LBird
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LBirdParticipant
Wez wrote: “…the idea that there is a universal ‘method’ that, like a magic spell, can be used to discover truth.”
Without this myth, there is an opening for what Marx called ‘revolutionary science’, which is the democratisation of ‘science’.
‘Truth’ is not ‘discovered’, but ‘produced’. Socially. Historically.- This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by LBird.
LBirdParticipantThe debate between Wez and PJShannon is probably the most fundamental one facing 21st century Democratic Communists.
Politically and philosophically.- This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by LBird.
January 19, 2021 at 9:27 am in reply to: A Brief Question of Syndicalism – the cure for our current malady? #212669LBirdParticipantALB wrote “so many went over to Bolshevism and Leninism … as doctrines which attributed a key role to an active minority as a “vanguard” or “spearhead” (to use their terminology). A position we have always rejected and opposed.”
That’s not a true statement, ALB, regarding the SPGB and social production.
The SPGB only argues for democracy in the social production of ‘widgets’ (or ‘stuff which can be touched/sensed’).
Regarding the social production of ideas, the SPGB still attributes ‘a key role to an active minority’.
That’s why the SPGB does not agree with democracy in science, or any other social activities based upon ‘ideas’.
Marx, on the contrary, argued for all social production to be under democratic control, employing ‘theory and practice’. If the associated social producers don’t control their own ‘theory’, they’ll be compelled to ‘practice’ based upon the ‘theory’ of ‘an active minority’.LBirdParticipanttwc referred to me as ‘jackass’.
Isn’t the moderator ever going to censure those who abuse other posters? This often includes ALB, and others.
The same moderators who ban me for referring to these abusers in their own unacceptable terms?
Why aren’t all posters treated in the same way when their abuse is posted, or why isn’t there a free-for-all, in which I can descend to the depths, too?
LBirdParticipantL.B. Neill wrote: “It is about time we asked one another what that we or I means to us all.”
Let’s ask ‘all’ then, L.B.
That’s precisely what I’m arguing – ‘all’ have to be involved in democratic social production. To me, that is what democratic socialism would be.
LBirdParticipantrobbo203 wrote: “He or she may know more about physics than anyone else on the planet…”
robbo, I’ve tried to pick a small part of your post, in the interests of a focussed discussion, and ‘bite-sized’ posts.
The problem is, whose ‘physics’?
For example, many Catholic theologians ‘knew more’ about ‘god’ ‘than anyone else on the planet’.
But this ‘god’ wasn’t politically, socially, or ideologically relevant to the revolutionaries of the bourgeoisie. So they ditched these ‘experts’.
You’re assuming that, for example, Hawking or Einstein, ‘knows more’ than me and you about what sort of ‘nature’ we wish to produce.
Now, if you wish to continue with this belief, and are prepared to argue it as we build for democratic socialism, fair enough. If you can take society with you, your belief will become the ‘truth’ of that society.
However, I don’t share that belief (I’ve read enough about Einstein, for example, to recognise his mistakes, as have many of his contemporaries and later physicists), and, being a democratic communist, I’m committed to arguing for democratic control of all social production (including physics) within democratic socialism.
The upshot of this, robbo, is that current ‘physicists’ don’t know their arses from their elbows when it comes to the politics of social production.
I’d argue for a ‘physics’ relevant to our democratic revolution.
LBirdParticipantL.B. Neill wrote “I…“.
I’m a democratic communist, so I always refer to ‘we’.
Anything you’ll have access to as an individual, we’ll have access to as a collective; and vice versa.
This includes: rights, responsibilities, training, ethics, practices, support, reviews, safety, health, guidelines. If I’ve missed any of your concerns, just add them to this list.
We’ll be deciding our future list by democratic methods.
Unless one believes that ‘democracy’ will necessarily involve ‘unjust individual restrictions’, which is a fear continually expressed by the bourgeoisie, then ‘democratic socialism’ is our collective answer to our political problems.
I don’t share that ideological belief, because I’m a democratic communist, and influenced by Marx’s social productionism.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by LBird.
LBirdParticipantYMS wrote: “LBird, So, if “we the collective producers”, ask some scientists to go off and develop multiple, conflicting theories (given ethics guidelines, a “budget”, service level agreements, standards, etc.), all is well and good with you, and there’s no need to vote on the truth?”
If ‘we ask‘, YMS, how will we know that ‘we’ve received‘, without a vote?
If we’re collective producers, we produce a collective truth.
