Centrism

[Buelligan]

Its not a fucking religion.

The idea that labour is a worthwhile subject for intellectual consideration is something too hard fought for to give up. Its too much of a mammoth achievement of thought to just call 'obvious'

Its good that dialectical thought is difficult because its subject matter deserves it. Saying people should just know things from direct experience and don't need thought or learning is degrading of working or disenfranchised people and the opposite of the Marxist spirit, which is just as much about emancipation of the intellectual world as it is about factories. The most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals for a reason.

Sorry, I have to say something more.  A general observation, not specifically about this thread - there's nothing wrong with a good old Marxist intellectual group wank but not if it puts off or excludes people.  Keep it for those who enjoy it. 

Also, there may be more than one reason why the most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals, have a think about it.

[TrenterPercenter]

No need to read anything you've written twice thanks. Oh sorry I mean "no fucking offence intended".

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Sorry, I have to say something more.  A general observation, not specifically about this thread - there's nothing wrong with a good old Marxist intellectual group wank but not if it puts off or excludes people.  Keep it for those who enjoy it. 

Honestly treating stuff as mystical knowledge you're supposed to already know is going to put more people off than the idea that talking about complex issues is difficult?

Also, there may be more than one reason why the most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals, have a think about it.

A good reason why liberal governments took a specifically anti-intellectual tack during the cold war was that intellectuals were extremely effective at reaching factory workers, mobilizing immigrant communities, and leading struggles against colonialism. Vastly more so than present day 'community organising' could ever be. Turns out inspiring people and opening them to new ideas, new toolkits and concepts and treating them with dignity as your equals is more effective outreach than Lol Humans Suck misanthropy.

What figure has been more slandered than the out of touch 'marxist intellectual'?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I mean its a well worn joke in leftist circles but if you're leftist and you talk to different groups, working class and marginalised people want to talk about art and philosophy, they want to get to grips with the debates and ideas they rightly feel shut out from, but bourgie solipsists love their lived experiences and hate "book worship"

[Buelligan]

Well, I work as a cleaner, so I wouldn't know about that.

Honestly treating stuff as mystical knowledge you're supposed to already know is going to put more people off than the idea that talking about complex issues is difficult?

As I said, try reading what I wrote again.

[chveik]

What figure has been more slandered than the out of touch 'marxist intellectual'?

your mum

[TrenterPercenter]

Well, I work as a cleaner, and own my own home, in France, because I decided that I wanted to live in a beautiful picturesque town in the middle of nowhere, like a lot of rich people do.

FTFY

And I should add all power to you for it, but it's far cry away from living on a sink estate and having to work as a cleaner to pay your extortionate rent whilst looking after any kids you might have.

[chveik]

i don't think introducing some kind of hierarchy between working class people is the way to go.

The most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals for a reason.

a statement so general it's basically meaningless. the less effective were intellectuals too

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Let's not have an authenticity debate.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

a statement too general it's basically meaningless. the less effective were intellectuals too

Who?

The most effective Marxist movements of the 20th century were characterised by coalitions between intellectuals and workers. So governments and capital put in specific effort and resources to breaking exactly that point of contact and the exchange ideas/resource it represented, slandering those involved and demonising it in favour of celebrating the 'grassroots' or whatever standard of authenticity.

Its hardly an abstraction. You only have to compare radical literature from marxists versus the same from institutions and mainstream political parties to see exactly what I mean.

We didn't just get the idea of out of touch Marxist intellectuals with their books telling authentic real people what to think out of nowhere, or is that yet another one of those things everyone is supposed to already know?

[TrenterPercenter]

the less effective were intellectuals too

It's both isn't it and specifically we need working class representation in the machinery that controls our lives; this means working class people becoming intellectuals and there are considerable sacrifices that might have to made in the pursuit of this.

