LBird
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Bijou Drains wrote: “As far as I can tell he is the only living person who interprets Marx in the way he does. Thatâs not to say he is not an affable at times interesting contributor, and he does have a sense of humour and irony, however he is not representative of our views.”
Thanks for the nice personal assessment, BD!
But.. you’re wrong again. I’ve posted dozens of names of authors since Labriola in 1896 (the earliest I can find, if we don’t include Marx himself “All I know is that I’m not a Marxist”). These cover not just Marxists/Socialists, but philosophers of science, like Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, and scientists like Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, and more recent, Rovelli.
So, lots of living and dead people think that science has problems, and lots of living and dead socialists think socialism must be democratic, including its science.
Much of this happened before the SPGB was born in 1903, so just why it comes as a surprise, and worse, as an attack, beats me! đ
But of course, I certainly don’t ‘represent the SPGB’s views’. God forbid.
Thomas More wrote: “So what he says about Marx isnât true?”
No, it’s entirely true. I can give you the quotes, if you wish (although I’ve given many quotes from many thinkers in the past, and they’ve had no effect upon the ‘materialists’ – it’s almost like a cult).
Bijou Drains wrote: “…we do not close down those who we donât agree with but attempt (sometimes very frustratingly) to engage them in debate”
Your memory seems to be letting you down once again on this thread, BD.
I’ve been banned for a time, for the very thing ALB has done – personal abuse. The only difference is, I was returning it, not initiating it, like ALB.
Still, I’ve learned. The SPGB bans those who respond to SPGB members’ abuse, so I don’t do that any more, and have to grin bear ALB’s insults. The power of the party, you see.
As for ‘frustration’, it’s all mine! The SPGB, you included, refuse to engage in a discussion about ‘science’, and simply accept the bourgeois version.
Well, it’s your party.
Thomas More wrote: “I now know the view of the SPGB.”
No, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Thomas.
I’m a democratic communist and Marxist, very critical of the SPGB’s ‘materialism’ (which they share with Lenin), and the SPGB appears to agree with you.
They too, sadly, are unable to engage in an informed discussion about 21st century science, and appear to be stuck in the pre-Marxian 18th century.
ALB’s insulting reply, above, seems to be the heights that their ‘intellectuals’ aspire to.
ALB, of course, knows all about these political and philosophical issues, but won’t defend his beliefs.
Whenever he’s tried in the past, I’ve been able to prove him wrong, about Marx, Engels, Bogdanov, Pannekoek, etc. and physics, maths, philosophy, logic, so he’s given up being openly criticised, and turned to abuse. Just as Lenin did, to his critics, in his Materialism and EmpirioCriticism.
The ‘materialist method’, apparently – personal abuse.
Thomas More wrote: “So socialism will change the laws of physics, the orbits of the planetary spheres, gravity, and biological descent through modification?
These things are bourgeois and not valid once one embraces socialism?”Well, if not democratic humanity (‘socialism’), who will change all these things?
Pannekoek, for example, mentioned that the so-called ‘laws of physics’ are a social product, and Marx held that our task is to change ‘nature’, not to ‘contemplate’ it.
Of course, all the examples that you mention have changed, many times, throughout history, as different social classes have built a ‘universe’ in their interests, to their purposes. And, of course, each has claimed that their ‘universe’ is the one ‘True’ universe. The bourgeoisie, of course, are no different.
It always surprises me that socialists seem to have no actual knowledge of physics, mathematics, logic, chemistry, etc. and how they actually originated and developed, and just where they are now.
It’s almost as if these socialists believe the ruling class idea that the ‘Universe’ is just sitting there, waiting to be discovered, and that the bourgeoisie already know how to do this magic trick, and simply contemplate ‘what exists’.
I’m not sure of your political view of ‘science’, Thomas, perhaps you do want to ‘contemplate’ what is ‘valid’, but personally I’m with Marx on this issue, and want to change ‘Our Universe’.
Plus, ‘validity’ is a judgement, and thus contains an ethical element, and, within a socialist society, only the masses, not a self-selecting elite, will determine it.
