L.B. Neill
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MS, Think I am beginning to realise the general fluidity! More twists and turns than any rapid flowing river- hang on!
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I think it impossible to build democratic socialism upon uninformed opinion, because part of the revolutionary process will involve the masses becoming informed
LBIRD,
I agree with you ‘the masses becoming involved’ in all aspects of society. And open access to information is critical for social productions, and even notional assent.
I do not, nor will ever hold an opinion that many are thick. And I think you know that. Dividing knowledge into access to betters and lessers: sounds Lockean..
I argue that access to science is a right, and to practice it has a responsibility. To know how to use it, and there are many disciplines- it took some time for me to train in its safe use too. Imagine me using a therapeutic intervention in counselling health without my training- sugar… we need to show ethical practice, know-how, and have access to peer support/review. And I need to know when to refer on to a a person who has very specific issue training outside my field of study. This example is not to make it elite, but to use it safely.
As I said all should have access to it. I can inform myself on physics, and like it, but can I earnestly say I know enough about matter in the study to fire a rocket to the moon? But if I wanted to, I have the responsibility to be informed before I dare it, study and practice.
Can I ask you then: do you believe socialist democracy will have health and safety practices, or do you think we will need H&S guidelines?
It is always good, and as you had said to me in your last post- ask direct questions, and I think I understand your position a little better… and without hurtful dismissive retorts.
I do not mean any negative regard in this question… only asking you to consider your remarks alongside some general guides for safe practice.
Alan,
A great footballer, was he. It is sad that the exploitation of working class athletes ends in this way. He would have still been great without the cocktail of drugs. đ
Where we delegate specialisms, scientific, technical, or other responsibilities within particlar bodies they will be subject to instant recall, they will not govern and in any case the people who make the revolution will set the modus operandi.
Matthew,
And that encourages me. I have always countered the arguments from opponents of socialism who think Socialism will lead to non learned scientific remarks and participation in it without technical knowledge. ‘instant recall’ by specialist bodies is so crucial. Putting science to the vote by polling on opinion rather than specialization just propagates the ideological misinformation of capitalism.
Your statement sums it nicely for me.
Correction
âI think what youâre finding is we do support the democraticisation of Maths, Physics, etc.â
The above is not authored by me, but quoted by me, it is from the fine pen hand/keyboard of YMS. Observation is fundamental to all sciences… LBird, I agree with some of your points on human cognitions, some merit to it- in my technical community. But democracy in science still requires learning the concepts of a scientific framework.
My apologies to YMS for creating a little confusion about authorship!
LBird, I see democracy in science as making its study accessible to all who wish to do it, not sure it be based on uninformed opinion- after all Pluto is still a contention… sentimental voting on it won’t make its mass or density increase.
That is, weâd mandate a diversity of views so as to better explore the possibilities we might find. The order to soldiers to âFire at will (poor Will)â is still an order.
Well said YMS!
Just a note on cognitive approaches in Social Science. Yes, LBird, humans do socially construct their societal/social formations… it is a branch of discursive psych/ and Soc. Sc… Social constructionism/constructivism states we think/cognise in diachronic or language which Lacan centred as the state of consciousness/unconsciousness.
So yes social productions are constructed by the mind/psycho-social and impact our concept of material in some ways, they are social constructs. The problem today, is that access to scientific discourse is hierarchical- in forms of who can say/ not say a scientific remark, which mainstream version is included/excluded from a act of speaking a remark in science… and yes it is still required to limit, close off and what can qualify as a remark having a scientific basis.
Giving knowledge of science to a vote, (and may the best remark trump) is harmful to the variation of postulations. Psychology and soc. sc. has many schools of thought and compliment often, and at times oppose. But it is through this that they do not remain static, but evolve. Hope your notion is not one that would have an apex, one solution only response- science should be accessible to all but should not be subject to a socially constructed ‘singular’ narrative.
And may YMS conclude my remark with a re-articulation of :
I think what youâre finding is we do support the democraticisation of Maths, Physics, etc. but that many here we would vote against mandating any official âtruthâ save, maybe, the sort of vote the Astronomical Union held to remove planet status from Pluto.
Never liked Pluto- more like a rock that can’t even repel smaller rocks out of its way- now that is based on democratic sentiment for my view of Pluto. Good job I did not attempt to pass this off as a scientific postulation in astro-physics.
We need to democratize science yes, but we need the technical knowledge to shape it, a learnt remark.
The night Diego Maradona’s Argentina came to Australia to play the Socceroos in Sydney – ABC News
The day that Diego Armando Maradona came to Australia. pic.twitter.com/pQ0K3ylOQe
— Subway Socceroos (@Socceroos) October 31, 2020
Farewell Maradona, That goal was the Hand of God- Never handball!
Things are tough with the COVID situation in Argentina…
3 Days of national mourning in Argentina for Maradona…
The SPGB, being âmaterialistâ, argues that an elite will change the world.
LBird.
Let us take your above statement, or vague remarks: “The SPGB, being âmaterialistâ, argues that an elite will change the world.”Â
Consider this binary choice: dictatorship by the masses/or of the masses. You seem for democracy- I ‘dig it’… The people decide… Okay we agree- Society decides on socialist modes of production and the meeting of its wants and needs.
I think your problem may centre on the term ‘material’. I know you would choose the mass/ or society assume control over their lived experience. I never asked you to define your view on material, ’till now?
