So while "some idealists believed great ides shaped the material world" and "others argued that conditions didn't matter because only ideas are important," the validity of any idea about society can only be tested in practice not through rhetorical jousting. As Paul D'Amato indicates in the Meaning of Marxism, "whereas the idealist places the mind above and outside of nature, the materialists argues that mind itself is a product of natural developments. Minds cannot exist apart from the material world, and the material world existed long before any mind was able to experience it" (23-24). So with such a methodology, that is, with historical materialism (which is sometimes referred to as dialectical materialism), social classes contend for power as contradictions arise in their material conditions where, specifically under capitalism, immense wealth exists next to abject poverty.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
"Philosophers have merely interpreted the world", stated Marx long ago. "The point, however, is to change it."
I've recently started reading Jared Diamond's Germs, Guns, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. For those of you who aren't familiar with this Pulitzer Prize winner, Diamond goes through 13,000 years of history on all continents. More importantly, with an exceptional command of the disciplines of geology and evolutionary biology, he makes concrete connections between real world conditions and turning points in prehistory and history. Diamond utilizes historical materialism, albeit not explicitly, to determine the development (and destruction) of civilizations. In featuring the conscious and unconscious actions of humans as the real movements that have produced technological advancements and the subsequent superstructure, that is, "the institutions and culture considered to result from or reflect the economic system underlying society," Diamond grants the reader an objective look into the past that outlines what is possible for the future of human societies. Where this potential is scientific socialism with the majority of people rationally planning their economy not for profit but for human need.
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Dialectic/Historical Materialism fused various methodologies, namely, dialectics (an idealist methodology), historicism, and materialism.
Dialectic is controversy, exchanging arguments and counter-arguements, attempting to resolve disagreement through rational discussion, and ultimately, the search of truth.
Jerald: the validity of any idea about society can only be tested in practice not through rhetorical jousting.
This statement contradicts the premise of dialectics, ie resolving disagreement through rational discussion.
Historicism suggests that there is an organic succession of developments, and that local conditions and peculiarities influence the results in a decisive way. Succession of developments does not point to causality, by the same token, local conditions and peculiarities do not necessarily influence succession of developments. The challenge with historicism is in falling into the trap of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Materialism posits that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter. As a corollary to this, the future nor conceptions of the future do not exist, because it is not matter.
Jerald: In featuring the conscious and unconscious actions of humans as the real movements that have produced technological advancements and the subsequent superstructure
We agree on something! The premise of this statement supports the austrolibertarian methodology of praxeology, ie human action. Furthermore, human action is not motivated by materialism, (granted the fact that humans are made of atoms), but rather the mind. Choice is only visible through action. However, the predicate is not necessarily consistent with the method of praxeology but it diverges from the topic of methodology.
I don’t agree with the various definitions Paul gives characterizing each term, because they simplify the history of each term and neglect the differing arguments made by each philosopher.
Of course, we both got word constraints and our own time constraints, so explaining the intricacies of Hegelian dialectics vs. that of ancient Greeks vs. that of Kant cannot be delved into here. Rather I’ll suggest a few books that have helped me understand how Marx formulated his materialist conception of humanity’s self development. One being Paul Siegel’s The Meek & the Militant and another being John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology.
But we shouldn’t forget to acknowledge the fact that Marx was more than an intellectual who wanted to write books and argue with other intellectuals (and students) on the finer points of his theory. Marx, in addition to, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Debs and Gramsci were all revolutionaries who knew that, as Fredrick Douglas, the former slave turned abolitionist, did while slavery was still legal in antebellum South, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its mighty waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will." Since capitalists aren’t going to be persuaded by moralistic reformists not to exploit and oppress workers, workers have to organize themselves and participate in the struggle for self-emancipation. And, socialists have always been and will continue to be part of this struggle for equality and justice for all.
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