Marxism is not communism

 Marxism is not Communism

Marxism should be sharply distinguished from communism. The communist ideal as discussed by the early Marx is not the same as Lenin's (from Kautsky) notion of the vanguard party. Nowhere does Marx mention a vanguard party, instead he talks about a well-organized proletariat leadership which took the form of unions in the 1800's. What Chapman did was to present a version of Marxism by picking out certain phrases from the Communist Manifesto, a document from the young Marx. Chapman specifically stated that he was not going to address the mature Marx?!  

Anyway, the point is that Marx's works considered in his historical period, and events related to his works which occurred in the 20th century were hardly based on his ideas. The best example is the issue of the primacy of class struggle which most every Marxist from Lenin to Althusser acknowledges is the central issue in history, the wheel of Historical Materialism: Marx's key insight. Class struggle takes particular forms/appearances at different times in history. The class struggle in Russia circa 1905-1917 is different from the class struggle in the 1920's between the Communist Party and the two worker groups: farmers and industrial workers. The Cuban Revolution does not only involve the US puppet Batista but the international mafias as well which Castro kicked out. The Chinese Revolution pitted the Nationalists led by Chiang Kia-Shek - intermission fight against the Japs - continue the Revolution and the long change of the culture through Mao's reforms from agrarian to industrialization, and then from poverty to middle class diffusion and a capitalist-communist nation-state. The class struggle took the form of different social and economic classes, or fractions, conflicting within the leadership and within the population in each historical situation. But, the scientific socialist "law" of historical change via class struggle is different in each concrete particular moment and place. Marx could not possibly anticipate these particulars and although these "Marxist" leaders used Marx as a springboard, it is a leap (no pun) to infer that their policies were based on Marx's ideas. In sum, the communist parties of the 20th century hardly resemble Marx's ideas of dictatorship of the proletariat which implied Democracy: government by the people. Ironically, the only real instance of a proletarian dictator was Hitler.  

What is overlooked is that Marxism was cohered to refer to the USSR and Red China. However, Marxism took many different forms in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Southern Asia, and America - different forms of democracy and socialism. In these latter instances, Marxism was used against the totalitarian forms in Russia and China, and especially against the Nazi's. The only real resistance to patriarchy, capitalism and liberal political leadership has been Marxism in its emancipatory form. One of the best cases of this difference was between Trotsky and Stalin. Like Marx, Trotsky spelled out in detail the important moral issues in persuing liberation. Trotsky's was the only real voice against Stalinism in the 20's and 30's. The rest of the Marxists had their hands full with Nazism! US conservative extremists turned the word 'Marxism' to mean unions, even Democrats, and communists and socialists, after WWII because before and during WWII, they were allies! My main point is that Marxism must be understood as a complex of variants, some good and some bad, and not as a monolith, and certainly not as Marx's original theory of history, economics, or politics. Where Alvin Gouldner talks about two Marxisms, read.

Lastly, what is obscured with all of these historical happenings and theoretical asides, is the everyday changes in the lives of the peoples concerning their occupations, their families, their marriages and their social relations. When Marx talks about the topsy-turvy world of capitalism with its fetishism, commodification, social domination, mystification, expropriation, and alienation, he is not only referring to the social relations between workers under capitalism, but to the supposedly more rational and decent institutional arrangements under communism. Such a peaceful and utopian state of affairs never occurred. While the USSR mocked the US over its racism, it applied severe anti-semitic punishments and should be understood as having an equivalent genocidal effect as Nazi Germany. But, the maelstrom in social relations, e.g. sexual behavior, that occurred after these various revolutions is repulsive: Soviet families disintegrated, Cuba persecuted homosexuals with a vengeance, China underwent an abortion epidemic. All of the maladies that Marx specified as horrific under capitalism were doubly worse under these new regimes. It was only where the themes of emancipation and liberation were implemented by the left that a resistance to capitalist and communist institutional confusion restored a sense of order and fairness. The impetus for this orderliness were the unions, the social movements that threatened the political sphere, the educational system which improved literacy and above all publications in higher ed, and the civil sphere of journalism, TV and radio, that spread the news of corruption and brutality which embarrassed the political class and led to legal and financial changes.

Democracy

 Democracy

Socialism in my understanding is not necessarily a system, or not only a system. Socialism means to me that all decisions are social, mediated by the social and not from on high or through a set of norms and rules structured by the economic or political system. It is not that politics are unimportant and your schema is certainly worthy as a reform of our current democracies. From the system perspectives, we must always pursue more democracy and not believe in some sudden switch to more or pure democracy. The issue is that the system can only be held responsible if it is an obstacle to social mediation, rather the solution it was intended to be. For example, how does the system intervene and modify the tyranny around family relations: marriage, sex, family and neighbors (in the broad sense of everyone in the region). Crime and social control is a system imperative but does not include social mediations that are part of the character or personality of the people. The kind of change that socialism represents is not merely a new or better system. Socialism should develop better social relations! In this sense, democracy is supervenient to socialism unless socialism really means 'social.'

