Dialectical Materialism, Act 9,000

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ommia Sunt Something-or-Other:


Another anti-marxist chimes in to spam the debate with capitalist lies about animal consciousness. (Note the extensive smattering of poorly researched vulgar materialist tirades against dialectics on the author's website and RevLeft post trail)

Ah, yet another dialectical mystic who substitutes abuse for argument -- that's a couple of hundred since I joined RevLeft five years ago.

And what, may I ask, is 'poorly researched' about my work?

Moreover, given the fact that Marx himself rejected your 'theory' (dialectical materialism'), he too must be an anti-Marxist. I am quite content to be lumped in with him, therefore.

And where did I even so much as mention 'animal consciousness'?

But, as if to prove you are our very own resident expert in 'pooorly researched' opinion, you very helpfully posted this:


The Marxist view of animals is not that they are lacking consciousness or language but rather species-being. An animal is aware of its individual interests and the interests of its pack but not the interests of its entire species. This is why a stray dog may befriend a Greek anarchist and, on the basis of that personal friendship, aid in a human attack on the police, but dogs will never collectively organize attack the human ruling class even though it is in the interest of their species.

It is an over-simplification to say animals are "not proletariat", since their labor is exploited by the bourgeoisie all the time, and it is therefore in their objective interests to rid themselves of capitalism. However, since they lack species-being they can only engage in primal acts of individual revolt, and need the help of humanity's collective decision-making to overthrow the global capitalist order and free themselves.

Proving that an ape has difficultly learning human sign language does not establish that human communication is more sophisticated or complex, it would be very difficult for humans to learn to communicate in the manner of birds, which is also very sophisticated and complex. However, what matters is not that bird-language is sophisticated and complex, but that humans have species-being and birds do not, this is what we should be proud of. And our species-being is what tells us it is not advisable to wipe out our closest relative in the animal kingdom, further irreparably destroying our world's biological diversity and closing the door on future opportunities to study the evolution of man. However capitalism has trained man to ignore her species-being and instead act in the interests of an elite minority.

Perhaps you can tell us where in Marx any of this is to be found? Or, where the scientific evidence is that animals lack 'species being', or that humans even possess it?

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Moreover, given the fact that Marx himself rejected your 'theory' (dialectical materialism'), he too must be an anti-Marxist.-The term "dialectical materialism" was coined four years after Marx's death.
-I am not defending "dialectical materialism", which as an ideology has little to do with the opinions of Karl Marx, I'm defending dialectics, a concept at least as old as Plato, which Marx never rejected, and upon which Marx's ideas are grounded.


And where did I even so much as mention 'animal consciousness'?

You cite academics who wish to establish that the primary 'leap' between humanity and other animals is ego awareness or linguistic skill rather than species-being


Perhaps you can tell us where in Marx any of this is to be found?Manuscripts of 1844

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Omnia Sunt Something-or-Other:


-The term "dialectical materialism" was coined four years after Marx's death.
-I am not defending "dialectical materialism", which as an ideology has little to do with the opinions of Karl Marx, I'm defending dialectics, a concept at least as old as Plato, which Marx never rejected, and upon which Marx's ideas are grounded.

Yes I know.

Ok, let me rephrase my point, therefore, so that you have nothing with which to cavill:

Moreover, given the fact that Marx himself rejected your 'theory'/'method' (dialectics), he too must be an anti-Marxist. I am quite content to be lumped in with him, therefore.


Manuscripts of 1844

Sure, he mentions species being in there but presents no evidence that we have it/any, nor that animals do not.

So, what's your evidence that we do, and they do not, have any/it?

Or are you just happy to copy a set of dogmas you read somewhere?

And why so coy about which parts of my work are 'poorly researched'?

Or did you 'poorly research' that allegation itself, and now find you can't substantiate it?

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

Marx himself rejected your 'theory'/'method' (dialectics)

In Capital, Marx refers to his methods as "my dialectic method" in contrast to that of Hegel. (In the same text he criticizes not dialectic itself but "the mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands")

How are you going to substantiate the claim that Marx rejected the dialectic method?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Omnia sunt Still-Avoiding-to-Substaniate-His/Her-Wild-Allegations-About-Rosa:


In Capital, Marx refers to his methods as "my dialectic method" in contrast to that of Hegel. (In the same text he criticizes not dialectic itself but "the mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands")

How are you going to substantiate the claim that Marx rejected the dialectic method?


Marx very helpfully added a summary of this 'dialectic method':


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.]

In this passage not a single Hegelian concept is to be found -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two here and there with which he merely "coquetted".