[chveik]

Who?

pol pot and the like

The most effective Marxist movements of the 20th century were characterised by coalitions between intellectuals and workers. So governments and capital put in specific effort and resources to breaking exactly that point of contact and the exchange ideas/resource it represented, slandering those involved and demonising it in favour of celebrating the 'grassroots' or whatever standard of authenticity.

We didn't just get the idea of out of touch Marxist intellectuals with their books telling authentic real people what to think out of nowhere, or is that yet another one of those things everyone is supposed to already know?

that's not the point, it's just that it's obvious that prominent marxist leaders would have had access to superior education at that time. i don't quite see why you need to sneer at grassroot stuff, you can organize a strike without coalescing with the local intellectual. i would say capital is more interested in destroying communist movements themselves than the encounter between workers and intellectuals (i can recognize that phenomenon but i think you're making too much of it). i mean working class people can read, they don't necessarily need sartre on a bucket talking to them to organize. i've heard your argument hundreds of times, maybe i'm just getting bored by it

[Buelligan]

Also, there may be more than one reason why the most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals, have a think about it.

As you seem reluctant to think about this seriously, I invite you to consider the number of illiterate involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century that are highly regarded.  Think about the 20th century, think about how people achieved recognition in any sphere, even Marxism.  Consider the gender, race and so on of these super-Marxists, it's not just intellectual ability that marks them out, is it?

You talk about not wanting an authenticity debate but you're the one who brought this up.  You're the one who said -

I mean its a well worn joke in leftist circles but if you're leftist and you talk to different groups, working class and marginalised people want to talk about art and philosophy, they want to get to grips with the debates and ideas they rightly feel shut out from, but bourgie solipsists love their lived experiences and hate "book worship"

Which, to me anyway, and I may be wrong, looks like you're telling a working class non-intellectual to zip it because they might be being pegged as a bourgie solipsist otherwise.

As far as this goes -

And I should add all power to you for it, but it's far cry away from living on a sink estate and having to work as a cleaner to pay your extortionate rent whilst looking after any kids you might have.

that was my option, try to do that or go here, the place I live now was literally the cheapest thing for sale, cheaper than most people in the UK spend on a car (I can't afford a car), it took my whole life savings and I bought it because I knew I couldn't afford to rent, so I chose to live in a place with one tap and one plug and work, over years, with no money (a cleaner and fruit-picker's wage) to make it habitable.  If you have a problem with that, get some help.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

As you seem reluctant to think about this seriously, I invite you to consider the number of illiterate involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century that are highly regarded.  Think about the 20th century, think about how people achieved recognition in any sphere, even Marxism.  Consider the gender, race and so on of these super-Marxists, it's not just intellectual ability that marks them out, is it?

I invite you to consider what you've done here by associating "gender, race and so on" as something exterior to questions of "intellectual ability" and what that might imply. Or to associate that with illiteracy. Not all Marxist intellectuals were white men, even a hundred years ago.

Yes, a lot of people involved in struggles were illiterate. But you should think of this issue as a collective one and not about the aptitude or abilities of individuals. Illiteracy doesn't really say anything about how useful a person might find intellectual ideas or education, or what contribution being involved in that kind of thing might make to peoples lives. This is one of the reasons why interactions between workers and intellectuals were so important, and so effective.

(Anyone reading my posts may have noticed I have some basic neurological issue with reading and writing, someone of my background born a few decades early could have easily been an 'illiterate' )

[Buelligan]

It's almost as if you're determined to misrepresent me.  You said -

The most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals for a reason.

I asked you to consider what other reasons (other than being intellectuals) there might be for particular individuals from that century to be remembered and upheld as super-Marxists.

It's quite obvious that if someone was illiterate, especially in the past, no matter how great their contribution or ideas, little trace of them would remain, even if the time they lived in had been accepting of leaders who were illiterate (and probably poor and uneducated too), which the 20th century was not.  And, of course, there were other constraints limiting the options open to many underprivileged groups, so members of those groups would also, likely, be under-represented.  That does not mean they weren't up to the job, it means that society, culture, prevented them from doing it.

