Is the concept of monetary capitalism now holding us back?

[ymu]

And it's evident that when you're unfamiliar with an area of knowledge - linguistics, psychology, social psychology (or that's how it looks) you reject it and refuse to broaden your perspective by reading something. Sounds like ignorance... But if you're happy with that, then good luck to you. Presumably you come here looking for self-validation.

You talk in intensely abstract terms. If it has meaning, it is not clear what that meaning is. It does look like pseudo-pretentious bollocks. If you don't want it to come across that way, then you'll have to express it in ways that make your meaning clear.

I got sent an abstract recently that was written in utterly impenetrable language. When I'd worked through it, the stunning insight was that people talking in workplace corridors is a productive activity. ie exactly the kind of trivial shite that has to be dressed up in impenetrable language in order to impress the idiots who don't understand it but don't want to look stupid by admitting it.

That is how you come across. If you don't want that to be the case, you need to address the problem - no one else can.

 

[teahead]

Ergo?! Well maybe I'm as pretentious as that, to you.

No, what I'm suggesting is that intolerance about expressed ideas that don't fit in with your belief system is an indication that your own beliefs are more important than what the other person is saying. And that, together with this, the criticim of the way I was expressing myself was that it didn't make sense to several people. This was taken to an extreme by the assertion that what I said actually doesn't seem to have any coherence.

I've not argued that my words are coherent. I've not even argued that I'm sufficiently certain in my ideas that I'm capable of expressing them simply. But to be attacked for reaching towards an idea has taken this thread away from a conversation about whether class war is going to achieve anything, towards how knowledge is produced (epistemology).

And when conversation about that begins to involve attacks on the speaker, it looks less like a dialectic discussion, and more like a debate. Dialectics were originally intended as a way forward from personality-driven politics, because it favours the status quo and individualism over the progress of knowledge and ideas. One result of this, historically, has been to reinforce the status quo and to subjugate alternative voices. It's authoritarian, amongst other things. Also culturally imperialist.

 

[teahead]

it's only possible to convey meaning if you convey things in a way that others are capable of undersanding

I know you find questions unpardonable in a discussion, but which others are you referring to?

if we understand what you are talking about then it gives us a chance to evaluate your ideas and possibly form an opinion on them, until that first step is done however the door is firmly shut

Again, this is what the Inquisition said to Galileo.

 

[ymu]

Referring to Galileo and the Inquisition instead of engaging with what he is saying is very much a part of your problem here.

The 'others' are the people on this thread who cannot easily parse your impenetrable language and are not yet convinced that it is worth the effort to try. It's up to you to persuade them that it is worthwhile. Or give up. Or convince them that it is definitely not worthwhile to make the effort by giving us the hysterical martyr schtick instead.

 

[teahead]

Hysterical martyr schtick

The Galileo thing... maybe I've got a silly sense of humour but anyway Brecht's play about the guy seems very relevant to a discussion about dialectical materialism.

A problem seems to be that I'm arguing from things I've read that also don't seem to have a meaning for some people in this conversation. And trying to bring them in meets with giggles.

Yeah, I'll stop stirring.

 

[Blagsta]

Where? That it's only possible to convey meaning within the value system of the status quo? That's what they said to Galileo.

You're not conveying meaning though.

 

[ymu]

Hysterical martyr schtick

The Galileo thing... maybe I've got a silly sense of humour but anyway Brecht's play about the guy seems very relevant to a discussion about dialectical materialism.

A problem seems to be that I'm arguing from things I've read that also don't seem to have a meaning for some people in this conversation. And trying to bring them in meets with giggles.

Yeah, I'll stop stirring.

Self-awareness not your strong point, is it? Re-read that post and ask yourself why you're coming across as a pseudo-intellectual poseur.

There is no point in having expertise if you cannot transmit your knowledge effectively. You become an expert so that other people can spend their time specialising in something else that matters. Genuine experts can explain what they mean to anyone who wants to listen - experts with little genuine expertise obfuscate to protect their privileged position.

