No, my point would be this: That there is in turn a gap between what Marx thought he knew about political economy and all that there is to be known about it.
Also, the gap between what Marx thought he knew about capitalism and all that there is to be known about it.
After all, look at what he missed: the extraordinary flexibility built into capitalism historically, the rise of the welfare state, the existence of the middle class, the union movement, state/crony capitalism.
What free pass? After all, I was once a Marxist myself. But I am certainly not one anymore.
You tell me. But only after you first actually address the manner in which I distinguish them.
Well, maybe not to you it’s not. Or is that all that counts here?
Okay, give us a detailed assessment of that. And, as I made clear with Saint, my interest in his own TOE revolved around the components of my own moral philosophy. I never denied that part. And I challenge you or anyone here to note instances where he brought his “definitional logic” down out of the clouds and actually did address the contexts that I provided for him. At least then we can establish what his own moral and political prejudices were.
Actually, I’m not him. Respond to me. You pick the circumstances. Abortion and Communism again? Or something new this time?
I go by what you write and that’s not what you have been writing all along.
What you have been doing is pointing out the gap in our posts while ignoring the gap Marx’s writing.
That’s what I have complained about in this thread … your inconsistencies with respect to Marx.
I already pointed out that Marxism isn’t scientific.
You think that your other distinctions are important? Why?
I’m more interested in a real world test. If it seems reasonable to put them to the test.
Marx has nothing to do with immortality so why throw it in now?
What I said to PK still applies. This place is binary. You guys can’t wrap your heads around a gray world.
phyllo:
What I said to PK still applies. This place is binary. You guys can’t wrap your heads around a gray world.
K: half of what you said was true… this place and yourself is binary… I cannot speak for
IAM, but as for me, I live in a “gray world” there is no black and white in my world,
whatsoever…you might say, we live for being “good” and my response will be,
what does it mean, to be “good?” there is no black and white, for me anyway,
in the word, “good”… give me context into what “good” might look like…
because what looks like “good” to me, may not be "good’’ to you
and what might look like “evil” to me, may not look like “evil” at all to you…
and that is the point of getting context into words and definitions and actions…
to make it clear to the reader as to what you hold to be “good” is the reader’s idea
of “good”…
Yes, given your own political prejudices rooted subjectively in dasein you go by what you are [existentially] predisposed to think that I am doing here in regard to Marx. And yet the reality is that in the overwhelming preponderance of my posts [on the threads that I sustain] Marx/Marxism almost never comes up. And, again, what does your point here have to do with the point I am making above in regard to Marx himself and political economy/capitalism? And regarding the factors he did not anticipate.
I certainly agree that in regard to the historical evolution of the means of production, it is not scientific in the manner in which physics and chemistry and geology are scientific in regard to the laws of matter. Anymore than sociology and psychology and anthropology are. They don’t call them the “soft sciences” for nothing. But it does focus in on the actual historical evolution of human communities as the means of production change from nomadic, slash and burn and hunter and gather communities through to feudal, mercantile, capitalist and socialist communities.
It doesn’t start with the assumption that “serious philosophers” – the modern equivalent of the philosopher king – can think, “what is the most rational economic system?” and then conclude that objectively it is capitalism.
If you can’t see that distinction then, again, let others more sophisticated with Marx’s thinking take it up with you.
Let alone those who embrace philosophical/Platonic realism and see such things as the class struggle “down here” as Plato saw those shadows on the cave wall.
Okay, given your own understanding of Marxism, what might such a test consist of?
You’re kidding me, right? Marxism starts with the assumption that there is no God. And thus no immortality. So, if the working class is being exploited and oppressed by the ruling class and they want a better life, their only option is to revolt and to change things down here. And not be suckered in by those dispensing religion as an opiate, those who tell them to put all of their faith in one or another God which guarantees them both immortality and salvation.
I’m sorry, but I am truly flabbergasted hearing this from you about me!!!
Have you now abandoned objective morality yourself? Have you abandoned a belief in your own religious/spiritual path?
Really, how do you connect the dots between my belief that my own fractured and fragmented frame of mind in regard to conflicting goods embedded in what I believe to be my own essentially meaningless and purposeless existence is…binary.
Again, even in regard to believing what I do “here and now”, I always note that it is no less an existential contraption rooted in dasein. And that given new experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge/ideas, I might change my mind about any number of things.
“You’re kidding me, right? Marxism starts with the assumption that there is no God. And thus no immortality. So, if the working class is being exploited and oppressed by the ruling class and they want a better life, their only option is to revolt and to change things down here. And not be suckered in by those dispensing religion as an opiate, those who tell them to put all of their faith in one or another God which guarantees them both immortality and salvation.”
You were talking about Marx in this thread.
The fact that you don’t talk about Marx 99.9% of the time does not change the fact that you are talking about him now.
You just popped in that point out of nowhere. You never argued that point before.
Now my position is supposed to crumble because all along you were saying that Marx didn’t anticipate a bunch of stuff. Except you never said it.
It’s been tested in a number of countries.
Yeah. I think that you think that immortality and salvation is pertinent to this discussion. :-&
You don’t know anything about my morality or my religious/spiritual path.
Your “fractured and fragmented self” reveals your binarism. If you were not binary, then you would not even feel fractured and fragmented. You would feel okay in the gray landscape of reality.
This is the point that KT tried to make. He was not fragmented because he accepted that gray was normal.
Yes, I certainly do agree with that. So, on this thread, it comes down to what I do talk about in regard to him and Marxism.
