Science for Communists?
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If I claimed to be a free individual now, that would indeed be bourgeois ideology, the point is to become one: I am nothing, I must become everything. And I must develop fully and roundly, "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." That means building a social relationship in which I won't want or need to go against the findings of a democratic vote (or, more pertinently, in which democracy is the means to liberate individuals, not constrain them).Marx, when asked, did not state his goal to be the delineation of structures, but the emancipation labour.
YMS wrote:Marx, when asked, did not state his goal to be the delineation of structures…More's the pity.Marx was a shit writer, and most of the problems we've had since he was alive and writing (never mind after he died, and Engels mangled his obscure and often meaningless works) were caused by his inability to state anything clearly. Marx never used one word where ten would do.We have to critically examine Marx's works, and dig out the suggestive and useful, and give it some meaning that workers today can understand.IMO, a large part of the reason for the state of the Communist movement today is the sheer inaccessibility of Marx's texts. Anyone who says that they understand the first three chapters of Capital and can explain them clearly is a bloody liar. I know, because I've been asking for years for an explanation, and have never received one in plain English. I've even had dickheads telling me to read Hegel first, before even attempting Capital! If there's one writer that makes Marx's texts seem like Janet and John kids' stories, it's Hegel.It's a condemnation of Communists since the 1840s, starting with Marx himself, that no-one has sought to make far simpler and understandable the central texts for workers to come to an understanding of capitalism. Like most workers, I suspect most 'Communists' (especially Leninists) have liked to keep it that way, so that only they (and not common-or-garden workers) actually understand their world.And you're a fan of this method, too, YMS, with all your talk of the mathematical inaccessibility of science to ordinary workers, hence your hostility to democracy within science.If a scientist can't explain what they're doing to everyone else, they won't be allowed to do 'science'.Science is a social activity, and part of the training for scientists in a Communist society would be the ability to explain clearly to the workers whose interests are behind the research, and whose collective efforts make science even possible.We should be starting this now, with a 'translation' of Capital. IMO, Critical Realism has the potential to provide this clear explanation of Marx's key work, for all workers to understand.I disagree with many posters here, including alanjjohnstone (who otherwise I agree with about many issues), who are of the opinion that a mass understanding of the method and philosophy of science is not necessary to building Communism/Socialism.If workers don't have that ability (and I think Communists should be developing that class ability, through education and propaganda), then they will remain in thrall to the 'Leninist-sciento-mathematico' elitist/expert ideology that you, and others here, espouse, YMS.
LBird wrote:Science is a social activity, and part of the training for scientists in a Communist society would be the ability to explain clearly to the workers whose interests are behind the research, and whose collective efforts make science even possible.You really haven't a clue
Won't be allowed to do science? Who will stop them? And how? What blithering nonsense.As it stands, popularising science is a particular sxjkill, distinct from the practice of science, some people are competant at this, and otehrs aren't. If a scientist can use the technical language of precision to talk to scientists who can explain it, that's fine, shirley?
Vin Maratty wrote:LBird wrote:Science is a social activity, and part of the training for scientists in a Communist society would be the ability to explain clearly to the workers whose interests are behind the research, and whose collective efforts make science even possible.You really haven't a clue
Another useful comment from the expert.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Won't be allowed to do science? Who will stop them? And how? What blithering nonsense.Society.Society will determine the parameters of science.Not your 'experts'.YMS, your understanding of science is that of Mengele.
Society will stop them reading books? Reading journal articles? Take out their eyes? Confiscate their pen and paper? Really? Will science databases be restricted? Datasets? Really?As for Mengele, what an absurd absurdum. There is no valid conmparison between experimenting on humans and sticking thermometers in waterfalls.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Society will stop them reading books? Reading journal articles? Take out their eyes? Confiscate their pen and paper? Really? Will science databases be restricted? Datasets? Really?As for Mengele, what an absurd absurdum. There is no valid conmparison between experimenting on humans and sticking thermometers in waterfalls.Stop being a fool, and ask yourself: 'who decides?'As far as you're concerned, you decide.That's not Communism.You can't answer a philosophical and political question, and constantly resort to stupid 'real world' questions.Just like a true conservative.Are you representative of the SPGB's level of thinking, sophistication and understanding?Mind you, at least you can hold a conversation (at the simplest school-kid level, though), unlike Vin.Anyway, time to leave you two 'thinkers' to organise the class. I feel for them.
Maybe there is some miscommunication going on here. You say that people will be stopped from practising science, which AFAICS is an impossibility, science is thinking and discussion, it can't be stopped. People living in the real world will decide, just as they do now, because socialism will have to be built out of the practice of the world as it is now to make it into the world that will become. Each will decide for themself in social conditions not of their choosing.
