Karl Marx states in "Theses on Feuerbach" that "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." (Thesis Eleven) I must admit that I'm all the more persuaded by that statement as time goes by. When was the last time you heard voices of conviction and righteousness oozed out from academia and how often do you see an academician get his/her hands dirty?
If you want to get you hands dirty, here's a link:
https://www.change.org/p/researchgate-researchgate-violation-of-freedom-of-speech-and-scientific-freedom
Hm, I guess this post so far has not been qualified as a question. So let me ask this: what do you think of Marx's Thesis Eleven in "Theses on Feuerbach"?
I am very busy, but I consider this question essential, so I want to put forwards my view in this regard.
The academic world is traditionally conservative. Most scientist have always avoided political issues, especially the controversial ones. This is understandable: scientists are in a materially week position. If they "offend" power-holders (economic, political, cultural), their career may be ruined. Gerard Delanty, in his book "Challenging Knowledge: The University in the Knowledge Society", says that all relevant social changes in modern history have happened without a relevant participation of academic community. As Renata indicates in her answer above, a "controversial" discourse is not welcome in academic community. People are afraid not only to speak in a "controversial" way, but also to *listen to* such a discourse.
Regarding Marx, he was a passionate and compassionate soul, who wished to make people and society better. However, his discourse, including the thesis you mention, is too general. His discourse is not operative (practically applicable), and it can easily be abused. For example, his famous thesis about the need to "change the world" can be used by anybody as the justification for doing nearly anything. His entire discourse is too general (abstract); he explicitly refuses to deal with practical issues.
In my book, "Communication and Control: The shaping of reality and people" (Amazon/Kindle), there is a section "Prophets and actors", in which I tried to say more about the relationship between the revolutionary approach (Marx) and the pragmatic (piecemeal) approach (Popper). I conclude that both approaches (as dimensions of discourse & activity) are needed for the progress of humanity. In accordance with my expectations, in four months, I sold zero copies of the book.
@Sen
Let me just shortly qualify the link you posted for those who may not be familiar with the case.
Several months ago, the account of a frequent RG user, Prof. Akira Kanda, was locked by the portal (including removal of his contributions from the site) on accounts of him having allegedly repeatedly misused the Q&A section. Now, Akira had participated in many controversial discussions on RG, mostly in the area of physics. Or should I rather say that he made the discussions controversial by expressing his unique angle on many subject-matters, which was supported by solid logic.
I hope that this will clarify the matter a little.
As to the question you posted, I am a computer scientist, not a philosopher, but I can say that if something doesn't work, you find a way to change it.
I am very busy, but I consider this question essential, so I want to put forwards my view in this regard.
The academic world is traditionally conservative. Most scientist have always avoided political issues, especially the controversial ones. This is understandable: scientists are in a materially week position. If they "offend" power-holders (economic, political, cultural), their career may be ruined. Gerard Delanty, in his book "Challenging Knowledge: The University in the Knowledge Society", says that all relevant social changes in modern history have happened without a relevant participation of academic community. As Renata indicates in her answer above, a "controversial" discourse is not welcome in academic community. People are afraid not only to speak in a "controversial" way, but also to *listen to* such a discourse.
Regarding Marx, he was a passionate and compassionate soul, who wished to make people and society better. However, his discourse, including the thesis you mention, is too general. His discourse is not operative (practically applicable), and it can easily be abused. For example, his famous thesis about the need to "change the world" can be used by anybody as the justification for doing nearly anything. His entire discourse is too general (abstract); he explicitly refuses to deal with practical issues.
In my book, "Communication and Control: The shaping of reality and people" (Amazon/Kindle), there is a section "Prophets and actors", in which I tried to say more about the relationship between the revolutionary approach (Marx) and the pragmatic (piecemeal) approach (Popper). I conclude that both approaches (as dimensions of discourse & activity) are needed for the progress of humanity. In accordance with my expectations, in four months, I sold zero copies of the book.
I think the matter goes beyond persons/individuals/professionals, or at least it can be approached through the question "political theory and political practice" (tackled in my "Rhythms Philosophimata", ebook, Athens 2014, in Greek. I hope I will be able to produce a version in English in the near future in order to provide a plausible answer to the colleague's question). Thank you.
Book Rhythms Philosophimata 2011-2014
Dear Mario,
Thanks for taking the time to put forward your ideas. I in general agree with you.
It is understandable that academics have a habit of trying not to "offend" power-holders (the economic, political and cultural establishment), sometimes consciously and at times unconsciously. However I would like to bring up a weird phenomenon pertaining to the scientists. For some reasons, scientists seem to approbate the notion that the worlds of numbers, atoms, molecules and formal systems etc., are more fundamental (in the sense that they are more significant in the hierarchy / architecture of knowledge) so that political, social and cultural issues are not worthy of their attention. If such an observation is correct, it may point out a problem in our present-day "knowledge culture".
In the case of Marx, I also agree with you. Marx lived in a time of "grand theories", that is, theories that try to provide ultimate solutions to everything: Darwinian evolution in Biology, Principia Mathematica of Whitehead and Russell in the Foundations of Mathematics, logical positivism in Epistemology, the psychoanalysis of Freud in Psychology, and so forth. The grand Marxian theory of economics, history and society was just one of the many. Even literature at that time was also taking a walk in the garden of "grandeur": Tolstoy's War and Peace (>1200 pages), Dostoyevski's The Brothers Karamazov (>800 pages), Mann's The Magic Mountain (>700pages), etc.. Hence, back to Marx, his discourse was too general / abstract as you have noticed.
On a final note, I'll try to get hold of a copy of Delanty's Challenging Knowledge: The University in the Knowledge Society and your Communication and Control: The Shaping of Reality and People. Thanks for the tip.