Now, we have debnated this here extensively many times, for example here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/scrapping-dialectics-would-t79634/index4.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-and-political-t118934/index.html

Most recently and at length here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectical-materialism-religioni-t132830/index5.html

And it has just been resumed here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dm-religioni-t141322/index.html

May I suggest you join the debate there to prevent this thread from being derailed?


How are you going to substantiate the claim that Marx rejected the dialectic method?

Well, you are the one who advanced unsupported allegations about me, which you have not even attempted to justify. Do so, or please withdraw them.

[Dean]

In this passage not a single Hegelian concept is to be found -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two here and there with which he merely "coquetted".
Was the argument about Hegel or Dialectics? If it was the latter, you both agree that Marx is engaged in this particular theory.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, the problem is that when Dialectical Marxists refer to 'dialectics' they generally mean to refer to Dialectical Materialism or to 'Materialist Dialectics' -- those non-theories replete with Hegelian concepts (allegedly the 'right way up').

So, when I claim that Marx rejected "dialectics" I am referring to this use of that word.

However, in non-Hegelianized Philosophy, the word "dialectics" usually refers to a pattern of argument developed by characters like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and as such has nothing to do with the above meaning of apparently the same word -- although Dialectical Marxists will deny this.

Hence, this entire area is full of potential misunderstanding (which, as you can see, was the case with Omni Sunt Blah Blah). That's why I also add comments like this:


In this passage not a single Hegelian concept is to be found -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two here and there with which he merely "coquetted".

Or:


It is quite apparent that Marx's dialectic bears no relation to the sort of 'dialectic' traditionally accepted by Dialectical Marxists, since, in the above passage not a single Hegelian concept is to be found (upside down or the 'right way up') -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two here and there with which he merely "coquetted".

So, the argument really centres around the corrupted form of dialectics Hegel infllicted on humanity.

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

May I suggest you join the debate

Actually I have no interest in further debating the subject with you. This is because:
a) It should be obvious to any marginally literate person that Marx's main intellectual debt was to Hegel, that understanding Marx requires understanding Hegel, and that entirely abandoning Hegel makes Marx entirely incoherent.
b) You are basically a troll trying to promote your own eccentric and unorthodox theories, which is fine, since I myself do the same thing. However you don't seen very interested in open-minded debate or considering that you do not have all the answers or that your peculiar interpretation of Marx is not the only correct one.
c) Your reasons for rejecting Hegel seem to be motivated by a desire to the "square peg" of Marxian thought into the "round hole" of a particular vulgar materialist outlook, thus you are motivated by ideology rather than science.
d) You have demonstrated and practically admitted you use language disingenuously and lump all of your opponents together into umbrella categories regardless of their particular opinions and outlooks.


there to prevent this thread from being derailed?This thread is worthless, it was started by a Trotskyite anti-ecologist troll who supports "economic development" in Africa and stands behind poachers of endangered wildlife out of white guilt. The only reason I attacked you was because you were the only one to jump on board in defending the murder of chimpanzees.


Well, the problem is that when Dialectical Marxists refer to 'dialectics' they generally mean to refer to Dialectical Materialism or to 'Materialist Dialectics'

So you're attacking me based on what other, unrelated people have done in the past. (Obviously I am not a "Dialectical Marxist")

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Omina-sunt-Still-Refusing-To-Substantiate-His/Her-Wild-Allegations-About-Me:


Actually I have no interest in further debating the subject with you.

Ok, I accept your capitulation.


This is because:

a) It should be obvious to any marginally literate person that Marx's main intellectual debt was to Hegel, that understanding Marx requires understanding Hegel, and that entirely abandoning Hegel makes Marx entirely incoherent.

Where have I denied Marx was influenced by Hegel?

What I have alleged, if you bothered to read what I've argued before making a fool of yourself in public, is that he waved 'goodbye' to that sub-logical idiot when he wrote Das Kapital, as the summary of 'the dialectical method' he published in Das Kapital attests.

You plainly prefer fantasy to reading what Marx actually said.

And, far from this making Marx incoherent, it's the impenetrably obscure jargon you mystics dote upon that does that. Historical materialism does not need it.


b) You are basically a troll trying to promote your own eccentric and unorthodox theories, which is fine, since I myself do the same thing. However you don't seen very interested in open-minded debate or considering that you do not have all the answers or that your peculiar interpretation of Marx is not the only correct one.

But you are the one who refuses to discuss this, not me. If you are totally incapable of defending your mystical 'theory', that's your problem. I'm well capable of defending my ideas.


c) Your reasons for rejecting Hegel seem to be motivated by a desire to the "square peg" of Marxian thought into the "round hole" of a particular vulgar materialist outlook, thus you are motivated by ideology rather than science.

1. What part of my work represents 'vulgar' materialism? Go on, I challenge you to find a single such idea in any of my essays, or here.

