Z A Jordan and Marx’s epistemology

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird, I'm trying to understand you.  Marx was very precise in his termininology (this is what makes his works difficult to read sometimes)  Precision is important in debate.  You can call it word play if you like, but it is quite galling after an hours debate about the state of traffic to find you were discussing Edinburgh when I was talking about Carlisle.I note your quiet acceptance of 'produce' rather than create.  Can you now add transform to the mix?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Lbird, I'm trying to understand you.  

Frankly, I find this difficult to believe. You seem to want to make me say what you understand, rather than you understand what I write.Unless you start from the view that we have different ideological starting points (that is, you have to understand both my and your ideologies), which isn't agreeing with each others, but understanding each others.

YMS wrote:

Marx was very precise in his termininology…

I disagree. I think Marx was a terribly unclear writer, who didn't use the same term for the same concept consistently. That's not least of the reasons I think workers today have to make Marx much clearer for our revolutionary purposes.

YMS wrote:

… (this is what makes his works difficult to read sometimes)

No, what makes his works difficult to read is his poor writing style, combined with the complete unfamiliarity of his arguments to those brainwashed by the bourgeoisie (ie. all of us in this society). His works 'sound mad' to those who start from their bourgeois ideology. Critical thought is necessary, including about 'science', 'objective knowledge' and 'Truth'.

YMS wrote:

 Precision is important in debate.

I agree, and Marx often doesn't provide it. But you are the one changing/substituting what I write, for what you wish that I'd written.

YMS wrote:

 You can call it word play if you like, but it is quite galling after an hours debate about the state of traffic to find you were discussing Edinburgh when I was talking about Carlisle.

Little tip, YMS. When I write 'Edinburgh', don't read 'Carlisle'.

YMS wrote:

I note your quiet acceptance of 'produce' rather than create.  Can you now add transform to the mix?

Here we go, again. In this context, 'produce' and 'create' are synonyms for human activity. If you wish to reserve one for 'god and nothing' (ie. 'creation'), that's your choice, not mine. If you wish to use 'transform' to alter the meaning of 'produce/create', then you're 'adding' to confuse. If you simply mean 'produce/create', why add another term?Finally, purpose.You should take note of this.My purpose to clarify an epistemology suitable for the revolutionary proletariat, as a part of its class consciousness, to help build a democratic politics, including in the social production of scientific knowledge and truth.If you have a different purpose (individual knowledge, personal clarification, defence of bourgeois science, piss-taking, whatever), you should declare it, because it will impact upon your understanding of Marx.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

I agree, and Marx often doesn't provide it. But you are the one changing/substituting what I write, for what you wish that I'd written.

Or maybe what you wrote isn't as clear asyou think. 

Lbird wrote:

Here we go, again. In this context, 'produce' and 'create' are synonyms for human activity. If you wish to reserve one for 'god and nothing' (ie. 'creation'), that's your choice, not mine. If you wish to use 'transform' to alter the meaning of 'produce/create', then you're 'adding' to confuse. If you simply mean 'produce/create', why add another term?

Produce:  To make (an object) by physical labour; (now spec.) to make or manufacture (a product or commodity) from components or raw materials.Create: a. trans. To bring into being, cause to exist; esp. to produce where nothing was before.The point, at any rate, to be clear, is that we do not produce ex nihil: do we agree on tha, we produce our objects from the stuff of the world?  I think this is a key point, and requires clarity.I am suggesting transmorm as a better word than either, becuase it clarifies this particular point.

Lbird wrote:

You should take note of this.My purpose to clarify an epistemology suitable for the revolutionary proletariat, as a part of its class consciousness, to help build a democratic politics, including in the social production of scientific knowledge and truth.If you have a different purpose (individual knowledge, personal clarification, defence of bourgeois science, piss-taking, whatever), you should declare it, because it will impact upon your understanding of Marx.

My purpose is to debate, clarify and understand what you are trying to say.

[LBird]

Why do you bother, YMS?I've told you what I mean, and you quote a dictionary which disagrees with what I've said.What's the point of claiming you want to understand what I say, but keep resorting to assumptions that are not what I say?If you want to understand what dictionary definitions (those non-socially products, The Real Truth, eternal objects) say, why not read more dictionaries?Why pretend? Why waste my time, and yours?

[Young Master Smeet]

Produce and create are not pure synonyms, especially given the divine connotations of create, since you don't want to add meaning by differentiating them, I need to ask questions for further clarification.Per my Edinburgh/Carlisle example, if throughout the conversation we're both just saying "town" then the confusion is not easy to spot.Asking questions, and re-phrasing your comments is an attempt to tease out the unclarity, especially when you seem to resort to ad hominem whenever you're challenged on any weak points in your argument.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Produce and create are not pure synonyms, especially given the divine connotations of create, since you don't want to add meaning by differentiating them, I need to ask questions for further clarification.

