Z (I am sorry, but there are so many typos in your post that I found it difficult to follow you at times -- hope this isn't a sign that you are rattled...):

And how is capitalism 'more' than the sum of its parts? You keep dodging this question. If you can't answer it (and I have yet to come across an answer in the hundreds of books and articles on dialectics that I have read), just admit it, and stop blustering.

If you wanted to know what, say, a Disjunctive Normal Form was in modern mathematical logic was, and I said the following:

"A Disjunctive Normal Form is one that is Disjunctive, but in Normal Form"

you'd be quite right to complain that I had not explained anything.

And you certainly would not accept me saying "if you don't understand this then that is probably your problem".

Same here.

We cannot find Bin Laden or Lord Lucan. Are they therefore 'abstractions'?

Anyway, I already admitted that "Manhood" is an 'abstraction'. That was the whole point of that part of my argument.

The further point is that a particular (abstract or concrete) cannot determine (or be used to determine) a general rule, which is what generalisation does (or it is what we do with general words) in language.

Hence, these are not the same.

Takes two to 'swamp'.

Well, in that case the 'term' is a proper name, and if it 'refers' to a 'concept' then that 'concept' cannot be a concept, but must be a particular again (since that is what proper names name).

Only vacuous 'statements' (like 'Vixens are female foxes') are self-evident. "Self-evidence", as the word suggests, is that feature of certain uses of language that certifies itself, needing no evidence other than itself to testify to it's own truth. So, that is why I did not use one of those.

But, it is nonetheless evident that if you believe that 'capitalism' is a concept, or an 'abstraction' (these two are not at all the same, you just assume they are), then all we have to do is stop thinking about it, and it will go away.

And, that is why I keep having to tell you that your view means that we do not have to overthrow capitalism.

But how does that answer this?

Of course, it doesn't.

Z:

As I have pointed out to you already, all great thinkers and scientists were very careful over the language they used. Marx too was extremely careful in Das Kapital to distinguish between, say, use and exchange value, and between the relative form and the equivalent form of value.

Had you been around 140 years ago, you'd have accused him of 'pedantry'!

And you certainly wouldn't allow anyone to reject Marx's theory on the basis of their confusing surplus value with profit, say, who then thought that they had refuted Marx. And this is especially so if they then turned around and said that you were just being 'pedantic' when you pointed out their confusion.

So, this attempt of yours to excuse your own sloppy thought won't work either.

There are so many typos here, I am finding it difficult to follow your argument, if you have one.

Are you saying that the party does not exist? Or that it is merely shorthand?

How does it do that?

How does whether or not I was a Respect supporter affect the last 150 years of the failure of dialectical Marxism?

And, my work is not 'post-dialectical philosophy', since it is not philosophy to begin with.

Why are you still attributing to me things I do not believe?

But even if you were right, this attempt by you to distract attention from the last 150 years of the almost total failure of dialectical Marxism won't work either. My failings, no matter how great or how small they are, have nothing to do with that long-term and very sorry record.

I just said 'failure', but I then went on to elaborate that I am only talking about the failure of dialectical Marxism. Indeed, I have been making this point here for the last three years, and have done so repeatedly in my Essays.

Moreover, the 'Marxist movement' has not been given a chance; it has been hijacked by mystics.

It still used this 'theory' of yours.

1) Why do you say I reject the class struggle "in practice"?

2) Where did I say that "any one aspect of marxism must be held accountable for "150 years of almost total failure""?

Once more, your sloppy approach to language should not be projected onto me.

1) I am only 'superior' to dialecticians in one respect: I know your theory is cr*p.

2) You keep calling me a 'pedant', and you say things like this:

As I have said, your personal attacks on me are quite understandable -- they help you distract attention from the fact that you can't cope with my arguments.

no, I am just very bad at typing all of the time.

well social relationships between people condition those people. the people are not conditioning themselves. therefore these social relationships must be more than simply the two indiviuals, or else they could not affect those people, could they?

another example is money. money arises out of the commodity form and becomes the ultimate commodity which rather than faciltiating exchange, terminates it. none of this is intended by anyone else in capitalism, yet everyone within the capitalist process has to defer to money as the ultimate commodity in order not to bring down the system.

therefore I think ti is fair to say that the complexities of the system force the actors within it to defer to certain conditions to make the system work, when nobody is consciously implementing these as policies. therefore the system drives those within it. soemthing which it could not do unless it was an objective reality with its own necessities - which it could not be if it were simply an external description placed on the actions of autonomous individuals.


but the descriptions did not use the word "abstraction". they used the word "abstract", or "abstracting", etc., in which case, you need to look them up. that is legitimate.