Hello Sen *giving you super secret society handshake*
let me put in my 5 cents here as this discussion is developing meanwhile in several networks and was especially one of the points me and Akira discussed. I will also ask him to write a comment as I am referring here to your question which changes the context of my original message a bit.
You maybe know that the Theses on Feuerbach also played a role when it came to Positivismusstreit. Now what I wrote to Akira was this:
"You have to think about this: Back than they were united in Vienna Circle. And there was a lot going on in this community but also concerning it.
The biggest trouble was Positivismusstreit and Horkheimers attack... and Popper made it even worser postulating the unity of natural and social sciences. Which means: They had to find principals which work for both. And than he made the biggest mistake ever. He said: It is not part of sciences to find value and premise free facts through observation.
So they came to the conclussion the aim must be solving social problems and resolve social wrongs. And intersubjectivity finished them off.
So while Galilei was trusting his own human intellect and his standard was to think isolated from an already existing world view... later on it was replaced by common sense. You simply cannot have both. It is impossible. You either follow society. Or truth."
This is my statement so far which I made in this email towards him. Later on I developed this based on a statement of Feyerabend; and let's take a look at the differences how facts are developed:
1) Decissions of a single person: Decissions are determined by purpose which leads to data. In a process this gets generalized and becomes a scientific fact.
This is independend from a worldview. It is f.e. how Galileo Galilei has worked.
2) Decissions of the community: Specific decissions are determined by social values and needs which then (if generalized) become a scheme for similar problems, which then lead to scientific facts.
This is highly dependend from a worldview. And this is how we mostly work today.
When it comes to 1. everything had a purpose. And the purpose was precisely to show that Aristoteles and/or the bible were wrong. So what's the value today? To show that we are righteous people? And than again what exactly does being "righteous" mean? And in which context do we want to set this?
One more thing I want to add here before giving you a break:
Mario stated:
"Most scientist have always avoided political issues..."
I am very sorry... but this is NOT true. It was Popper (again) who said that "the changers" have a "political mission" to participate on the change of the world. So obviously not everyone is seeing it like that that they need to avoid political issues. Especially when it comes to social sciences and everything linked to it. But we can also state that through the mutual conversion that araised from Prositivismusstreit natural sciences might today not be that non-political as we would like to see it. Which for sure needs research.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cs3Pvmmv0E
Sen Wong,
I agree with this statement of Marx and I agree that academic are for the most part totally disengaged with the social issues. I know just a little bit about Marx. I see him as a person that has really done his best, and it was an honorable best, and a person who sacrificed everything to apply what he preached. So he was one in thought and action. I find his notion of equality and justice too limited to the material well being of humans, it is important but not the most important and he tended to neglect our higher dimensions as human beings. But he was a really well intended and devoted person. We cannot be condemn for our limitations because all of us are limited. All we can be condem is not have try our best to exceed them. Marx gave his best.
Let's see it how it is, Louis: He produced a two-edged sword. But than again... this is how Marx was. Sometimes pretty fuzzy.
Kierkegaard, Tockqueville were living about the same time as Marx. It was the beginning of Capitalism and Democracy. Two major novelties. Marx was the major thinker of Capitalism and of the alienation of labor. Tocqueville was the major thinker of Democraty and Kierkegaard the major thinker of individuality and massification. All of them have predicted what will happen but none of them cover the whole spectrum.
After the 1848 revolution, Tocqueville said:
''when the country will again be divided between two great parties. The French Revolution, which abolished all privileges, and destroyed all exclusive rights, did leave one, that of property. The holders of property must not delude themselves about the strength of their position, or suppose that, because it has so far nowhere been surmounted, the right to property is an insurmountable barrier; for our age is not like any other…Soon the political struggle will be between the Haves and the Have-nots; property will be the great battlefield; and the main political questions will turn on the more or less profound modifications of the rights of property owners that are to be made…''
Tocqueville traveled to America to have a close look at the new and most advanced demacratie of the time.
''All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles that nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained by the plowshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.''
''…Above this race of men stands an immense tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?…
…I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people…''
Louise, I am already doing so. But it takes sometimes some time as I want to ask experts first. So I got this friend who is an expert when it comes to Marx. And he pointed towards this fact (I hope I get the translation right, as this was written in German language):
"In the context of Feuerbach Theses what was written was scientific theoreticaly statement, not political or ethical. Here what one wonders about is the question if social reflected should be better captured only reflecting and deriving like Young Hegelians or it would be better to do it emperical like materialists. On the other hand one question was what the purpose of social theories are all in all."
I think this is very important. Because taking a look at history we can see this political ethical reasoning did not only happen to Marx, but also when it comes to Darwin and Freud. This process to take explanations and impose it upon the world... Scharfetter calls it in "Allgemeine Psychopathologie" a "monomaniac interpretation" being the outcome of a symptom and part of how we perceive the world. He furthermore sais you cannot avoid this.
Last summer Mausfeld had a whole lecture about this problem calling it "Why the lambs are silent? - Techiques of opinion and indignation management". Unfortunatly it is only available in German language. But he came up with a bunch of techniques how you can actually cause "monomaniac interpretation" and make society think only in one direction. For example by making facts unseen.
Yesterday Akira said this:
"Carmen, as far as I can say, what is really controversial in academia is that "controversial" discussions were suppressed as it happened in RG. This is the act against the basic principle of academia established 1,400 years ago.
ADD ON: Vatican established academia 1,400 years ago to do research on higher truth. To avoid earthly interference they gave ultimate autonomy to academia. This was respected all over the West except UK and the USA. Even Soviet Union respected this autonomy. They could not remove Sakharov from the Academy if Science as the member of the academy voted for him. Contrary, Oppenheimer and David Bohm were expelled from Princeton University for purely political reasons. It appears that Western democracy is not. For RG, discussing things like this constitutes abusing RG, I presume.