Our political choice is ‘Who changes the laws of physics?’ Either an undemocratic elite or a democratic majority. I know which I think socialism involves.
The unchanging universe is a conservative construct. Why would socialists start from that premise, in their science?
Thomas More wrote: “…to take up the same struggles fought by Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin.”
Err… the class struggles fought on behalf of the bourgeoisie, and its making of our contemporary world?
Both ‘reason’ and ‘science’ have a class component, so, as a democratic socialist, I’m all in favour of ‘Bourgeois Reason and Bourgeois Science‘ being ‘in Danger‘.
Any apolitical, ahistorical and asocial ‘defence’ of ‘Reason and Science’ as being about ‘Objective Truth’, ‘Eternal Verity’ or ‘Absolute Knowledge’, places us into the hands of the bourgeois elite, and helps support capitalism.
Of course, that is not to say there isn’t a danger from ‘conspiralunacy’, flat earthism and Illuminati-ists – and indeed postmodernism – but unless we locate the origins of ‘reason and science’ in an historical and social context, and the political forces involved in their creation, and why they did so, we risk becoming advocates of the mythical ‘politically neutral science’ which supposedly ‘impartially discovers the existing world’ by the agency of an elite of ‘disinterested scientists’.
This is 2020, not 1820. Even by 1920, the myths of ‘Objective Science’ were obvious, to anyone who followed Physics, Mathematics and Logic. All three, as depicted in the 19th century, turned out to be untrue.
Fighting mysticism by supporting elitism is not the answer: democratising ‘Reason and Science’ is.
alanjjohnstone wrote: ”
Joseph Dietzgen said it for me
âIf a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself.â
”
Bingo, alan!
Bijou Drains wrote: “So if we cannot learn from others, who or where can we learn from. You yourself repeatedly report that Marx says this or Marx says that, so you are using Marx in the expert role. You have set up Marx as the expert specialist educator, yet you reject specialist educators.”
This is completely untrue, BD, as I have written many times about Marx’s failings.
I could accuse you of trolling, but I’m prepared to put it down to simple forgetfulness on your part.
I’m tempted to argue that democratic socialists can criticise Marx, because they regard truth as a social product which changes, and so can point out Marx’s mistakes, whereas the ‘materialists’ cannot do this, because they must have ‘Truth’. For them, Marx’s ‘materialism’ can’t be challenged, for ‘Matter’ is their God.
For democratic socialists, who think Marx’s ‘idealism-materialism’ puts humanity in the driving seat, not ‘divine matter’, we can determine Marx’s status – and, indeed, change it. đ
rodshaw wrote: “Indeed, the more you know, the more sceptical you can be about otherâs views or the information they give you. But weâre never all going to know the same things. Weâre not telepathic. We canât absorb information by osmosis. There would have to be ways for people with more knowledge in a certain field to be able to make it available to others. Of course, it would then be up to the others to decide whether they accepted it or not. But why wouldnât they? And how would they know any different?”
rod, this is a conversation I’ve been trying to have here for years.
At one time, I thought robbo203 was going to engage, but he kept seeing problems in ‘democracy’, and it’s hard, as a socialist, to have a serious conversation about political issues whilst ‘democracy’ is seen as a problematic issue. I’m afraid if socialism can’t be discussed in terms of ‘democracy’, it’s not my sort of socialism (nor Marx’s, I might add).
One thing I really like about your post is the emphasis on ‘we’ (rather than I’).
All the points you rightly make about difficulties, apply just as much to ‘specialists’ as to ‘generalists’ (to use SPGB terminology). There are no ‘educators’ who ‘know better’ than the ‘others’. This is a basic political principle of Marx and ‘Democratic Socialism’. If one wants to argue that there is an elite of ‘educators’ who ‘know better’ than the rest of us, then that’s fair enough, but one should be aware of the political implications of that ideological belief, and be open about it with others and oneself. ‘Materialists’ have this ideological belief, as Marx himself pointed out.