In which case, you know what one is. So what is the problem exactly?

also, "manhood" exists objectively, as well as being an abstraction.

this is interesting, thankyou. however it is not at all relevant to our conversation. nobody said they are the same. hwoever abstractions are derived form generalisation. in any case, none of this changes the fact that the term capitalism is an abstraction

why can't a concept be particular? isn't manhood a concept?

no. if I stop believing in manhood I do not stop being a man.

only to a vulgar materialist, who thinks that only the material is objective.

it does not. I am not an expert on dialectics. I do not need to be to think dialectically.

of course. but he was not pedantic. the difference for example is that he would refer to "demcoracy", knowing it was not, or "free trade", likewise, or he oculd say that capitalism "produced something" without literally thinkignt hat capitalism sat down and made it.

no, but you would have accused him of mysticism.

this is not the same.

of ocurse the party objectivley exists. but it does not physically exist.

when we say that "the party organised something", it is shorthand in order to talk about more interesting things than the fact that physically it didn't, some people did. liekwise when we say cpaitlaism produced soemthing.

the fact we did that does not then invalidate pointing out the obvious fact that a "party" does not physically exist and cannot itself organise anything, when such a discussion becoems necessarry. but most of the time it is not necessarry therefore we use shorthand to faciltiate discussion on what is relevant rather than irrelevant semantics.

I didn't claim it does. It affects your own claim, which is based on the "failure of dialectical marxism", when your own non-dialectical brand of marxism has not only failed, but been a class-collaborationsit disgrace to the far-right of anything dialecticians like Lenin, Trotsky, Marx or Engels ever argued for. Therefore, if your version of marxism which is cleansed of dialectics has not made you a better marxist than the dialecticians, but in fact leads you to be amuch worse one, where does that leave us? or does the philosophical aspect no longer bear any relation to the poltical aspect - in which case, surely the failures of dialecical marxism have nothng to dow ith dialectics.

then what is it?

what did I attribute to you that you don't believe?

So the Bolsheviks were not marxists?

It claimed to. But then the Nazis claimed to be socialist. And they also rejected dialectics. What's your point?


Because of your supprot for a reformist class collaborationsit bloc in practice.

You did not. You said:

but the "party of class struggle" also presided over this decay! The "party of karl marx" also presided over this decay! so why not ditch them too?

true though you did then provide a point no.5. But you preceeded it by these 4 which functioned as arguments on their own.

1.) calling you a pedant is not apersonal attack, it refers to your style of argument, and is therefoe a relevant form of criticising your argument. it is not the same as attacking your age, nationality or gender, which would indeed be personal attacks.

2.) if dialectics has presided over 150 years of almsot total failure, one would expect some kind of break with this once dialectics is borken with, therefore, holding you accountable to your poltiics is relevant.

Z:

How does that make capitalism 'more'?

Anyway, if capitalism is an abstraction, how can it be 'more'? Indeed, how can it have parts? Abstractions do not have parts.

Even if this were so, how does this make capitalism 'more'. 'More' than what?

That is no more use than if I were to try to 'define' a Disjunctive Normal Form this way

"A Disjunctive Normal Form is one that is has Disjuncts, but they have been Normalised."

Once more, you would rightly complain that I had explained nothing.

I asked:

You just posted a smiley in reply. I take it that that means you have no genuine response to make?

You either think that Bin Laden and Lord Lucan are indeed abstractions, or you are reluctant to admit that this destroys your 'definition'.

Then it cannot be a general term.

And I do not know what an 'abstraction' is, I am merely relying on the confused things people like you say about them, and comparing that with the clear use we have of general terms, which shows that these are not the same.

I have no idea what 'god' is, but I know that George W Bush is not 'Him'.

But capitalism is not a term; you said earlier that "capitalism" was a term. Now you want us to accept that capitalism is a term. Which is it to be?

And this is relevant, since it shows that the word/term "capitalism", if it is an abstraction, cannot be used in generalisations. On the other hand if it can, it can't be an 'abstraction', since the latter are the names of abstract particulars.

And I quoted Lenin earlier; here he is again:

In that case, if capitalism is objective, it is material, and hence not an 'abstraction'.

Unless, of course, you disagree with Lenin.

I explained this earlier. Concepts function in language as general terms. We use them to generate true or false sentences when they are combined with singular terms. For example: the concept "...man" combines with "Tony Blair" to give a truth (if we use other particles between them such as "is a"), but with "The River Nile" to give a falsehood.