Again: You’re kidding right? For years now I have been arguing that. At least a few times on threads here. And how on earth does one – anyone – discuss Marx and not get around to his own subjective take on capitalism? Only, in my view, his assessment is rooted far more in materialism rather than idealism.
Incredible. My point is that any individual’s “position” on Marx will crumble if another does not accept their own assumptions embedded in the arguments he made. Whether in regard to Communism, capitalism or political economy in general.
We’ve had this discussion before. Marx would almost certainly be aghast at what followed in his name after his death. For me, the crucial point is still the extent to which one’s reaction to Marxism is embedded in dasein, or if, philosophically/deontologically, an argument can be made that establishes once and for all the optimal or the only rational manner in which one is then obligated to react to it.
Really, really, [b]really[/b] unbelievable!!!
After all these years going back and forth with me, that you would think that I would/could think that they are not relevant to it!!
Note to others:
Trust me, it’s not for lack of trying on my part.
Sure, it’s always possible that you know me better than I know myself.
On the other hand, here is something I think I know about myself: that in regard to “I” and conflicting goods, it doesn’t feel good at all not being able to think myself into believing in good and evil, right and wrong. And I still recall the comfort and the consolation I once felt when I was an objectivist myself.
On the other other hand, I have no way in which to know for certain if I might be wrong about that. What if someone can convince me to believe that my existence is not essentially meaningless and purposeless?
Though, I suspect, not you.
That’s your understanding of what he was trying to say. Not mine. And what we are or are not able to accept in regard to matters such as this is no less rooted in dasein.
It would be really believable of you understood why I started this diversion and what I what to discuss here.
It’s this :
Why are you not calling Marx an objectivist? Why are you not saying that his writings are full of intellectual contraptions, general descriptions , in the clouds, abstract, true only because he believes it? Why are you not insisting that he demonstrate things for all rational men and women?
You seem to demand more rigor from a few people casually posting on a Mickey Mouse forum than you do from Marx.
Several times you have brought up Marx in arguments, as if he has the objective answers.
Why?
And you claim not to be a Marxism any more.
So why the reverence? Why not the usual scorn that you heap on objectivists?
Maybe you’re still a closet Marxist.
(So,yeah, I don’t believe that immortality, salvation, God, abortion, etc is relevant to what I’m talking about. )
Is anyone else here as stupefied as I am reading this?
If Marx believed that the Communist Manifesto was a reflection of his own Real Me in sync with The Right Thing To Think Feel Say and Do then, yes, given my own subjective description of an objectivist, he would be one.
Does anyone here know if Marx ever described himself in that manner?
But his assessment of the historical, organic evolution of human interactions as they pertain to sustaining a particular means of production encompassed in a particular political economy often made reference to the historical record left behind by nomadic, slash and burn and hunter and gatherer communities of the past. And to the extent they are still among us today in parts of South America and Africa.
And he could note the interactions of classes in “real time” smack dab in the middle of the Industrial Revolution itself.
In other words, human interactions down through the ages that were there to be examined, assessed and judged empirically.
Hmm, whatever that means?
Again, the gap here between your take on my take on Marx/Marxism and my own take on them is so far apart, I can see no reason to even make an attempt to close it. If believing what you do comforts and consoles you in having “nailed” me here, then good for you. Like I always say, “whatever works”.
As if anyone who you tagged as an objectivist has ever described himself as the “Real Me in sync with The Right Thing To Think Feel Say and Do”.
If I was to examine, assess and judge empirically some historical events then you would be on about dasein, and having to know everything about everything since the beginning of existence and the gap that I’m not bridging. You have done it many times.
K: and I am not surprise that you have missed my entire point… I use the right wing
dogma as an example, an example of what it means to be so entangled into a thought
system or dogma, that one cannot escape it…so let us give an example, we all see
how UR and Observe are so locked into their positions, that they cannot see any
possibility to engage with…every other post of mine has some variation of
“an reevaluation of values” to see if the values and beliefs one holds are really
your values… I hold that, for most people, the values and beliefs that they hold
are nothing more then the indoctrinations of their childhood… they haven’t grown
or adapted to values and beliefs that are better fitting…personally, I have held
three different and distinct political positions… which means I have changed and
adapted my political thought to my ever changing environment…as I have noted before,
I was an practicing anarchist for a couple of decades… lived the life… was off the grid,
didn’t have a place to stay, rarely owned cars, didn’t pay my taxes… I was an practicing
anarchist… with all that entails… I came to realize that anarchism as a system was
ahead of its times… Anarchism will have its day in the sun in a few hundred years
as the reigning political system, just not today…
so I changed my political beliefs…
I did something few ever even think about…I reevaluated
my political position and changed…
I practiced the maxim of the Enlightenment… ‘‘Sapere aude’’
IAM has said the same thing…he reevaluated his beliefs and he changed
his beliefs, twice, at least…
Objectivists don’t change their beliefs…in fact if anything, they hold their beliefs
tighter as they grow older…beliefs aren’t meant to be who you are,
they meant to be a guide to one AFTER, you become who you are…
a guide, nothing more…
beliefs are meant to not only guide one in both thought,
and in actions…
you haven’t even thought about the reason and meaning behind your
beliefs, little less about the beliefs themselves…
Tagged? They either believe it or they don’t. Or, here and now, they are not certain if they do.
We will just have to agree to disagree that your point here bears even a vague resemblance to the point that I am making. You make it all about me instead of actually addressing it substantively.
Something that you have done many, many, many times.
It truly does sadden me that I am able to reduce you to down to “retorts” like this. You know, given the far more substantive exchanges that we did once have many moons ago.
