Science for Communists?

[Anonymous]

LBirdThank you for the continuation of the one-way lecture. I am afraid I remain an ignorant buffoon wallowing in my ignorance at the feet of the ‘science messiah’, with the rest of the proletariat. As you say, we are like the Shakespearian monkey. Eventually we will all randomly write the works of Karl Marx. Or in my case Fred Engels.But I digress. May I request more pearls of wisdom.How do we get rid of elites: people who teach science from above. By the the way  I do not go along with those nasty materialist who claim that you are the only elitist around here.This is what  you have taught me so far (Please correct me if I am wrong, in red pen of course):All science today is value laden, ideologically underpinned and bourgeois to boot. There is no such thing as an objective fact. What we need is a science for socialists or a proletarian science.Moving on a bit and to a non-capitalist society where there is no proletariat or bourgeoisie, no socialist movement, and no class struggle; only human beings in free association, producing goods and services directly to meet their needs.Here is my big question and I believe that you are the only intellect capable of giving me an answer.In such a society will science continue to be value laden and ideologically underpinned?  Will we continue to live  without objective facts? Will the classless society change anything? Apologies for the spelling and grammar but I am a mere proletariat seeking knowledge from above. 

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBirdThank you for the continuation of the one-way lecture. I am afraid I remain an ignorant buffoon wallowing in my ignorance at the feet of the ‘science messiah’, with the rest of the proletariat. As you say, we are like the Shakespearian monkey. Eventually we will all randomly write the works of Karl Marx. Or in my case Fred Engels.

Vin, once again I've treated you with respect, and spent some time trying to give you a 'way in' to some very complex issues, and tried to put our differences aside.But, once again, I've had it thrown in my face.I am forced to conclude that you really are 'an ignorant buffoon'.I should go back to taking the piss, but I've wasting enough time (again and again and again) with the SPGB.Continue to wallow in ignorance, you bloody fools.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Shouldn't we go beyond words and connect with emotions by creating political "images" of our position where people relate without requirement of adopting the language of an ideology.

In my opinion, ajj, this would be a move from rationalist thinking into romanticism.I'm afraid I've had enough of all this, now.I had hopes that you and ALB, at least, would be worth engaging with, but nothing I'm saying seems to have any effect with anyone connected to the SPGB.Last point: we either adopt an ideology consciously, or adopt an ideology unconsciously.You're making a serious philosophical mistake to go in search of 'non-ideology'.Thanks for having me.

[Anonymous]

LBirdIt was just a bit of fun, paying you back in kind. You have to admit you talk down to me. Any way I have removed all the micky taking.I would genuinly appreciate your opinion on the following. 

Vin Maratty wrote:

Is this what you are telling me?All science today is value laden, ideologically underpinned and bourgeois to boot. There is no such thing as an objective fact. What we need is a science for socialists or a proletarian science.Moving on a bit and to a non-capitalist society where there is no proletariat or bourgeoisie, no socialist movement, and no class struggle; only human beings in free association, producing goods and services directly to meet their needs.In such a society will science continue to be value laden and ideologically underpinned?  Will we continue to live  without objective facts? Will the classless society change anything?

[DJP]

Vin. Theory ladeness of observation is an inescapable feature of the human condition. Though that is not quite the same thing as LBirds "ideologies"You might like this website, it goes into all the details in nice short and clear articles. "Bourgouise science" actually says a lot of the things that LBird is saying too.https://explorable.com/philosophy-of-science

[SocialistPunk]

Hi Alan

Alanjjohnstone wrote:

Should we offer a more detailed road-map rather than a world atlas as a guide to what path to take?Should we describe just what awaits at the end of the journey in more detail so we all know want to get there as quickly and as directly as we can?