Now, if the concept man were singular and designated "Manhood" it would turn sentences in to lists, and lists say nothing.

So, "Tony Blair Manhood The River Nile" says nothing. If we treat concepts as singular terms designating particulars then that would destroy the capacity we have in language for describing things, and the capacity we have of expressing generality.

The names of particulars say nothing; we have to concatenate them with general words (concepts) if we want to say something (in such sentences).

So "Blair" says nothing. If someone just said that word out of the blue (and not in answer to a question, say), you would not respond "True". But if they said "Blair is a liar" you would agree, and if they said "Blair is a Marxist" you would disagree.

That is because we have in ordinary language terms that are not abstractions.

But, you are committed to the view that capitalism (or is it "capitalism", you do not seem to know which) is an abstraction, and that is it.

So, if that is all there is to capitalism/"capitalism", if it is just a 'mental' entity, then if we stop believing in it, or if we refuse to use that term, it will cease to exist, on your view.

1) You are just repeating what you have been told. You cannot justify this -- except you repeat it again.

2) Then Lenin was a 'vulgar' materialist:

Z:

Well, it seems that up to now, to be able to think 'dialectically' amounts to the stunning ability to post confused off-the-cuff ideas (that you have not really thought much about), slowly digging yourself into a hole.

To be honest, it's rather like debating with a Creationist who knows very little science, but who thinks he/she can just bluff their way through.

He was very careful and clear about the vast majority of the words he used, just like me. So, if he wasn't 'pedantic', neither am I.

In contrast, you have indulged in the sloppy use of language here, and your only excuse for that is to say that I am 'pedantic'!

I rather think you would have accused him of 'pedantry'. You only have to look at the careful way he dissected Hegel's system, concentrating on Hegel's cavalier use of language, and the ideas this represented.

For example, check this out:

I adopt a similar tactic. And this is why:

Notice: 'abstraction' distorts language (as I have explained, it changes general words into the names of abstract particulars, as Marx notes in the long quotation above).

And, I would not have accused Marx of mysticism in his Das Kapital phase, since he waved goodbye to the dialectic (as you understand it).

In fact, the sloppy use of language is the only way you can make your 'theory' seem to work, as Marx noted of Hegel & Co, too.

Then you disagree with Lenin:

Z:

Once more, this is not 'irrelevant semantics' for your ideas commit you to the 'objective' existence of something that is an 'abstraction', and thus which can only exist in the mind. For you, then, the 'material' world and the complex processes in it (like the capitalist system) are just ideas in the mind --, and that means you are an idealist.

You see now why Marx said that idealism is connected with the sloppy use of language.

Even so, this 'core theory' of yours has presided over failure after failure. Tested in practice, and thus refuted.

And, I do not see how you can argue this:

It is just your opinion that I am a 'worse' Marxist -- and I'll have you know that the SWP is just as much into dialectics as you are. Hence the continued failures. In fact, the tiny group you belong to is not known for its many successful revolutions.

Well, I only adhere to one theory: Historical Materialism.

But, I use my expertise in philosophy to help demolish all philosophical theories (as ruling-class hot air), including the Minnie Mouse Metaphysics found in dialectics.

So, if you want to call that anything, call it 'anti-philosophy'.

This:

and this:

I did make that clear in my last post!

They were dialectical Marxists, as I pointed out.

And so did Engels, Lenin and Trotsky: they claimed to be using the 'dialectic'. The point is, that there is no way of telling what the 'correct' way to use the dialectic is. As I noted in another thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...7&postcount=73

Z:

No I do not.

1) Marx had already abandoned this 'theory' by the time he wrote Das Kapital.

2) We only have to ditch this mystical 'theory'.

To make myself perfectly clear I posted this on page one of my site, and I have repeated it many times:

Z:

It looks personal to me.

But, whatever; it helps you distract attention from the hole you are in.

[Tip: this tactic of yours isn't working.]

As to 2) above: that in no way answers the point.

because a social relationship cannot condition both "component parts" if it is only the sum of their autonomous actions, can it?

But I already said that capitalism might not be an abstraction. I said that the term capitalism is an abstraction. not the system itself.

more than the sum of its parts. it makes it more because they need to act in a certain way to maintain the system. this would not happen if the system were nothing more than the sum of the parts.

dictionaries work that way. you need to look up what abstraction means to get the definition, simple. the fact you did not says a lot.

oh sorry were you being serious?

why not? manhood is both an abstraction and a general term.

but you said that manhood is an abstraction.

when did I say it was not a term?

