babyhueypnewton posted:babyfinland posted:
basically my problem with marxism is that it doesnt understand any form of non-capitalism social organizations except false ones like the communist states or fantasies like primitive communism. non-capitalist (and non-feudal etc) forms of organization have existed (mostly outside of Europe, shocking but true) but the assumptions that marxism lies on make them incomprehensibleactually marxism never claims to know anything about pre-capitalist economies because it's completely irrelevant under a capitalist mode of production. value and exchange value only have meaning in a capitalist mode of production and use value becomes unique under capitalism in a dialectical relationship between the three. marx does talk about feudalism when he touches on primitive accumulation and imperialism (the world market) but this is not a valid objection sorry.
i dont know why you're being so vague all the time, what economies are you referring to? this is often claimed about non-western economies but is rarely true and usually just ends up being a primitivist, noble savage view on economics.
the caliphate and medieval china are good examples
i dont see how this is "primitivist, noble savage" unless youre a racist
babyhueypnewton posted:
its gonna take me a while to wrap my head around that but thanks for the very c00l post. forgive me if this is dumb, but isn't marx's reliance on german idealism, especially hegel, a weakness of his considering he went out of his way to distance himself from hegel and idealistim at least in words? reliance on a geist to give our specific revolutionary struggles meaning makes us feel good but im not sure if it's scientific. nietzsche and foucault have convinced me that analysis of historical forces and grund as you say is the only truly revolutionary science, any revolutionary society which clings to the individual at all or to the idea of innate justice that we choose to strive for is tied to a slave morality which will drag us back into a system like liberal democracy which is the highest expression of it (at least so far).
things are very complex, as you may suspect.
marx relied on hegel, but he turned hegel's idealism on its head. he wasnt interested in hegel in idealistic terms, but on materialistic terms. even hegel understands this, he said “only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.” he wasnt being simply contradictory. he meant that ideas are meant to be transformed, which is the only way we can make 'progress'. because subjects have a partial view to the Truth, even in error, they point to the Truth. but of course no one has full access, nor can they.
as far as whether its 'scientific', well, science was born from descartes and other philosophers like him, European monks, Arab muslim scholars, all sorts of idealists and even pagans. this is no accident that the modern scientific sequence was born out of Christian philosophers. but we still use science, dont we? because we have taken these ideas and transformed them. marxism is secular millennialism, in fact it has very strong historical origins in religious peasant rebellions, but why should we discard it?
actually, i believe the Grund is the only intellectual terrain of liberal capitalism. look at their power form, the tallying of votes. better yet, look at how completely they have jettisoned the idea of the subject, and how the very cutting edge of capitalism is treating subjects like deterministic robots: behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, social engineering, even 'New Atheists', 'fat acceptance' groups, on and on and on. i think THIS is the real problem, behind all their talk of 'individuals', they dont actually respect the individual.
after the death of Stalin, and Khruschev's wave of accusations and de-Stalinization, many 'Stalinists' committed suicide. the reason they did it was because they took personal responsibilities for their actions. now imagine any western imperialist taking any responsibility whatsoever for their crimes. imagine what a humiliated prime minister may do. he would resign, and then secretly live a luxurious lifestyle on the money from private contracts and lobbying connections. who has the more intimate relation with the individual?
the subject is worth reimagining. we are honestly wandering down into a deterministic nightmare the scale of which 20th century disasters like eugenics and genocidal extermination look cursory. just look at genetic engineering
babyfinland posted:babyhueypnewton posted:babyfinland posted:
basically my problem with marxism is that it doesnt understand any form of non-capitalism social organizations except false ones like the communist states or fantasies like primitive communism. non-capitalist (and non-feudal etc) forms of organization have existed (mostly outside of Europe, shocking but true) but the assumptions that marxism lies on make them incomprehensibleactually marxism never claims to know anything about pre-capitalist economies because it's completely irrelevant under a capitalist mode of production. value and exchange value only have meaning in a capitalist mode of production and use value becomes unique under capitalism in a dialectical relationship between the three. marx does talk about feudalism when he touches on primitive accumulation and imperialism (the world market) but this is not a valid objection sorry.