I think the answer to this question is yes. Time and time again on this forum SPGB members have shied away from describing what we could achieve as a social-ist society. Usually you get the reply that the future majority will have to decide, always defering to the future revolution. Almost as if socialists today have no vision of what could be, but I don't think that is the case, as to be a socialist advocating such a rare version of socialism, means you have to have a strong imagination to be able to think beyond the confines of capitalist limits. I think there is more imagination within the SPGB/WSM than in the so called artistic community.Perhaps if we were more inclined to express our imaginations more openly than we do, it may excite more imaginations. Unfotunately the image that is often given out by the party is of a musty old lecturer, out of touch with the students ie the modern world. Note I use the word often, implying not 100% of the time.Sorry if this might seem off topic, but it is relevant in that it has to do with how socialists interact with our target audience and so influences socialist education.  

[Anonymous]

DJP wrote:

Vin. Theory ladeness of observation is an inescapable feature of the human condition. Though that is not quite the same thing as LBirds "ideologies"You might like this website, it goes into all the details in nice short and clear articles. "Bourgouise science" actually says a lot of the things that LBird is saying too.https://explorable.com/philosophy-of-science

Thanks DJP. A good link for anyone wishing to learn about or go deeper into the subject.I am aware that a lot of what LBird is saying is already generally accepted but it is presented as in opposition to bourgoeis science.It is not that capitalism is 'bad' and socialism is 'good'. We have to accept that there are many aspects of capitalism that socialists and later socialist society will use and adopt and we have to decide if 'science' is one of them. I happen to believe it is but I have an open mind. As  Alan has said – do we throw the baby out with the bath water? 

[SocialistPunk]

I don't get the impression LBird is suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water.Lets see. Hands up those, like Brian earlier, think that LBird is proposing we reject all scientific knowledge because it has not been gleaned within a socialist setting?

[ALB]

What I don't understand, LBird, is why you make the opposite of your "socially subjective facts" (actually "social class subjective") a "bourgeois individualistic" approach. Surely the opposite is, rather, a "whole society subjective" approach?In other words, that there are some things that all humans can accept as "subjective" facts, e.g. about the things used for everyday living and how and why they work, but also for certain sciences, e.g astronomy. I can see that there can be, and is, bourgeois economics, sociology,. history, psychology but don't see why there has to be, or is, bourgeois physics, chemistry, biology.  It is not as if you completely rule out a "class-free" physics, etc since you take the view that this will be the case in socialism/communism.Anyway, my main point is that you are unfair and in fact insulting (hence some of the acrimony shown to you) in describing your critics here as "bourgeois individualists". The most you could accuse them/us of is denying that your contention that there are "social class subjective facts" across the board .If you want to argue with "bourgeois individualitsts" I suggest you go on to their sites, eg of the Von Mises Institute, and take them on directly rather than attributing their views to us here.

[alanjjohnstone]

“My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I’m not selling bread, I’m selling yeast. “ – Miguel UnamunoMaybe that should be our approach…simply offer the activating agent rather than the finished product.other quotes by him There is no tyranny in the world more hateful than that of ideas. Ideas bring ideophobia, and the consequence is that people begin to persecute their neighbors in the name of ideas. I loathe and detest all labels, and the only label that I could now tolerate would be that of ideoclast or idea breakerScience is a cemetery of dead ideas, even though life may issue from them.Imagination, which is the social sense, animates the inanimate and anthropomorphizes everything; it humanizes everything and even makes everything identical with man.http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I don't get the impression LBird is suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water.

I think that adopting the kind of cognitive relativism that LBird holds would entail abandoning science as we understand it today.I'ts probably quite a technical issue, but there is a good summary of points for and against here:http://www.iep.utm.edu/cog-rel/

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I can see that there can be, and is, bourgeois economics, sociology,. history, psychology but don't see why there has to be, or is, bourgeois physics, chemistry, biology.

I've already dealt with this, ad nauseum. You are following BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGY in separating 'arts' (or 'social science') from 'science' (or 'physics'). You haven't dreamt this all up by your INDIVIDUAL self. You are mindlessly repeating 'RULING CLASS IDEAS'.Marx argued in favour of a UNIFIED SCIENCE, of both physical and social science, into one human science. I, at least, if no-one else does on this site, FOLLOW MARX on this. That is, because I'm a Communist, not a Liberal.

ALB wrote:

It is not as if you completely rule out a "class-free" physics, etc since you take the view that this will be the case in socialism/communism.

