LBird
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ALB wrote:Why didn't we let sleeping dodos lie!? Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.
The SPGB is a 'sleeping dodo, lying' inactive, ALB. If even your party members have recognised this, perhaps you'll stop being 'materialists', and your own worst enemy.
moderator1 wrote:LBird wrote:For those Democratic Communists with any real political interest in these issues, about "Workers' Power" and about why 'materialists' will always ban Marxists (as indeed did the SPGB), please read this ICC thread regarding 'Do stones talk to us?'.http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/baboon/14363/do-stones-talk-us
Correction. You have never been "banned" from this forum and its likely you never will. But nevertheless, when a user continually breach the rules they will face a suspension. And you have received five to date, which in my opinion is nothing to be proud of.
Well, I've been 'banned' in exactly the same way here, that I've been 'banned' by the ICC, so if the SPGB mods think that those acts are something that the SPGB and ICC should be proud of…The real political problem, affecting both 'materialist' parties, is why they should ban a Democratic Communist and Marxist, for quoting Marx, and showing that the political and philosophical basis of all of their arguments are nonsense, rather than themselves explain to workers why and how, according to Marx, workers must build for themselves their 'nature-for-them'.Why do the SPGB and ICC never mention workers, democracy, socialism nor Marx, when the SPGB or ICC are discussing nature, matter, science, physics, epistemology, ontology, reality, existence, maths, logic, etc., etc.?The simple answer is that 'materialists' don't have to include those social factors in any discussion, because for them 'matter' is the root creator of The Universe. This is not Marx's viewpoint, and 'materialists' ignore Marx's views.It would be more politically honest for the SPGB and ICC to be straight with workers, and tell them that workers will not democratically create their own universe.You 'materialists' know something that workers can't (allegedly). In politics, 'materialism' is simply 'Leninism'. And its roots go back to at least 1859, with Engels' mangling of Marx's views.It's nothing to be proud of, moderator1, that your party can't argue with these political and philosophical views, which have their roots in Marx's Democratic Communism.SPGB? Dead from the neck up, since 1904?
Vin wrote:"The problem that LBird has presented is not therefore, his formal political positions, but the way he approaches debate and the resulting impact on the discussions that he becomes involved with.The first question is his use of continual ad hominem attacks. LBird’s constant refrain is that his debating opponents are “materialist” and therefore “Leninist” with the ultimate implication that they are Stalinist.Were his opponents defending Stalinist (or “positivist”, “Leninist” or “Trotskyist”, for that matter) positions (nationalism, state control of the economy, imperialism, party rule, repression of the working class, etc.) this might be a legitimate charge." ICCSounds familiar:
Why am I not surprised that Vin takes the statement of the Leninist ICC to be an 'objective' statement of the exchanges between me and the ICC?Vin should also read the other link that I've provided, which gives a better feel for the reasons I was banned.I'm a Democratic Communist, who argues that only workers themselves can determine whether 'matter' is a suitable category for changing our reality, for changing our 'nature-for-us'.'Materialists', like Vin and the ICC, will not have workers deciding democratically for themselves.Hence, Vin's political agreement with the ICC's statement.
