>>>look at the long-term problems and inherent weaknesses that otherwise
>brilliant analysts like marx and freud imbedded in their work by trying to
>make it scientific. and, of course, in the hands of zealots like the
>communists, it was precisely the objective, scientific nature of marx's
>history and theory that gave them the warrant to force the truth on so many
>peoples. <<
I think Landes has a point, but then he's describing our current order just
as well, eh? The stuff that gets done in the namne of scientific truths
like 'comparative advantage', 'elasticity', and 'revealed preferences'
constitutes a pretty ghastly imposition, too.
>The standard 'Stalinist' riposte to this way of looking at socialism as
just another
>opiate of the masses, is to object that, while religious belief not only
needs but
>even entails an act of faith, arguments grounded on scientific
considerations are
>open to popperian disproof; the layman may not understand them, but
*someone* does,
>and that is what matters. What's more, and classical stalinist apologists
from
>Lukacs onwards were highly receptive to epistemological disclaimers, thus
it is
>accepted that even the notion of what constitutes 'objectivity' is and
always has
>been itself capable of rational analyses and mutation. The key word here is
>'dialectics' as in 'dialectical materialism'. See E V Ilyenko for a late
version of
>this kind of discussion (Brezhnev era). So for the Stalinists themselves,
the
>ordinary standards of scientific hypothesis, experimentation and proof
apply, and
>this is so even tho there were in practice obvious perversions of this
process, for
>eg when Stalin (no biologist and no physicist) adjudicated between Lysenko
and
>Vavilov, or established by pontifical statements the petit-bourgeois
character of
>Einsteinian relativity etc.
Well, I think this riposte has some legs. But an educated constituency
extends the capacity to engage in such testing of propositions to those most
affected. Praxis is, I think, about collective acts, collective reflection,
and collective further action. As Luxemburg famously said, it's better for
all to balls up occasionally than for a small elite to succeed in its
particular way. Experts are for consulting, the people are for authoring
their history.
I know I'm not approximating any practical political programme here, Mark,
but then I ain't a Lenin or even a Habermas - just a worrier, really.
>Departures from the norm are not unusual in any religion or any polity,
however. The
>fact that socialists have sometimes betrayed their professed commitment to
science
>does not invalidate the meaning and worth of the commitment itself. In any
case, we
>should not accuse Marx/Engels/Lenin of bad faith: it's clear enough what
they were
>getting at.
Well, I'd hope no-one thinks I'd do that. I find reading and discussing
Marx quite the most wise-making thing I've ever done.
Just trying to take a few tips from history and cater our strategies to the
particular present in which we live, lest the tradition of all the dead
generations weigh like a nightmare on the brain of the living and we don't
end up anxiously conjuring up the spirits of the past just as we're engaged
in trying to create something that has never existed ...
>I think you'd have to demonstrate some OTHER and SUPERIOR means of creating
>'socialist consciousness' other than by 'objective science', for your
objection to
>have force.
But the 'objective' is, as Marx says somewhere - admittedly in one of his
more pragmatic (in the Deweyian sense) moments - that which is true for the
'universal class'. Marxian thought is like chess: quite easy to grasp and
difficult to master. In practice it's about pursuing the democratic control
over the means of production by collective trial and error. Kautsky writes
in *The Dictatorship of the Proletariat* that a transformation based on an
educated populace, general participation and civil liberties has a better
chance of timing its putsch and sustaining the revolution. That's the bit
that had Lenin calling him 'renegade', but it's a bit that might just be
more appropriate to our time (or one to come, at any rate) than it might
have been in the Russia of 1917. But then I'm a menshevik.
>Other than science, we only have the obscurantism of blind faith and
>atavistic tribal desire, do we not?
Science solely in the hands of the annointed few is the bit I'm worried
about. People in awesome numbers are looking for critiques and solutions,
and those well-versed in the coherent body of thought that is Marxism have
much to offer. So let's offer. It either eventually takes or it doesn't.
>Science, as accumulated knowldge, as
>methodology, philosophy and embodied social practice, does indeed have the
>> potential to ignore constituencies, narrow debate, antagonise friends,
>> marginalise issues, criminalise dissentors, and, oh, mebbe dry up into a
>> static one-sided bureaucratic terror
>
>but then so does practically anything else, including not only religion,
but pop
>music, art, social welfare systems, stolen elections, postmodernism --, oh,
you name
>it. It has the *potential* also to be the basis for social emancipation and
for the
>creation of just and solidaristic human lifeworlds which respect their
natural
>surroundings. Is there another way?
Right.
As long as there's room in said lifeworld for democratic questioning and
honing of the validity claims that constitute the science, I'm all for it.
It's convinced me, after all. I just don't see Leninist thought (by which I
mean what he said and did in the particular moment) on the party's role and
constitution as an automatic (or the singular) extension of Marx's thought,
that's all.
E-chats have their shortcomings, eh? I agree with most of what you say, yet
seem to have given the impression I'm against a party and against the role
of science. So I spend time we might better spend elsewhere putting stuff
right - it is the role of the party and its correlate, the social practice
of the science that concern me. Anyway, I'd better pull my head in a little
- I've a dissertation to finish, and apolgise in advance if I seem to ignore
the odd response.
Best to all,
Rob.
_______________________________________________
Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