When talkign about "capitalism" you can talk about many things. the "word". the pixels ont he screen (as you amazingly did), or the thing. I can refer to the term "capitalism" as an abstraction.t his doesn;t necessarilyl mean the mode of production is. it might be thogh. I am not sure.

this is not true. manhood encapsulates all men. therefore it is rderived form a generalisation of a phenomenon.

Di dLenin say that that which is not material is not objectice? Maybe, but not int he quote you just showed.


Blair is contained within manhood, or liardom. therefore they can be used together. Rosa,womanhood. Blair, manhood. see?
no. because just as man relates to manhood, so capitalist and capital relate to captialism.

as you keep saying. however, this rests on me taking you at your own word that Marx would todsy be saying what you are saying were he here today. the fact he explciitly endorsed dialectics suggests otherwise.

but apparently, what Marx said was meaningless, because the term abstraction is meaningless.

he just refused to say so, and in fact claimed the opposite. maybe he did this on purpose so that one day his true heir could decode this devious trick, and reveal themselves.

again, all that shows if that if the party were material, then it owuld be objective. it does not say that to be objective it must be material.

no, I do not think capitalism exists only int he mind. like a social relationship, it clearly objectively exists, but cannot be seen or touched. next time you have a social relationship in a cage, call me round and I'll taste it.

well, no, you support trade union bureaucrats, landlords, Bengali millionaires and reformist politicians, i.e. enemies of the working class.

so the SWP are Bolshevik in their practice?

this may be so. but at least I understand that the left in Britain needs to send its members into the workplaces, into the sectors in struggle, into the vanguard sectors. it needs to get serious. it needs to be with the workers, the base, independent of our enemies, the brueaucrats, the bourgeois scum like George Galloway who earn so many tens of thousand each year, independent of the petty borugeois "community leaders" and reformist stalinist corpses and landlords and Bengali millionaires.

Until this happens there won't be a serious left in Britain. the fortune of the revolutionary left is the fortune of the working class vanguard and currently the groups in Britain which claim to be the former do not care about the latter. they are jsut impressionists on the sidelines, not proletarian groups basing their poltiics on the struggles of their members.

but you did imply 1, whether or not you think it, and if 2 is not true, then what is the point of what you do?


so they were not historical materialists?

that is what RESPECT is.

according to your decoding which contradicts what he actually said, yes.

I did not say you placed all the blame on dialectics.


yes, appearances and essences. if it relates to yoru style of arguing it is a criticism of your argument, and not personal.

it is not a defence of dialectics, no. it is not intended to be. it is an attempt to questiont he effect of dialectics on the failures of marxism. which is quite different. seeing as you stated that it had an important effect, this is a valid point.

Z:

But, each of the parts is already conditioned as parts of that whole. So, how can their sum be 'more' than that whole?

If capitalism is not an 'abstraction', what then is it? And how can a term be an 'abstraction'; "Capitalism" as a term exists on your screen.

Is this a sum of the part before they became incorporated into that whole or after. If the former, where were they before they were incorporated? If after, then, as I noted before, they are already parts of that while, and so are already conditioned by it and one another, So, how can they no be 'more'?

We have already covered this. The dictionary 1) confuses generalisation with 'abstraction', and 2) defined this word in terns of itself. As I noted that would be about as useful as defining a Disjunctive Normal Form as a disjunction of normalised disjuncts.

So, we still do not know what an 'abstraction' is.

Yes, so what's your response? Why aren't Lord Lucan and Bin Laden 'abstractions' if we cant 'find' them, as you alleged of 'abstractions'?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...3&postcount=42

So, if we can't find Lord Lucan or Bin Laden, they must be 'abstractions'. If not, then your criterion is defective.

I have already been over this. This word designates an 'abstract' particular, and particulars aren't general.

You can see this if you try to express generality with it:

"Blair is Manhood" makes no sense.

And, we still do not know what an 'abstraction' is so that we are in a position to agree or disagree with you.

Even worse, we do not know how you or anyone else arrive at them. It looks like you believers just invented them. In that case, they have about as much going for them as Gryphons and Harpies.

I said no such thing. I am careful to put this word in 'scare' quotes, as i do with 'God' (and for the same reason), or I merely report your words, and try to see where they lead. Not for one second do I believe that "Manhood" is an 'abstraction', since I have yet to have the word "abstraction" explained to me. And I have yet to se it explained to anyone else.

