. The polity votes on the truth claim.C) The result of the vote is itself a truth claim.D) The result of the vote can only be discovered by a further vote.

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird, have done.  So, bourgeois science throew off the shackles of feudal superstition, and cleared the way for us to understand the world clearly, and it is the job of socialism to put that understanding to use.  Cheers, glad to know I was right all along.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

Truth can be elected, and thus the good life for humans can be established, by active humans employing social theory and practice.

This is demonstrably untrue.A) A truth claim can only be verified by a vote. The polity votes on the truth claim.C) The result of the vote is itself a truth claim.D) The result of the vote can only be discovered by a further vote.

That's why you're not a Democratic Communist, YMS.Your method cannot provide a 'truth' for the producers.At a guess, you seem to be some sort of post-modernist, focussing on language, rather than the politics of production in a class society.I don't know why you and robbo don't form a new party, dedicated to 'elite-experts not knowing truth'.I can't see its political appeal, to workers in struggle, trying to defeat the bourgeoisie by democratic methods of production, of factories, goods, services and knowledge.But, the 'truth' is, isn't it YMS, is that neither you nor robbo have this concern as a focus of your discussion?You play with your 'logic' and 'words', and robbo can stay on his knees to Hawking, and the workers who wish to understand Democratic Communism, to help them change the world in which they live (both mental and physical), can continue to explore issues of great concern to them.Have a nice day.

[Author]

Posts