It's like saying men are great leaders - look at all the kings we've had.  On the face of it, fair enough.  But when you consider what lies beneath, obviously silly.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

pol pot

Pol Pot's problem wasn't that he was ineffective. He could have done to be a lot less effective.

that's not the point, it's just that it's obvious that prominent marxist leaders would have had access to superior education at that time. i don't quite see why you need to sneer at grassroot stuff, you can organize a strike without coalescing with the local intellectual. i would say capital is more interested in destroying communist movements themselves than the encounter between workers and intellectuals (i can recognize that phenomenon but i think you're making too much of it). i mean working class people can read, they don't necessarily need sartre on a bucket talking to them to organize. i've heard your argument hundreds of times, maybe i'm just getting bored by it

I think there's a big difference between "grassroots" in the contemporary liberal view and what stuff like Labour organisation and mass protests look like before the end of the 1970s. Right now its the enshrined dogma that local, small and decentralised is good and anything else risks reproducing the oppressions of dominant society and all that stuff. But that's false, isn't it? Even if the theory is good, its just not working.

And then you've got the fact that grassroads, decentralised and bottom-up models IS the educated, privileged ideology today. It is the view that universities hold, that think tanks hold, that has all the institutional writing and theory behind it. No universities and NGOs are publishing papers calling for global working class solidarity and national,centralisation of labour power. They're preaching decentralisation, mobility, agility, grassroots...I'm sneering at because its our equivalent of Sartre standing on a bucket. Whereas poorer or more marginalised people are more likely to ask - why can't we have national orgs? Why can't we be internationalist? What's wrong we solidarity instead of demographic specificity? etc.

Its not the 1970s, in other words. The ideology that goes with "superior education" has changed with the times, and with that change the possibility of people with superior educations being able to connect with working class or migrant or disabled people is getting a lot less. I think because the concepts are a lot less useful than Marxism - Marxism has a powerful toolkit of ideas: commodities, alienation, ideology, base, superstructure, etc. I don't think there is much around that can match the immediacy of the value it had in the early 20th century. I mean, I bet you and I could have a great argument about Hardt and Negri but I highly doubt there are more than few groups world wide who get real practical value from something like Empire. I don't think climate migrancy is going to be help by anthropocene theory, etc.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

It's like saying men are great leaders - look at all the kings we've had.  On the face of it, fair enough.  But when you consider what lies beneath, obviously silly.

But I'm not talking about great intellectuals or what demographic certain individuals fell into. I'm talking about collective movements that were characterised by contact between intellectuals and workers.

Marxist intellectuals were effective because they offered something unique and of practical value to the people they engaged with. Its not nothing to do with the social status "intellectual" has in certain parts of the world, "intellectual" here can mean autodidact just as much as university education.

Its not about status, its about being able to get people engaged with things they've been routinely excluded from. The more someone is about to conceptualise and think abstractly about the world around them, the more than can accomplish. Old school Marxists were GOATs at this and we've taken huge steps back. 

[Buelligan]

Perhaps you should be clearer (and more concise).  You didn't include any of that in what you wrote.  You said -

The most involved, radical and effective marxists of the 20th century were intellectuals for a reason.

The context of the conversation was me saying that endless - twirling of one's erudition - I believe I said - was off-putting, gatekeeping, excluding.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Don't be so fixated on the status implied. Think of what use things might have and to whom
Little marxist tip for ya

[Video Game Fan 2000]

You should also think about colonial situations where someone being an "intellectual" was anything but high status or gatekeepery

just because in 2021 being an intellectual signifies that you're probably a westerner with free time and some support doesnt mean that was necessarily true everywhere in the 20th century. It also doesn't account for the fact that no everyone could obtain books, study and discuss them without taking personal risks

[chveik]