As I noted, I do not need to know what an 'abstraction' is to know that it is not the same as generalisation since, to repeat:

I have no idea what 'god' is, but I know that George W Bush is not 'Him'.

You are really getting yourself into a tangle here. But "capitalism" is a word, not a term (as you seem to be using that word, i.e., "term"). Perhaps you need to explain to us what you mean by "term", for it is confusing me.

But, that is precisely the point; as soon as you produce this word "Manhood" is designates an abstract particular, and so loses its generality, as I showed above.

Here it is again:

And who does this 'generalisation', and how do you know you have all done it exactly the same way, and with the same results?

And what 'phenomenon' is this you are referring to?

No, read it again:

And he repeated this many times; here are few of these:

And he added things like this:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...m#v14pp72h-122

You can see here that Lenin argues against the kind of construction you seem to dote upon (in the last highlighted part of the quotation):

As I have said, you cannot tell the difference between your "capitalism" and such hobgoblins (or as I interjected, Gryphons and Harpies).

But, "Blair manhood" is a list, and lists say nothing.

And, how can Tony Blair, the man, be 'contained' in an 'abstraction'?

But, according to you manhood is an 'abstraction', so that must mean capitalism is an 'abstraction'.

And what is this 'man' you are referring to? Another 'abstraction'?

Well, he indicates that he and I do indeed agree, in Das Kapital. You can find the evidence here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/scrapping-...34/index4.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...4&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...6&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=124

The odd thing is that in his early work he repudiated 'abstraction' as the quotes I added showed. However, in later work he returned to using them sparingly. And, as he too failed to say what these odd items meant, then yes, those parts of Marx's work (fortunately very few and far between) where he refers to the word "abstraction", are meaningless.

In fact, he quite clearly repudiated the dialectic as you traditionalists understand it. Evidence in the links above.

Not according to Lenin.

Well, we have made some progress, for you began by arguing that capitalism was an 'abstraction'.

But, many material things cannot be seen or touched. When was the last time you saw an electron? Or touched one? Or the centre of the earth? Or the centre of mass of the Galaxy?

Now, I do not deny these social relations, but many relations can be seen. Get two of your friends to stand together. Now look at them. You will, unless blind, drunk or smashed out of your head, see that they are next to each other. But 'next to' is a relation. There are plenty more like this too.

So, the fact that we can see some relations (and we can touch and hear others) means that your argument is defective.

Now, if capitalism exists 'outside the mind', then according to Lenin it must be material. In that case, it must also be physical.

Of course, Lenin could be wrong here. But both you and he can't be right.

In fact, the solution here is to avoid using this obscure jargon. We have plenty of words available to us in ordinary language that allow us to speak of capitalism in countless ways. indeed, the best revolutionary papers already do this or they would not sell to workers.

As Marx noted, the problem with your approach is that you have appropriated far too much of the obscure jargon invented by ruling-class hacks. This jargon goes well with idealism, but not materialism. As Marx argued, we need to ditch it:

Notice, 'abstraction' equals distortion.

And as he argued in the The Poverty of Philosophy:

And in the Holy Family:

This is almost exactly how I see things too: 'abstraction' is the creation of ruling-class hacks and Idealists, and has absolutely nothing to do with Marxist materialism.

Why are you beginning to tell lies?

I think so, as I think your tiny sect is too. But, unfortunately, Bolshevism has been traduced by its acceptance of dialectics.

Ah, it doesn't take long for the sectarianism, just below the surface, and encouraged by dialectics, to rear its ugly head, does it?

Even so, the 'party of dialectics' (howsoever you conceive of this) has up till now screwed up; in which case, dialectics has been tested in practice, and has failed. Once more, this mystical theory has been refuted by history --, and no wonder, it was invented by ruling-class hacks.

Their HM was fatally compromised by dialectics.

I see, you are wedded to an abstract formula, and do not reason concretely? [See how 'dialectics' can get me out of any corner?]

If I dine in a restaurant, does that mean I am against the social provision of meals, or that I am in favour of privatised food production? Respect was a means to an end. But, if you want to debate that, I suggest you begin another thread.

Not so, as the evidence you will find at the links I posted above shows that I am right here. If, of course, you disagree, you can always challenge what I say in those posts, and re-start that thread.