But I do rule out 'ideology-free' physics, as I keep saying, because, according to bourgeois science, it's part of the human condition. All societies employ ideas to understand the world. Science employs ideas to understand the world. Humans employ ideas to understand the world. THERE IS NO IDEOLOGY-FREE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

ALB wrote:

Anyway, my main point is that you are unfair and in fact insulting (hence some of the acrimony shown to you)…

Here we go, the Stalinist-like rewriting of history. Just like any other so-called "workers' party".I keep explaining things, in great detail, in as simple terms as possible, trying to help others with very complex issues, and keep getting personally attacked for it.So, having BEEN TREATED UNFAIRLY AND INSULTINGLY, I proceed to THEN SHOW ACRIMONY.Not only that, I try, time and again, to reset the clock, and try to resume some 'comradely' discussions. And every time IT GETS THROWN BACK IN MY FACE.Finally, the 7th cavalry arrives! ALB and alanjjohnstone! I celebrate, and assume, now, at last, we can have a grown-up conversation!But… no, it's just more of the same. Same asking of questions, same answers from me, same ignoring of those answers.Me: all science is ideological.DJP: what forever? YesVin: what, if I wear blue? YesYMS: what, if I use logs? YesDJP: what, if I eat strawberries? YesVin: what, if I'm alone? YesYMS: what, if I get a degree? YesDJP: what, if I know a professor who does physics? YesVin: what, if the bourgeoisie are defeated? YesYMS: what, if I go to the moon to do science? YesFor god's sake, what bit of 'all science is ideological' don't you all understand?

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

For god's sake, what bit of 'all science is ideological' don't you all understand?

In socialism is it likely that there will there still be bourgoeis and proletarian ideologies?If not, what type of ideologies can we expect in a classless society?   

[Anonymous]

Marxism need not be tied to any particular definition of 'science*. In fact 'science' evades definition.    Popper's definition, for example, is by no means uncontroversial .    What would constitute a refutation of Popper's theory of science?    If it is not refutable, then by its own definition it is unscientific.    Science does not exist in a vacuum.    It is a social product and its definition has altered throughout history.'The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social and political processes of life'.Why should science be given a special place outside of Marxian social analysis?   The functionalists take physical sciences as a model of what is scientific, while defining what is scientific as that which is not subject to social analysis .  But science is cultivated in social surroundings and within a network of conflicting interests.   The more powerful of interests will often have the ability to define what is 'scientific'.    This is not to deny that science is in some sense advancing and that our knowledge of the world is improving.   The direction and paradigms of science are, however, determined by class interests.   Today's 'science' is 'scientific' because it serves some human interests – capitalist interests – and it is useful to them.   

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

For god's sake, what bit of 'all science is ideological' don't you all understand?

In socialism is it likely that there will there still be bourgoeis and proletarian ideologies?If not, what type of ideologies can we expect in a classless society? 

Isn't it enough, Vin, on this thread, to get agreement that 'all science is ideological', and discuss how that affects our class's view now of 'science', rather than divert into the perhaps long-off future?For example, if 'science is ideological', doesn't that give us a basis for the idea of a 'unified scientific method', as Marx thought possible? That is, physics and sociology can be both 'scientific'. Think what a boost that will give to the status of our sociological analysis of today's society, that is, class analysis, if it can be shown to have equivalent validity to physics, and claim the status that physics enjoys as 'truth' in the eyes of wider society. Because that is what I think is at stake, and I think that bourgeois philosophers of science have opened up this possibility for us, with their own criticisms of 'physics as Truth'.At the moment, most people regard physics with the same authority and certainty as it had in the 19th century, that it produces 'truth', whilst social science is just 'mere opinion'. This is 'common sense' at the moment, even though it goes against the findings of science. Surely an attack on the certainty of 'science' will also undermind all those other disciplines that claim to be aiming for 'objective truth', like neo-classical economics?We have to find a basis for science which is acceptable to our class, because the basis, built up over 300 hundred years by the bourgeoisie, has dissolved, as even the religious are aware.Your question is a reasonable one, but for another thread.

[Author]

Posts