The Origin of Leftist Thought in Modern Times

[Heretek]

I've recently begun a new term at university and I've noticed that among the degrees, the majority of engineers and scientists (at least the most vocal), are to be counted among the ranks of the far-right, fascists, and regular 'right wingers,' while the majority of any leftists (yes even social democrats and the like), are among the humanities degrees.

I myself am majoring in nuclear engineering, so I'm dormed with a number of adversaries.

I'm curious as to where this trend began to occur, especially as leftism, and Marxism in particular, has prided itself on being scientific and the logical conclusion of events. Why would scientists, especially the ones that have the most in common with traditional Marxists (granted yes capitalists too) like engineers, lawyers, and economists be more prone to rightism rather than leftism?

[LeftistsAreRadical]

I've wondered this a lot myself...I don't have any sort of real, definitive evidence to back up what I think may be the case, but from what I've seen the creativity and study of the arts and the humanities are nearly always an outlet people use to 'cope' with and understand the causes for injustices, atrocities, and events. I guess most of the people involved in the humanities are using it as an outlet because they understand how broken our current system/society is, which would include those who see the brokenness of capitalism. This draws leftists from the scientific realm, which pronounces the existence of the right in that area of study. Again, I don't really have definitive supporting evidence, this has just run through my head a time or two. I wonder if there's been a study done on it?

[Heretek]

I've wondered this a lot myself...I don't have any sort of real, definitive evidence to back up what I think may be the case, but from what I've seen the creativity and study of the arts and the humanities are nearly always an outlet people use to 'cope' with and understand the causes for injustices, atrocities, and events. I guess most of the people involved in the humanities are using it as an outlet because they understand how broken our current system/society is, which would include those who see the brokenness of capitalism. This draws leftists from the scientific realm, which pronounces the existence of the right in that area of study. Again, I don't really have definitive supporting evidence, this has just run through my head a time or two. I wonder if there's been a study done on it?

I doubt it. Despite more leftists being humanities majors, I don't recall ever hearing about marxist or anarchist psychologists. Most are generally right-wing, from what can be read about most schools, such as behaviorism and psychoanalysis, among some others, and to some extent physiological psychologists belong almost exclusively rightist in thought. Freud and Pavlov certainly weren't leftist, and neither have been more recent ones like Watson. The only leftist leaning ones would be cognitive and humanistic, maybe. Marx was 'technically' a sociologist, but of course put out no works on it as such, and two of the three major sociological paths today are rather skewed to the right (functionalists: society is the way it is because it needs to be. Conflict is basically Marxism. Social-interactionist is mostly just 'how does that make you feel?') And the only reason I know this is because of psych and sociology courses in high school.

[LeftistsAreRadical]

Yeah, that was just something that's run through my head, I've never actually really researched it or tried to find supporting and/or refuting evidence for my thought. Sorry I'm not more useful :P

[Rafiq]

I'm curious as to where this trend began to occur, especially as leftism, and Marxism in particular, has prided itself on being scientific and the logical conclusion of events. Why would scientists, especially the ones that have the most in common with traditional Marxists (granted yes capitalists too) like engineers, lawyers, and economists be more prone to rightism rather than leftism?

They represent an increasingly anti-democratic trend which has been ongoing since the so-called 'cognitive revolution', in congruence with the rise of information technologies, rent-based profits, and bourgeois democracy as increasingly an obstacle to the ruling order. Bourgeois democracy in the post-war years was a battleground, it was always in a state of conflict, and now that this conflict has been drawn to its conclusion: Its aftermath the 'compromise' that was 'political correctness', the absorption of the counter-culture by capitalism. Because the forces which were the pressure to this compromise seem more and more obsolete, the foundations of 'political correctness' are today being shaken.

Though it is not very difficult to discern why it is that STEM ideology is reactionary. Without according this the greater detail it deserves (as I am busy, also because I have already done this numerous times over), it comes down to this: The STEM fields are not critical fields, unlike the humanities. They, in other words, do not critique society in any way but provide to it a ready-made utilitarian function. It is practically that simple: The humanities, no matter how co-opted (it is deeply co-opted at this point there are various reactionary trends in the humanities), it basically, formally, rests upon the premise of a general critique, or questioning, of society, of power, and so on. STEM ideology is anti-democratic (even by standards of bourgeois-liberal democracy) because it replaces fundamental political and even cultural questions to questions of expert-knowledge.

Of course there is nothing reactionary as it concerns the empirical sciences, what is reactionary is their ideological dimension: How they are related to the world of man (and not just nature). You just have to begin with very basic questions. Is there a practical use for the empirical sciences in society today, by those in power? Of course there is. Capitalism is basically synonymous with the natural sciences, i.e. it is the first historical epoch of the natural sciences. It's important just to think about it like this: Natural science is in a way dangerous for them. How to reconcile all of that with their basic coordinates of meaning, of morality, of life in general? So they have positivism, empiricism, which saves their superstitions, and ultimately their god (no matter that they may call themselves atheists) from natural science. The world of man remains uncritically accepted and intact insofar as scientific knowledge registers through the positivist, scholastic rituals which safeguard it from ripping apart the entire world of meaning.