Read carefully, YMS, Very carefully, Very, very carefully.Produce and create are pure synonyms for Marx.Marx regarded humans as divine creators.So, I don't need to 'add meaning' – that's what you want to do. Your 'clarification' is an attempt to 'redefine' – why not admit it? You simply want to redefine Marx's revolutionary, democratic epistemology, into a conservative, elite epistemology, and then claim that 'Marx was wrong' and 'LBird is wrong'.

YMS wrote:

Asking questions, and re-phrasing your comments is an attempt to tease out the unclarity, especially when you seem to resort to ad hominem whenever you're challenged on any weak points in your argument.

You are not asking questions, or for re-phrasing, or teasing out unclarity, but trying to define Marx into line with your bourgeois ideology.It's not 'ad hominem' to say you 'seem to' have cloth ears, because I keep giving explanations, and you redefine or rephrase them into your terms. I think that I'm being more than reasonable, with someone who doesn't read what I write (or Marx or Jordan), but keeps bleating about 'personal attacks'.The only 'weak points' in Marx's argument are the ones you keep inserting. Why not go to church, and pray to your creator for divine guidance, and experience a personal relevation? It'll be quicker for you than social clarification.

[LBird]

YMS, I'm trying to tell you what Marx said, as him being a revolutionary thinker.If you're trying to understand him as him being a bourgeois thinker, then you won't succeed.Or, rather, you'll succeed, and 'understand' him as a bourgeois thinker who's clearly wrong.If you don't share his political and ideological beliefs, then your 'understanding' will be built upon other political and ideological beliefs.That's why I openly declare my ideology of Democratic Communism – I'm not hiding my starting point.But you are hiding yours.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Produce and create are pure synonyms for Marx.

Citation needed.  A quick scan of Marx's works found create often related to value, but produce relating to needs.  For example: "In the process of production, human beings work not only upon nature, but also upon one another."  A turn of phrase like "But these functions neither create value, nor produce surplus-value.  Also "The difficulty as concerns mercantile wage-workers is by no means to explain how they produce direct profits for their employer without creating any direct surplus-value (of which profit is but a transmuted form)." Is interesting, value is created by humans (capital does produce surplus value) https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch17.htm seems to indicate a synonym relationshipLooking for "creator" gets: "So far therefore as labour is a creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, without which there can be no material exchanges between man and Nature, and therefore no life." which I will leave to stand on its own as a comment on your reading of Marx.

Quote:

So, I don't need to 'add meaning' – that's what you want to do. Your 'clarification' is an attempt to 'redefine' – why not admit it? You simply want to redefine Marx's revolutionary, democratic epistemology, into a conservative, elite epistemology, and then claim that 'Marx was wrong' and 'LBird is wrong'.

Our whole dispute is a disagreement aboiut reading Marx, you say he said one thing, I say he said something else, I'd liek to know, given we've both read the same words, how we got here.

Quote:

It's not 'ad hominem' to say you 'seem to' have cloth ears, because I keep giving explanations, and you redefine or rephrase them into your terms. I think that I'm being more than reasonable, with someone who doesn't read what I write (or Marx or Jordan), but keeps bleating about 'personal attacks'.

It is ad hominem, a clear thinker does not interpolate the abilities of intentions of their audience, but merely seeks to refine the rguments in the lights of questions.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

If you don't share his political and ideological beliefs, then your 'understanding' will be built upon other political and ideological beliefs.

So only people who agree with you already can understand you?

LBird wrote:

But you are hiding yours.

I revealed it earlier in this thread, I am a Marxist humanist who believes in the self emancipation of the proletariate via the the revolutionary democratic conquest of political power, the end of alienation, and abolition of the wages system, and the common and democratic ownership and control of the means and instruments of producing and distribuing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

[LBird]

I thought that you were a 'Hebridean exophagist'?How can we trust the claims of someone who seems to merely say what they think others want to hear?Perhaps you should stick to reading bourgeois dictionaries – they'll provide the 'objective definitions' that you so desperately seek. Plus, dictionaries don't expect you to think critically.

[Young Master Smeet]

I reserve the right to change my mind, Hebridean Exophagism is sooooo last year.This article refuted its basic premisesBut what I think has been irrelevent since they discovered all Yorkshiremen are liars.

[moderator1]

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[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

Marx regarded humans as divine creators.

JUst one question: where do humans come from, if the world is their divine creation?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx regarded humans as divine creators.

JUst one question: where do humans come from, if the world is their divine creation?

You'll have to take that up with Marx, YMS.Or, perhaps, actually read Jordan's text.

[Bijou Drains]

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx regarded humans as divine creators.

JUst one question: where do humans come from, if the world is their divine creation?

You'll have to take that up with Marx, YMS.Or, perhaps, actually read Jordan's text.

To rephrase YMS's question, where (in your opinion) did Marx think humans come from if he thought that the world was their divine creation?

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