i dont know why you're being so vague all the time, what economies are you referring to? this is often claimed about non-western economies but is rarely true and usually just ends up being a primitivist, noble savage view on economics.the caliphate and medieval china are good examples
i dont see how this is "primitivist, noble savage" unless youre a racist
actually they're shitty examples because china was completely feudal except with the state taking the role of rural bourgeoise and suppressing the development of capitalism. the caliphate was pretty similar, in fact the history of the development and then subversion of the development of capitalism in states with strong ideology backed by the state is the same in all the catholic states which was almost exactly the same as islamic ideology. none of the differences between europe and china/the middle east affect the fundamental relations between the classes, who controls the means of production and the land, and the process of primitive accumulation. you really think there's no marxist literature on china and the middle east, or 2/3rds of the world?
it's irrelevant anyway beyond as a study of history for study's sake because capitalism consumes all other modes of production and going backwards is not possible.
Crow posted:babyhueypnewton posted:
its gonna take me a while to wrap my head around that but thanks for the very c00l post. forgive me if this is dumb, but isn't marx's reliance on german idealism, especially hegel, a weakness of his considering he went out of his way to distance himself from hegel and idealistim at least in words? reliance on a geist to give our specific revolutionary struggles meaning makes us feel good but im not sure if it's scientific. nietzsche and foucault have convinced me that analysis of historical forces and grund as you say is the only truly revolutionary science, any revolutionary society which clings to the individual at all or to the idea of innate justice that we choose to strive for is tied to a slave morality which will drag us back into a system like liberal democracy which is the highest expression of it (at least so far).
things are very complex, as you may suspect.
marx relied on hegel, but he turned hegel's idealism on its head. he wasnt interested in hegel in idealistic terms, but on materialistic terms. even hegel understands this, he said “only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.” he wasnt being simply contradictory. he meant that ideas are meant to be transformed, which is the only way we can make 'progress'. because subjects have a partial view to the Truth, even in error, they point to the Truth. but of course no one has full access, nor can they.
as far as whether its 'scientific', well, science was born from descartes and other philosophers like him, European monks, Arab muslim scholars, all sorts of idealists and even pagans. this is no accident that the modern scientific sequence was born out of Christian philosophers. but we still use science, dont we? because we have taken these ideas and transformed them. marxism is secular millennialism, in fact it has very strong historical origins in religious peasant rebellions, but why should we discard it?
actually, i believe the Grund is the only intellectual terrain of liberal capitalism. look at their power form, the tallying of votes. better yet, look at how completely they have jettisoned the idea of the subject, and how the very cutting edge of capitalism is treating subjects like deterministic robots: behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, social engineering, even 'New Atheists', 'fat acceptance' groups, on and on and on. i think THIS is the real problem, behind all their talk of 'individuals', they dont actually respect the individual.
after the death of Stalin, and Khruschev's wave of accusations and de-Stalinization, many 'Stalinists' committed suicide. the reason they did it was because they took personal responsibilities for their actions. now imagine any western imperialist taking any responsibility whatsoever for their crimes. imagine what a humiliated prime minister may do. he would resign, and then secretly live a luxurious lifestyle on the money from private contracts and lobbying connections. who has the more intimate relation with the individual?
the subject is worth reimagining. we are honestly wandering down into a deterministic nightmare the scale of which 20th century disasters like eugenics and genocidal extermination look cursory. just look at genetic engineering
i agree actually, ideology is the one thing that is not allowed in the brains of the "free" 1st world citizen. and you're right that we're looking at the end of life itself, I personally think economic destruction is the most important thing to fear because everyone knows that within 50 years the earth will be uninhabitable but no one imagines alternatives and so no one takes action. people know they are going to die but they just "don't think about it" to survive. liberalism is a powerful ideological apparatus if people will choose to preserve the system over their own survival.