For those Democratic Communists with any real political interest in these issues, about "Workers' Power" and about why 'materialists' will always ban Marxists (as indeed did the SPGB), please read this ICC thread regarding 'Do stones talk to us?'.http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/baboon/14363/do-stones-talk-usYou'll notice that, as usual, I quote from Marx himself.Marx warns that 'materialists' will divide society into two, with the smaller part (the 'materialists') always dominating the larger part (the proletariat).That's why 'materialists' will not have workers deciding for themselves about 'matter'. The 'stones' thread explores this further.Oh yeah, Merry Christmas, and have a 'Materialist New Year'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:You show me a 'social' which doesn't have 'mind', and I'll show you a liar. Or a bourgeois academic fantasist, determined to 'prove' that we can't have democratic production, but we must rely on bourgeois experts, an 'elite who know reality'.FFS, 'social' and 'conscious' tell you what Marx is talking about. It's not fuckin' 'matter'. It's 'activity'. Labour. Production.I entuirely agree, the mind is entirely material…
'Agreement' and 'Opposition' are also entirely foreign concepts to you, too, aren't they, YMS?You can only 'agree' by writing "the mind is entirely material and the material is entirely mind".You keep separating the two. You're opposing 'material' to 'ideal'.You can only 'agree' with Marx if you, like he did, unify the two.Perhaps you're best left to your own dream world. At least Engels was confused only some of the time…
Young Master Smeet wrote:Yes, social labour alone, which is a material thing…How often do we have to read what you've posted from Marx himself, to get you to understand what you're posting?'Social labour', according to Marx, is an 'ideal-material' thing.In your vocabulary, it's a 'mind-matter' thing.It's not 'material', nor is it 'matter'. Nor is it, as for the god-botherers, 'divine consciousness' or the 'ideal'.You show me a 'social' which doesn't have 'mind', and I'll show you a liar. Or a bourgeois academic fantasist, determined to 'prove' that we can't have democratic production, but we must rely on bourgeois experts, an 'elite who know reality'.FFS, 'social' and 'conscious' tell you what Marx is talking about. It's not fuckin' 'matter'. It's 'activity'. Labour. Production.
robbo203 wrote:There is always a two way interaction between the objective and the subjective, between mind and matter. Its not a one way processrobbo, this is your ideological interpretation of 'object' and 'subject'.You choose 'matter' and 'mind' to be synonyms of them.Marx didn't – he chose 'inorganic nature' and 'conscious activity' which produces 'organic nature'.That is, the 'object' is a product of 'subject', by its 'conscious activity'.So, you are arguing something different to Marx. Which is your right.But, it's nothing to do with Marx's ideas about 'social production'. There is no 'matter' prior to our production of it – read the various quotes by Marx, provided by several of us here, on these two threads, including yourself.BTW, Engels also used the terms 'mind' and 'matter' erroneously, at least in places, because he understood as much about Marx's ideas as you do. Which is why you follow Engels, not Marx.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Lbird, your quote doesn't support the weight you're putting on it. Especially as within a fw sentences Charlie is talking about "the ruthless productive powers of social labour, which alone can form the material basis for a free human society." If material and human are synonyms, then that sentence is meaningless.I beginning to doubt your ability to understand the meaning of what you yourself write, YMS.'Social labour', 'alone'.'Social Labour' is Marx's specific term for 'Conscious Activity'.So, 'Mind-Matter' (to put it in your ideological terms) creates the 'material basis'.'Material basis' is a social product of conscious, human, social, active, labour.And I've explained this 'synonym' issues to you, very carefully, dozens of times.When Marx writes 'material' he means 'human' (or, 'social' (ie. not 'individual')), and when he writes 'ideal' he means 'divine'.You don't agree with Marx, because you're not a Marxist. I have no problem with that. But why pretend to others to be agreeing with Marx, when you very clearly don't?In fact, again as I've shown dozens of times, you're following Engels' 'materialism', which was Engels' attempt to understand Marx's unifying of 'mind-matter' ('social labour', 'conscious activity', 'productive humanity'), by breaking the unity back into 'mind' and 'matter', and thus reverting to a debate between 'idealism' versus 'materialism', which Marx (thought he had) ended.Now, the last two days, both you and robbo have posted quotes from Marx (and, indeed, Engels on his better days!) which support this argument of Marx's, about the unity of 'mind-matter'. The whole point is, you can't have one without the other.There is no 'matter', 'out there', patiently waiting for our passive 'discovery' of 'IT', 'in-itself', which once 'discovered', is 'Objectively Known For Eternity'.We created 'matter-for-us', and we can change it, to 'mass-for-us', or, 'energy-for-us', as have the bourgeoisie in history.Or, we can even change it to 'hupokeimenon', an Ancent Greek concept with which Marx was completely aware. It is 'qualityless', and only has 'qualities' when we actively put them there. We are the 'active side', not any 'divine'. Another name is 'apoios ousia' ('qualityless being'), and the Greeks had several more.The point here, is that WE CAN CHANGE, as Marx argued. 'Matter' is a choice, not an 'Eternal Category'.
