PartisanZ
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“But surely it will always be true that: class conflict is the dynamic element in society that produces historical change, bacteria causes many diseases, the Earth is spherical, there are no gods, we will die without access to oxygen etc.?
Given the ever changing scientific hypotheses we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater – there are some things that will always be true and some things that will always be a lie like holocaust denial, creationism, religion, racial superiority or that Queen was a great rock band.”
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Wez, Speaking specifically of the new society, class will not feature. So class conflict won’t remain.
That’s important to stress, as the concern of LBird is that democratic control will be lost over specialists with the risk of them forming new elites dispensing treatises from ivory towers without accountability or that their influence may be an undue one.
I have tried to address this concern, as I know others have also.
The danger of substituting the removal of ‘Absolute Truth’ as emanating from beyond our ken, for scientific wisdom percolating down to the ignorant dumb clucks like me.
I view that as a caricature which is misplaced, while still understandable in light of the present make-up of the scientific establishment, the scientific bodies will not figure as an ‘establishment’ in the new society.
I am not advocating removing presently scientifically uncontested, bedrock verifiable assumptions, or wasting time interrogating the existence or otherwise of Deities.
Your latter statement seems to suggest that ‘truth’ is only manufactured within class society – but wouldn’t ‘truth’ exist within socialism? Surely we’d democratically manufacture ‘truth’ to our interests, aims, and purposes, using our democratic science?
Of course truth will exist, but it would be in context of its being a live changing one, subject to interrogation and reinterpretation, in light of new knowledge and challenging of its veracity and not some absolute entity, which is impossible in any case.
Your fear of technocratic, scientific or bureaucratic specialists forming into ‘elites’ is way off the mark, as specialists will be themselves part of society, not some privileged section,but also subject to recallable delegation, in such cases say, where they move from local into regional bodies.
I think there will be much more educated interrogation of any findings and resource allocation will be a democratic process which will be surely allowing for some degree of ephemeral or speculative or research largesse on the part of allocations.
who will control truth production within socialism?‘.
No one and everyone. ‘Truth’ production is only a part of a manufacturing process in a class society surely?
He seemed to enjoy anticipating giving it,
https://twitter.com/EdmundGriffiths/status/1157302268095602693
and then doing it as, much as the audience.
https://twitter.com/EdmundGriffiths/status/1157416448182095874
Everyone signed up to the Forum should have received a Newsletter for August by now. I sent out 918. It took 56 minutes to ‘send’ and I’ll try to improve upon it for September’s mail out.
I just saw this mentioned on ‘Countdown’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Margaret_Garrud
‘Suffrajitsu’: How the suffragettes fought back using martial arts. This from the BBC.
I found this ingenious response to local conditions arising out of poverty in one Argentinian area.
Using Renewable Energy and the Circular Economy to Fight Poverty in Argentina
I don’t think there is one good slogan. I try different empowering ones at the end of some of my screeds like ‘dissolve the politicians and elect yourselves, ‘ along with other favourites such as ‘don’t settle for crumbs take over the bakehouse’ etc.
Perhaps the idea of installing a chat facility on this site could be considered? Matt, how feasible is this?
I have tried out quite few and they have all had some drawbacks. Either adverts or tracking software or were incompatible with this version of WordPress. I will keep looking for a suitable one.
I put those up for Ruby so she didn’t feel left out, rather than cross posting from the other place as cross posting is not allowed.
I don’t know if Nicky is still a member. I don’t think she is necessarily saying so, but speaking of a particular feminist current, the accent on the feminism which holds patriarchy to be the world’s primary problem (my emphasis).
It seems born of her experience at particular time and place. 1993 seems recent to me but it is 26 years ago.
My own experience is of seeing strong women in working class environments, having to assert and control events, which had gone pearshaped due to the brutalising effect of capitalism on their spouses and also where older men had quit this mortal coil earlier than should have, and women often having to take on loads of extra responsibility.
Visiting my mum before her demise was a mind blowing experience as she still had school chums alive coming in to see her of 90 years of age and there were very few men over 60 around. At her funeral one woman I didn’t recognise at first,came up to me outside and said ,”some birthday for you”. When she said her name I remembered her from 60 years previously when she was 20, but only one of her four brothers was still alive.