We need to be careful of our use of science. We should return to that beautiful language, German. In German, the word for 'science' as it is popularly used is naturwissenschaft. When we say science as Marxists, we mean wissenschaft in general, i.e. not just systems of empirical knowledge but systems of knowledge, of knowing, in general. There is a crucial difference. We should despise 'science' as it is generally used as purely ideological and reactionary. How do people use that word? They talk about how they 'use science' and how 'science teaches us' and so on. It is disgusting. We have nothing to do with that 'science'. For us science must strictly concern systems of knowing and the practical implications of that knowledge.

[Rafiq]

I doubt it. Despite more leftists being humanities majors, I don't recall ever hearing about marxist or anarchist psychologists. Most are generally right-wing, from what can be read about most schools, such as behaviorism and psychoanalysis, among some others, and to some extent physiological psychologists belong almost exclusively rightist in thought. Freud and Pavlov certainly weren't leftist, and neither have been more recent ones like Watson. The only leftist leaning ones would be cognitive and humanistic, maybe. Marx was 'technically' a sociologist, but of course put out no works on it as such, and two of the three major sociological paths today are rather skewed to the right (functionalists: society is the way it is because it needs to be. Conflict is basically Marxism. Social-interactionist is mostly just 'how does that make you feel?') And the only reason I know this is because of psych and sociology courses in high school.

Psychology is generally a reactionary field in universities. The best of psychoanalysis, which is that of Lacan, does not belong to psychology but, in the universities at least, the 'humaniites'. We should even be suspicious of sociologists. Of any and all kinds of so-called 'determinisms' which there is a great rise in, namely, the various ways in which speculations about how to 'know' 'human behavior' and so on is rising. We must oppose all of that bitterly. Even if there are patterns to so-called 'human behavior' (a stupid phrase which treats the subjects like animals), which there are, they are not 'determined' by anything and as Communists we must understand that behavior strictly within the context of the consciousness of the subject - even strictly on an individual level.

[Heretek]

We need to be careful of our use of science. We should return to that beautiful language, German. In German, the word for 'science' as it is popularly used is naturwissenschaft. When we say science as Marxists, we mean wissenschaft in general, i.e. not just systems of empirical knowledge but systems of knowledge, of knowing, in general. There is a crucial difference. We should despise 'science' as it is generally used as purely ideological and reactionary. How do people use that word? They talk about how they 'use science' and how 'science teaches us' and so on. It is disgusting. We have nothing to do with that 'science'. For us science must strictly concern systems of knowing and the practical implications of that knowledge.

I'd have assumed we also would rely heavily on natural sciences, as they are what composes our reality. Being materialists, there would be less to zero emphasis on things not quantifiable, like theology.

Careful how? I've generally interpreted a communist society as liberating artificial limits put upon science, such as the restriction on genetics in the US, or the complete lack of nuclear research outside of a few 'lucky' countries. What would this stance do about theoretical research? Would that even be pursued anymore (quantum mechanics, theoretical physics, post-fusion, etc)? That doesn't seem like a progression, rather a regression to 'concrete principles,' for things with the immediate practical applications you mentioned. And what of theories that have no current practical use but a theorized future one (hydrogen fuel cells or asteroid mining, for example)? Am I right to interpret the closing sentence as 'maintain what we know, maintain what we've built,' rather than an 'expand upon what we know, expand what we've built?'

[Rafiq]

I'd have assumed we also would rely heavily on natural sciences, as they are what composes our reality. Being materialists, there would be less to zero emphasis on things not quantifiable, like theology.

Yet that is not our materialism, that is the reactionary 'materialism' that predates German idealism, and it is the materialism of Steven Pinker and other such filth. Subjectivity is not quantifiable. History is not quantifiable. I mean it is very basic: What are quantities? Something which is quantifiable, must necessarily be an external, differential object. To treat individuals, to treat men and women, as external, differential objects, moreover to treat yourself as an external, differential object is to subordinate and enslave yourself to some higher god's eye view, i.e. some 'taking a step back' assumption of the perspective of an other which can never be nameable and which no living individual can take full responsibility for.

We have another word for that so-called 'materialism': And it is idealism. The actual point of Marx's materialism in fact is that the universality of human practice is where particular and universal meet, it cannot be 'quantified' because it is strictly the subject who quantifies things outside of him, and it is strictly the symbolic - or the world of human rationality - which establishes the contours of 'outside' - it is something irreducible to anything quantifiable, there therefore must be a subject which is irreducible to the empirical sciences, which is ourselves. This is why Zizek calls the most irrational thing is rationality itself, because human practice is purely contingent, owes itself to no higher meaning, whether 'biological' or otherwise. To be a materialist means you accept that all 'truths' move only at the pace of world-history, at the pace of individual subjects, and at the pace of the universality of human society.

The anti-democratic and reactionary empiricism, conversely, subordinates individuals themselves to have been determined, or to owe their existence to outside forces. Democratic-consciousness, conversely, is where we fully assume ourselves and ourselves alone as the sole bearers of 'truth', as the sole predicate, cause, and effect of our own world. This amounts to basically recognizing that: There is a natural world which precedes human consciousness, but the only access to this world, and the only way in which this world is meaningful, and therefore, the only means by which there is so-called 'truth', is through human consciousness. The empiricists, however, still secretly believe in a god, and in a big Other, and so construct a 'truth' of the world of man, and this truth is meant to predicate the world of man himself. We materialists oppose that, because the authors of this truth are none other then men and women themselves.

The entire point of our materialism, that of Marx, is that men and women alone determine history, and Marx made explicitly clear, to paraphrase him, that the purpose of his Communism is so that it is not possible that anyone think that there exists anything outside of men and women that are responsible for men and women.