If you continually resort to posing instead of trying to clarify your thoughts, you just confirm the impression that you initially created.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

And it's evident that when you're unfamiliar with an area of knowledge - linguistics, psychology, social psychology (or that's how it looks) you reject it and refuse to broaden your perspective by reading something. Sounds like ignorance... But if you're happy with that, then good luck to you. Presumably you come here looking for self-validation.

Oh please. It's not that I am not interested, I do not know what I am supposed to be/you want me to be interested in. And you are making it hard. I can reject 'waffle,' however. Not necessarily the things talked about, but the way in which it is all talked about causes problems. It blocks out others. And, as others have said, you have to evaluate whether or not it is worth the time to wade through it all, if that is indeed possible. See the papers you posted. That was instead of doing what you perhaps could not: explain clearly, what you mean, to the uninitiated. The cynic might think you were just trying it on.

I'll scare him off. I'll make myself look dead clever.

 

[love detective]

No, what I'm suggesting is that intolerance about expressed ideas that don't fit in with your belief system is an indication that your own beliefs are more important than what the other person is saying.

Getting to the stage where I might be intolerant of your expressed ideas would be a progression from where we are at the moment though - your ideas are not intolerable to me at present, they are just incomprehensible

This was taken to an extreme by the assertion that what I said actually doesn't seem to have any coherence.

It was a mixture of it not having any coherence to many of us reading this thread and your actual admittance that your words here are not coherently explaining your ideas

It's authoritarian, amongst other things. Also culturally imperialist....

In essence this is what it boils down to - even though you admit you are not expressing your ideas in any semblance of coherence and you also admit that you are not even certain yourself about those ideas which give rise to that incoherent expression, the problem still lies with other people being all authoritarian and culturally imperialist

 

[teahead]

Well one way or another I'm not contributing anything useful to the OP. I wouldn't say the expression of my ideas has no semblence of coherence but I can't argue if that's the way they're functioning here. Anyway the original purpose of the thread was much more interesting than this. Looking forward to reading some more of it...

 

[love detective]

I wouldn't say the expression of my ideas has no semblence of coherence

but you did, you literally said this - and it's probably the one thing that we all agree on here

I've not argued that my words are coherent

I can of course see that I'm having difficulty in finding the right language to express my perspective here

I'd definitely agree I'm not up to the task of articulating my thoughts on what I was trying to say

 

[teahead]

Well the word semblence refers to something pretty broad.

To me, there's some coherence here, fo example. Though perhaps not with reference to the main arguement. The continued assertions about my stupidity and talking bollox distracted me

When discussions become arguements, the value of the activity changes too.
Some people seem to just like/need war. Maybe that's the problem. Although maybe that's a result of the way society's organised by the status quo - imo they're better and better at instilling the kind of fear that makes the rest behave like bourgeois.

But then if I'm a little bit BPD (not diagnosed, lots of work on that, but yeah) that's not to say my understanding's weak. In practice I communicate better in other mediums than writing on the boards about philosophy. All the same, there's meaning and coherence in my thinking, even if it's not evident here.

 

[butchersapron]

This is a structuralist conception of language that went out of date with Leavis in the 1950's. The idea that an idea only has value if it's expressed in the language approved by the status quo. You bourgeois!

Amazing post - displays woeful ignorance of structuralism, Leavis and the development of the intellectual history of the last 60 all in two lines Blagsta is right, this post does indicate your problem but maybe not solely how i think he meant...

 

[teahead]

Amazing post - displays woeful ignorance of structuralism, Leavis and the development of the intellectual history of the last 60 all in two lines

OK. Why not enlighten me/us? Or, well, I'd guess you'd imagine it's not worthwhile...

e2a Well I can see from a quick look online that there have been advances in understandings of both Leavis and structuralism since I was taught and studied it. Is it "woeful" that I've not considered these developments, prior to making my assertion? Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it's in the nature of knowledge, that it requires an update from time to time.