YMS wrote: “And we’ll have resources so people can use “private time” to pursue their own researches, and try to get their ideas published?”
‘We’ll‘ have whatever we want – it will be up to us.
That’s the whole point of ‘democratic socialism’, YMS.
LBirdParticipantL.B. Neill wrote: “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…”
I’ve never argued that ‘democratic science’ should ‘be based on uniformed opinion’, L.B.
Part of the problem is that you’re reading what ‘materialists’ say LBird says, rather than asking me, what I say.
From Lenin onwards, ‘materialists’ have had as a central part of their political method, the confusing of their opponents’ arguments, to make the arguments seem absurd, assisted by personal attacks on their opponents’ motives, characters, intelligence, etc.
I think it impossible to build democratic socialism upon uninformed opinion, because part of the revolutionary process will involve the masses becoming informed.
Of course, if you were to argue that ‘most people are thick as pigshit, and can’t become informed‘, I’d disagree with you. I think that the vast majority of people can understand ‘physics’, for example, especially if its theories and concepts were not hidden from view by a refusal to actually explain them in a way that the majority can understand. It’s part of the role of workers to make themselves collectively able to take control of our social production. We can find ways to explain to each other. The elite have a vested interest in keeping ‘knowledge’ hidden their own hands. I’m sure your own reading about ‘scientists’ (given some of the thinkers that you’ve mentioned) has already made you aware about this social problem of ‘experts’ keeping the rest of us ‘uninformed’.
LBirdParticipantMatthew Culbert wrote: “He has been told this innumerable times. That socialism will be an <b>advanced , democratic, post-capitalist</b> society, run by <b>us all</b>, locally, regionally, globally…”
And I’ve agreed with ‘this’ innumerable times, Matthew.
‘All’.
Not ‘some’.
LBirdParticipantYMS wrote: “I don’t see how you can agree with me, I was saying we’d give…”
Yes, I agree with you, YMS.
“We‘d give…”
‘We’, to any democratic socialist, is ‘us’. ‘Us’ meaning the social producers.
Unless… by ‘we’ you really mean ‘them’. ‘Them’ meaning an elite separate from the social producers.
So, as long as you mean ‘humanity’, we agree, YMS.
LBirdParticipantYMS wrote: “That is, we’d mandate a diversity of views…“.
I entirely agree with you, YMS, as I said earlier.
‘We’ being ‘democratic humanity’, of course, not an elite.
L.B. Neill wrote: “I think what you’re finding is we do support the democraticisation of Maths, Physics, etc.”
Yes, I really am beginning to think that there’s been a sea-change in political thinking on the part of some posters here.
It remains to be seen, however, just how widespread this conversion is. I’ll be very happy if the SPGB put out an ‘official’ statement about this. After due democratic consideration, of course!
- This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by LBird.
LBirdParticipantalanjjohnstone wrote: “What extent should local democracy have over issues that have wider implications?”
That’s the key political point, alan.
There has to be a higher political authority than the ‘local’, to determine ‘extent’.
Within democratic socialism, I would call this higher political authority ‘democratic humanity’. It would be the highest court of humanity.
Any other ‘final court’, or ‘ultimate authority’, whether individual, elite or divine, would not be ‘democratic’.
LBirdParticipantMS wrote: “I do not think that he said what you are saying. The SPGB/WSM has always supported the democratic possession of the means of production by the vast majority of the working class, if that is not a democracy, what can we call it?”
But I entirely agree with this political statement, MS.
But, given the arguments made here by the SPGB members and supporters, why don’t they class ‘physics’, for example (we could also ask about ‘maths’ or ‘chemistry’) as a part of ‘the means of production’?
It seems, as I’ve said before, that the SPGB thinks ‘democratic socialism’ will be the democratic producers (your ‘working class’) controlling ‘widget production in factories’, but not ‘ideas production in universities’.
Thus, the SPGB separates what Marx unites – ‘theory and practice’, ‘thinking and doing’. ‘Social production’ requires ideas and actions, it is conscious activity.
So, MS, I can support your politics, but the SPGB can’t.
LBirdParticipantLew, are you seriously suggesting that ‘democracy’ wasn’t at the heart of Marx’s political position?
Surely, every single thing Marx wrote, was underpinned by his democratic politics?
If you think that this view that ‘Marx is fundamentally democratic‘ is untrue, I think that the onus is on you to disprove it.
Perhaps we are now getting to the SPGB’s heart of darkness.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by LBird.
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