Russia built a monument to remember Sakharov. When are they going to build the monument to remember Oppenheimer and David Bohm in Princeton University?"
I might be wrong, Louise... But what I think is that this
"All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth."
is exactly the situation we are facing right now. But the thing is: This limit was not natural. We limited ourselves.
Now come on, Mr. Downvoter *kicking a chair* Just do it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSeLkJN2BjY
Dear Carmen,
I recently researched about Kierkegaard and he really understood what was wrong in Hegelian philosophy and why that philosophy was a major threath to European civilisation and to its christian roots. The young Hegelian were all what Kierkegaard feared the most. A ideological mass destruction ideology. Tocqueville also was totally against Hegelian conception of history which is seen as remoted from human agency ass a big mechanic bringing us automatically towards a bright future!!!! Marx was typically Hegelian but he was also a total materialism and so he turn the machinery of history as a massive class battle at the image of the new Darwinian biology which is not a coincidence because Darwin lived at the center of this new rat race capitalistic emerging society. Marx was also anti-religious like the other young Hegelian and reduce human aspiration to economic aspiration. Marx was very naive here in not seeing the religious nature of humans and not seeing that he was himself driven by his religiosity; he did not care for material advantages for himself; he should have realized that he himself was about other higher ideals than materialistic ones. And that others humans are like him and that his purely materialistic conception of history and human desires was missing the most important aspect of human beings. And that his followers would unleash quite a nasty religious ideologies on the world. But we should not through Marx with the bathwater as Marx did with religion and take what was true from Marx.
I find Marx's thesis quite clear, so clear that, for me, it needs no extra philosophical qualifications. I see it as a pragmatic call, as a call to action. It is evident that Marx was tired of hermeneutics, theoretical thought, hypothetical mind experiments. The thing is that all can a person do is change the world on the basis of his or her knowledge. There is a great similarity between this thesis and Benjamin's comment on "The author as producer": a writer's work is not only about writing, but about writing changing the means of the production of writing. As a playwright, Brecht —the protagonist of Benjamin's essay— changed the way theatre was produced (conceived, written, acted, staged...), for example. Brecht wanted to use his theater to change how people thought about their lives and make them more politically aware of injustice. In sum, it is our talent that is called to action, that which we do best. And not only our talent, but bringing our talent to change the way it is "produced" so it can go beyond itself.
Good question, with a twist, of course! Lilliana
There is this thing: Being (and having the) right vs. being (and doing) good. Which is for sure a question of power too.
So Marx sais (not literally): We need to change the world because we can (which he expressed in a pretty early stage).
And this is somehow like when I came along and said: You know what... I have the power and I change it. No matter if you asked for it or not.
Popper sais (not literally): The world needs a change. But all we can do is give advice (which actually goes well with the Aristotelian view of wisdom; as someone in a teaching position rather gives advice than act on his own).
And this is somehow like when someone comes to me and sais: I have a problem. Please solve it for me, because I do not know what to do. I need a good advice to perform a good action in order to change things so they turn out to be good for me.
The problem with science is that actually we can see both constellations. Things get changed just because someone has the power to do so no matter if others want a change. And then again: Scientists give advice to anyone who asks for it. No matter who asks and no matter how stupid the intention is.
So f.e. there was this psychologist and someone came along and asked him about his opinion. And later on the knowledge was used to torture people. Which was a big scandal a few months ago.
Changes are not always of the most noblest sort.
When it just came to describing things... it was not that worse to make mistakes. But change is really a different caliber. And it is for sure not just about acting... like the world forces me to react. No. It is more an act of creation.
Carmen, I suggest that Marx was being more direct, and that his idea was not about being noble but about being useful or doing good. I think that Walter Benjamin read his thesis the same way, and he was keen in tying it with being, literally, "productive", as if changing the world were good work, not just a good deed. Production, for Benjamin, is ceaseless, continuous, incremental, as it brings together several people on the same "medium", in Brecht's case, the literary "medium", where the writer must share with everyone who is related to the publishing of books, as if it assembled into a sort of human machine: the writer, the publisher, the bookseller, the papermaker, reviewer in the newspaper, the reader, etc. All work together for changing how literature is "produced". Maybe we can better understand what Marx meant not by reading his contemporaries, but by how he was read by those who came after, like Adorno and Benjamin, just to mention two of them...
Best regards, Lilliana
Carmen,
I expect this post to be downvote but so be it.
Science is potential power that can be developed into specific technologies. A scientist like everybody else in this society is just a cog and the cog does not control what technologies will be developed, other cogs are involved in that, other cogs deciced how money should be invested, and other cogs do this and do that and none of the cog control outside the very limited realm of decision of that cog.
Modern societies has fragmented so much the distribution of decisions that nobody has any choices and everybody has to be a good cog in the very limited domain it is supposed to decided.
We litterally live into a matrix or as an element of the machine as in the Modern Time by Charly Chaplin. Jacques Ellul has very well described this removal of any responsibility for the whole and the inclusion of all into technological matrix. Jacques Ellul was heavily influenced by Kierkegaard. Science not only provide knowledge that can be later instrumentalized by the instrumental reason but being trained as a scientist or as an engineer or as economist, mathematician etc basically developed instrumental reason only, not empathy, not feeling, not art. By learning to count, to mathematicize everything then we subsume the world under instrumental reason and this is has to be counter balanced by being engage with other human relations of care, balanced by developing our artistic ways to communicate directly through the senses and feeling aways from the control of instrumental reason which reduce all life to lifeless, everything to dead object, that cannot understand anything of the living and if non taken subsume under our human loving side, our feminin side take us over and make perfect mathematical hearlless monsters. Pascal was saying that there is an angel mixed with a monster in each of us. The monster side is the instrumental reason unleashed from our caring feminin artistic religious side. So if one develop the instrumental side alone, it is letting the monster take hold of oneself.