i guess it's tough for me to determine when respect for the individual becomes false belief in the supremacy of the individual and the natural morality innate in every individual which all society is based around when it seems like the opposite is the case and society determines the individual (not getting into the differences between bourgeois individuals and proletarian individuals who are completely different subjects) and when it becomes liberalism and paralyzing non-violence because every individual matters which of course justifies the massive violence of the status quo.
it makes no sense to say that europe, china and the muslim were were comparable and "feudal" because the class alliances and relations were very different
Edited by babyfinland ()
babyhueypnewton posted:
i agree actually, ideology is the one thing that is not allowed in the brains of the "free" 1st world citizen. and you're right that we're looking at the end of life itself, I personally think economic destruction is the most important thing to fear because everyone knows that within 50 years the earth will be uninhabitable but no one imagines alternatives and so no one takes action. people know they are going to die but they just "don't think about it" to survive. liberalism is a powerful ideological apparatus if people will choose to preserve the system over their own survival.
i guess it's tough for me to determine when respect for the individual becomes false belief in the supremacy of the individual and the natural morality innate in every individual which all society is based around when it seems like the opposite is the case and society determines the individual (not getting into the differences between bourgeois individuals and proletarian individuals who are completely different subjects) and when it becomes liberalism and paralyzing non-violence because every individual matters which of course justifies the massive violence of the status quo.
i agree, which is why i'm learning more theory right now, dialectical materialism in general, and i think jacques-alain miller's orientation of lacanian psychoanalysis is especially promising
Crow posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
i agree actually, ideology is the one thing that is not allowed in the brains of the "free" 1st world citizen. and you're right that we're looking at the end of life itself, I personally think economic destruction is the most important thing to fear because everyone knows that within 50 years the earth will be uninhabitable but no one imagines alternatives and so no one takes action. people know they are going to die but they just "don't think about it" to survive. liberalism is a powerful ideological apparatus if people will choose to preserve the system over their own survival.
i guess it's tough for me to determine when respect for the individual becomes false belief in the supremacy of the individual and the natural morality innate in every individual which all society is based around when it seems like the opposite is the case and society determines the individual (not getting into the differences between bourgeois individuals and proletarian individuals who are completely different subjects) and when it becomes liberalism and paralyzing non-violence because every individual matters which of course justifies the massive violence of the status quo.
i agree, which is why i'm learning more theory right now, dialectical materialism in general, and i think jacques-alain miller's orientation of lacanian psychoanalysis is especially promising
his wife was awesome (and also lacan's daughter)
wikipedia posted:
As a Maoist philosophy lecturer at Vincennes in Paris, her radicalism caused her philosophy department to be decertified. This occurred after she handed out course credit to someone she met on a bus, and subsequently publicly declared in a radio interview that the university is a capitalist institution, and that she would do everything she could to make it run as badly as possible. After this, she was demoted by the French education department to a lycée teacher.
why didnt i have teachers like that 
babyhueypnewton posted:
Crow posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
i agree actually, ideology is the one thing that is not allowed in the brains of the "free" 1st world citizen. and you're right that we're looking at the end of life itself, I personally think economic destruction is the most important thing to fear because everyone knows that within 50 years the earth will be uninhabitable but no one imagines alternatives and so no one takes action. people know they are going to die but they just "don't think about it" to survive. liberalism is a powerful ideological apparatus if people will choose to preserve the system over their own survival.
i guess it's tough for me to determine when respect for the individual becomes false belief in the supremacy of the individual and the natural morality innate in every individual which all society is based around when it seems like the opposite is the case and society determines the individual (not getting into the differences between bourgeois individuals and proletarian individuals who are completely different subjects) and when it becomes liberalism and paralyzing non-violence because every individual matters which of course justifies the massive violence of the status quo.
i agree, which is why i'm learning more theory right now, dialectical materialism in general, and i think jacques-alain miller's orientation of lacanian psychoanalysis is especially promising
his wife was awesome (and also lacan's daughter)
wikipedia posted:
As a Maoist philosophy lecturer at Vincennes in Paris, her radicalism caused her philosophy department to be decertified. This occurred after she handed out course credit to someone she met on a bus, and subsequently publicly declared in a radio interview that the university is a capitalist institution, and that she would do everything she could to make it run as badly as possible. After this, she was demoted by the French education department to a lycée teacher.
why didnt i have teachers like that
lol
In fact, if there isn't an individual ethical component to life, then what's the point? Does it really matter if the Earth survives or if people aren't exploited? Mao says that it is right to rebel against reactionaries. The entire subjective component of leadership suggests that some actors have autonomy from simple base-superstructure considerations, however powerful some articulations of material-influenced subjectivity are.