 

[ymu]

OK. Why not enlighten me/us? Or, well, I'd guess you'd imagine it's not worthwhile...

e2a Well I can see from a quick look online that there have been advances in understandings of both Leavis and structuralism since I was taught and studied it. Is it "woeful" that I've not considered these developments, prior to making my assertion? Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it's in the nature of knowledge, that it requires an update from time to time.

How can knowledge ever not need updating? Do you think everything you learnt at school is still thought to be true (even if it was thought to be true then, which it very often wasn't). And that's completely ignoring the problem that there is no academic course on earth that offers a truly comprehensive education in its field (for an example, see Krugman on how academic economists went so badly wrong in the last 30 years).

I teach medical students, and the most important thing we teach them is that half of what they're being taught is out of date by the time they're taught it and the other half will be out of date by the time they qualify. You cannot, absolutely cannot, claim expertise unless you are keeping up with developments in your field. I'm as guilty as the next person of assuming I know more than I do (guiltier than most, in fact) - it's an easy trap to fall into - but you can't learn anything if you can't accept that you might be wrong about something. Retorting with a pompous note about something you have not studied for years is a sign of a problem in the way you approach knowledge and learning.

I'm not trying to attack you here - I think it would help you to think about some of this stuff. It's an important (and difficult) lesson to learn - but it's the only way to get better at the knowledge game.

 

[teahead]

Whoa! I'm saying my knowledge needs updating! What's the beef here?

I can see from a quick look online that there have been advances in understandings of both Leavis and structuralism since I was taught and studied it.

When Apron says it's "woeful" that I don't have his knowledge, I don't understand his woe. Or... I understand it as a rhetorical statement: my ignorance has somehow caused him to feel whatever we're saying 'woe' is.

It seems, as you say (and as I volunteered) completely understandable that my knowledge in this area might be out of date. I'm not saying a lack of knowledge about the Inquisition or Brecht's Galileo is "woeful". It seems pertinent to me, in terms of how new/different perspectives have historically been dealt with by those in authority. But I'm more than happy to let that go as it doesn't seem to have much meaning here.

 

[ymu]

Whoa! I'm saying my knowledge needs updating! What's the beef here?

The fact that you used knowledge which you should have known needed updating to mount a pseudo-intellectual attack on someone rather than engage with the point that they were making.

 

[teahead]

Sorry, what point was being made, aside from that my knowledge of Leavis and his interpretation by post-structuralists isn't up to date? I responded by acknowledging that my knowledge wasn't up to date.

I also responded to the rhetorical connotations of the word 'woeful'.

 

[ymu]

Why did you post this, if you knew your knowledge was out of date?

This is a structuralist conception of language that went out of date with Leavis in the 1950's. The idea that an idea only has value if it's expressed in the language approved by the status quo. You bourgeois!

The issue is not your belated realisation and acknowledgement that it was out of date - it is that you dismissed someone else's point on the basis of 'knowledge' that you knew (or should have known) that you did not possess.

 

[teahead]

Why did you post this, if you knew your knowledge was out of date?


The issue is not your belated realisation and acknowledgement that it was out of date - it is that you dismissed someone else's point on the basis of 'knowledge' that you knew (or should have known) that you did not possess.

How does "enlighten us" become "I dismiss what you said"?

 

[ymu]

Where is the "enlighten us" in that post of yours I quoted? You directed that one at love detective. Butchers came along several posts later, at which point you sarcastically requested enlightenment, and then edited after realising he had a point.

OK. Why not enlighten me/us? Or, well, I'd guess you'd imagine it's not worthwhile...

e2a Well I can see from a quick look online that there have been advances in understandings of both Leavis and structuralism since I was taught and studied it. Is it "woeful" that I've not considered these developments, prior to making my assertion? Perhaps it is. Or perhaps it's in the nature of knowledge, that it requires an update from time to time.