Its not the 1970s, in other words. The ideology that goes with "superior education" has changed with the times, and with that change the possibility of people with superior educations being able to connect with working class or migrant or disabled people is getting a lot less. I think because the concepts are a lot less useful than Marxism - Marxism has a powerful toolkit of ideas: commodities, alienation, ideology, base, superstructure, etc. I don't think there is much around that can match the immediacy of the value it had in the early 20th century. I mean, I bet you and I could have a great argument about Hardt and Negri but I highly doubt there are more than few groups world wide who get real practical value from something like Empire. I don't think climate migrancy is going to be help by anthropocene theory, etc.

i spose there's a middle ground between the trans-historic 'toolkit' and the poetically abstract contemporary marxist theories. i hope so anyway

Pol Pot's problem wasn't that he was ineffective. He could have done to be a lot less effective.

you know what i meant.

[Buelligan]

You should also think about colonial situations where someone being an "intellectual" was anything but high status or gatekeepery

just because in 2021 being an intellectual signifies that you're probably a westerner with free time and some support doesnt mean that was necessarily true everywhere in the 20th century. It also doesn't account for the fact that no everyone could obtain books, study and discuss them without taking personal risks

Do you understand that there's nothing wrong with being an intellectual?  No one is saying there's anything wrong with being an intellectual. 

What I'm saying, what I keep saying, is that larding simple truths and obvious statements with layers of gibberish puts a lot of people off.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

i spose there's a middle ground between the trans-historic 'toolkit' and the poetically abstract contemporary marxist theories. i hope so anyway

Yeah.

There's also no problem with poetically abstract theories too, so long as they produce trans-historic toolkits. Or just have aesthetic value, nowt wrong with making something pretty for its own sake.

But I think you need points of contact between people in situation and intellectuals for that to happen. I think the irony of late 20th century thought is that a lot of stuff that exhorted that we didn't need intellectual models, we didn't need abstract or conceptual thinking we just need to empower the grassroots and listen to people ... it was largely the product of people sitting at desks intellectualising and justifying things they thought should be true and useful rather than doing what the previous generation of marxists did and going and finding out

Feminists were ahead of the game with the Tyranny of Structurelessness.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

simple truths

no such thing, sorry

[Buelligan]

sorry

No worries.

[Johnny Yesno]

(Anyone reading my posts may have noticed I have some basic neurological issue with reading and writing, someone of my background born a few decades early could have easily been an 'illiterate' )

Oh, I didn't notice that at all, tbh, and I'm sorry if my more harsh responses to your posts implied I was mocking this. That's absolutely not the case.

My issue has been that you clearly are well read and knowledgeable but, like many arts academics, are unwilling to tailor your points to your audience's level of understanding. While I get your point, saying 'Of course it's hard' doesn't do anything to engage people. Those intellectuals you were on about who organised with workers wouldn't have made that mistake. He was fictional, obviously, but I'm thinking of Frank Owen and the money trick.

The same doesn't seem to be true of science. Black holes and quantum physics are hard to understand too but instead of shrugging their shoulders, science educators try hard to use simpler language (or at least explain what the terms mean) and analogy to get those concepts across to the layman.

Although, there was that thing a few years ago with the fraudulent physicists, so wordy nonsense and a failure to DEFINE YOUR TERMS is sometimes a problem in science too.

[TrenterPercenter]

that was my option, try to do that or go here, the place I live now was literally the cheapest thing for sale, cheaper than most people in the UK spend on a car (I can't afford a car), it took my whole life savings and I bought it because I knew I couldn't afford to rent, so I chose to live in a place with one tap and one plug and work, over years, with no money (a cleaner and fruit-picker's wage) to make it habitable.  If you have a problem with that, get some help.

Sorry did you not read, I said I don't have problem with that; "all power to you" in your choice to live the eternal life of a gap yah student; it's nice, for you.  Most cleaners don't have life savings to buy a villa in France is what I'm saying; and most people that have been able to buy their own homes and take low level jobs to bring in their income tend to appreciate the dynamic of this, appreciating the advantages and indeed the fact that it is their choice.