Do not fall into the error of conflating this anti-empiricism with some kind of opposition to natural science itself. The actual problem I am talking about is - what Hegel calls - confusing substance with subject. What natural science concerns itself with, moreover what nuclear physics concerns itself with, is not subject as such but substance. It concerns itself with external empirical objects. That is important, and real, and in fact, I incessantly argue that a Communist society would only move at the pace that which it is able to know, and conquer, the outside natural world. But if you conflate the external empirical world, with the world of man, you fall into the trap of indefinitely reproducing the world of man uncritically and as it is, as some kind of inevitable, or natural thing. I'd hate to keep bringing it up, but again, this is what I dedicated my 180,000 word text, Our Materialism on.

Careful how?

Do not reduce science to natural science. Natural science is just that - it is the science of empirical processes, processes outside of men and women. That is different - and bear in mind I say different - not opposed - to the science of history which Marxism is concerned with. The science of history, unlike natural science, does not concern itself with quantifying external processes, or predicting things. Rather the point of the science of history is to understand ourselves at our actual pace, it has nothing to do with 'predicting' or talking about what 'determines' individuals, it is rather about accessing the real life of individuals as existing only at the pace of their actual existence. So bourgoies society doesn't exist because it was determined, it exists because within the context of the logos, cogito, real activity, of men and women, they move at a pace which reproduces its existence, owing to certian limitations they set upon themselves, just as before capitalism there were limitations set upon men and women about their interaction with the natural world. Men and women aren't 'tricked' into existence[ they follow a rationality which they actively relate to and they actively relate to moreover in a meaningful way. The science of history is nothing more than historical self-consciousness. To paraphrase Marx, man has already conquered nature. But man has not been conquered by man himself. That is the point of Communism. Man's self-mastery.

I've generally interpreted a communist society as liberating artificial limits put upon science, such as the restriction on genetics in the US, or the complete lack of nuclear research outside of a few 'lucky' countries. What would this stance do about theoretical research? Would that even be pursued anymore (quantum mechanics, theoretical physics, post-fusion, etc)?

You mistaken what I mean. When I say strictly practical and only practical within the vicinity of the pacing of actual men and women, this doesn't mean an end to the theoretical sciences, and it certainly doesn't mean an end to disciplines such as astronomy. All it means is that there is a recognition that all scientific practice ultimately and only concerns the present, so that all talk about the future will be strictly in pertinence to how far away from this hypothesized future we are. So for example, if we talk about future mining on the moon, we do so strictly in regards to the present limitations to mining on the moon, and the overcoming of those limitations. This process is indefinite and lasts forever. So for example, if we were to project and hypothesize about mining on the moon, even though we are so far away from that, that would still be strictly, concretely, practical, because when we as Communists would be talking about mining on the moon, we aren't consulting ourselves with scholastic truth, with god, about 'da true truth on the universe'. We would strictly be assessing our capabilities and our potential capabilities owing to certain factors that are lacking now.

What disappears is not quantum mechanics, or hypothesizing about the future, what disappears on the contrary is that 'mesmerizing', 'beautiful', and 'mystifying' effect the sciences have through pop-science. Nature no longer becomes beautiful, we no longer masturbate to our limitations. ON the contrary nature becomes an ugly, and disorderly thing which we must subdue to the world of man. We no longer engage in self-masturbation while fantasizing about our self-limitations: We understand our limitations strictly in the context of overcoming them. We never tkae a step back, stop, and think "Gosh, what a beautiful world". We violently mold this world to the world of man and this becomes the only actual ends of life. Which means: No more bullshit like Neil Degrasse Tyson, no more "Whoooahhh bro, da universe", no more of any of that. Science becomes strictly practical and concerning only the practice of men and women, and they become aware of this. Science no longer becomes something individuals worship - it becomes a part of their living practice, to the point where 'science' disappears as a separate, differential term. Science, art, culture, all of these things, eventually, find no distinction - science becomes the only medium by which the surplus produced by the reproduction of social life, is expressed, i.e. the only means by which a Communist society reproduces itself is through the manipulation and conquest of nature around it.

In fact a recognition strictly, of the concrete limits to mining on the moon would drive us to overcome those limits strictly at the pacing of the present. Communism is the acceleration of man's conquest of nature, because no longer does the revolutionizing of the means of production register itself through the social antagonism, and no longer does it have to dissolute ossified and old social bonds: There are no fixed bonds any longer with Communism, the dialectic reigns supreme, and thus, human society is conceived not as a harmonious society but a society which is moving at the pace of the contingent limitations of its interaction with the empirical world, which is always and incessantly in the process of being overcome. Communism is not some harmonious society - it is always, and indefinitely, in the process of changing.

Do not mistaken me. I am not saying we have to be careful with natural science. I am saying we have to be careful not to conflate them with the science that was uniquely originating with Marx. Marx was not the founder of natural science, but the science of history. There is a difference between them. Conflating them, again, is the business of scum like Steven Pinker, not Communists.