The Dispute between Deconstruction versus Structuralism

 The Dispute between Jacques Derrida and John Searle, or

Deconstruction versus Structuralism

Searle claimed that Derrida's style was obscure and dismissed. But, in doing this he used the fallacy of authority instead of dealing with the argument on the basis of its merits.

The issue was over John L. Austin's 1962 "How to do Things with Words" which basically claimed that every utterance, or message, consisted of both a proposition - a true or false judgment, called constatives, and a performative or an implication to do something. Performatives do not have any truth value but imply an action ought to be taken.

Austin was criticizing the view of language from logical positivism ala Wittgenstein that a statement either had a truth value or was meaningless. Austin described his view of language as Speech Act Theory which consisted of 3 levels of the performative: the Locutionary Act: a description of the meaning of the sign at issue, the Illocutionary Act: the influence the locution brings on those in certain social settings, and the Perlocutionary Act: how actions are taken, how people actually respond to the locution.

Austin also emphasized felicity conditions: how an act fits with social conventions, whether the situation is appropriate and how the speech act is expressed. A felicity condition is one that fits social conventions and acts towards societal norms.

Derrida addressed Austin's theory in 1988 "Signature, Event, Context" firstly by emphasizing the distinction between speech and writing, between talk and reading! Then, he pointed out that communication is limited by context - that communication is imperfect - there is an absence of absolute communication in both speech and writing. Derrida opposes Saussure's notion that wriitng merely represents speech, that speech is by far the most fundamental form of communication, albeit imperfect. Instead, Derrida describes good communication as a process of iteration, of repeating the comprehensibility so that correct and legible communicative gestures occur. The necessity of repeating is found in writing, and not much in speech.

Iterability occurs through writing and less in speech in that spoken communication is always attached to a speaker while in written communication there is a detachment from the author. The iterability of any form of communication extends to the separation of the iteration into another context, called citationality. Citations are independent of context but necessary for communication because they allow for the possibility of communication in another context.

Derrida claims that intentionality is not the foundation for meaning but has a place - intention does not ground meaning! For communication to work, meaning must work in different contexts and transcend any single intention. Hence, the relation of the intended meaning and the received or interpreted meaning. Language has a life of its own independent of individuals and intentionality!

Derrida now addresses Austin's Speech Act Theory over the issue of 'infelicitous utterances.' Austin admits they occur but he does not examine them. Infelicitous speech acts, for Austin, are pretend performatives, as in a play or writing a story. He labelled these parasitic speech acts and did not build his linguistic framework on them. For Derrida, citationality is more important than intentionality. By narrowing down language and excluding parasitic speech acts, Austin does not have an all encompassing view on language. Derrida claims that felicitous utterances need parasitic speech acts to fulfill itself - both use citationality to apply meaning into another context. The citationality of parasitic speech acts are just as valid as the citationality of felicitous utterances.

Searle 1977 "Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida," asserts that Derrida misunderstood Austin and that he, Searle, may have misunderstood Derrida. Searle's first criticism is that there is no difference between speech and writing, both are iterable which denies that written communication is more permanent than spoken. Searle claims that Derrida confuses iterability with permanence but obviously a spoken utterance loses its existence, it is in the air, whereas written communication does not lose its existence as long as a copy remains.

The absence that Derrida attributes to communication, its imperfection, does not regard the physical absence, as with the speech after it is spoken, but with the inability to express one's thoughts. Searle critiques Derrida's speech/writing difference, and the idea of iterabiity, as a foundational error that undermines the practice of deconstruction.

Searle 1983 "The World Turned Upside Down" asserts that for the meaning of a writing to be considered permanent, it must have intention attached to it. This breaks from Derrida's intersubjective conceptionn of language. For Searle, meaning is tied to the subject. For Derrida, meaning in written text is found outside of any individual's intention and never perfectly expressed, thus the absence.

Searle defends Austin's difference between felicitous speech acts and parasitic speech acts. Derrida blurred the lines, he said; felicitous acts do not depend on parasitic discourse. Searle continues that Derrida blurs the distinction between citation and parasitic discourse. Citation, says Searle, is the mentioning of the cited source without using it whereas a parasitic speech act does not mention the cited source but the speech act uses it. Derrida claims however that parasitic discourse cites as it utters - they cannot be separated. Although, parasitic discourse does not make it explicit that the utterance is referring from somewhere, the utterance exists because it is referring to something; the utterance is a citation even though it is not a self-aware citation, the referral is the citation. Searle argues that even if the intention of the utterance were lost, the intentionality of the receiver creates the meaning. Searle says that in the absence of intention, meaning cannot be found.