YMS wrote:Maybe there is some miscommunication going on here.There's no 'communication' of any sort 'going on here', never mind 'mis'.I'm asking you questions about political power, and its underlying philosophy, but you haven't got a clue about those sorts of discussions. To you, this is all about you and the world of your day-to-day life, and your personal concerns.Your inability to have a fundamental discussion at a higher level than 'you' doesn't bode well for our class. If workers who are already in a party can't do this sort of thinking, 130 years after Marx's death, and a 100 years after the events of WW1 and 1917-19, then it just demonstrates to me, the tremendous distance we have yet to go.You keep saying 'people living in the real world will decide, just as they do now', seemingly oblivious to the obvious fact that the vast majority of 'people living in the real world', now, don't have any say whatsoever about 'decisions', whether political, scientific, economic, ideological, etc.Quite frankly, your naivety is in some senses touching, but mostly just frightening. You seem to know nothing at all about 'power' and the questions we have to answer.I just wish, for once, you'd question your philosophical individualism. Believe me, your views are nothing to do with Communism/Socialism. That is an issue about power, and who wields it. If we don't introduce democratic methods from the very start, in all aspects of proletarian politics, then some minority will take command. Not 'individuals', but an organised political force, like the Leninists.This all has to be done before you can have a political discussion about science, YMS.
To which I reply, for the umnpteenth time, power is less relevant than interest: power is an anarchist concern. In the world today we make our own minds up (when we choose to do so) based on the evidence and learning before us. Political power favours the capitalist class because the working class actively suports capitalism, and sees it as being in their best interests. They have their say in that through the ballot box, and through the involvement of the workers in organised political parties like the Tory party.There is an ongoing discoursive struggle for meaning and control of the descriptions of that system, and certain words: welfare, immigration, terrorism, are loaded with contested meanings and inferences, and the ongoing discoursive battle to decide what is real (which is, if you've been paying attention, royal, the royalty that settles disputes in the end).Many workers in science struggle through their trade unions to control those work places, and to protect the freedom to direct their own research areas.If you're asking philsoophical qwuestions, I can only say you seem to be formulating them very badly, the equivilent of 'Life, the universe and everything?' (the answer is 42, btw). I'd say if pushed that in general a certain "materialism" is now the predominate theory, even the Tories no longer maintain that problems are down to individual wickedness or original sin, even if they do not consciousless espouse materialism (and indeed would be deeply against it), that said, most Tories these days are liberals in disguise anyway.Anyway, the point is that you notions of democracy seem limited, and don't account for the quality as well as the quantity of opinion (and I don't mean quality as in expertise, but strnength of feeling: a vote on fixing Wiunterval dinner does not elicit thje same responses as, say, votes on abortion).
YMS wrote:I'd say if pushed that in general a certain "materialism" is now the predominate theory…It is amongst those who know nothing of epistemology. Oh yes, and those who follow Engels, like the Leninists.
YMS wrote:…even the Tories no longer maintain that problems are down to individual wickedness or original sin, even if they do not consciousless espouse materialism…I could weep at your ignorance. Especially after dozens of threads and a thousand posts here, in which I've given loads of detailed explanations, you still think that the only alternative to 'materialism' is arguing for 'original sin'.We're doomed.
Y’know, YMS, Marx used ‘materialism’ as a synonym for ‘production’. It was Engels who came up with philosophical doctrine named ‘the materialist conception of history’. Marx merely referred to the ‘material forces of production’, ‘the mode of production of material life’ and ‘the material productive forces of society’. In this form, the concept ‘material’ production is human and social, and thus clearly contains ‘ideas’ as well as ‘things’.It’s as if you and the other followers of Engels have read about his insistence that ‘chocolate’ forms the basis of the canine world, and so when I want to talk about the proper treatment of dogs and insist that they should be kept warm, you insist that when Marx mentioned ‘Chocolate Labradors’, he really meant that dogs were made of chocolate, and so they should be kept in the fridge, so that they don’t melt. And I’m then taunted with accusations that ‘LBird wants dogs to melt!’ It’s a bizarre conversation that I’ve been having here.When Marx and Engels mention ‘material’, they are talking about different things: Marx is talking about humans producing their environment, whereas Engels is talking about ‘matter’, outside of human consciousness.In effect, Engels resurrected the old philosophical distinction between ‘being’ and ‘consciousness’, which Marx thought that he had overcome with his insistence upon ‘practice’ and ‘changing’, which require both ‘being and consciousness’; or, in terms we’ve been using, ‘reality and ideas’.Next time you hear someone claiming to be a ‘materialist’, think about Cadbury’s ‘Dialectical Milk’ chocolate bar. And then laugh at the simple sods.It really is that stupid to argue for ‘materialism’.
LBird wrote:When Marx and Engels mention ‘material’, they are talking about different things: Marx is talking about humans producing their environment, whereas Engels is talking about ‘matter’, outside of human consciousness.Which, as a critical realist you also hold to, that's what realism means, that thre is matter outside of human consciousness. Marx did talk of Materialism, not least in the Holy Family, and the critique is not negative, since he expressely notes that materialism leads to communism. he also co-wrote the German Ideology, which has plenty to say on materialism.So, lets recap here: no-one has argued against democracy in society, democratic organisation of scientific institutions and organisations, the only question has been one of deciding the status of scientfiic fact (I mean, we can democraticaly decide the names of planets, the units of measure, we could re-organise the periodic table to our hearts content; but as previously stated, we cannot vote for the tides to turn, and it that you have to address, as a philosophic principle).
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