Alan Kerr wrote:Mind over matter and matter over mind is the answer of Marx and Engels. But it’s not their full answer. It still leaves us facing both ways.No, you still haven't grasped what Marx said – and I've given several quotes from Marx, on this thread and the other current.Marx unified 'mind' and 'matter' into conscious activity.Thus, we are not left 'facing both ways'.You can only argue this, if you believe that there is a choice between two options. If you believe that, fair enough, but it's nothing to do with Marx's views.This is the whole point, of the revolutionary content to Marx's ideas. He put the old argument between 'mind' versus 'matter' to bed, and started from the assumption of both 'humanity' and 'inorganic nature'. Read the quote I gave earlier. He insists that one can't separate the two, and ask 'which came first?'.The upshot of this is that 'automation', for Marxists, can only be discussed in the form of the question 'automation-for-who?'.Human conscious activity, social production, will produce an 'automation-for' whoever is the 'active side', and whose needs, interests and purposes are expressed in the production of a 'social-automation-for-them'.This is not a battle of 'stages', where 'automation-in-itself' just proceeds, on its own course. This is an ongoing battle, part of a class struggle, now, to determine whose 'automation' will be built.If the bourgeosie are left with a clear field to build 'in this stage', then we'll find the 'our stage' never comes. 'Automation', as a social product, will be 'automation-for-the bourgeoisie', but will appear to all as simply 'automation'. And we as a class will have lost the battle, again. This 'automation' will not suddenly (or, indeed, gradually) morph in an 'automation-for-workers'. That has to be built, either now or later. But it's not a case of fixed 'stages', in which the 'former stage' must precede the 'latter stage'.Oh yes, whilst I rememer – it was Engels who resurrected the 'idealism' versus 'materialism' debate, the notion that there is a choice between 'mind' and 'matter', as to 'which came first?'.There is only 'mind-matter', as a unity, for Marxists. Social production.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Marx, Letter to Annenkov, 1846, wrote:…those who produce social relations in conformity with their material productivity also produce the ideas, categories, i.e. the ideal abstract expressions of those same social relations. Indeed, the categories are no more eternal than the relations they express. They are historical and transitory products. To Mr Proudhon, on the contrary, the prime cause consists in abstractions and categories. According to him it is these and not men which make history. The abstraction, the category regarded as such, i.e. as distinct from man and his material activity, is, of course, immortal, immutable, impassive.http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.htmlI can't help but notice that in this quote provided by Lbird, Marx twice refers to the material, and gives that precedence over the ideal (the categories he refers to). Humans do indeed produce ideas, abstract expressions of material relations and activities.An independently minded person would assume that when Marx talks of "material productivity" and "material activity" he means "material productivity" and "material activity", not "socially produced". The onus is on Lbird, as an honest interlocutor, to prove that when Marx said material, he didn't mean material.Now, linguistic philosophers would tell us that 'material productivity' and 'material activity' pressupose matter and its existence. The onus is on Lbird, as an honest interlocutor, to prove that when Marx said material, he didn't mean material.
You're a clown, YMS.
Marx wrote:…the products of the production process. This is exactly the same relation in the sphere of material production, in the real social life process — for this is the production process — as is represented by religion in the ideological sphere: the inversion of the subject into the object and vice versa.[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02.htmI know you won't read it, YMS, but other Marxists might benefit.All the Marx quotes in the world won't shake your Faith In Matter, as you're a good Religious Materialist.For Marx, 'material' meant 'human', and 'ideal' meant 'divine'.'Material production' is a synonym for 'social production'.