Can I put the question: If by material you mean rock (or even observers of rocks), do you centre the rock as expounding elitist ideas… Or.. Do you put elitism in the observer of the rock?
Do you have rock evidence of SPGB and this site claiming vanguardism/superiority over any mass or masses?
Basic idea of hydraulic power: if it is fluid, it flows to all and it distributes power to all (Society not state governance). If it is sediment[ed] power, it congeals in its form (ruling elites and their apex hegemony: their top down command dynamics). It does not coagulate in socialism- for there are no elites to dam it up!
Materialists do not give all power to the rock in its communication of meaning to us- we develop a science based on causality, cause and effect, observation, trial and error, discovery, repeatability of a test, predictability, P(x) values, and yes an ethics too.
I have only known your posts for a short while, and may have misunderstood.
… But the above statement you made does not exist in the ‘material’ I have read on SPGB: could it be some other organisation writing about it that you can shed some light on- pardon the physical and geological signifiers…
Just noticed my last post was a bit dread- almost a memory of CND.
I am glad I bumped into the SPGB. I had added so much to a pristine Marxist engine, that it seemed to drive all over the place. Good to drive a classic again.
Wez,
Being a socialist without referencing Marx is rather like trying to be a physicist without a reference to Einstein
I have a recollection of this. Think Derrida- ‘there can be no socialism without Marx’ or even Foucault saying he did not have to keep quoting Marx every time he developed an argument as physicists do not keep referencing Einstein each time they talked of physics.
I know Marx can’t morph into Leninism- as I had said: Marx is Marx. But Marx ideas are being fashioned into liberalism, anarchic Capitalism-
So I say again- I read Marx for Marx (writer to reader). No alterations, save time and our immediate understanding. We can preserve it- we can develop it too (if the discipline becomes frozen in time we are stuck in its time, and we need it to keep updated in the here and now).
Einstein and his cohorts used science for the bomb, in that fatal end- Marx wanted change, socialism (and if he got there first: no bomb).
It is out of the bag- and what creativity- Marx for his time, and for our time.
We need to make reference to Marx- I know that. He provided the science of Epochal change, and the end to history, the end to class struggle.
â That there are universal laws of motion in physics and of evolution in biology may be conceded, but it is more contentious to say that there are entirely equivalent laws of motion or evolution in human society.âÂ
Wez, ALB,
The general principles that can be observed in biology, in organisms, their physical ‘force’ differ from the social life (reproductions of givens, and transformations). It is contentious. It need not be contentious though. Human evolution in consciousness does not have that same physical properties that nature has- nature will do as nature does well before we could cognise it. At present, human consciousness is the force applied to insist on our ‘taken for granted’ understanding of social production- so it is subject to change.
Human consciousness can change and try to understand the natural world, use a microscope to break it down into atoms. But that is it. The thing is, it means we can consciously change the social, the societal. And yes:
We will probably get stick from the other sides as well, eg from those who think that there is no end (aim) of history or who think that the laws of physics are human-made too as well as those who think that the dialectics applies to nature as well as human thought.Â
There is a conscious aim and end to history in the social, the societal (an end to the class struggle), the end to hierarchical divisions in economic political.
The human made laws of physics are that: the best approximations to describe them according to know-how at that time. If we try to apply our will on nature, a dialectic will, or some idealism-Â nature will counter that, and ignore our mere postulations- rolling right on as it has done. Thing is it points to the societal as being malleable, neuro-plastics, and subject to change in human thinking- the pragmatic and deliberate end to the class struggle… and nature will continue on as usual, ignoble to all our epochs.
It is a subtle shift, but not breaking with Marx, just a correction according to social change agency.
It is not anti intellectual nor anti Marx. It is a reboot. No matter the course: ‘stick happens’.
I was also a hardcore Leninists and I recognized that I was mistaken too.
… and:
that many Leftists claim to be socialists and Marxists
Thing is:
The lesson for me is to maintain Marxism as Marxism and Socialism as Socialism- else it can morph into Leninism or an other type of state capitalism coupling the State with Capital ownership. Dominant narratives conjoining its countering ones. Socialist modes get consumed with State based Capitalist modes?
The real argument is over whether or not it extends outside the field of human thinking and decision-making. Is it something more than âa form of logicâ? Does it apply within (for want of a better term) âNatureâ?
ALB,
Note to self: it seems I concur that when using semiotic/sign theory, or even dialectics , that it is best to keep it centred on the mental/linguistic activity of society- it is a sociology of language.
Internal meanings applied to the material can go into a pataphysics… with rocks containing an idealism “I am a rock”: So the rock told me! It would create fixed unities of meaning with ideal forms existing in the ether- communicating its essence to us: A little Platonic… Now I lost my track!! The material world of nature does indeed have its independent force, and our thinking will not shape those laws (make the Sun orbit the Earth, no)- but we can put it to use once we have the idea to turn wood into a chair!
Be safe and stay well if you are in lockdown,
L.B
Libmarxist- I originally drafted a reply, but realised AJ posted one with a link more to the point than mine.
I know you ask a question- but I have one for you.
It is based on your choice of name.
Why libmarxist? In the spirit of anthropology: what is ‘lib’ to you and what is ‘marxist’?
That way, I can contextualise your question better: but the answer needs what you believe or value- other than your questions of others.
