Wrestling with Marx- Negations, Continuity and change- Help!
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MS – the answer to your query is quite obvious, they do not join the Party because they are not Marxists. I speak, of course, of the thousands who have encountered the SPGB and rejected it.
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I did not say that I said that they are thousands of peoples out there who have rejected dialectic and they think that we do not need dialectic, and some anarchists reject dialectic too. Most peoples who join the SPGB/WSM they come from two sources: They have been members of other organizations, or they are sympathizers of socialist ideas, and sometimes they leave and they join the leftist movement, and some can not accept our anti-Leninist stand and they need an ideological exorcism. There is not any magical formula for this. Also, we are not a worldly organization yet, we have one companion party in India and we had one group in Jamaica, and also we do not understand the cultural variations of others peoples and we do not understand their mentality either. There are many factors combined
MS – Again what’s your problem with Marx’s dialectic? As a form of logic it goes way back to ancient Greece and I can guarantee it will outlast many speculative scientific theories. In my view a rejection of it is to impoverish knowledge and I reject entirely anyone trying to impose sanctions on its use. It has been said that trying to understand the world without the dialectic is like trying to board a moving train whilst blindfolded – something you are welcome to keep trying if you so wish. As for your absurd assertion that ‘we do not understand cultural variations’ I can only point out the obvious fact that we all live within global capitalism and the experience of the working class is universal and ubiquitous.
Wez
Again, you are missing the point I am talking about attracting future members to the socialist party ( or to a World Socialist Party ) and do not use the word absurd with me because I have treated with respect Why do you think that Leninism spread around the whole world? Every country has its own political, cultural and economical particularity, go to the website of the World Socialist Party of India, and you will what topic they talk about. I don’t think you have read or understood what I said before, I was involved in dialect for several years, I am not an amateur on this topic, and I know and I have read the works of the best dialectician who have existed in that movement, and I rejected it a long time ago, but I continue having contact with them. At present time I do not need it and I have not needed it for many years. I do not want to go in the same repeating cycle, I know that dialectic went back to Greece, and I read about that, and I have studied Greek Philosophy from the dialectician up to the idealist philosophers, and I have read about the English, French and German philosophers. I rest my case,
understand the world without the dialectic is like trying to board a moving train whilst blindfolded
Wez and MS, Marx writings circulate. The texts find their way into many signifying practices in many disciplines, and include dialectical modes of thought, semiotics, worker local wisdoms and meaning making practices of many kinds. This diversity in interpretation shows its health- if interpretation rigidity occurs, it becomes… controlled, sedimented, uni-vocal, near vanguardism.
The fact that we have that richness, means it is a flourishing field of discourse (open to integrate old and new interpretive practices- with a common goal.
I use semiotic and discourse theory, a child of dialectics in some ways… and the broad range of comments in this thread show socialism incorporates many practices in the science of meaning:
“There is no royal road to science, and only those who
do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” (Capital, 1872)We are using many tools- as thought systems are that: a technology… an instrument.
We can engage in many roads of interpretive practice, and what unites it is the articles of understanding, the organising principle.
Sometimes reading Marx for Marx is also akin to our debates with one another, listening to vibrant ways of : a chance of gaining its luminous summits.
“As a form of logic it goes way back to ancient Greece.”
So that’s all you mean by dialectics? Thesis and antithesis confronting each other, resulting in a synthesis? A bit trite, I would have thought, as it’s something that happens everyday in numerous meetings. Who, as you say, can be opposed to that? It will go on as long as there are decisions to be made. In fact, I am sure it has been going on ever since Homo sapiens evolved and so pre-dates Ancient Greece.
The real argument is over whether or not it extends outside the field of human thinking and decision-making. Is it something more than “a form of logic”? Does it apply within (for want of a better term) “Nature”?
Of course everything everywhere is always changing; nothing remains the same. If accepting this is what dialectics is then that’s not a problem. But did and do the changes take place through internal contradiction? Does the fact that the water in a river is not the same as it was a moment before due to some internal contradiction? Does the evolution of a species of life-form that can be traced from the fossil record take place because of internal contradictions within the preceding form? Does water change from liquid to gas spontaneously through internal contradiction?
It is possible to describe some of these changes using the language of Hegelian dialectics (interpenetration of opposites, changes in quantity leading to a change of quality, etc) — Marx himself said he “coquetted” with doing this — but this is still only a way of describing what humans perceive is happening, and not necessarily the most useful or insightful.
“We can engage in many roads of interpretive practice, and what unites it is the articles of understanding, the organising principle.”
