[Hud955]

DJP wrote:

I'll run the idea past the education department, though this is not strictly necessary.

 For what it's worth, this half of the education department is happy to offer any support needed.  In fact, I think I'd like to join in.  I can't promise to be a consistent member though, so perhaps you should look for an other as well if you want three.  I skimmed through it: looked interesting.

[Hud955]

Hi TWCThis is all understood.  There are many refinements we can make philosophically to our understanding of the concept of 'reality'.  But they are just refinements.  And the justification for scientific realism is an instrumental, not a cognitive one.  If you want, you can do away with the concept of ‘reality’ altogether and the scientific project would still stand.  Even so, I don’t see how refinements of this kind support the appearance/reality case you are building.   The observation of the motion of Mars relative to the earth is a subject for intraspecific agreement but is not in itself a social product.  People from a heliocentric culture would make pretty much the same Earthly observations of Mars’s motion as people from a geocentric culture and would presumably find no contradiction if they compared records of those observations.  What is a social product is the cognitive model they would each build to explain their observation.  You seem to want to conflate 'reality' in the sense of the cognitive model (theory), with 'reality' as something which has a problematic relationship with appearance (observation) – which would put an end completely to the scientific project. I think what is muddying the waters here is your Marxian redefinition of common terms – which of course, gives them a new set of logical relationships but also rigidly limits a more detailed analysis.   I can see where you are wanting to take this (I think) and I’m not suggesting that you are necessarily wrong, but, for me, the concepts you are working with are insufficiently precise to do the job. I don’t agree that our views are necessarily incommensurable.  

[Hud955]

I haven't followed this entire discussion, so forgive me if I've misunderstood anything, but I'm not sure I agree with this construction of appearance and reality.  Scientific realism is, after all, the view (crudely) that things are as they appear to be to the senses.  If they tend to diverge then that's because you aren't looking hard enough or are viewing the world through the wrong medium. There is no absolute motion in the universe, only relative motion.  A consequence of that is that there is no single way of describing the motion of the planets.   Mars' retrograde motion when the Earth is taken as the reference point is perfectly real.  On the other hand, the movements of the planets, Mars included, relative to the sun show no retrograde motion and are broadly elliptical.  And there is no contradiction between these two statements.  Appearance and reality are in complete harmony.  What the history of human enquiry shows is not a contradiction between appearance and reality but a slow process of reducing the contradiction between appearance/reality and our observation and modelling of it. It's Ptolemy's mistaken assumption of a geocentric universe not a contradiction between appearance and reality that led him to misinterpret the motion of Mars and therefore to try to describe it by means of epicycles.  It's Copernicus's mistaken assumption that the 'natural' motion of the planets about the sun was circular that led him to burden his heliocentric model of the universe with epicycles too.  The accuracy of our attempted explanations and constructions of this aspect of appearance/reality will depend on whether we assum the sun goes round the earth or the earth goes round the sun. And this can't be settled simply by observations of their relative motion from Earth . Ptolemy and (most of) his contemporaries simply made a geocentric assumption and it happened to be the wrong one, though one quite understandable at the time.   It's only when people started observing the motion of physical bodies on the earth more closely in the seventeenth century and realised that the model provided by Aristotelian mechanics was incorrect that the new Classical model came into being.  And it is only then that observation (an appeal to appearance) began to provide evidence for a heliocentric universe and eventually a heliocentric solar system.  (And even that took a good deal of interpretation and an appeal to the rationalistic principle of Occam's Razor).  Fundamentally, though, we get closer to reality through a more detailed and accurate observation of appearance, not by setting up an antagonism between the two.

[Hud955]