Work is instrumental? Art work is instrumental? How about producing less philosophy and doing more "manual" work or something that might be closer to "reality"? Probably what Marx meant? And what exactly means the monster vs. the Feminin side "caring, artistic, religious"? Beauty and the Beast? I'm lost here.
I consider rather irrelevant what Marx, Kierkegaard, Ellul, ... "meant"; what matters is the *social psychology* of the present "free world". The problem is that this world is much less "free" than it pretends it is. Let me mention a couple of examples.
I lived for 36 years in state socialism, and I have been living for 26 years in freedom & democracy. In the time of state socialism, the one who criticized (anything) was considered a hero; in freedom & democracy, the one who criticizes (anything) is considered a looser. Hence, nobody wants to express any serious criticism.
One beautiful day, at UC Berkeley, a man asked me: "From which country are you, sir?" - "From no country, sir" - said I - "I do not care for countries, nations, religions, and similar things". The man was shocked; I somehow calmed him, telling him that this was a joke. In the time of state socialism, I used to make such jokes often, and nobody was shocked. One day, the Party boss of my municipality said to me: "I was in Zagreb (the capital) and I can tell you that they have a very high opinion of you" - "And I can tell you" - said I - "that I do not have a high opinion of those who have a high opinion of me". The man was slightly confused, but not shocked. ... In sum, I want to say that we are much less "free" nowadays than we are made to believe we are.
Regarding the changing of the world, this has been happening all the time. However, the changes are not led by the ancient ideals of knowledge, goodness, and beauty. Changes are made by force, and by those who have the force (power) to make them, and in accordance with their interests. The "force" does not need to be physical; it can be "administrative". These changes do often not make the life of most people better.
The essential questions should be how to change the world *for better*, and who can do this, and how, and who is to decide *what is better*, and on what basis. These problems are complex and difficult, and the academic community has not contributed much to their solution. Some do not want to "get their hands dirty", and most of us do not consider such activity profitable. We left this "job" to politicians, who do usually not manage (or even try) to do much good.
Louise,
"I expect this post to be downvote but so be it."
You know what's actually cool? If you set the visibility of this whole voting thing to hidden the postings look a lot more competent. Even the jabber I wrote... Maybe I will write an addon script for RG, which I will call "StressFree" (SF).
Technology... Today humanity got technology that can actually decide by itself if you get seen or not. It is only a matter of time that it starts to send out those creepy robot dogs which will give you a head shot for having the wrong opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w
(In your case they will send you the big version *lol*... and I fear we will not have any script available then to make it unseen)
Of course they make it look like it can be a really good friend. Pal the robot dog. You can kick him around and it will still go out jogging with you. Makes it all look like a family friendly version of smart phone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjzBpJ1XYwc
But the truth is: It is build to shoot your head off (or at least any head as it was developed for military).
"Modern societies has fragmented so much the distribution of decisions that nobody has any choices and everybody has to be a good cog in the very limited domain it is supposed to decided."
The main reason why this was done was another one. When it comes to companies or bigger organisations it was done in order to create diffusion of responsibility. Which was at first a good thing because it made for example corporate espionage a lot harder. If information is not hold by only one person but every person just got the information they need in order to perform... it makes it a lot harder to see the whole picture. Later on they discovered: Hey-ho, this can be used in the other direction too... and how about creating whole pictures loaded with information. But you can only decrypt the information you got the right key for. Because it's multi-framed.
They do also know exactly there are only very, very little people who possess the ability to decrypt the whole information. Either because they got the right key. Or because they are talented (or got too much time; which is at least like being talented in case you do not pay attention to the time factor). In the last case they say: Well, well... then they are worthy enough to know it. Anyway noone will believe them as noone will see it their way.
And no... this is not science fiction. I wished it was.
"We litterally live into a matrix or as an element of the machine as in the Modern Time by Charly Chaplin."
I wouldn't be that reserved. We litteraly live in a nuthouse. But the truth is: It has been a long time like that.
https://youtu.be/OouY9rwIRjA?t=2m13s
We do not live in a nuthouse but in a very complex society. When you say people are crazy you take away all their responsibility towards society and him or herself. The least we should do in a complex society is to willingly create irresponsible citizens by calling them "crazy". Just a thought.
Lilliana Ramos-Collado,
I will be schematic :
Pascal's pense: Angel interwined with the monster in each of us
And Pascal's contrast between the intuition of the hearth versus reason.
Rational instrumental side of mind which is developed into the expression into the domains of mathematics and natural sciences, engineering, or in economic relation (money exchange) between actors
The other sides of the mind which are developed into different type of artistic expression, in human relation other than economic relation, relation of care and empathy among humans, etc
Then I identified moster side, male side and rational instrumental side, power relation side
And identified angel side, feminin side , empathic side of human relation
The I speak about the need of developing the feminin side when developing the male side because the later in overly developed into patriarchal hiearchal society.
Carmen,
Yes the responsibility is diffuse and except for the small criminals, and the leaders on the looser side of a war, nobody is responsible in the cog world. Everybody follow order , it was said by all the accused in the Nuremberg tribunal. Everybody due his duties in our societies and nothing more. Diffusion of responsibility, separation of the tasks is not a conspiracy but the most efficient way to organized large scale hiearchical societies and that since at least 60000 years. A good example of this diffuse responsibility mind set is the reaction of the public to someone lying unconscious on the sidewalk. In a village or small town everybody stop and try to do something. In big city everyboddy continue walking and pretend to have seen nothing. If nobody care then there is something wrong with this guy but there is so many people around why should it be me.