[Heretek]

What disappears is not quantum mechanics, or hypothesizing about the future, what disappears on the contrary is that 'mesmerizing', 'beautiful', and 'mystifying' effect the sciences have through pop-science. Nature no longer becomes beautiful, we no longer masturbate to our limitations. ON the contrary nature becomes an ugly, and disorderly thing which we must subdue to the world of man. We no longer engage in self-masturbation while fantasizing about our self-limitations: We understand our limitations strictly in the context of overcoming them. We never tkae a step back, stop, and think "Gosh, what a beautiful world". We violently mold this world to the world of man and this becomes the only actual ends of life. Which means: No more bullshit like Neil Degrasse Tyson, no more "Whoooahhh bro, da universe", no more of any of that. Science becomes strictly practical and concerning only the practice of men and women, and they become aware of this. Science no longer becomes something individuals worship - it becomes a part of their living practice, to the point where 'science' disappears as a separate, differential term. Science, art, culture, all of these things, eventually, find no distinction - science becomes the only medium by which the surplus produced by the reproduction of social life, is expressed, i.e. the only means by which a Communist society reproduces itself is through the manipulation and conquest of nature around it.

You make quite a few good points, but some questions arise for me: How are new discoveries handled? Historically, many things have been discovered by accident. The general response to these has been disbelief, frustration, questions, and most pointedly, some kind of awe.

I'm not exactly a fan of Tyson, but there is one thing that is beneficial to people like him, and that is they generally make abstract sciences more accessible to the public. The majority of people are not interested in mathematical pursuits, and some that are can easily be turned away by the sheer 'blandness' of it. I'm not saying he'd be great at actually teaching it, but as some sort of introductory session. For example, I recall seeing a multitude of educational programs on things like the Science channel on or covering things like physics, astronomy, spatial exploration, time dilation, and even quantum mechanics when I was younger, and things like that initially peeked my interest (before they were all canceled in favor of conspiratorial nonsense like 'aliens-Roswell,' and 'cell-phone radiation mind control'). Digging deeper after the interest is peeked lead me to the more abstract concepts I otherwise wouldn't have known about, and has on more than one occasion worked to an easier understanding of the material or a head start on articles others I know have struggled with.

[Rafiq]

IThe majority of people are not interested in mathematical pursuits, and some that are can easily be turned away by the sheer 'blandness' of it.

And it is a mistake to assume that the conditions of the majority of the people - rather than contingent - are somehow inevitable or natural. There is nothing inevitable about the fact that the majority of people are not particularly enthusiastic about the 'abstract', 'bland', and boringness of the sciences. They are not enthusiastic about it for the same reason that they are overwhelmingly religious, into new-age bullshit, and all other such filth.

If we are to take individuals as they are now, as they are in the prevailing mode of practice, if we are to abstract them from their mental dispositions, from the pacing that is their consciousness, their active relation to their real conditions of life, religiously, and so on - if we are to take that and assume it is inevitable, necessary, or wosre natural, then we should stop calling ourselves Communists and be done with it.

Frankly, I myself used to subscribe to the notion that Tyson, and other such 'popularizers' of science played a progressive role. It is an erroneous conclusion, however. But think about how much bullshit that is: Never before in the history of modern civilization has rabid superstition, and metaphysics, been so prevalent. Never before has such superstition been so popular, from conspiracy theories, new age bullshit, to disgusting, Silicon-Valley pop-science garbage. Never before have we been in such a deeper shit-pile then now. Because: Throughout modern history, ordinary people were possessed more or less with some religious illusions, but those remained strictly confined to religion, where it could be easily dispelled. Now it goes hand in hand with their articulation of the empirical sciences. It is a disaster, and individuals like Tyson represent the worst of it. Unlike before, natural sciences no longer inherently possess a progressive role. Each discovery in actual natural sciences is immediately translated and disseminated not only into the scholasticism of 'truth', as it always was, but now converted into metaphysical, mystifying insights. We should never be entertained, mesmerized or suprised by the insights of natural science. We should understand our raw-contingency in relation to the natural wrold. Nothing should surprise us. If something takes us by surprise, we should immediately struggle to make it 'boring', to conquer it.

New discoveries, in Communism, will no longer be 'by accident'. That is because absolute knowledge is achieved - absolute knowledge of the present limitations of knowledge are known, and therefore, the 'holes' in our practical relation to the world in terms of knowledge are known, so that nothing takes society by surprise. You should note that all of the great 'paradigm shifts' in bourgeois history were not owed to discoveries in nature alone but to the implications of these discoveries for the social, religious, metaphysical world. No longer will this be the case in a socially self-conscious society, which will withstand any and all relations to the natural world. The reason discoveries created these 'crises' in the past was because of their scholasticism of truth, which conceived the world as static, as fixed, perceived from a 'god's eye view', perceived their world as eternal, natural and necessary. With Communism the dialectic reigns supreme and no such fixed world is respected. The universe of formal rules and laws disappears. Nothing becomes surprising any longer. It's not that, as iwth Popper and mainstream pop-science, we are humble agnostics awaiting any and all ruptures into our universe. It is not that we say "Our scholasticism of truth can change". It is that we no longer have any scholasticism of truth, no stupid notions of the 'truth of the universe': Only a recognition of the practical truth of real men and women as it concerns their living practice.

It is even better that the masses have no acquaintance whatsoever with the natural sciences, then for this disgusting, superstitious, and barbarous pop-science to prevail: At least there is a clean slate for the dissemination of real knowledge then. What they do is appeal to the superstitions, and ignorance of ordinary people. This is the function of the pop-science apparatus. It is anti-democratic insofar as the real, practical implications of the sciences are reserved for a monitory of experts. A priest caste of scientists arise, whose practical insights are transformed into mystifying, pop-science bullshit that possesses the same function as religion. Worse than old religion, in fact, because unlike the religion of the past, the tricks of the priests actually work.