It was a good meeting. There were about 30 people there.  The main part was a talk by a guy called James Phillips who describes himself as the Project Co-ordinator for TZM Education.  Apparently he does a lot of work going into schools and talking about TZM.   It was pretty standard fare, introducing the organisation and its views for newcomers.  He was pretty hot on the Venus Project, which interested me.  In fact most of his promotional material – big displays all round the room were Venus Project stuff, not TZM.  His repeated theme was that science (measurement) provided the only real basis for a rational system of values – a claim which lead directly into the technocratic/anti-democratic argument.  I raised the question what would happen if the population or a section of it asserted values other than purely technocratic ones, things that couldn't be measured.  He eventually conceded that as there could be no public power of coercion within a resource-based economy that technocratic values could not be imposed – implying that there must be some alternative way for the population to express their collective will.  His back-foot arguement though is that through education, people would naturally come to accept technocratic decisions as the only rational ones.  It hadn't occured to him that maybe some people might disagree and be doing a bit of education of their own. This opened up space for a discussion about democratic control which Danny pressed home chatting to some members after the meeting.  One other interesting thing he said, apparently in passing, was that 'Of course we don't expect everyone will follow us'  which suggests he envisages some sort of enclave of TZMers in a largely capitalist (?) world.  And yep, he kicked it off with a funny money argument, and referred repeatedly to it throughout the session.  (So much for Michael Joseph's attempt to distance the movement somewhat from those early claims).  James was  clearly one of the faithful.  It's really quite amazing that, for an obviously intelligent bloke he couldn't (or didn't want to) see the huge flaws in his really rather simplistic argument.  It wasn't challenged. There was an extended attack on 'the money economy' aka capitalism much of which could have come from one of our own speakers, followed by a description of what a resource based economy might look like.    'Transitioning' – getting from capitalism to a resource based economy – took up a fair bit of his discussion afterwards, and seemed to be what exercised the concern of a lot of visitors.  His answer seemed to be: learn as much as you can and find out what you are good at so you can contribute.  Vague enough.  But he clearly believed that capitalism (or should I say 'the money economy') was in the process of collapse partly because of the proposed spiralling system of debt created by the banking system and  partly because of so-called technological unemployment (people being forced out of productive work by machines). Which all goes to show that a rationalist understanding will take you a fair way to understanding the inefficiencies and destructiveness of capitalism, but it won't help you to understand exploitation or  power structures, or give you a clear view of  where to go from here.  (He expressed the old utopian hope that TZM would eventually get funding/investment to start building their circle cities and that the movement would grow from there.  Presumably, all it will take is for the capitalist class to see how sensible their proposals really are.It was interesting though to have a discussion with people whose compass was pointing in roughly the same direction as ours without being overlaid with tons of leftist elitism.  Most of the people there were looking for a collective and social solution to the problems of capitalism, free from property and property values.  Though they are mired in some pretty unhelpful mindsets, they are miles ahead of the occupy movement.

[Hud955]

Hi Socialist PunkI'm actually with you on what you say about using moral argument as a means of drawing people in.  I think it does no harm at all  to use it in this way occasionally.  In fact, you can see this as part of the strategy of turning capitalist morality against capitalism and showing that it leads to contradictions.  We do this sort of thing all the time in the Standard though we don't often use conventional moral language.What I'm against is incorporating moral language into our socialist world view and enshrining it as party policy.  It's when it becomes a systematic part of our case that it becomes a problem.  At that point we stop turning capitalist moral judgements against the system and start making our own.

[Hud955]

ALB wrote:

Hud955 wrote:

The scientific stance is the only thing that can create a conscious movement for socialism and keep us on course; ethics cannot distinguish between socialism and reformism, and tends to lead to the latter because it overwhelmingly focuses on single issues.

Hud955 wrote:

I think we can certainly use capitalist morality against capitalism itself, but it is a dangerous weapon and needs to be used carefully, because on its own it leads directly to reformist solutions not to socialist ones.

I think we should be careful not to overdo this line of argument. For two reasons.First, because it is possible to imagine a "moral" argument against capitalism which would not lead either to reformism or to single-issueism. Only some moral arguments lead to this, i.e those that criticise capitalism from its own standpoint (for not being "fair" to all workers), because capitalism can, has and is putting this right: minority groups don't have to be discriminated against.Second, even an argument based on class analysis can lead to reformism. After all, the classic Social Democratic and Old Labour case was that their parties were defending the interests of the working class within capitalism.The case against basing the case for socialism on some abstract morality is that this is not what motivates social change. It's classes acting in their own class interest. That's how it's been in the past and how it is likely to be in the future change from capitalism to socialism, especially as this change will be one brought out by the majority class acting consciously, which will involve an understanding of what it is doing, i.e acting in its own class interest.