Dear dear dear, very dear Louis, going back to the feminine/masculine polarization sounds to me rather weird in this day and age. I cannot identify with it. I do not think there is a feminine side or a masculine side of a person because that is part of culture, not a genetic thing. I enjoy Pascal, but evidently some of his theories are rather dated, like this one. We are talking about Marx's pertinence today. I do not think Marx would predicate world change based on going back to Pascal's ideas of the feminine, frankly. Marx was talking about assuming responsibility of changing the world and, probably, the first thing that needs changing are those categories that define women with those feminine traits invented by culture, and which are not "natural". The very division of feminine and masculine is patriarchal, Louis!
Marx: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."
Obama: "We want change!" (remember?)
And we got more wars and disasters. Change yes, but the question is who really determines the direction of changes. Franck Zappa (a musician) allegedly said that politics is the entertainment department of military industry.
"A good example of this diffuse responsibility mind set is the reaction of the public to someone lying unconscious on the sidewalk. In a village or small town everybody stop and try to do something. In big city everyboddy continue walking and pretend to have seen nothing."
Likewise in big companies it is not possible to ask: "They gave me this and that work to research upon... what do you do? And what do you think they will use it for?"
"Obama: "We want change!" (remember?)"
And then he said "Yes, we can!" (remember?)
"So Marx sais (not literally): We need to change the world because we can (which he expressed in a pretty early stage).
And this is somehow like when I came along and said: You know what... I have the power and I change it. No matter if you asked for it or not."
" going back to the feminine/masculine polarization sounds to me rather weird in this day and age."
People are not expecting a female Messiah. Are they? Be honest.
Carmen,
Marx predicted that capitalism will lead to a concentration of capital and that this concentration will lead to the downfall of capitlism. Right now the concentration is ''un fait accomplit'' with 62 persons having as much money than the 3.5 billion poorest. But I hope its downfall will not bring humanity down with it.
I do not expect a female Messiah, nor a Messiah. The UK got the iron lady! I equate the feminin side of humans to a desire to live together in a spirit of collaboration instead of a spirit of competition. Translated on a societal scale this mean a communal egalitarian societies. The old communistic social experiment are more shown what should not be done for this ideal than what should be done. Tocqueville had predicted these revolution based on the passion towards equality at the expense of freedom. Tocqueville had also predicted the other forms of big brother states that we withnessing now against that the expense of human freedom. Marx had predicted the large scale labor/slavering for servicing debts.
Before I leave for several days, let me make a couple of heretic remarks:
"People are not expecting a female Messiah. Are they? Be honest."
Well, honestly, I have been expecting such a Messiah my entire life; a couple of them arrived, but I do not feel saved at all. Such is the life with Messiahs.
The word "freedom" irritates me. There is no freedom in the "free world". The "free world" is a world of fear and ignorance. State socialism collapsed because nobody was afraid of anything, so that an aggressive minority simply overrode it, and staged the greatest pillage in history. I have seen and experienced this pillage. In sum, barbarians prevailed, as they have always done in history. I consider the fall of state socialism a tragic failure to raise people and humanity above barbarism and stupidity.
I heard on the BBC that 25 percent of Americans do not know that the earth rotates around the sun, and I read in academic sources that 66 percent believe that Satan walks the streets and can be met. This is not the kind of "free society" I could appreciate. Regarding Europe, I heard on the EuroNews horrible things about human trafficking in Europe. It was said that nobody deals with this issue, because people and institutions are afraid of the very powerful criminal organizations. Instead of dealing with such issues, European institutions produce "resolutions" about Chinese dissidents in the house arrest. This is much safer. In sum, the situation is bad, but nobody dares to say it aloud. Because people of the free world are afraid of speaking about anything that matters.
Lilliana Ramos-Collado,
I could have used an another name for the care versus don't care sides but I stick with feminin side versus masculin side as in Yin and yang. I agree that it is even more a social and cultureal phenomena and it is why I keep this name because the place of woman has also been a central religious and political issue of all societies since the time of the invention of large scale patriarchal societies. It is not a secondary political and social issue and it is not mainly a question to have equal number of women and man in high sphere of finances, industry and politics in the actual power structure of domination. Pascal mostly spoke against the domination of the rational side of our intellect and advocated ''un esprit de finesse'' and '' Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point''. He would probably think that are twisting what he said. Feminin vs Male side was certainly not on the radar screen of Pascal. ''The very division of feminine and masculine is patriarchal,'' There are certainly patriarchal interpretation of this divided but as I said I am not dividing women and men but diviging women between their two side and men between their two sides.
To the silent participants:
Thank you for your quiet support. This is exactly what this thread is all about. Please consider signing Carmen's petition if you haven't done so yet. And then, there are of course those who have chosen to downvote posts directly in favour of reinstating Akira's RG account. I can't help but give this anonymous downvoting mechanism some thought. It may be a minor digression from the developing discussions, but not so from RG as a community.
As Aleksandr Zinovyev describes in Homo Sovieticus, at the peak of its activity, KGB had piles of unread delation reports from around the country and many intellectuals were called in, including Zinovyev himself, to so to speak "separate the wheat from the chaff". As much as he "regrets" that much of the "powerful energy of human feelings and thoughts" spent on the reports were wasted in this process, he points out without hesitation that writing delations was necessary for the people as “a form of expressing their personality”. So, whatever floats your boat.
Isn’t RG a platform for discourses? Why would there be a necessity for such a mechanism which "separates the wheat from the chaff"? After all, didn’t Francis Fukuyama declare “the end of history” at least a decade ago? Aren’t we living ever after in his beautiful free neoliberal capitalist paradise of democratic global society?
"I do not expect a female Messiah, nor a Messiah."