This 'science' goes hand in hand with the same neo-feudalism, rise of 'genius' celebrity personality like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, other such scum, a new tech-aristocracy, and so on. A deeply reactionary trend. If there is any relationship between natural science and Communism, it is to make natural science boring again. As individuals master themselves, they no longer need to be mesmerized by outside forces, they no longer need permission by any gods, natural or otherwise, they no longer have the alienation to where they must be entertained by practices so completely divorced from their actual lives. The way in which one disseminates natural-scientific insights among the broad masses is not by selling it off to them and appealing to their ignorance. It is by making it a necessity of hteir practice - it is by enabling them to live their lives to the point where as a condition of doing their ethical duty, in their life-practice, they HAVE to know these things and be aware of them.

Natural science in present society fills a hole where deeply metaphysical, and even spiritual questions used to be. That is why pop-science is reactionary. Profound social, cultural, metaphysical, philosophic and even political (most dangerously) questions are being filled by this hole, of natural science. We must fight against this phenomena: Struggle against the distortions of quantum-mechanics, i.e. bullshit like the many-worlds theory and other such reactionary garbage, fight against evolutionary psychology, fight against cosmic-mysticism, any and all kinds of new age bullshit, all forming together with a struggle against empiricism and agnosticism, which are the root-cause of this explosion of superstition and metaphysics.

It is wholly anti-democratic and reactionary: That is becuase people are generally divorced from the implications of the sciences. Tyson popularizes the insights of hard science by mystifying means, and the ideological function of this is to reproduce the social and ideological conditions of existence of individuals by mesmerizing and mystifying these insights, making them compatible with a 'beautiful', mysterious and mesmerizing world. It is pure fog, and pure filth. The dissemination of the sciences among the masses, for Communists, will not be to mesmerize or entertain them. It will on the contrary be in the vein of mobilizing them to apply the practical insights of the sciences they learn even on an individual level. This is what I mean by scientific practice necessarily being just that - practical.

[Hermes]

I doubt it. Despite more leftists being humanities majors, I don't recall ever hearing about marxist or anarchist psychologists. Most are generally right-wing, from what can be read about most schools, such as behaviorism and psychoanalysis, among some others, and to some extent physiological psychologists belong almost exclusively rightist in thought. Freud and Pavlov certainly weren't leftist, and neither have been more recent ones like Watson. The only leftist leaning ones would be cognitive and humanistic, maybe. Marx was 'technically' a sociologist, but of course put out no works on it as such, and two of the three major sociological paths today are rather skewed to the right (functionalists: society is the way it is because it needs to be. Conflict is basically Marxism. Social-interactionist is mostly just 'how does that make you feel?') And the only reason I know this is because of psych and sociology courses in high school.

I think that comparing the extremely introductory sociology classes taught in high school (in truth, I'm not entirely sure what it is that you're referring to; my school never had them, unless you mean 'social studies') to those taught in college is a little dismissive. Most of the sociology professors I've had have actually been the most willing to actually accept and engage with Marxist theoreticians, as, like you say, Conflict Theory heavily employs Marxist theories (though also, of course, includes reformist theoreticians).

We should even be suspicious of sociologists. Of any and all kinds of so-called 'determinisms' which there is a great rise in, namely, the various ways in which speculations about how to 'know' 'human behavior' and so on is rising. We must oppose all of that bitterly. Even if there are patterns to so-called 'human behavior' (a stupid phrase which treats the subjects like animals), which there are, they are not 'determined' by anything and as Communists we must understand that behavior strictly within the context of the consciousness of the subject - even strictly on an individual level.

I definitely agree that we should be suspicious of sociologists, and of sociology as a field, in the same way that we should be suspicious of all academic fields. That said, I'm not sure I understand your specific criticism in re: to human behavior being 'determined' by anything: would you have the same objection if the word was replaced with 'influenced by'?

That is, are you just reaffirming that we need to clarify that when we say that material conditions 'determine' outcomes, what we're really saying is that, really, material conditions present us with a certain set of options, and we, both as individuals and as groups of people, choose from among them?

[Heretek]

So I was thinking recently about this, and I've come up with another question.

How would, what is now, 'expert' knowledge be handled? I came across this thinking about universal education and all, and I thought of how certain people simply don't want to learn certain things, and if they don't want to do it, they shouldn't have to, as according to our definition of communism as liberating the individual and sovereignty over themselves. A common comparison is someone who wishes to learn about music doesn't care about physics or math, while someone who is heavily into math and science generally doesn't care to learn about music or psychology (somewhat like myself). I've failed, however, in seeing how to eliminate specialists and 'experts.' Someone with education in music will know more about it than someone with an education in particle physics, and vice-versa.

I am aware of the 'commonality of sciences' (a term I'm not sure has been used, hence the ''), in as such the relation of what are considered 'radically' different fields interacting and influencing one another, like someone with an education in mathematics being good at basketball because they know the exact trajectory to shoot, or a physicist being able to play an instrument due to an understanding of how sound waves interact (but not being able to read sheet music). This is still more of a 'do it if you want to go deeper' approach however, as the majority of musicians are only concerned with how a string is tuned and will produce a specific note, and the majority of basketball players today have little formal education in math, and they are both generally better at what they do than the 'cross-discipline experts.'

[Rafiq]

How would, what is now, 'expert' knowledge be handled?