You are good at making unfounded allegations. Let's see you put some evidence where you over-sized mouth is.

2. And what 'ideology' is this, then? Or are we just supposed to accept every wild allegation you inflict upon us?


d) You have demonstrated and practically admitted you use language disingenuously and lump all of your opponents together into umbrella categories regardless of their particular opinions and outlooks.

Again, you offer no proof. Foolish of us to expect any, I suppose.


This thread is worthless, it was started by a Trotskyite anti-ecologist troll who supports "economic development" in Africa and stands behind poachers of endangered wildlife out of white guilt. The only reason I attacked you was because you were the only one to jump on board in defending the murder of chimpanzees.

Even so, there are threads in Philosophy where we have attempted to thrash this out. But, you've wimped out, haven't you?


So you're attacking me based on what other, unrelated people have done in the past. (Obviously I am not a "Dialectical Marxist")

In fact, I prefer Dialectical Mystic.

Care to prove otherwise...?

[Omnia Sunt Communia]

that sub-logical idiot

This is why I don't want to engage with you, to be honest. Presumably you would not describe yourself as a "sub-logical idiot", yet you describe Hegel as such. His writings require decades of study in German to understand, yet you claim to have fully comprehended and refuted his writings with a few rambling Internet message board posts. You should step back and detach your academic pursuits from your own ego.


it's the impenetrably obscure jargonThat's your criticism? "Obscure jargon"? Most academic discussion involves "obscure jargon", that's just life...

Since you have complained that I am derailing the thread, let's bring it back to its original purpose; killing chimpanzees is bad, mmkay?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Omnia-Sunt-Can't-Make-His/Her-Mind-Up:


This is why I don't want to engage with you, to be honest. Presumably you would not describe yourself as a "sub-logical idiot", yet you describe Hegel as such.

And yet it's quite easy to show that Hegel was indeed a sub-logical idiot. Check this out:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm


His writings require decades of study in German to understand,

So, do the works of other mystics like St Bonaventure, John Scotus Eriugena, Jacob Böhme and Friedrich Christoph Oetinger. But any fool prepared to devote years trying to 'understand' these ruling class hacks deserves all they get. Same with Hegel -- even though I have been reading and studying this mystical bumbler for nigh on 30 years. I've had to to be able to demolish his ideas.


yet you claim to have fully comprehended and refuted his writings with a few rambling Internet message board posts. You should step back and detach your academic pursuits from your own ego.

Care to show where I have gone wrong then, Oh Learned One?


That's your criticism? "Obscure jargon"? Most academic discussion involves "obscure jargon", that's just life...

And that's why Marx said this:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life. [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.]


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch." [Ibid., pp.64-65.]

And of course that's not my main objection; it's not even one of my minor ones.

You can find some of my main objections here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm

[nuisance]

Who the fuck cares?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Clearly not you. But, then there's always one, isn't there...?

[Dean]

Can we keep it civil please?

[Crux]

Rosa's name calling is cute. It shows that she's very serious. The day I'll find out we've actually been epically trolled by a philosophy professor with too much spare time or something I'll laugh. Hard. Anyway, as you where.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

-
You cite academics who wish to establish that the primary 'leap' between humanity and other animals is ego awareness or linguistic skill rather than species-being

Manuscripts of 1844

I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit more on the difference between ego awareness/linguistic skill and species being. I am perhaps a bit shaky on the concept of "species being". As I understand this essentially means that humanity is capable of creating/planning with itself in mind. "The worst of carpenters is better than the best of bees".

I'm not challenging your point, I want to learn. I agree w/your take on animal protection, avoiding the extremes of having little regard for animals in pursuit of development on one hand and "animal rights" people equating animals with humans on the other. I've had long debates with friends on this.

BTW, not all us Trots hate chimpanzees. Micheal Lowy is a proponent of eco-socialism, although I'm not sure myself how I feel about this.The CWI has written on the environmental crisis from a socialist perspective, although a lot more work needs to be done in this area.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

M :


Rosa's name calling is cute. It shows that she's very serious. The day I'll find out we've actually been epically trolled by a philosophy professor with too much spare time or something I'll laugh. Hard. Anyway, as you where.

In fact, I'm a worker, and a trade union rep (unpaid).

And, since you post little other than but personal remarks about me, you are the troll here, not me.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lenina, this part of this thread was moved from Science and Environment. Omnia's comments about 'species being' occurred there; they only appear here since the mod who moved things had to move one of Omnia posts that contained this phrase. His/her original comments can be found in the original thread.

I think therefore that you might want to re-post your question in the original thread in science:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/there-nothing-remotely-t141283/index.html