The key political point you rightly make is that “Of course, it would then be up to the others to decide whether they accepted it or not.” The ‘others’ (ie. non-specialists) must have the power to decide. This would be democratic science, and a suitable ‘scientific method’ for socialism.
As to ‘why would they’ override ‘specialists’ and ‘how would they know any different’ – simple answer: many/most/all (delete to preference) ‘specialists’ don’t actually understand the wider political/social/ideological/cultural/scientific implications of their arguments. ‘Eugenics’ is only one (minor?) example of this; perhaps ‘nuclear energy’ is even more important.
It’s a basic principle of democratic socialism that the many ‘know better’ than the few. The term ‘better’ is value-laden, and values can only be decided by society itself, not by an elite.
Why would we challenge Nobel prize winners? Because many write and talk nonsense – history constantly proves this. How would we know any different? Because we’d be products of a democratic education system that teaches critical thought, democratically controls academia, and produces social individuals with a healthy scepticism of ‘experts’.
Really, this conversation would have to expand to discuss ‘education’ within a socialist society, because so many assumptions by ‘materialists’ are made based upon the present education system. Our universities would be very different, in content, structure, and power, to today’s bourgeois, undemocratic, institutions.
Matthew Culbert wrote “As he says, it raises âethicalâ questions and these would be requiring society as a whole to make the decisions, as to whether such a thing should be implemented.”
Yes, as you argue, any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ or ‘objectivity’ or ‘fact’ “raises âethicalâ questions and these would be requiring society as a whole to make the decisions, as to whether such a thing should be implemented”.
You seem to agree with Marx’s political analysis, Matthew, except for one slip of the typing finger, perhaps.
The ‘material’ can only be determined democratically. ‘Matter’ would be subject to a vote.
The 18th century ‘materialists’, like Lenin, are determined to divide society into two, an elite of ‘educators’ (who claim to already know the ‘material’, before it has been socially produced, and so can ‘educate’ the masses), and a mass of ‘educated’, who must obey the opinions of your ‘specialist interrogators’.
Only society as a whole employing democratic methods can determine ‘science’. Any ‘specialist interrogators’ will be elected, and if their opinions don’t fit with the opinions of the mass of society, they will be democratically replaced.
We cannot allow ‘specialist’ educators. Socialism is the self-education of the whole of society.
There is no separation of ‘is’ and ‘ought’.
That belief, in a separation, is a part of bourgeois ideology, to buttress bourgeois ‘science’.
This applies to all ‘science’, and obviously ‘eugenics’. There is no ‘good’ (‘objective’) or ‘bad’ (‘morally objectionable’) eugenics. We humans determine.
Any ‘is’ is premised upon an ‘ought’ – that’s what Marx’s method of ‘theory and practice’ is all about.
To argue for an ‘is’, is to argue that there is an ‘unchangeable’ – which is the polar opposite of Marx’s social productionism.
If we don’t create our ‘ises’, based upon our ‘oughts’, someone else will – an elite, who claim to be the ‘educators’.
Hiya, Bijou Drains, thanks again for your kind sentiment.
Here’s Marx, on the elitist socio-political consequences of ‘materialism’ – it ignores ‘change’ (and prefers ‘prediction’, as ALB pointed out, earlier), denies ‘change’ is socially produced by humanity (after all, ‘matter’ is an unchanging stuff, outside of our brains, which simply sits there, awaiting ‘discovery’ by the superior sort in society), and has no time for the practice of revolutionary democracy.
Marx, in his Theses on Feuerbach, III, wrote:
“The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm
It seems clear to me, that Marx was a democrat and a communist, who believed that it was possible for humanity to revolutionise its own universe. After all, any ‘universe’, that we know and can know, is our creation.
After all, if we didn’t create it, how can we change it?
Of course, the minority ruling class wish to deny this ‘creative role’ to humanity, and so their ‘science’ simply argues that they are simply discovering ‘reality’, a ‘reality’ that pre-exists its maker. This is a ruling class idea – and a successful, continuing, and seemingly all-powerful one. Even the breakdown of that ideology in the late 19th century didn’t break its hold on ‘common sense’, and school teaching of children.