I don't know why, but there is this pathological, ideological problem that no matter how much I try to emphasize it, individuals can't seem to be able to differentiate the world of man and the world of nature. It is the most mysterious thing to me, when we talk about the social-historical, even political implications of expert knowledge, it is reduced to questions about nature themselves, which is so far beyond the point. The persistence of conflating these even when their separation is explicitly made clear, is purely ideological, and I can't help but be suspicious of people who insist upon them being the same: That is, who insist upon knowledge of empirical processes as the same as knowledge of man himself. You don't get the point, which is that the significance of expert knowledge is that expertise on nature is juxtaposed to the world of man as a means of replacing politics. It's very simple. Man is treated like an object, just like nature, which there is 'expert knowledge' of. It's very simple, and i don't know why we have to discuss actual matters of natural science now when the point is that these are separate issues.

A strange question. What do you mean 'handled'? I do not think you understand any of the points as they were put clearly whatsoever, and I admit fully that I consider this a failure upon my part. First I believe you have a dangerous mentality as it concerns communism, wherein you juxtapose every single critique of society in relation to, something which is purported to be 'better'. So for example, if we critique the existing prison system, this automatically invokes a positive thought of: "Well, what would prisons be like in Communism, or, how would we deal with so and so and so and so". Our critique of present society does not exist in relation to some purported, positively conceived, society of the future. The society of the future, rather, is immanent already to our critique of the present: Ruthless criticism of the social domain, in and of itself is the basis of the future, i.e. social self-consciousness IS IT, that is IT, because ruthless criticism of all things including oneself, is nothing more than a recognition of the contingency of human society - the fact that it is not a given, and therefore, that it exists for its own sake, and moves only at its own pace.

We despise the existing world not from any positive-premise, but only from the premise of criticism for its own sake. In other words, we despise the existing world not in relation to any of the positive utopias it enables us to imagine within its confines in juxtaposition to it (which, as Marx notes, is nothing more than a fantasy of capitalism itself). I will not elaborate this here, but I find it worrying that so many socialists - are socialists only because for them socialism is a fantasy which allows them to cope with the controversies of today. It takes upon the appearance of a fantasy, of a positive injunction into every and all controversies and problems that are immanent to the existing order. It is a perversity becasue it is like wanting your cake and eating it too.

To semi-side track, don't you think it is a bit problematic that - virtually every discussion Leftists have amongst each other, bleeds into these effectively deeper problems? We lack a common language, and I blame myself for forgetting this when I respond to users - I foolishly assume they are on the 'same page' as far as these matters are concerned. And they are not. My next text, will contain within it an exposition of THE problem of the Let, of self-proclaimed Communists, and its 'positive' resolution. It will contain the meaning of Communism, what Communism IS, what it meant for Marx, and so on.

The problem with experts is not that they are - actually - experts in their respective domain. The problem with experts as it concerns our present predicament (and not in relation to writing recipes for the cookshops of the future) is that their existence is anti-democratic, because fundamental social and even otherwise political questions are treated as purely technical ones. THAT is the problem, the problem is not that individuals are capable of deep knowledge of phsycial processes, but that men and women themselves are treated as just another technical issue. THE ENTIRE POINT is that the ETHICAL basis for this utility, the ETHICAL foundation that which one can say there needs to be a utilitarian goal in relation to, is increasingly no longer a question but a given. It bourgeois democracy, democracy is a battlefield: It is a constant battlefield in relation to questions like that: NOT JUST HOW DO WE DO SOMETHING, BUT WHY SHOULD WE DO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Today, even this question of 'why' is articulated purely in technical and utilitarian terms: "We should support this, because it will inevitably do this, and so on". But the fundamental question of why we should do this in the first place, of why THAT is desirable, and so on, this is not even up for debating today.

Expert knowledge replaces the general will, in Rousseau's sense (and not in this superficial sense of the arbitrary positions of those who happen to be the majority). It replaces the ability for the majority to conceive it alone as enough, and so on.

I came across this thinking about universal education and all, and I thought of how certain people simply don't want to learn certain things, and if they don't want to do it, they shouldn't have to, as according to our definition of communism as liberating the individual and sovereignty over themselves.

Again, a deeply problematic formulation. Let me condense something which I have written about in the past in a much smaller way: IF arbitrary 'preferences' are left sacred, and are exempt from criticism, i.e. if why someone doesn't want to do something IS ENOUGH, and there is no further questioning about why this 'preference' exists, then forget about Communism, drop all of that, and move on with your life. There are so many deeper problems, if you take this to its highest conclusion, this mentality, which basically ends up, in a full-circle way, with the present order of things as necessary and inevitable.

I can answer your question, but I can't overlook its ideological dimension, 'communism as the definition of liberating the individual'. My god, how depressing. No, this is not the 'definition' (?) of Communism, and again, 'liberating' is a meaningless and vague word. As for sovereignty of the individual over themselves, indeed. But if you were to take this sovereignty to its fullest and most highest conclusion, you would end up with that: IF INDIVIDUALS are able to UNCRITICALLY accept their arbitrary 'preferences' that are not justified by the same individual use of reason, what you have IS NOT full individual sovereignty over themselves, but some kind of big Other that enables them the wiggle-room to not take full responsibility of themselves in relation to their own equal and full access to universal reason. You cut things short because you take the so-called 'individual' for granted. Freedom is not for free. Real freedom is the greatest tyranny of reason, of a rationality that - if we are talking about a society of sovereign individuals - is a universal reason, as the only means by which individuals can be exempt from such a universal reason is if they do not possess this sovereignty you speak of.