I'm not sure expat homeowners that have run to the sun are high on the list totemic socialists is what I'm saying; so consistently rinsing the trodden down cleaner look without recognising the how and why you are doing it is perhaps a little tone deaf to all those people that don't have all the packaging that comes with your situation.

I'm just trying to help "no fucking offence".

[chveik]

huge difference between expats having their second home and people like buelligan in france.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Those intellectuals you were on about who organised with workers wouldn't have made that mistake.

Yeah. Exactly. Its an incredible talent. I don't think I'd ever claim to be able to do the same. I've met and been around people with this talent and its incredible, but I think its something learned - no one is born being able to do it, its something where a persons dedication to their ideas show.

But at the same time I think the knee-jerk reaction against intellectualism and 'gatekeeping' that we have nowadays. The opposite to "its really hard, it takes a lot of effort to learn" is "its OBVIOUS, you already know it from your experiences, you just don't know the complicated words yet" - I think the latter is very common among leftists from university educated, middle or upper class backgrounds, and I think (to be generous to them) it in part comes from taking education for granted and not respecting that learning to grasp the world around you is a difficult thing and has many benefits v never having the opportunity

The truth is somewhere in the middle. But I stand by the statement about institutional thinking being more anti-intellectual than ever. The old marxist ideal of class consciousness and rational engagement at the level of the immediate class struggle has been dead for over sixty years if not longer. I don't want to generalise but I really think old school Marxist thought respected the intellectual autonomy of individual members of the work class far, far more than contemporary liberal or left thinking respects the same of "marginalised" or "oppressed" people (with some clear exceptions obv)

The same doesn't seem to be true of science. Black holes and quantum physics are hard to understand too but instead of shrugging their shoulders, science educators try hard to use simpler language (or at least explain what the terms mean) and analogy to get those concepts across to the layman.

(digression on use of commonsense semantics and narrative models in sciences)

The thing is in physics there is a cut off where intuitive pictures of the world are likely to be false.

On the macro scale the more intuitive something is, very generally, more likely it is to be true. If you're given the water cycle as a diagram in school, you can picture it in your head as an image or a narrative, and the fact that you can do that helps builds your inner bullshit detector of how likely a scientific claim is to be true - does the simple, clear image in my head match the details and complex language scientists use?

But there is a cut off where stuff can't have a common sense picture because we don't live in an anthropocentric universe - the universe has zero obligation to make sense to us, and when we cross a certain point that fucks with individual ability to mentally picture things and it becomes a strictly collective endeavour. No individual person has a total or systematic image of the whole field, just their personal area of interest.

Any physicist who says he can give a simple explanation of quantum mechanics is lying to you, because quantum mechanics is a model of how certain things interact and not an image or narrative about the world. It doesn't describe things that happen within the boundaries of human experience or perception, it doesn't describe things you can talk about metaphorically. Even apparently innocuous terms like "spin" or "up" and "down" become incredibly problematic because they don't imply what their literal meanings suggest that they do. There's also the impossibility of framing these kind of theoretical works with narrative because they don't follow the linear and spatial arrangements that our minds construct around events.

This is a very interesting problem to me in terms of how we translate science into aesthetics and narrative  - on the one hand, you can't just say "only people who can read field equations can get this" but you can't create an intuitive image for lay audiences either, because that image wouldn't just be simplified, it would be false. Obviously science has to be for everyone, and everyone should know about the world around them. Its back to the drawing board time

Although, there was that thing a few years ago with the fraudulent physicists, so wordy nonsense and a failure to DEFINE YOUR TERMS is sometimes a problem in science too.

Bogdanoffs or the Sokel thing?

[TrenterPercenter]

huge difference between expats having their second homes and people like buelligan in france.

Yes there is; and there is a huge difference between cleaners working for a pittance in the UK to pay their rent and someone that had the funds to take advantage of the relative low cost of property in another country.