LB, On our many varying roads and differing paths to understanding, we acquire much baggage upon our backs and some we are reluctant to shed, even though they are now a cumbersome and unnecessary burden.
The Russian( IML ) published a philosophical book for propagation used by many ML parties and for internal education which says that philosophy and dialectic did not start in Greece but in India, there was also materialist philosophers within the Arab world and I conserved the book for many years and I gave it to a friend of mine as a present and he is a doctor in philosophy and he was surprised to read that. Marx himself said in a letter to Engels that Political economic was trash after he spent more than 25 years studying economic
“We can engage in many roads of interpretive practice, and what unites it is the articles of understanding, the organising principle.”
LB, On our many varying roads and differing paths to understanding, we acquire much baggage upon our backs and some we are reluctant to shed, even though they are now a cumbersome and unnecessary burden.
For some leftist groups, Marx organizing principles is the Gotha Program, and this is not true. Marx never created a blueprint of the pos capitalist society
LB, On our many varying roads and differing paths to understanding, we acquire much baggage upon our backs and some we are reluctant to shed, even though they are now a cumbersome and unnecessary burden.
… Allan… The reason for how heavy I feel when I wrestle- lifting so much weight.
It has been a treat to read Marx (writer to reader). And it has made me feel lighter, lifting a weight from the vast opinions after Marx,.. Getting back to basics is great…
I do find social science fun. Like Wez finds Dialectics fun. The nerd in me I embrace. The Marx in me, I see the purpose… I should do an inventory of what is not needed in my backpack.
MS
For some leftist groups, Marx organizing principles is the Gotha Program, and this is not true. Marx never created a blueprint of the pos capitalist society
We live in a World of change and movement. We do not have a blueprint.. and to fix one, insist on one, will create havoc on any future in socialist Society- controlling it before it can come into being. Interpretation is only Technique. And many of us have that in spades!
Right now I am celebrating my re-discovery of Marx as writer. Me as reader. And it is a great and light place to be. I can see my house from here 🙂
I jumped from the Marx of the 1844 Manuscript into Marx after the German ideology when he settled his account with speculative philosophy
https://www.marxists.org/archive/eastman/1935/science-philosophy.htm
ALB – ‘So that’s all you mean by dialectics? Thesis and antithesis confronting each other, resulting in a synthesis?’
Having edited my articles down the years you know perfectly well that that’s not ‘all I mean by dialectics’. I was just pointing out its origins pre-date its use in Hegelian idealist philosophy.
MS – ‘Again, you are missing the point I am talking about attracting future members to the socialist party…’
This implies that you believe the use of the dialectic inhibits people from joining the Party? I don’t believe this to be the case – certainly not with myself as I found it an inspiring intellectual journey. Ironically (from your perspective) it was the ‘philosophical’ work of the Frankfurt School that discovered one of the main reasons for the rejection of socialism – the ‘authoritarian personality’. The conditioned need for leaders and authoritarian social structure is our main enemy.
I’d forgotten, Wez, that you used to call yourself a Freudo-Marxian. Lucky I didn’t include Freud along with Jung as a philosopher rather than a scientist! Nobody has been able to discover in human physiology the special “sexual energy” that his school posits and that gets repressed, diverted and whatnot. But that’s another thread.
ALB – I’ve never understood your need to reduce psychology to some kind of materialistic mechanics. The libido theory of which you speak was a very early Freudian theory which he himself went on to replace with the dialectical relationship between Eros & Thanatos which was later taken up by the Frankfurt School to great effect – but, as you say, that’s another thread. Perhaps what’s at the heart of this thread is the belief that complex intellectual theories implicit in philosophy and psychology (and their dialectical synthesis) inhibits people from becoming socialists? I don’t believe this as I think it’s merely an excuse for anti-intellectual populism.
Perhaps what’s at the heart of this thread is the belief that complex intellectual theories implicit in philosophy and psychology (and their dialectical synthesis) inhibits people from becoming socialists? I don’t believe this as I think it’s merely an excuse for anti-intellectual populism.
I dont think it is so much “anti-intellectualism” as a justifiable gut reaction against the over-jargonised and obscure writing which so many “left wing intellectuals” tend to specialise in. It is extremely off putting. It makes them seem like a bunch of poseurs. The whole point of writing is to communicate ideas and if you do it in a form that people cannot understand (unless they have undertaken several years study for a PhD in philosophy or whatever) you have to wonder what is the purpose of such writings
There is nothing wrong with developing or tackling complex theories per se. Its the manner in which one goes about doing it that is the problem. The basic concepts and terms need to be expressed in simply plain language
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