I don't disagree Adam, but I think what you say needs to be hemmed in with quite a lot of qualification.  From a materialist perspective we see that revolutionary social change is motivated by class interest, but class interest (and principally ruling class interest) can and often is expressed in ethical or other ideological language.  The capitalist class did not come to power because they thought capitalism was 'a good thing', but they and their apologists did justify their taking of power in precisely those terms.  And it was an effective weapon in their arsenal.   Many may even have come to believe in the objectivity of their own moral arguments.  I'm sure many still do.  So there is an argument that socialists should use moral language too, not because ethical pronouncements drive social change but because it is a powerful ideological tool through which to express their material class interests.  Many working class movements do use such language and it is very effective in motivating their members and promoting solidarity – towards reformist ends.  And that bothers me.I'm not suggesting that moral arguments always lead to reformist actions or mindsets.  That is obviously untrue. But they do have a strong tendency to move in that direction. Nor am I suggesting that class analysis necessarily leads to socialism, but our class analysis does, and I think that's the point at issue.   What concerns me about using ethcial language to make our case, is that it will confuse listeners and dilute our materialist arguments for socialism.  Any moral argument we adopt will have to piggy back on a materialist one if we are to make the case. This leads to theoretical contradictions as you have already hinted.  But for me the main issue is that reformists use this language all the time and if we were to start using it we would end up blurring the boundaries even more strongly between them and us. Of course there is an argument that if we used the same language they would understand us better.  I'm willing to be persuaded, but I don't see this. Reformism, with its immediate demands and its social actions, remains far more seductive  to the working class than socialism, and any blurring of boundaries would favour them and not us.   And if we regularly made ethical arguments ourselves as socialists, then I'm pretty sure we would also tend to lose direction.  The party needs to keep a firm grip on its materialist roots, or it might as well not exist.And then there is the problem of moral challenge.  Moral language and moral argument are highly fluid and hard to pin down – pick up on any ethical debate.  Would we really want to get dragged into debates with capitalist apologists about the meaning of 'justice' and 'human rights'.  The only way we could counter them was, once again,  to fall right back into making materialist arguments and take a stand on class interest and we are back where we started.   

[Hud955]

Hi Socialist PunkI'm not really interested in the idea that socialism could be based entirely on a moralistic appeal. It's the nature of moral argument that it has to be supported by social facts, and they can only come, in this instance, from our understanding of historical materialism.  It's a clear  non-starter, and I don't think I've ever heard a case made for it, either here or elsewhere, by you or by anyone else.I'm much more concerned about the claim that we should make moral judgements about capitalism or socialism to further the socialist case as it currently exists. I think there are a number of problems with this, both theoretical and practical.  I've rehearsed a couple of these with Adam.  But the larger issue is that I don't see that it is necessary.Capitalist morality already gives us a huge arsenal of ideological weapons to use against it.  We can turn its moral judgements back on itself in all kinds of ways and show it up for what it is.  We can express how capitalism fails to meet our class interest by showing our anger and indignation  without ever having to resort to moral posturing.  We can use irony and sarcasm too. Everyone understands interests: capitalism rubs our noses in them.  Like you I've had long experience of putting the socialist case and find that the case from class interest is perfectly intelligible to most people.  And there's also the fact that before you can start talking about the injustice of the capitalist system, you have to explain why it is unjust – in other words you have to explain about class interests and exploitation etc.  So why then bother to top it off with an ideological language that historical materialism argues is just a means of disguising naked class interest in the first place?

[Hud955]

Hi Adam, very much in agreement that this is about language.  As I see it, the fundamental language of morality is the language of obligation and desert.  Morality is designed to influence behavour in the interests of the ruling class.  It does that through the very specific language of obligation and entitlement: ought, should, right, etc.If an action is unjust then it follows according to the logic of capitalist morality that those responsible for it have an obligation to stop doing it. Those suffering from that 'injustice' have a 'right' to demand that it be stopped.  And the moment you say, for example,  that exploitation is wrong and that capitalism is morally bad this places on the working class a moral obligation to overturn it.  As socialists though, we don't rely on the capitalist class fulfilling their moral obligation to us, and I'd be rather reluctant to tell members of the working class that they were failing in their moral duty by not being socialists.  Even a quick glance makes it clear that there is something wrong here – the language doesn't fit.  It doesn't fit because it is inappropriate to socialist objectives. Finding a 'just' settlement in the moral language of capitalism, for example, requires interests to be weighed against one another.  Such a balancing can only make sense if you accept both the terms of the moral system and the economic system that has given rise to it.  If your aim is to overturn capitalism then you'll also be aiming to overturn the the whole basis of capitalist morality, not trying to find a justification for your actions within it.Morality claims to be an independent system of judgement, one based on some notion of social equivalence. As socialists and materialists, we say, no, it isn't.  And once you take this view –  that it is only a cloak for material class interest – then the system and its justification comes tumbling down to the ground.  The materialist conception of history unmasks capitalist morality, and so it becomes a very dubious process, in my view,  to start appealing to the working class from behind the same mask that you are simultaneously trying to demolish. 