Woeful is the right word. Not to describe the lack of knowledge itself - it's impossible for anyone to know everything - but given the context (you trying to assert superior knowledge in order to dismiss rather than engage with someone else's argument) it is woeful indeed.

 

[teahead]

I used Leavis here

This is a structuralist conception of language that went out of date with Leavis in the 1950's. The idea that an idea only has value if it's expressed in the language approved by the status quo. You bourgeois!

LD then responded a little later with this

I think what we are all saying is that we will only get a chance to evaluate an idea (let alone determine whether we accept it's validity) if it is expressed in a way that we can understand it and we can make sense of the words used to do so - which, with the greatest respect, you and the papers you link to fail to do

Now you may find that a horribly bourgeois, structuralist and oppressive stance to take (it's a crazy notion really isn't it) but surely if an idea is a good idea and has validity it should be capable of being expressed in a way that other people can easily grasp what it is expressing, no? Especially if you are trying to put that idea across to people outside your field of speciality - it does seem rather odd to blame others for your inability to express ideas in a way that makes sense to those you are expressing those ideas to

I then responded to LD like this, which in no way rejected what (s)he was saying

Yep, I'd definitely agree I'm not up to the task of articulating my thoughts on what I was trying to say. I think I've already said that. But Captain's furiousness doesn't seem a relevant response. I was trying to find out what was causing it but then he got rude about being asked.

My Leavis example was next mentioned (rubbished) by Apron. I acknowledged that I had made an error in not being up to date on literary theory as it relates to Leavis.

I'm not doing any dismissing at all. Except for the coherence of dialectical materialism, which I think is wrong because it doesn't take into account psychological factors in the development of the psychosocial environment.

That's an area you're an expert in, I think. So I'm asking you - in your view, is Marx correct on the psychology of the individual, as it describes the way people's needs are articulated in the power struggle described by Marx's version of dialectics?

 

[ymu]

I'm a medical statistician specialising in the design and interpretation of clinical research. Nothing to do with psychology or Marx - I cannot give you an informed opinion on that. Try ld or butchers - this is more their area of expertise (to the extent that I can judge their areas of expertise from a lay perspective).

 

[teahead]

Oh, OK. Anyway that's my thesis. The justifications I've tried to use are really beside the point. The antithesis "that's all bullshit" and/or "you're an incoherent nutter" and/or "you're pretending to know things you don't" doesn't address the thesis in any way at all. The last several pages seem to have been what systemic practitioners call 'talk about talk'.

In any case, just to restate my thesis:
Marx's dialectic materialism is incorrect because it's wrong on the psychology of the individual, as it incorrectly describes the way people's needs are articulated in the power struggle described by Marx's version of dialectics.

Dialectic materialism is also sort of wrong because ideas and the material world are part of a whole. Although that's a very complicated claim to make. What the 'whole' is depends on how you define the context (or what Blagsta called 'the whole').

 

[teahead]

... and so in response to Jusali's OP, the personalisation of scarcity has at the same time destroyed coherent opposition to the power of the ruling elite by fostering increasing dependency, and made dependency the most significant product through which the ruling elite accrues both money and control over society as a whole.

Let's hope they spend that accrued financial and social capital wisely... While we waste our time in pointless arguements about who's authoritative in their understanding.

imho thread was at its best here

There are 7 billion of us and counting. I would argue that we need trade more than ever.

However, we certainly need to change the way we trade dramatically. Taking your example of growth, we need new measures that take into account sustainability, so that unsustainable 'growth' (short-term gain that will result in a net loss in the long term) is treated as a negative. People are working on this kind of stuff. Things are not totally hopeless. Problem is that in the long term we are all dead. This tends to make people care less about the future than we should.

The New Economics Foundation does some interesting work.

 

[phildwyer]

Getting to the stage where I might be intolerant of your expressed ideas would be a progression from where we are at the moment though - your ideas are not intolerable to me at present, they are just incomprehensible

Christ you're having a productive few days.

 

[love detective]

probably your most substantive contribution in the last few days philipa - we can build on this you know