The context for their disagreement is the difference between linguistic structuralism and deconstruction. Structuralism entails an all encompassing structure of the properties of language; these properties interrelate through binary oppositions that produce hierarchies and principles within language. Derrida's deconstruction critiques these binary oppositions. The absence, or imperfection of communication, is the metaphysics of presence. Derrida employs differance to demonstrate why writing does not depend on speech - the double meaning of a word cannot be differentiated in speech but it can be differentiated in writing. Deconstructive action is differance (to differ and to defer or postpone), it removes the rigidity of meaning and the structure: what plays against you. 

Derrida sees the meaning in language as separate from the communicator and separate from intention, thus meaning is subject to context.

ad hominem

 What is 'ad hominem' really?

The philosophical term 'ad hominem' refers not to arguments consisting in attacks on the character or competence of the opponent but rather arguments that assume a premise that the opponent will accept and then argue from that to a conclusion the opponent will have difficulty accepting. This sort of argument does not intend to show the truth of the conclusion but merely force the opponent to rethink his/her position. The Socrates of the Platonic dialogues uses this sort of argument frequently. I think philosophers should reclaim the traditional meaning of 'ad hominem' and restore the respectability of arguments so characterized.

The Problem with Aristotle and Plato

 The Problem with Aristotle and Plato

From Aristotle we get the difference between philosophy and science. Before Aristotle, philosophy is metaphysics, then philosophy becomes burdened with the problem of realization. Aristotle presents explanations of natural phenomena which are wrong but the beginning of epistemology.

Ludwig Wittgenstein excoriated philosophy for its metaphysical paradoxes and enumerated several purposes for philosophy: to clarify the meaning of expressions and propositions, to remove obstacles to understanding, and to induce the recognition of the real significance of someone's words and acts.

Why does Aristotle have so much credibility? Aristotle posited the aim of life is happiness to be acquired by practical reason. Practical reason supposedly gives coherence and reduces conflict by harmonizing the desires. Motivation to right action is given by practical reason when it applies the virtues of character to particular actions and desires.

The problem is however the relation of theoretical reason, correct thinking, to the activities of being a citizen (worker) which are regulated by practical reason’s virtues. Theoretical reason or doing science is considered by Aristotle to be the most excellent form of life. But Aristotle gives no coherent account of the relation between doing science and philosophy, and being a good citizen, father, worker!

The problem that emerged from Aristotle's aporia between practical reason and theoretical reason was that the creative genius or creativity did not blend with morality or conventional social relations.

Plato earlier saw this problem and solved it by banishing all art from the Republic. The Republic was a state designed as an institutionalization of morality. Plato saw that the creative artist, he famously singled out the poets for their lyrics (who today could disagree - oh no, there's smoke in my eyes! and school just let out!! that's Frank Sinatra and Alice Cooper), had effects on the public that resisted stability made by the fully moralized society!

Plato's aporia was between a society protected against moral and social change, and a society in which free creation and exploration through art is permitted. Plato did make the central activity of his ruling class, creative intellectual activity which Aristotle followed. But, Plato meant by creative activity the discovery of the apriori moral truths waiting to be discovered.

The main problem was between the institutionalized morality and the creative intellectual activity of natural science - how could the activity of science coexist with the degree of social restriction and illiberalism which characterized his moralized society?

One key distinction between Plato and Aristotle which needs to be mentioned was their diferent understanding of "Ideas." The ideas for Plato were the forms or patterns of thinking. Ideas for Aristotle were the concepts of the understanding which classified all phenomena which humans experienced. Aristotle asserted that the important issue about thinking or metaphysics was the appropriate classification of perceptions. Aristotle was closer to being an empirical realist like Aquinas and Kant, whereas Plato was an idealist whose ideas or forms were transcendental and never actually experienced.

Moral Judgment and Projection

 Moral Judgment and Projection

Skills learned in therapeutic analysis involve the ability to detect projections, including the ability to distinguish one’s own counter projections from those incoming. Another is to realize what your real desires or intentions are which may reveal one’s own self deception, e.g. false consciousness, false self, shadow, etc. Whether knowledge of your true desire permits you to change is a different story.

These skills involve very careful and subtle distinctions that are mostly below the threshold level of conscious awareness and must be sensed in altered states: dreams, sleep, reverie, etc.

Talking only works with people who can be asked questions, or “confronted,” and who respond genuinely.

Projection occurs following the splitting process of my good self and bad self, what is categorized as me and not me, and from assessments of others as good or bad.