If you act against democracy (equitable cooperation procedure) nowadays, what you are saying is "the stakes are too high." You have to basically believe that people are too corrupt to cooperate themselves as it stands, and that you have special knowledge that makes you a better judge of what society ought to be doing than millions of other people. There could be a great reason for this: You might think that a particular war or social policy is unconscionable, that you can't let it proceed. You might think that, in a preemptive sense, capitalism generates the sort of things you don't like. But I think that it is fair to say that this should have a very high test.
Moreover, none of this is what Marxist-Leninists will say. They instead say, yes, we are democratic, we've just discovered a more democratic form than others etc. etc. Which is obviously misleading - they aren't interested in equitable cooperation from the perspective of procedure. What they are interested in is forcing more fair cooperation in certain aspects - the abolition of hired labour, the abolition of extreme poverty, and so on. You can argue that in an all-considered ethical judgment that this trade-off is superior, I think. I'm even saying, looking at the world today, that my intuition says such a trade-off might be acceptable. The issue, though, is that I still think there is an equivalency between socialism and democracy, meaning that you need to build legitimacy around participation in the long term, and that it is always preferable to have a democratic socialism over a narrow dictatorship.
M-L would not say that, since we attack the very idea of democracy. We are for the true expression of man which both predates the concept of "democracy" as the greeks envisioned it and the modern concept of "democracy" which is just bourgeois parlimentarianism and is completely meaningless. Lenin obviously attacked the 2nd, but I find the three great minds of the 20th century, Marx (yeah he was dead I know), Freud, and Nietzsche have us confront what true freedom would mean not limited by the assumptions we previously assumed to be correct. The concept of democracy, if it can even be used, has to be radically re-imagined. Like Crow, I too am re-imagining the individual and the society in which they live, and how this dialectic resolves itself. Talking about democracy, dictatorship, and socialism as you mean it, with all the hidden linguistic meanings these words have naturally leads one to support democratic socialism because inherent in the conceptions are democracy=good/ dictatorship=bad/ socialism=party-state and it's not like I can't have this debate and go back and forth about the real world improvements under Stalin and Mao vs. and how western democracy doesn't actually work. It's just not that interesting tbh, I can do that irl with any liberal on the street.
A system doesn't exist as itself in relation to nothing, a system forms a near-complete dictatorship extending into culture and thought. As such, people will be brought into the system via everything they read and see and listen to, their values and concepts will be dictated by the rulers. A revolution is difficult because it must straddle the line, it must have enough popular support, ie, it must break enough of the cultural stranglehold to have mass support, but necessarily not wait until it itself is absorbed as just another segment of the dictatorship. If it acts without support, it will either be crushed and the people will back the rulers, or it will succeed, but have no actual support.
On the line of Democracy, as an idea it is a good concept, but it rests upon one critical assumption, that the majority of people are intelligent and rational enough to produce a vote which works in their own interest individually and collectively. This is not possible immediately following the end of any system which relies upon keeping the people uneducated. Sun Yat-sen proposed a three-stage revolution tactic, whereby revolutionaries first seize power, then educate the people and then allow democracy. It can work no other way than that, whatever opinions on Dr. Sun may be.
Angel_X posted:
On the line of Democracy, as an idea it is a good concept, but it rests upon one critical assumption, that the majority of people are intelligent and rational enough to produce a vote which works in their own interest individually and collectively.
No it doesn't. Democracy isn't legitimated simply by efficiency. It is a procedure for decision-making. You're setting up an outcome you want and then saying "what's the best way to get here" rather than questioning the justice of the process to get there.