In the world of community: Does it matter what you expect? The thing is that women had been excluded from academia for centuries because men said it is not necessary for a woman to study as no woman can be the Messiah. This is a tradition starting with Torah. And you would not believe it if I told you that especially this tradition (gain Jeschiwa/Mesvita) was broken as recently as in the late last century. Of course it was a man who made this decission. But don't expect that women have the same rights even now they are allowed to study. They are not fully included in every case and not in all circles.
From this point of view it is clear that feminism rather tends to deny gender. And it is OK, if academia sais it should not play a role if you are men or women. And yet we are humans equipped with perception. And it is in most cases very hard to deny the fact that somebody is male or female. It does not make sense to regulate this problem all the way down till we reach functions we cannot change. This is simply an overdose of action which creates rage in society.
I am pretty sure Lilliana clearly understood your point when it comes to male and female side. So there is no point in correcting someone else using those terms as we instantly have entry to what qualities are claimed. And here it does not even matter if it is based on stereotypes. It is about the qualities we want to see in society. On the contrary if we say that men can have a female side too (meaning qualities one would rather attribute to women) it is much easier to break those stereotypes. Because than it is hard to deny; We can find those qualities in both - men and women - and they are rather education or learned behavior. We can weaken or intensify them. And I think this is a lot better than denying them all in all. Because then we have no poles anymore. And then we do not know anymore which qualities fit well with each other. But here we have to think beyond physical borders and see beyond what we perceive at first sight.
Some people state that society today is "too gay", meaning men are too sissy (not talking about the length of penis here, dear gay community) and women are unable to educate them certain qualities. Manners are not weakness. And I am pretty sure that under other circumstances men with manners can likewise turn into pure beasts. And women too; whereas I guess women can be even much crueler than men. Men always show in their cruelity something like a ritual. We all know this story when it was Christmas and men even stopped war. Women wouldn't be that generous. So instinct needs no education. The moment it gets activated it's on and enrolling routines. So no matter how much you educate someone: We are humans and it's impossible to change this. This statement that society is "too gay" is mostly recited by certain people who deny a certain form of society all in all. A society were you simply cannot walk around and punch someone right in the face just because you have a bad day.
But sometimes it is highly righteous to do so. Likewise it is sometimes higly righteous to say no to community. Especially if you see actions are tending into a negative direction. It shouldn't be a shame than to react "aggressive" or let's better say alarmed. I know we would all rather prefer states of peace and less trouble. But when things go out of hand it is better to trust your instincts no matter what arguments are brought in.
I lately was part of a conversation which did not went very well with a man who described himself as a "hooligan". Community (meaning majority) was very quick to put him in his place. But the admin did something really clever. Whenever he went too far he muted him for a few minutes. This happened for maybe 3 times. After than he started to form real arguments which could be discussed. Then he started to talk about his life. And people started to reinclude him which bit by bit reduced his anger. I am quite sure this won't be a permanent state as he for sure has his environment in which the behavior he was showing is rather accepted. But we can learn from this what shocks people and how it should be really done. And that means first of all: Trying to understand one's anger. Simply listening to people why they are angry and if their anger is justified. Today we are very quick - too quick - to ban anger all in all, because we think it should not be part of society. It is bad manner. And then the result is a ban. And the result of this is that changes occur, but maybe they are flawed. And also society gets shattered.
So you really cannot say it is only the female side lacking. It is a lack all in all that we deny certain qualities which we should learn to live with and process in a much more productive way than we did up to this point.
Handshake to you, Carmen.
It’s time to come clean. I have read Marx but never too much. I knew about the Positivismusstreit (Positivist Dispute) in German sociology but have never actually studied it. As far as I know, it started with the lectures given by Popper and Adorno on “the logic of the Social Sciences” at a conference of the German Sociological Association in 1961. The way I look at it is that Popper and Adorno might have been talking about two different things that are not necessarily incompatible. Probably most of you know that the debate may be traced back to Horkheimer’s essay “Der neueste Angriff auf die Metaphysik” that criticizes logical positivism of the Vienna Circle for reducing the world to the physical and hypostatizing the human subject as a bundle of nerves.
Without getting into the complexities of the dispute, I tend to think that there are two levels of the discourse that have to be bridged. It is a good guideline to be aware of the descriptive and the prescriptive distinction (not as an absolute distinction but as a distinction for approximation). On the theoretical level of the so-called hard sciences, we do descriptive works (factual quantiication, for example), whereas on the prescriptive level of the so-called soft sciences, we (mainly?) do prescriptive works (social valuation, for example). The question is whether the two levels of activities are disjoint. Again, without getting into the complexities of the issue, I think even in the soft sciences we have to do factual investigations too; but it doesn’t mean that the factual (logical and mathematical results, etc) determines our value judgements, but that we need to take into account of the factual when we try to formulate our value systems.
And then from a Marxist perspective, there is a concept of social / historical participation that goes beyond what I said above.
I agree with you, Louis. I think Marx was abhorred by academic philosophers’ general indifference to social problems caused by the industrialization in Europe of his time. Consider Marx and Frege whose life-times were partly overlapped, the latter was living like a hermit and was concerned only with the foundations of arithmetics. That says a lot.
As far as Kiergagaard is concerned, He really isn't my cup of tea for some serious reasons. Can't elaborate on that today, sorry. I don't know if you have read his Diary of a Seducer. My answer is in that semi-fictional book.
Sen Wong,
I found some interesting perspectives from Kiergagaard. I just read secondary litterature. I did not read this specific Diary but I can easily imagine that Kiergagaard might have had some serious character problems in his personal life like probably most great philosophers and artists, geat historical political leaders, etc.
Regarding Kierkegaard & Co., useful things can be found in the book:
Golomb, Jacob (1995) "In Search of Authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus", Routledge.