Alan Kerr wrote:@LBirdThank you for your link to the letter from Marx. Of course, Marx also brings the exact same argument that I bring here against you.“Needless to say, man is not free to choose his productive forces—upon which his whole history is based—for every productive force is an acquired force, the product of previous activity.”(Taken from your link see #420)Yes, 'productive forces' are a social product of previous generations' social production, Alan.This is nothing whatsoever to do with 'matter-in-itself'.We're 'not free to choose' them, as Marx says… but we are 'free to change' them, as Marx also says.Conscious Activity, not passive contemplation of 'matter'.
Marx wrote:Now it is certainly easy to say to the single individual what Aristotle has already said: You have been begotten by your father and your mother; therefore in you the mating of two human beings – a species-act of human beings – has produced the human being. You see, therefore, that even physically man owes his existence to man. Therefore you must not only keep sight of the one aspect – the infinite progression which leads you further to inquire: Who begot my father? Who his grandfather? etc. You must also hold on to the circular movement sensuously perceptible in that progress by which man repeats himself in procreation, man thus always remaining the subject. You will reply, however: I grant you this circular movement; now grant me the progress which drives me ever further until I ask: Who begot the first man, and nature as a whole? I can only answer you: Your question is itself a product of abstraction. Ask yourself how you arrived at that question. Ask yourself whether your question is not posed from a standpoint to which I cannot reply, because it is wrongly put. Ask yourself whether that progress as such exists for a reasonable mind. When you ask about the creation of nature and man, you are abstracting, in so doing, from man and nature. You postulate them as non-existent, and yet you want me to prove them to you as existing. Now I say to you: Give up your abstraction and you will also give up your question. Or if you want to hold on to your abstraction, then be consistent, and if you think of man and nature as non-existent, ||XI| then think of yourself as non-existent, for you too are surely nature and man. Don’t think, don’t ask me, for as soon as you think and ask, your abstraction from the existence of nature and man has no meaning. Or are you such an egotist that you conceive everything as nothing, and yet want yourself to exist?You can reply: I do not want to postulate the nothingness of nature, etc. I ask you about its genesis, just as I ask the anatomist about the formation of bones, etc.But since for the socialist man the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man, so he has the visible, irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis. Since the real existence of man and nature has become evident in practice, through sense experience, because man has thus become evident for man as the being of nature, and nature for man as the being of man, the question about an alien being, about a being above nature and man – a question which implies the admission of the unreality of nature and of man – has become impossible in practice. Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism. Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htmSee also: Early Writings, Penguin, p. 357;or, Collected Works, Volume 3, page 305;or, Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man, page 112, for slightly different translations.
Marx wrote:Now it is certainly easy to say to the single individual what Aristotle has already said: You have been begotten by your father and your mother; therefore in you the mating of two human beings – a species-act of human beings – has produced the human being. You see, therefore, that even physically man owes his existence to man. Therefore you must not only keep sight of the one aspect – the infinite progression which leads you further to inquire: Who begot my father? Who his grandfather? etc. You must also hold on to the circular movement sensuously perceptible in that progress by which man repeats himself in procreation, man thus always remaining the subject. You will reply, however: I grant you this circular movement; now grant me the progress which drives me ever further until I ask: Who begot the first man, and nature as a whole? I can only answer you: Your question is itself a product of abstraction. Ask yourself how you arrived at that question. Ask yourself whether your question is not posed from a standpoint to which I cannot reply, because it is wrongly put. Ask yourself whether that progress as such exists for a reasonable mind. When you ask about the creation of nature and man, you are abstracting, in so doing, from man and nature. You postulate them as non-existent, and yet you want me to prove them to you as existing. Now I say to you: Give up your abstraction and you will also give up your question. Or if you want to hold on to your abstraction, then be consistent, and if you think of man and nature as non-existent, ||XI| then think of yourself as non-existent, for you too are surely nature and man. Don’t think, don’t ask me, for as soon as you think and ask, your abstraction from the existence of nature and man has no meaning. Or are you such an egotist that you conceive everything as nothing, and yet want yourself to exist?You can reply: I do not want to postulate the nothingness of nature, etc. I ask you about its genesis, just as I ask the anatomist about the formation of bones, etc.But since for the socialist man the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man, so he has the visible, irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis. Since the real existence of man and nature has become evident in practice, through sense experience, because man has thus become evident for man as the being of nature, and nature for man as the being of man, the question about an alien being, about a being above nature and man – a question which implies the admission of the unreality of nature and of man – has become impossible in practice. Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism. Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htmSee also: Early Writings, Penguin, p. 357;or, Collected Works, Volume 3, page 305;or, Fromm, Marx's Concept of Man, page 112, for slightly different translations.