This dimension of personality relates to earlier experiences, situations and social conditions. Attributing splitting and the projection of the negative qualities to a virtue deficiency is counter-projection.

There is no way of defending oneself in the moment unless the subject projects back especially if the other is a destructive narcissist, borderline or bipolar. However, during reflection or the 'analytic attitude,' which is not an altered state but is different from an attending and responding position, from “social” behavior, you can absorb and interpret the other’s behavior and mental/feeling state to understand what happened. This may help to secure a finer and stronger boundary. Ultimately, the other needs to question their feelings and thoughts, their object relations and realize what they are doing, eg intruding, overconforming or renouncing, not recognizing or demeaning others because prejudice is unconscious!

Intuition is a concept fleshed out by mentioning skills, techniques or even theoretical orientations.

Social interaction, behavior and talk but these are largely controlled by situation, structures, setting and power hierarchies or roles. Addressing the psychological situation over a period of time can define personality, object relations, and patterns.

There is a gap between thinking-feeling and moral judging. Kohlberg measured degrees of moral adequacy, Gilligan found gender differences and many researchers have explored nuances of morality; most people think it’s a given, they were born with their moral precepts and everyone knows what morals are! This nativist view is deeply mythical and full of error because values change historically. For example, in many fields morality is utterly irrelevant: wars, the street, family life, organizations where money and power arbitrarily determine thinking, feeling and judgments.

Projecting proceeds from splitting. Projecting in its functional and benign form involves signaling to communicate. Often projecting is attacking in some way - recognizing that one is being attacked may involve a subtle and careful reflection on one’s feelings and thoughts.

The most insidious form of projection is possessiveness. This is taken for granted however because most people are following myths unconsciously. Myths are beliefs about the way things were in the past, often the distant past. The family triangles, the similarity between peer and sibling roles, and the generalization of family roles and assumptions, i.e. that all people do is family, speaks to the relevance of notions like the universality of the Oedipal Complex, or the myth of the primal father of the horde, and to the religious myths each is born into.

Moral judgement and projection

 Moral Judgment and Projection

Skills learned in therapeutic analysis involve the ability to detect projections, including the ability to distinguish one’s own counter projections from those incoming. Another is to realize what your real desires or intentions are which may reveal one’s own self deception, e.g. false consciousness, false self, shadow, etc. Whether knowledge of your true desire permits you to change is a different story.

These skills involve very careful and subtle distinctions that are mostly below the threshold level of conscious awareness and must be sensed in altered states: dreams, sleep, reverie, etc.

Talking only works with people who can be asked questions, or “confronted,” and who respond genuinely.

Projection occurs following the splitting process of my good self and bad self, what is categorized as me and not me, and from assessments of others as good or bad.

This dimension of personality relates to earlier experiences, situations and social conditions. Attributing splitting and the projection of the negative qualities to a virtue deficiency is counter-projection.

There is no way of defending oneself in the moment unless the subject projects back especially if the other is a destructive narcissist, borderline or bipolar. However, during reflection or the 'analytic attitude,' which is not an altered state but is different from an attending and responding position, from “social” behavior, you can absorb and interpret the other’s behavior and mental/feeling state to understand what happened. This may help to secure a finer and stronger boundary. Ultimately, the other needs to question their feelings and thoughts, their object relations and realize what they are doing, eg intruding, overconforming or renouncing, not recognizing or demeaning others because prejudice is unconscious!

Intuition is a concept fleshed out by mentioning skills, techniques or even theoretical orientations.

Social interaction, behavior and talk but these are largely controlled by situation, structures, setting and power hierarchies or roles. Addressing the psychological situation over a period of time can define personality, object relations, and patterns.

There is a gap between thinking-feeling and moral judging. Kohlberg measured degrees of moral adequacy, Gilligan found gender differences and many researchers have explored nuances of morality; most people think it’s a given, they were born with their moral precepts and everyone knows what morals are! This nativist view is deeply mythical and full of error because values change historically. For example, in many fields morality is utterly irrelevant: wars, the street, family life, organizations where money and power arbitrarily determine thinking, feeling and judgments.

Projecting proceeds from splitting. Projecting in its functional and benign form involves signaling to communicate. Often projecting is attacking in some way - recognizing that one is being attacked may involve a subtle and careful reflection on one’s feelings and thoughts.

The most insidious form of projection is possessiveness. This is taken for granted however because most people are following myths unconsciously. Myths are beliefs about the way things were in the past, often the distant past. The family triangles, the similarity between peer and sibling roles, and the generalization of family roles and assumptions, i.e. that all people do is family, speaks to the relevance of notions like the universality of the Oedipal Complex, or the myth of the primal father of the horde, and to the religious myths each is born into.