Kierkegaard was a passionate religious soul, who despised The Church, for various reasons; his hero was Abraham ("the prince of faith") because he was ready to kill his son without hesitation, when asked to do so by his god. This is why I cannot appreciate Kierkegaard as a "thinker", but he wrote some things I consider interesting. Let me mention the following note about him, which I wrote long ago.
It seems that Kierkegaard was a disturbed person, but his assumption that there are three possible ways (modes) of living is interesting. These three ways are: aesthetic, ethical, and religious. Each of these ways expresses a specific view and attitude towards life, and shapes our daily behaviour. I consider interesting *the idea* about the three views (attitudes), rather than Kierkegaard's discourse about these views.
In brief, the aesthetic attitude excels freedom and imagination: a person is led by the *passion for the possible*, and follows her desires without limitations. The ethical attitude puts limits to the passions of the aesthetic attitude: an ethical subject *assumes responsibility* towards other subjects and society. The ethical subject restrains the freedom of aesthetic life by ethical obligations. The religious attitude manifests itself in the radical *leap of faith towards God*. Such leap is not made on the basis of rational certainty, but because of the *sense of absurdity* of life. The leap is triggered by anxiety and yearning, and is accompanied by a *doubt* with which the subject must constantly struggle. Such an authentic leap is done by a solitary individual, responding to what he believes to be a divine summon, although he lacks any objective evidence that supports this belief. ...
And so forth. Kierkegaard is relevant for theology, rather than for philosophy or politics. Some consider him a relevant philosopher, because his "individualism" opposes Hegel's discourse ... I tried to read a couple of his books long ago, but I gave up rather soon.
Mario,
My take on Kierkegaard is very different from yours. He is Christian yes but against all christian institutions of his time because he considered that they all betrayed the original christian ideas as expressed by Jesus and the first small christian communities.
He is one of the greatest philosopher of the modern age and what he forsaw then can be seen clearly now everywhere that has modernized. He see modernity not like most people sees it today because most of us are totally oblivious of what we live. He was profoundly christian and profoundly philosophical and his philosophical model was Socrates which he saw as a true christian. He did not have a narrow view of what it is to be a true christian. The ancient philosophy was not like the modern based solely on disengaged rationality but the ancient was based on Faith in a live devoted to the good '' even Socrates did not fully
understand the love of wisdom for which he lived and died ''
His battle has been the battle of how to be an Individual in this new age we live now. ON his epitaph he wanted: ''That Individual'' and what he most strongly opposed is what we live today: the age where the pressure against individuality is suffocating and at the same time doing it in the name of the promotion of individualism!!. He is the first with tocqueville to have seen coming the massivisation, the age of mediocratisation. The age of the crowd.
Two Ages: A Literary Review, Kierkegaard
The Crowd is Untruth: The Existential Critique of Mass Society in the ...
By Howard Nelson Tuttle
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction
By Matthew B. Crawford
Regards
Lilliana, your first post touched upon a significant issue, i.e., the politics of authorship. As you may have already known, in his time, Benjamin, like Marx, was making a living from writing, hence “the author as producer” is both a personal and a theoretical concept. Aside from the personal one and as you pointed out all a person can do is change the world (when he/she sees the need) on the basis of his / her knowledge. Here if I may bring this thread a little closer back to Akira’s case, Akira the author had a collision in opinion with “other” authors who probably are also the anonymous downvoters. In this case, the “other” authors not only are the wardens of mainstream physics opionions but also part of the establishment of academic physicists. As observed by Renata earlier, the anonymous downvoting mechanism is very suspiciously a tool for controlling production.
Renata, we all know that Fukuyama’s self-proclaimed “the end of history” is a load of nonsense, especially when he picked and chose his data rather discriminately. I can’t believe almost the entire Anglo-saxon academia was infatuated by someone who proclaimed the end of history while ignoring so much historical contexts in his so-called political analysis. Your comparing Fukuyama’s hyperbole to RG’s anonymous downvoting mechanism (let’s call it ADM for short) is especially interesting. Is RG’s ADM a sign (however small it is) that history is still marching forward into the unknown without ending in Fukuyama’s neoliberal free-market “parliamentary” democracy? Or else, why would an establishment like RG find the need to guard the dominance of certain ideology/ideologies if science indeed is just another ideology as believed by Paul Feyerabend?
Louis says: "My take on Kierkegaard is very different from yours."
It is actually not different at all. I agree with all you wrote; it is only that Kierkegaard's passion for religion is not appealing to me.
Regarding his philosophical contribution, I do not think it was particularly great. For example, you say: "His battle has been the battle of how to be an Individual ... He is the first with tocqueville to have seen coming the massivisation, the age of mediocratisation. The age of the crowd."
This is correct. However, this is not a big discovery. Namely, *all* ages have been "the ages of mediocrity" and of the "crowd". You cannot expect seven billions "Socrates" walking the earth. Moreover, the world would not function with so many individuals. Mediocrity is unavoidable and necessary.
In sum, I agree with you, but Kierkegaard is not my favourite thinker. I mentioned him (in my texts) only because I criticize religious fanaticism and the "unconditional (absolute) commitment" to a narrative, religious or secular, the same. Finally, those who preach "unconditional commitment" (to God, Leader, Nation, ...) could hardly be considered "individuals", so that Kierkegaard's discourse does not seem coherent.
Louis, I have been trying to keep the discussion focused, that's why I avoided touching upon Kierkegaard. But it doesn't mean that the discussion of Kierkegaard is off-topic at all. Mario's perspective on Kierkegaard is extremely close to mine. That said, let me highlight one more issue here. Kierkegaard, no doubt a very disturbed soul, was risking generalizing his personal issues into philosophical issues. This is a dangerous move. From a methodological point of view, certain kind of justification is wanted. It's not difficult to imagine this: if someone were not a Christian of his type or simply not a Christian at all, why would that someone be bothered by his kind of "anxiety" (in relation to the Christian concept of sin!) or sharing his "fear and trembling"? As far as I'm concerned, Kierkegaard's writings constitute more a case study for sociologists and psychoanalysts (how the individual mind is being twisted and distorted by a repressive religion like that of his days!) than a corpus of genuine philosophical reflections.