[Hud955]

gnome wrote:

SocialistPunk wrote:

Sidelining morality is looked upon by many with mistrust, (not just the religious) a lot of angry frustrated people see the horrors of capitalism and judge them to be ethically and morally wrong. Who are we to say otherwise? Yes, it very often leads them into single issue politics.But has anyone considered the party scientific stance on morality just might be a turn off for many? The clever use of such a powerful motivator, could find new allies.

Exactly.

Quote:

But who knows and who cares?

The party should if it's going to have any credibility.

The scientific stance is the only thing that can create a conscious movement for socialism and keep us on course; ethics cannot distinguish between socialism and reformism, and tends to lead to the latter because it overwhelmingly focuses on single issues. And that does matter.  Encouraging a moralistic approach to understanding society would be dangerous for us.  As several have pointed out, though, we can still turn capitalist morality against the system that creates it.  That's not a judgement but a demonstration.I'd also challenge the idea that the party's scientific approach is a turn-off for many.  It's more likely that the harsh, aggressive or didactic way we present it is the turnoff – but that's a different matter.  Taking a scientific approach doesn't prevent us from being passionate about what we believe. Too often though what we get passionate about is being right or defeating others in argument.  And we tend to get either defensive or agressive (same thing) when challenged.  That's just self-destructive.  We might as well hit ourselves over the head and be done with it.  You don't need to use the moral language of capitalism to convey enthusiasm or to raise the level of emotional commitment. 

[Hud955]

steve colborn wrote:

Can you imagine, Socialism and MORALITY, in one package? Can you not imagine the impact? If it were done in, OUR WAY?

To me, that would depend on what we mean by 'morality', Steve.  It's a pretty slippery notion.  In one sense, it's exactly what we do now. We mix the materialist case with moral criticism of capitalism (in the way that Marx did by turning capitalist morality back against the system).  It's a form of irony, and it goes with a certain tone.  The Socialist Standard is full of it.If you mean mixing materialism with moral judgement, that would be a pretty odd combination.  My first thought is that it would stand a good chance of blowing up in our faces.

[Hud955]

Hi TWC, My main puzzlement about your post is that despite your opening rebuttal, you appear to elaborate more or less point for point the argument I made previously.   The main difference between us seems to be that we are making our arguments from a different starting position. The starting point for me is the existence and role of class conscious socialists with a materialist conception of their capitalist world. In whatever way we reached that understanding , it is this materialist conception of history and not an ethical imperative that holds us together and provides us with a socialist identity and determines our activity and our aim.  The MCH gives us a 'scientific' viewpoint from which to observe ideological structures.  To 'banish' ethics, or more accurately to push it to the margins of our understanding is a theoretical act and is by no means the same as banishing it in reality as you seem to be implying.  The reality of capitalist ideology will not be banished until the end-point of capitalism is reached in socialism.  In the meantime the working class will continue to fight out its battles with the capitalist class largely though capitalist ideological lenses.  It's only when it begins to perceive the underlying social and economic reality through a non-ethical materialist understanding of its world, that day-to-day battles within capitalism will give way to a battle for a post-capitalist society.  And you are right.  It is highly unlikely that this will happen spontaneously.  So the gradually increasing influence of conscious socialists, standing on a clear materialist platform is probably essential in this process.  And that makes it all the more essential that we maintain a clear understanding of our 'scientific'/ theoretical foundations and not confuse them with ethical imperatives.Hi Socialist PunkI think we can certainly use capitalist morality against capitalism itself, but it is a dangerous weapon and needs to be used carefully, because on its own it leads directly to reformist solutions not to socialist ones.  Only when you go beyond the moral to the material will a socialist movement really begin to express and assert itself.  So no, I don't see this as about denying that human beings have moral feelings or moral sensibilities (popular Victorian concepts), but it is, in theory, to place the current moral discourse in its right relationship with the material basis of capitalism, and to act accordingly.  