So now, on to the matter at hand, the second problem with expert knowledge is that it is also anti-democratic in the sense that experts posses special and privileged access to universal reason, which can only be disseminated to the masses by means of mesmerizing them, by means of mysticism. What highlights this anti-democratic reality that is increasing, is that only few individuals now posses the means and access to the means of knowing in our society, that there is such a HUGE and great divide between individuals today, and knowing the processes that they so heavily rely upon in their daily lives. For instance, how many of us actually is knowing what goes on in our computers?

The problem is not the absence of these technical details as such, but the reign of the imaginary, i.e. the NECESSARY ideological gap between us and our computers, to the point where if we were enabled with this knowledge, it would 'ruin' a certain magic of life, even - would ruin some of the basic functioning of life for the grand majority of people. Think of it like Disneyland: What sustains the 'magic' there is all of the technical details of how the technical machinery, engineering, and so on that goes into all of those attractions. Can individuals know those details? Certainly! Btu fi their INTERACTION with the entertainment always invoked that knowledge, or at least, invoked the reality-of-the-possibility of knowing that knowledge, the fun of it would be spoiled for everyone. Finally at the ideological level even as it concerns knowing all of these things, individuals lack the confidence to, and don't feel qualified. Many positive rituals are necessary before one is enabled such expert knowledge, and so on - an individual doesn't feel like they can just slip in to researching and knowing quantum mechanics. There is a desert between them and it - which goes far beyond it being 'hard' to learn on a technical level, i.e. far to the point where it is a matter of feeling like one cannot know, that one - even - shouldn't know, that it's inevitably too much, and so on.

I claim the same goes for computers, for what we rely upon in our daily lives: Can we know these things? Certainly we can, that is what the internet is for. But AT A CERTAIN LEVEL of what is necessary for the functioning of every-day life, it is necessary NOT to know these things - if there was universal knowledge - not even knoweldge of the technical details but a raw and bare knowledge of the fact that little separates one from knowing those details, the structure of our daily lives would be radically different. Instead there is a desert, a gulf, a giant gap, with which almost superstition is filled, between us and knowing. What I claim is not that every single person would be thinking about the EXACT details of a certain domain which is separated from them by mere proximity and time, but that in Communism this gulf disappears - even if you don't know how a computer works, nothing separates you from your non-knowledge exempt pure arbitrary proximity.

A common comparison is someone who wishes to learn about music doesn't care about physics or math, while someone who is heavily into math and science generally doesn't care to learn about music or psychology (somewhat like myself). I've failed, however, in seeing how to eliminate specialists and 'experts.' Someone with education in music will know more about it than someone with an education in particle physics, and vice-versa.

Please, let us drop preference out of the picture, so that we can move on. There are already so many problems we must deal with here. Certain orientations would likely persist for a great while, would likely have to, but let us not conceive why in terms of mere preference. It won't be becasue of preference, but for very basic reasons of a separation of space and time that individual bodies occupy. Second, let me remind you that physics, math, and indeed music are not separate fields. You acknowledge this. However what you do not acknowledge is that what sustains the separation is the division of labor, itself which is sustained by man's own self-estrangement.

Now you will ideologically consign this problem to a mere technical one of practically different 'orientations', that while you know full well these are not separated, 'orientations' toward concentrating on one or the other is an inevitability of a mere separation of time and space. And yet again this is an ideological smokescreen. Of course it is true, BUT THIS ALONE IS NOT WHAT SUSTAINS THE SEPARATION as it exists IN THE PRESENT ORDER.

But let me be clear: WE ARE DEALING with two separate problems: Technical knowledge as such, i.e. what you are memorizing in your head, what you are FOCUSING on and the substrate of knowledge itself, which is the ideological - even spiritual - dimension of all knowledge, which represents a certain access to the universality of human practice itself. It is not that there is JUST a separation of concentration upon certain kinds of knowledge, but that the spiritual, social, historical implications of this knowledge are purported to be separate. Ugh. Let me explain. Don't you think it's absurd that such a discussion leads us to an in-depth lecture about the nature of the division of labor? This is why my presence on Revleft is so exhausting for me.

So: EACH RESPECTIVE field of knowledge, as this field exists, is not just the field of THAT knowledge in-and-of-itself. It is a particular field of knowing which enables some kind of access to what we can call universal knowing, or of human-practical-spiritual knowledge as such (I.E. THE IMPLICATIONS OF KNOWING AS IT CONCERNS ETHICAL PRACTICE, as it concerns WHY one is knowing, what FUNCTION this knowing performs in relation to something bigger, and so on). Thereby, ones specific concentration upon what is asserted to be a 'separate' field is their only access to this universality, their only access to this general knowing. When you walk on the street, and you are an expert in biology, it's not just that you aren't yet familiar with the technical details of the architecture, sewage and so on. It's that you conceive this knowledge as totally out of your bounds - as unnecessary - because your respective access to encircling more fundamental questions is only through biology. Biologists are well aware of their relation to chemistry and physics, but they intentionally put a halt, and a stop. They can confront problems which are problems that concern those two fields, but they will put their arms up "I'm a biologist, not a x or a y", I will leave that to them. The problem is not that biological processes in a practical sense are recognized to be a different order of being, but that one is only a biologist.