Sen Wong,
The ancient philosophers were not not like modern philosophers that are primarily about enunciating a philosophy and to write about it. Socrates did not write anything and did not even proposed a philosophy. In the west, Socrates is the greatest philosopher. Ancient philosophy was primarily a path for searching an harmonious way of life, i.e. a religious endaveor with all kind of spiritual exercices. See the book of Pierre Hadot ''What is ancient philosophy'' for reference. It is the way Kierkegaard saw his engagment in philosophy. It is why he is consider an existentialist, because he did not distinguish what he proned from what he lived and it is why his life and circumstances were not irrelevant. His circumstances were those of a person living in a lutherian society and from a family of pastor. One of the most modern european society being transformed by Hegelian philosophy and which Kierkegaard had to deal with as a philosopher in the Socratic way: to know thyself.
Modernity has from the beginning been anti-religious, anti-tradition.The young hegelian were all materialist and anti-religious. Most modern philosophers would think as regressive to follow a traditional religious. Kierkegaard and a few other philosophers understood the why of this anti-religious religious passion.
A brief remark. The attempt to keep a discourse focused is good, but it seldom succeeds, especially on social networks, the academic ones included.
Regarding the initial question, members of scientific community do not have much power to change the world (socio-economic system). Such changes happen for material reasons, and they are done by pragmatic people. Slavery was not abolished because a scientist or a pious soul asked this to be done, but because it became more profitable to have skilled workers than illiterate slaves.
Popper criticized Plato, arguing that his philosophy ("Laws" especially) gave the theoretical basis for the development of totalitarian regimes. My answer to this has been that dictators seldom read books, especially Plato's "Laws", which is a rather boring stuff. Aristotle was the personal teacher of the young Alexander, but he did not manage to make him a philosopher. Alexander was a pragmatic soul, and he shaped the history of his time.
In sum, business, wars, and history are pragmatic matters, rather than academic ones. We can analyze them, but we do not steer (shape) them.
Chanel No 5... It's a perfume based on aldehyde. Aldehyde itself smells terrible. But combined with other ingredients billions of women love this perfume. And still it consists mainly of aldehyde.
Same when it comes to dictatorship: You can take dictatorship, add a few good reasons, stories and so on. Then you mix it up. And it will be like Chanel No 5 to the mind of people. Billions will love it, no matter how cheap or dangerous the flavoring ingredient is. So no matter if we add here a little bit of Plato or not... It does not change the fact that the 'odoriphore' is dictatorship.
When it comes to Nazis a lot of scientists did not consider themself too good to deliver ingredients to make a rotten thing smell seducing. And it is very hard for the average mind to even grasp this stench when it gets distracted by so many ingredients.
In some textes they say that the ingredients list of Chanel No 5 consists of over 250 perfume ingredients. At least it's a well-protected secret how many different ingredients they really used. And only very little people know Chanel No 19.
You can take dictatorship and add other ingredients and create a new taste. People will not even realize it.
Talking about the taste that was added when it comes to dictatorship is a very dangerous thing as it can be changed and adjusted to Zeitgeist. There are still billions of ideas, reasons, stories that have not yet be told one can use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-NwzozflCQ
Louis, just found out that multi-tasking is only possible when the number of tasks is relatively small. Anyhow, no dispute over your point. "Philosophy" at different times assumes different forms and tries to answer different questions. There is always a historical context for every philosophical endeavour. No intention is made to assert that philosophising is "enunciating a philosophy". But as we gather more and more information (and disinformation: just think about Akira's case against Einstein's SR & GR; it's not merely about RG's mistreatment of an account-holder!), we do and we should evaluate past philosophies. Syntheising (not unifying in the sense of creating one voice) is a way of understanding the world we live in. Back to Kiergegaard, it is fine that his ideas happen to touch upon the concept of the individual, but as mentioned before, his "fear and trembling" is quite philosophically irrelevant for reasons previously stated.
Please allow me to return to the question posed by Dr Sen Wong. First, I tend to avoid mixing written ideas with ethology, i.e. I take texts at face value. Secondly, in a previously mentioned statement of mine (does not appear here) I tried to suggest that a good starting point to answer the question might be the issue of comparing poltical theory with political practice. In other words If political theory bears relevance to political practice, then theorists -indirectly-contribute to the latter.
Now I understand the point made earlier by some contributor, i.e. that grand theories are usually no longer expressed (may be due to scientific specialisation as well as the presentation of politics as Issues). In such case we may assume that theorists run no such risk as grand theorists did.
Let us hope that less and less theorists will resort to "unorthodox particpation" to political debates as Dr Wong (if I remember well) suggested. On the other hand, papers which express ideas using international scientific language should normally be accepted by relative scientific journals. A supposed failure by sending writers should carefully and nicely scrutinised by referees just to avoid conveying the impression that someone might have been "blacklisted".
Thus, If we are more open to writers, we shall avoid some mistakes of the past.
Thank you for letting me participate in the current debate.
Dear Sen Wong,
Unless we read ancient authors, including ancient philosophers and historians we are prisoner the the Geis of our society and time. Yes it is essential to read those that live in previous time, the times from which our time came from. Understanding our time is necessarily understanding how it came to be.
The basic problem is whether *any* academic discourse (or social theory) has any (or a relevant) impact on social practice. In my view, the answer is no, or nearly so. Those who have the power to act do not care much for theoretical debates. Anyway, the "general mood" of an age is shaped by "preachers", who can steer the emotions of masses, rather than by social theorists.
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