In fact, you said this:

Here you allege that I believe that there is a unitary cause of this long-term failure, which I do not. Moreover, since we are speaking about dialectics, then that can only mean that you do indeed think that I "placed all the blame on dialectics".

no, a term is a linguistic device for referring to something.


actually, I was going to say:

for example, by looking at a capitalist and a worker as individuals, you could not see how the capitlis forces the worker to work. onl by understanding them as part of a relationship whereby ones ownership of property deprives the other, can you see the coercion there. this is more than can be seen by simply viewing them individually and adding up the sum of their actions.

but in the process of reasoning this, I came to think that probably, you can understand the reltionship as the sum of their actions. So on this point I think you were probably right and I was wrong.

if you were serious about finding out, you would have gone to the definition of "abstract" and made sense of the definition that way. in any case, I do not think it is wrong to say that an abstraction is derived froma generalisation and then made into a noun (which you call particular, actually I am not sure if that is correct)...

I was not attempting to "define" abstraction at that point, so poitning out to me that I didn't is not that profound. this is an exmaple of your pedantry. ti si obvious that as real human beings, it would be theoretically possible to touch and see Bin Laden or Lucan. It would however not be theoretically possilbe to do so with "manhood".

correct. but Blair is a mn, and therefore subordinate to the overriding abstraction "manhood", which is derived from a generalisation of all men.

what do you think it is if not an abstraction?

the fact that 50% of the population are men.

true.

because it is derived from the generalisation "men".

but yet manhood objectively exists,andcould only be overthrown by eradicating all men. so using this definition of abstraction, I am happy to say that cpitalism is one.


I did not actually "begin" by arguing that. and I certainly always said that it objectively exists.

this is stupid. they physically exist, and it is possible to describe their weight, appearance, temperature, size, etc.

no, you cannot see a relation. you can only see two people. the abilty to understand the relation requires making a deduction, and abstracting from waht you see, a general principle.

this is not really an answer. do you have some capitalism for me to taste?

Which lie did I tell?


I do not think this is true. The Bolshevik method was to base its politics on the working class vanguard, a minority, ahead of mass opinion, and to seek to shape it to lead the class. the SWP method is to support left-bureaucrats and bourgeois populists in the hope of recruiting some members from amongst the masses.

wellno. the Bolsheviks did lead a succesful revoltuion and a workers state for ten years, which eventually degenerated under outside pressure, under abureaucracy whch was not motivated by dialectics, btu material self-interest. unless you think it was possible to build socialism in one country, I do not see how the degeneration of the Russian revoltuion was due in a significant degree to dialectics and not to obective factors.

As for Salinism: this was the opposite of Bolshevism in so many ways. So how could both ahve been dialectical? the only conclusion is that dialectics leaves space for such hugely different poltiics, that it cannto have beent he cause of the "failures" of both groups (not htat the Bolsheviks did fail).

Likewise, you agreed with me on another thread abotu the class charcter of Stalinism. Therefore if Stalinism is the ideolgoy of the coutner-revolutionary bureaucracy which works to subordinate the sectiosn of the working class to one or another section of the bourgeoisie at home, and to its own abroad, then how can its "failure" to lead a world revoltuion be down to dialectics, and not down to the fact that it was not tyring to lead a world revoltuion, but inf act tyring to prevent revoltuion abroad, soldifiy its own rule at home, and then restore capitalism, all of which it succeeded very well in doing.

I have argued it too many times. but either you are with the working class, or with its enemies. eating at restaurant does not mean helping to smash up halls which provide free food. supporting union bureaucrats, landlords, Bengali millionaires and bourgeois poltiicians, does mean helping to attack the working class.

again, this is relevant if the poltiical failures of dialectical marxists are relevant.


Did Marx say he had ditched dialectics, or did he keepclaiming to adhere to dialectics?


well I am sorry if you misunderstood me.I meant to say that if any one aspect of marxism could be implicated as one reason for its failure purely through having been claimed to be upheld by groups which failed, then why not class struggle itself?

this was a point about the specific way you framed your argument in the post I quoted to make that point.

Z:
How is that different from a word then?

So, there is no 'more' here in the external world, it's all in the mind, since you admit that it is only if we see things a certain way can we understand them:

Once more, you can see how this way of grasping things turns you into an idealist. And this is not the least bit surprising, since, as I noted in previous responses to you, this whole way of viewing things was derived from ruling-class hacks like Hegel. There is no 'rational core' here; this remains an idealist method upside down or the 'right way up'.

1) What do you mean "serious"? I have been looking now for over 25 years (and not just in dictionaries!). Moreover, philosophical problems cannot be solved by looking in a dictionary, as I have already pointed out to you. This is especially so if the dictionary uses the very word being defined in that definition, or if it confuses generalisation with 'abstraction'.