Marx, of course, prefigured that breakdown by 70 years, and paved the way for Einstein’s revolutionary science – the effects of which we are still assimilating. Well, revolutionaries are – those wanting an elite to retain political control of physics, maths, logic, etc., simply deny ‘revolutionary practice’ (active conscious change) and try to bolster existing reality.
But try to tell the ‘materialists’ that they espouse a conservative ideology and method, suited to the division of ‘society into two parts’, as Marx pointed out, and they not only won’t believe you, or even read Marx, or think critically about their beliefs and where they came from, but simply close their minds.
Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Stalin… all ‘materialists’. An ideology which divides society into two, as befits the interests and purposes of a ruling class.
They won’t have democracy in science. Without democratic science, society is divided into two.
ALB wrote: “âand so is of more practical use.â”
To who?
Who is the active subject, for whom this ‘human construct’ of ‘science’ is ‘of more practical use’?
Materialism, as Marx said, regards the ‘active subject’ as an elite, and so cannot allow democratic methods to be employed. Hence, the materialist SPGB’s rule of science by ‘Specialists’. Hence, as Marx said, society divided into two, ‘specialists’ and ‘generalists’, with the ‘specialists’ in political control of social production.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “LBird, i think i have raised the point of your own lack of action to change the world by declining to join the only political organisation i think you empathise with, despite your disagreements.”
But I haven’t been ‘inactive’, alan. I’ve spent several years, with much input from the posters here (many who have now left), trying to get to grips with Marx’s development and creation. It’s become very clear to me (perhaps too slowly, unlike Marx’s very quick reaction of “All I know is that I’m not a ‘Marxist’! “, when confronted with the fruits of Engels’ teachings within the French Materialists) that what passes as ‘Marxism’ has nothing whatsoever to do with Marx.
But, for a worker who has had to struggle to throw off the imbecilities of the ‘Trotskyists’, who were completely dominant in the schools and universities when I first started to enquire about ‘Marxism’ and communism, I haven’t done too badly. I got my first degree at 32, so I’m hardly a ‘quick developer’, more of a ‘relentless plodder’. But such is the life of workers under capitalism.
As for the SPGB, and my joining, you’re correct that I’m attracted to your openness and willingness to sustain criticism, and alleged commitment to ‘democracy’, which are all the complete opposite to the Trot parties. But…
… my attempts to point out the contradiction between ‘democracy’ and ‘materialism’ (as Marx also pointed out) have been met with simple hostility. It would seem pointless to join a party that says one thing, but thinks another. I must say, too, that it’s a very big surprise that not one other poster has even attempted to discuss this political problem. It seems that the ideology of ‘materialism’ is at the very roots of the party (which is fair enough if that’s what’s honestly believed), but it would seem to preclude the joining by a Marxist, who would insist on the democratic control of the social production of ‘truth’.
So, I do ’empathise with’ the ostensible ideas of the SPGB, but to me, the membership don’t!
BTW, Bertrand Russell was talking through his arse, as even he himself later admitted (regarding the ideology of mathematics in the late 19th/ early 20th centuries). Perhaps it’s unnecessary to say this, but most mathematicians are ‘materialists’. Marx and Einstein seem to have been left to rot. Capitalism, eh?
ALB wrote: “What we are looking for is a description that reliably predicts…“.
This is not what Marx was concerned with, ALB.
He was concerned with our human power to actively ‘CHANGE’ our world, not to passively ‘PREDICT’ the world.
Marx wasn’t a 18th century materialist, as Engels erroneously thought.
Of course, ‘materialists’ regard any reference to Marx’s ‘conscious activity’ as simply ‘idealism’. That is the fruit of Engels’ misunderstanding: a supposed ongoing ‘great battle’ between ‘ideas’ and ‘matter’. Marx disposed of that ideology in the 1840s, but Engels resurrected it. That’s the tradition within which the SPGB stands, and it’s the same one as Lenin, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Trotsky, etc…
It’s a dead end, comrades.