[Hud955]

Well, this all sounds very familiar. Hi bothI think this issue all depends on what we understand socialism to be.  If it is understood as a force within society (a material struggle by an economic working class) then that material force is non-moral, just as gravity is non-moral, even though, within society it will find no doubt find many forms of expression in moral language and ideology. What can turn that material force into a directed movement of the working class for revolutionary action is the growing consciousness of class interest. For conscious socialists engaged in promoting the development of that consciousness the socialist case is thoroughly non-moral.  It is based on a material understanding not on an ethical imperative – socialists do not promote socialist understanding because they believe they have a moral obligation to do it.  They do not promote or make a revolution because they feel they 'ought to' or even have a' right to' any more than the capitalist class did when they came to power.  Morality is merely a reflex of class interest, not class interest itself.  I will not pursue my right to so something if I do not perceive an interest in doing it.  Adam's closing remark is spot on.  Socialism  *breeds* morality.  Socialism is the platform on which moral expression can stand but it is not moral in itself.  

[Hud955]

Before this goes any further, Steve and Dave, can I suggest that you agree to settle any further differences by personal message rather than taking up more space on the forum.  As I'm sure you both realise, it is a public space, not a private one, and personally I don't need to see the ongoing details of anyone's private disagreements.  (I can only speak for myself here, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this.)   Further public argument  will just keep hooking people back in when we really need to be turning attention to other issues. Once again, if anyone does have a grievance, or identifies an injustice then please take a deep breath, step back and take it up with the moderator.

[Hud955]

HollyHead wrote:

Has it not struck anyone that McD and Circle City Bob (and their like)  practiced their own form of "censoring"?They repeated their "objections" ad bloody nauseum. They asked the same questions over and over despite having long and detailed answers. As a result they discouraged the genuine enquirer and caused subscribers to the WSM Forum to leave.In effect our efforts were censored just as effectively as the shouting down of a speaker at a public meeting.

Hi HH, yes I think it struck pretty much everyone who saw what was going on very forcibly.  Quite a number of our own members simply stopped posting or even visiting the WSM site and active visitor numbers dropped.  But because of our deep-seated reluctance to ban anyone, we let the situation drag on for years.  Eventually it got to the stage where the talk was of closing down the forum, and some action had to be taken if we were going to save it.  Just at that time a new moderator was nominated and voted in.  He took a tougher line, and if his reasons for banning Bob and McDonah were as Robin states, then he possibly banned them for the wrong reason, though we need to understand first what he meant by saying that it was not acceptable to attack the party.  If he meant that it was not acceptable to argue against the party case, then, in my view, and I'm sure party members would agree with this, that's not a valid reason. Discussion and debate are what we are all about.  But first we need to understand what his intentions were.  It seems unlikely that he meant to suggest this since he is, of course, aware of our traditions and has not to my knowledge banned others for arguing against us.When we opened this forum there was a great deal of heartsearching and discussion about the issue of moderation and censorship but a general consensus emerged that, though there was no possible way we would want to stifle debate, we couldn't let the same thing happen again here. When Bob turned up on the new site posting the same old stuff he was immediately moved out of the general discussion section and into another.  I think at the time there was talk of disposing of his post after a certain period.  I'm personally uncomfortable with that.  In his own thread, he won't have the opportunity to block (or, as you say, effectively censor) other discussion on this site as he could so easily on the other, so I would be quite happy to let him repeat himself ad nauseam there for as long as he likes – if anyone is prepared to listen to him. Our decision to moderate the new site more strongly but without censoring valid contributions to the debate produced a situation we hadn't had to deal with before.  Despite the party's venerable age, this move is a new one for us and we – and no doubt the moderator – are still getting to grips with it.  Historically, we were very inconsistent in enforcing the rules on the WSm forum, and that worked after a fashion because we permitted a free for all and enforced them so rarely.  So, while acknowleging the strength of feeling that this has generated and the perfectly natural concern for a fair outcome, can I make a plea for everyone to give the moderator a break.  I don't want to make any kind of premature judgement now, in case anyone takes this complaint further (and I really hope someone does, so we have the opportunity to look at what has happened and learn from it). Whether the moderator has treated people fairly or not and in line with general guidelines and the spirit of party democracy can only be established objectively away from the forum.  Then, whatever the conclusion, we need to strengthen the guidelines or at least our practice so that everyone is treated fairly and consistently in future, without jepordising the open and democratic purpose of the forum.  Yours for socialismRichard 

[Hud955]

Hi RobinJust read over your post quoting Marcos's stated reasons for imposing the ban – missed it before.   I can think of several good reasons for banning Bob and McDonah, but this isn't one of them.  So, yes, you are right, this isn't acceptable.  We need to clarify what he meant and then address it. cheersRichard  

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