Although some of them might have uttered a few misandrist remarks, from time to time, before and after they took control, I don’t think they would necessarily have adopted a political label of feminism.
I think Wez’s piece above it has some resonance with me personally, as I saw what he called the ‘consumerism of identity politics’ in the case of homosexuality.
The rubbish served up by the ‘Gay experience’ is at variance with my own personal criminalised early lifestyle experience etc.
It is almost enough to make me a homophobic homosexual. (Joke).
It was never an issue with the party members in my branches, great comrades all.
I do appreciate they are all different and separate experiences for women and homosexuals and people from minority backgrounds.
I don’t think reasserting the majority of the one third membership who could be bothered to vote in 2019 necessarily negates what she has written in 1996 of her own experiences.
E.P Thomsons , ‘condescension of posterity’ springs to mind here.
Conference decisions must be respected while always of course, still subject to subsequent change.
Another article from a comrade Nicky Snell in 1993,
The Problem of Sexism
Before I was a socialist, I was a feminist. As for many women, the discrimination in favour of men was the most obvious and immediate. I gradually came to realize that this fitted into a far larger picture of racism, class oppression, ecological destruction. “third world” poverty, torture, starvation, colonialism, etc… More here >
This thoughtful piece mainly on taboos does make some further comment of interest to the subject of feminism thus,
There exists, of course, a counter current to the use of taboos for control and that is exemplified in the struggle for personal and therefore sexual liberation. The politicisation of sexuality (spearheaded by feminism) can be understood as the reflection or antithesis of the sexualisation of politics (implicit within authoritarianism in terms of dominant and submissive psychology). Socialists have always supported the liberation from any kind of political and/or personal oppression. Our belief in the potential of our species to create a better world implies both a political and moral historical progression. Unfortunately this demand for liberation is at the moment mainly articulated in terms of individual, gender or racial identities rather than that of class and thus of humanity itself. In some ways this sort of ‘identity politics’ is a kind of consumerism with the perceived right to ownership of the self at its heart – rather than a recognition that the ultimate liberation of the self depends on the liberation of all. (My emphasis)
This is what our A-Z of Marxism has under F.
Feminism. Feminist theories of womens’ oppression and inequality have been developed largely within the liberal tradition of political philosophy. Demands have usually been formulated on the basis of moral arguments relating to legal rights and justice, and ignoring the economic conditions that render such claims meaningless within the context of capitalism. ‘Socialist’ feminists, while recognising the importance of class, have become bogged down in reformism; in effect their demand is to be wage slaves equally with men. ‘Radical’ feminists attack patriarchy, not class, as the source of women’s oppression.
While it is undeniable that most women experience certain forms of oppression and discrimination as a result of their gender, to suffer from sexism at all it is usually necessary to be a member of the working class; it is not normally a problem for female members of the capitalist class. The socialist movement, being based on a class analysis of capitalism, provides a motivation for women’s liberation since socialism can only be achieved with the majority support of women and of men. (See also REFORMISM; SEXISM.)
Reading
Vincent, A., Modern Political Ideologies, 1992
The Feminist eZine: http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/index.html
Some comrades already do a lot of propaganda activity out of sight and unseen by the general membership.
There is Ian Rae, Brian Johnson, Robin Cox and Richard Field on Quora for example countering misinformation about what socialism is and is not.
We just haven’t recruited enough young blood to engage in a more visual and active mode out in the streets yet.
When we do we will have to suggest a bit more activity to keep them interested as we rely on them volunteering without too much cajoling.
We say on our site for instance
“The more of you who join the Socialist Party the more we will be able to get our ideas across, the more experiences we will be able to draw on and greater will be the new ideas for building the movement which you will be able to bring to us.
The Socialist Party is an organization of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers. So, if you are going to join we want you to be sure that you agree fully with what we stand for and that we are satisfied that you understand the case for socialism”.
But we do not really stress the active participation in propaganda bit.
When there were more of us and we met at branches and outdoor meetings it seemed different then, but there was a significant group who did sweet nothing I could see,
This could be judgemental and misleading though.
But some of us who were more pro-active then, are finding it hard just getting to the local shops now.