robbo203 wrote:LBird wrote:robbo203 wrote:LBird wrote:.Marx starts from the assumption of both, unified, as so doesn't talk about either 'mind' alone or 'matter' alone. This issue of 'which is over the other' is a non-problem for MarxistsAs I've said, it was Engels who split Marx's ideas back into a battle between 'idealism' versus 'materialism', in which struggle one must take a side. As you're a 'materialist', you accuse me of 'idealism'. In this, you're also continuing the views of the SPGB, which also subscribes to Engels' 'materialism'.Frederich Engels:"And, in fact, with every day that passes we are acquiring a better understanding of these laws and getting to perceive both the more immediate and the more remote consequences of our interference with the traditional course of nature. In particular, after the mighty advances made by the natural sciences in the present century, we are more than ever in a position to realise, and hence to control, also the more remote natural consequences of at least our day-to-day production activities. But the more this progresses the more will men not only feel but also know their oneness with nature, and the more impossible will become the senseless and unnatural idea of a contrast between mind and matter, man and nature, soul and body, such as arose after the decline of classical antiquity in Europe and obtained its highest elaboration in Christianity."https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/index.htm
Thanks for that, robbo.Now, you have to accept that there is no 'matter-in-itself', only Marx's 'mind-matter', 'idealism-materialism'.
If if there no matter in itself then the physical universe could not have existed before human beings thought about it. Is that what you are saying?
The 'physical' is a social category, robbo.Human activity produces the 'physical'.You are simply replacing 'matter' (now you accept that it is a discredited category) with 'physical'.The 'physical universe' is a social product of conscious human activity. That's why, according to Marx, we can change it.You wish to passively contemplate something that 'exists' prior to human conscious activity. You're an 18th century 'materialist'.
Marx, Letter to Annenkov, 1846, wrote:…those who produce social relations in conformity with their material productivity also produce the ideas, categories, i.e. the ideal abstract expressions of those same social relations. Indeed, the categories are no more eternal than the relations they express. They are historical and transitory products. To Mr Proudhon, on the contrary, the prime cause consists in abstractions and categories. According to him it is these and not men which make history. The abstraction, the category regarded as such, i.e. as distinct from man and his material activity, is, of course, immortal, immutable, impassive.http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.html'Matter' is such a 'category'. Not 'eternal', but 'historical and transitory'. Not 'immortal, immutable, impassive', awaiting our 'discovery'.Those who think that 'the prime cause' is a 'category', like matter, which is 'distinct from [hu]man[ity]', rather than human activity, are not Marxists. They are the idealists. 'Materialists' are idealists. Engels didn't understand that, and neither do the 'materialists' who mistakenly follow Engels.Humans socially produce 'matter', and so can change it. 'Matter' is a social product.Even the bourgeoisie have changed from this 'category' to others. Thus, even the bourgeoisie are more advanced than 'materialists', who continue to live in the intellectual world of the 18th century, prior to Marx.