2) You may not think that it is "wrong to say that an abstraction is derived from a generalisation", but you have yet to say how that occurs. Furthermore, we do not need to go down that ruling-class route, even if you could say how this process works (and good luck there -- even Marx saw through that one in those quotes I posted above). If we already have general words that do the job they were meant to, then why do we need 'abstractions'? Indeed, as Marx noted, 'abstractions' distort language.

3) You have yet to say how you know that your 'abstractions' are the same as those of anyone else. The problem is that 'abstraction' is allegedly done 'in the mind', in a private arena, where it cannot be checked by anyone. In contrast to this, generalisation is done in an open arena, by means of publicly accessible language. The use of concepts is thus a skill we are socialised into performing, and since it is a publicly checkable skill, its results can be shared. This is not so with 'abstraction'.

4) If you look at the history of the introduction of abstract terms in Philosophy, the situation is quite clear. You see ancient Greek Philosophers like Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato introducing such nouns as the proper names of Ideas in the mind of 'god', or as proper names that designated the Forms (the original abstract particulars, in Plato's work) in 'heaven'. They had to do this, since general words in vernacular Greek were not Proper names (they are verbs, or general nouns). So, they took such words and turned them into the names of such abstract particulars, thereby creating a 2500 year old (unsolvable) philosophical 'problem', one which arose solely from the distortion of language. Marx was clearly aware of this, hence the remark he made about 'abstraction' being a distortion of ordinary language (in the German Ideology and the Holy Family:

Now, they did this for ideological reasons, since it was in their interest to show that there was a hidden, ideal world beyond appearances that justified class division, and the rule of the state. Subsequent philosophers merely elaborated this theory, they did not alter it significantly. And they had to do this since ordinary language resists such distortion; if you try to do this you end up with lists, and so you end up with 'sentences' that say nothing. Hence these ideologues were forced by their class position and allegiances to invent jargonised expressions that in the end failed to do what they had originally been invented to do.

And that is why these 'abstract' nouns are the names of 'abstract' particulars that do not exist in the physical world: they were introduced explicitly to that end. This is because if class power depends on hidden, mystical 'essences' and cosmic hierarchies, knowledge of which is ascertainable by thought alone, then it is safe from materialist refutation, and workers will just have to get used to this hidden 'divine'/'natural' order, since there is no point rebelling against the cosmic order.

Such 'abstractions' have always been used to underpin the philosophical 'justification' of class society.

Notice that you too have to appeal to 'abstractions' that have no physical existence. That is plainly because this doctrine was copied from Hegel, a ruling-class theorist. It is also why Marx was so severe with this approach to knowledge in the works I quoted above and in earlier posts.

Once more, it is not "pedantry" to point out that you are using words in a sloppy manner.

Now, you have changed your criterion. For you didn't say earlier this: "ti si obvious that as real human beings, it would be theoretically possible to touch and see Bin Laden or Lucan. It would however not be theoretically possilbe to do so with "manhood"."

You said this:

Here you are arguing about what you (specifically) can or can't do, not what human beings can or cannot do.

But, it is not theoretically possible for human beings to touch the other things I listed, such as electrons, the Centre of Mass of the Galaxy [CMG]. In fact, many of the things that physicist tell us the world in made of, we cannot touch or see.

But are they 'abstract'?

I think not.

So, even your 'revised' criterion' is defective.

Then, you changed it even more, for in answer to the above, you argued:

But, which is the real Zurdito? The solipsist who said:

Or, is it the inter-subjective positivist:

Or is it the crude positivist/idealist? [I say "idealist" because you use the word "describe", and not "measure", say.]

But, the CMG does not in fact physically exist. It is a mathematical construct we use to explain the motion of the Galaxy. And yet is exercise a decisive influence on every atom in the Galaxy. Is it 'abstract', then?

But, let us assume that this is your latest and best guess. You say things like electrons and the CMG physically exist because it is possible to "describe their weight, appearance, temperature, size, etc."

So, if someone could "describe", say, the appearance of Manhood, it would physically exist, according to you. In that case, how do you know that someone hasn't already done that? Or that they might not do so, say, in ten years time?

Now the only possible response you could make to this is that this is impossible since Manhood is an 'abstraction', and so cannot be "described" in this way. Again, how do you know? We can do things today that 1000 years ago would have seemed impossible.

Anyway, how do you know 'manhood' is 'objective' if you can't prove it exists? It seems you believe in this 'abstraction', and that it is 'objective', only because Hegel did (for that is where dialecticians got this idea). And we all know he was an idealist/ruling-class hack. You have absolutely no other reason to believe in it, let alone think it is 'objective'.