Do you ever think to ask yourself what sustains that separation? That epistemic separation, that is, that one sets for themselves. It is becasue the fields of biology, physics, and chemistry, are not just fields, they are in and of themselves particular disciplines of the universal knowing, and it is only by staying true to the road of them, that one is enabled the small access they have to this universal knowing. The division of labor alone sustains this separation. The borders that separate each field are borders which separate the individual from absolute knowing. This knowledge is not just knowledge in terms of memorizing formula, and so on, rather absolute knowledge is like - think of it this way - where in relation to your proximity it is interchangeable, where you could know, quite easily, where you could slip into knowing without compromising your practice, because as an individual your practice is the universal human practice. Where you could like an interchangeable person jump from one discipline to another seamlessly, cross 'disciplines' without making anything of it, ("Wow, biology TRULY IS interconnected with physics!") and so on. Because biology and physics are no longer recognized as ideas which exist outside of men and women's practice, i.e. no longer is their immanent differentiation unto reality itself recognized, instead, all differences between concerning biological and physical processes, just as all differentiation, will exist only in relation to human practice and this will be known - which will be that, man will begin with himself, begin with his contingent origin as a creature, from the animal kingdom, which is the order of being called biology, i.e. what is immediately within his vicinity, and then, from biology, chemistry, from chemistry, atomic physics, and their synonymous inter-relation will be sustained by man's self-knowing. All of the orders of being in other words which form a chain between nature and man's self-consciousness.

As it concerns the future, people will not have to focus on certain kinds of mathematical formula, and thinking, ALL THE TIME, in the same way that they only occupy a given space and time in their individual existence in the first place. The division of labor isn't just a division of different roles - we can expect different roles will persist in Communism. The point goes far deeper - it's this DIVISION as a division which ALSO separates man from himself, THAT is what sustains the division - man from himself in the sense of social self-consciousness.

and they are both generally better at what they do than the 'cross-discipline experts.'

And you confuse this with some kind of ontological law of cross-discipline vs. discipline-specific knowledge, i.e. "There's the proof!". Speaking of inter-connectedness, you take for granted just how immersed this fact of life is dependent upon the prevailing mode of life as it exists now. I do not know why I constantly come across Leftists, who argue against reality by finding recourse in the present reality. It makes no sense - what are you even talking about? Yes, we are all aware of how things are right now. And yet our entire point is to critique them. I do not know what point you hope to illustrate by making a pretense to how things are right now. If your suspicion is that how things are now are an ontological inevitability, why do you call yourself a Communist in the first place?

EACH PARTICULAR discipline is better to focus on then a 'cross-discipline' approach because each discipline is a road, to a common point of not only intersection but essence which unifies them all - not that they are pursuing it, but that what this means is that each particular discipline, pursuing THAT, allows the subject the ability to access what is the substantive experience of knowing, the passions of knowledge, all of that, in a better way. This essence is not known in bourgeois society becasue this essence is man himself as a historical creature. If you make the pretense to being a 'cross-discipline' expert, you sacrifice the ability to take this path in a more focused and intensified way. These disciplines are not unified because - surprise surprise - they actually ARE NOT within their epistemic framework unified, i.e. to make the bridge between biology and physics, won't ever overcome this separation, because the separation is sustained by their encirclement upon man himself.

You fail to understand that we are for the abolition of experts. 'Cross-discipline' knowledge won't exist, because such separate disciplines won't exist to be 'crossed' in the first place. There may be a recognition of different orders of being, but only in relation to human practice. So for example what will sustain a separation of biology from chemistry would be practical in the sense of what orders of being we are manipulating and effecting, specifically.

Here is a very basic point: It is not because of some... Obligation to 'for the sake of knowledge' itself. Let's say you are very passionate about biology today. If you are REALLY passionate about biology, you must OUT OF NECESSITY take things to higher conclusions. I claim that this isn't the spontaneous impulse of people today, because all of the fundamental questions of biology, of quantum physics, and all other separate domains, are only conceived as the particular means by which separate questions are touched upon and dealt with. All of these hard questions ultimately go back to man himself, to the relation between these and the condition of man himself, i.e. how to know man himself. From quantum mechanics' deadlocks, to the deadlocks of biology, and inevitably, the relationship between physics and the deadlocks of biology, ALL OF THIS RELATES to their common encirclement of the ideological designation of the social, i.e. of the insistence upon man himself, as unknowable.

[Radical Atom]

I think a good example is a moment from Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (recommended watch especially if you are interested in the Antartica), around the end of the first half of the film Herzog narrates:

Sam Bowser likes to show doomsday science fiction films to the researchers.
Many of them express grave doubts about our long ranging presence on this planet. Nature, they predict, will regulate us.

Is there a more grotesque way to put it? What an unscientific thing to say for a scientist! What is this nature and why it will "regulate" us? Is it an entity? Where does it come from? From the bottom of the trashcan of ideology, replacing, or more appropriately, interchanging "god" with "nature".
These people tarnish the legacy of Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Galileo; all those who confronted their own presuppositions towards how they perceived the world even with the threat of death instead of assuming all that was to know was known.
This shows that for all the pretensions to rationality, to "objectivity", to their petty notion of "atheism" contemporary science is ripe with superstition and ideology (that is, an ideology implicitly misanthropic, anti-radical, anti-scientific, that deifies nature and animalizes man). Not even Carl Sagan was immune to believing in absurd bullshit such as testosterone poisoning, but at least he didn't pretend he was an example of "the rational man".