You see why it is important to careful about the language you use, for the way you talk suggests that much of material reality is 'abstract' since we can't touch it!

How do you know this? And how can a man be 'subordinate' to an 'abstraction'? Are they really that powerful?

2 million people marched against Blair in 2003, and he ignored them. You mention one abstraction and he has to 'subordinate' himself to it!

As I said, your ideas are turning you into an idealist who believes in a hidden world, beyond appearances, accessible to thought alone, from where 'abstract' Ideas control reality, not material objects, process and forces.

We can now see why Marx was so against them.

It is the nominalisation of a general concept word "...is a man".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalization

1) How can something that is the pure creation of though 'objectively' exist? Surely you need evidence that 'Manhood' exists to believe in it? [Otherwise, why not believe in 'god'?]

But, what actually exists are men. Why then do we need this 'abstract' term, if we already have in language the means by which we can talk about men? Especially, when such 'abstractions; destroy sentences and turn them into lists?

2) You disagree with Lenin then, since for him if something is 'objective' it is material, and thus physical.

Unfortunately, you did, for that is what more-or-less kicked this debate off:

Me:

You:

[QUOTE}it does not materially exist. it is a process. but yet it does objectively exist. to a rationalist that is surely incompatible.[/QUOTE]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...8&postcount=26

Z:

But, if you look at two people stood next to each other, no 'deduction' is needed. Now, if you argued thus: "Those two are stood next to each other, so it must be the start of the queue", or some such like, that would be a deduction. The word 'so' tells you this. But, if you see two people next to each other, you do not need to reason at all. You just look and you see they are next to each other. So, you can see relations.

Moreover, the relation 'next to' is not general, so it cannot be an 'abstraction' as you see things. If A is next to B, where is the generality?

How does this answer Lenin's point?

And, what has "taste" got to do with this? Don't tell me you are changing your highly fluid criterion again!

And yes one can taste capitalism. Want an example?

I told you which one. Stop being deliberately obtuse.

1) This has nothing to do with the long-term failure of Bolshevism. And it in no way explains why your tiny sect has not won too many revolutions of late.

2) This is another lie, but now about the SWP. Can't you post without telling sectarian lies?

Indeed, you can't -- dialectics in fact exacerbates sectarianism -- you can find out how and why here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

So, thanks for confirming my thesis!

Yes, I know the official Trotskyist story, and I accept 99% of it. But, the fact is that the 'party of dialectics' screwed up. They did not use dialectics in 1917 (since it is impossible to put its nostrums into practice), and only began to use it in earnest after 1923, when the revolution was already decaying. This theory then helped accelerate the decline of Bolshevism both in its aberrant Stalinist and in its revolutionary Trotskyist forms. As I have shown at my site (summarised in an earlier thread), dialectics can be used to justify anything you like, and its opposite. And it has been so used by Stalinists, Maoists and us Trots, alike. All use it to 'prove' the other lot are traitors to Marxism, and do not "understand" dialectics.

In fact, since the 1930s, the only thing us Trots have shown we are good at is splitting and throwing sectarian abuse at one another -- just like you keep doing. Comrades like you use dialectics to justify this, since only your tiny sect knows how to use the 'dialectic' properly. But every sect says this -- and all that results from this is that Trotskyism then goes into another ten years of decline.

Very clever!

Yes, I can see you like to substitute an abstract formula for a concrete analysis again. No wonder you like dialectics.

You can find the evidence that he did the former at those links I posted.

Plainly, revolutionaries are not robots. They have ideas in their heads. And their dominant ideas are those they have derived from 'materialist dialectics'. So, even though the class struggle is an important factor in the long-term failure of dialectical Marxism, its core theory (which tells us that truth is tested in practice) has to take some of the blame.

[And it can be shown to have contributed in no small way to that decline, too.]

So, if truth is tested in practice, then dialectics has been refuted by history.

If this is not so, then truth is not tested in practice, and that core thesis goes out of the window, instead.

I can live with either outcome...

Moved so that Zurdito can reply without having to bear the indignity of joining the anti-dialectic user group.

Thanks BTB!

Can't have Z joining the genuine materialists, can we?

Surely you mean the mechanical materialists?

BTB:

No, I meant the genuine materialists, as I said.

Wow -- what an impressive waste of time this thread is

We're all glad you're impressed, m'Lord.

I thought you were banned?

?

You had in fact been banned for being a sock puppet a few weeks ago. It must have been a mistake.