Bill Martin On Conception & Collectivity: Pt. 5 New Forms After an Exhausted Project
Posted by Mike E on October 22, 2008
This is “Kasama Post #2″ by Bill Martin. In September Kasama published Bill’s Going forward from here (Kasama Post #1), describing his break with the RCP. The essay generated great interest and lively commentary. Now, Bill offers his responses to that discussion.
Because of its length and richness, we will be dividing Bill’s “Kasama Post #2″ into five parts — and are publishing one part a day. The titles of each part and all subheads were inserted by Kasama.
The following is Part 5 — the final segment of this series.
* * * * *
“There are many good ideas that came from Bob Avakian and from the RCP, but often these are undeveloped and, ironically, not taken seriously enough. This idea of ‘the end of a stage, the beginning of a new stage’ is perhaps one such idea.”
“If we really need a new synthesis—I agree that we do—then surely this will also mean a rethinking of the idea of the party, or of organization, as well—and I could develop a number of themes related to this. Wasn’t there a different conception of organization in every previous synthesis?”
“…an argument could be made that the fact that the RCP really does not need the work of any extra-party critical intellectuals (and I would say especially in the field of philosophy, and it doesn’t need anything from the whole history of philosophy) is itself indicative of the exhaustion of this party’s project.”
* * * * *
RE: Conception and Collectivity (Kasama post #2)
Response to comments to “Going forward from here”
Part 5: New Forms After an Exhausted Project
By Bill Martin
I realize that I opened a whole can of worms with the following:
“If we really need a new synthesis—I agree that we do—then surely this will also mean a rethinking of the idea of the party, or of organization, as well—and I could develop a number of themes related to this. Wasn’t there a different conception of organization in every previous synthesis?”
The points raised by Zerohour in this connection are well taken:
“Obviously, Lenin had more developed views on this than Marx, but was Mao such a departure from Lenin? If the party-form is exhausted as you and Badiou argue, what could the RCP have done anyway?”
Let me make it clear that I am not saying that I agree on Badiou completely on this (and, again, I am still trying to understand his argument), I simply think we need to consider the idea that a politics or a political form can be “saturated,” as he puts it. I think the Marx-Lenin-Mao comparison is instructive here. Lenin’s understanding of the party was more than simply a “development” from Marx, and, at the other end, we could see Mao on the party as the bookend at “the end of a stage” (to coin a phrase!).
I don’t know what the next phase of organization will look like, though I am willing to work with others who believe in a communist future and a revolutionary road toward it to figure this out. In many ways I am at a loss on this point, I want to state this quite clearly.
It can be added that at many points I found it difficult to function in relation to the RCP structure, even from the outside.
On Bus Until…
On the other hand, in my way at least, I stuck with them for a long time—and it is interesting that, from the RCP standpoint, and this goes even much more for the people writing (or reading) here at Kasama who were actually in the party, this seems to count for nothing.
To use an analogy that I’m sure has some limitations, I rode that bus for a long time, and clearly even beyond the point where the driver had decided that it was time for me to get off, or at least that I didn’t have anything else to add to the journey.
I think it is quite clear that I would be riding that bus (or perhaps it is a train) even now, if I thought it was in any deepgoing way still headed toward revolution, and even if that meant there wasn’t a place for my own work in that journey.
On the other hand, and not to overestimate the value of the work that I do, an argument could be made that the fact that the RCP really does not need the work of any extra-party critical intellectuals (and I would say especially in the field of philosophy, and it doesn’t need anything from the whole history of philosophy) is itself indicative of the exhaustion of this party’s project.
There are many good ideas that came from BA and from the RCP, but often these are undeveloped and, ironically, not taken seriously enough. This idea of “the end of a stage, the beginning of a new stage” is perhaps one such idea. And it could be that the RCP has indeed gone through a qualitative transformation into something “new,” through the development of the Culture of Appreciation and Promotion and the Cultural Revolution, but it’s pretty clear these things aren’t new at all. Just to put it provocatively, there are three levels to this idea that “BA is a leader of the caliber of a Lenin or a Mao.” Yes, on one level, we need a Lenin or a Mao, or someone of that “caliber.”
On another level, what does this mean, exactly, and are the theoretical and practical contributions of BA really on that plane? Perhaps this is a very “academic” sort of thing to say, but I think some of these contributions could have been, if they had been developed more systematically.
BA wants a more “Germanic appreciation” of his ideas, and he wants his theoretical work to be compared to what Marx produced in his ten years in the reading room of the British Museum. Well, again, you have to deliver the goods.
And, yes, even if BA had delivered the goods, recognition among intellectuals might still be slow in coming, even among Marxist and other radical intellectuals; but why contribute to the factors of isolation? Perhaps this is the skewed view of an academic, but when I came up through the tenure and promotion system, I knew very well that I could not give anyone any excuse to get rid of me on grounds of productivity and quality, and therefore I did a lot more work than many others who have received tenure.I feel that BA often gives excuses to his detractors, and AWAG! is a sterling example.
Again, I stayed by them and tried to warn them; what I was seeing of the material leading up to this book made me very worried, and I expressed this on many occasions—in what I hoped was a helpful, constructive spirit.
When the book came out, it was even far worse than what I had anticipated. I think there are times when the treatment of philosophical topics by Lenin and Mao, and even by Marx, has some problems—but never at any point does one get the sense that they are just “screwing around with ideas.” But often I do get that sense from BA. So, it would be hard to answer the “caliber” question affirmatively.
We Need a New Song and a Whole New Style
On a third level, we need something new, something perhaps as yet unforeseen—and yes, this is where it is hard to entirely blame the RCP (as in, “what could the RCP done anyway?”).
It’s a little bit like blaming an artist for his or her failure to make a creative breakthrough beyond one of the reigning paradigms.
And yet, to return to the previous analogy, even if there might still be some good symphonies to be written in the style of Beethoven, and some good blowing to be done in the style of Coltrane, and some good songs written in the style of the Beatles (check out “Sewing the Seeds of Love” by Tears for Fears, for instance—it uses pretty much every late Beatlesism, and it’s a lot of fun), we also need a new song and a new symphony.
However, there is a fourth level, because very few of the RCP’s “songs” were on that plane (and I will add the obligatory disclaimer that neither were the songs of any other group, though a few of them had some worthwhile things to say).
As a provocation, but I think there is something to it, it might be said that we needed “another Lenin or Mao,” but what we got in some sense was another Stalin. I only want to go so far with that, and I also don’t think everything about that is completely bad, but still I think there is something to it.
It may be that there are some economistic and pragmatic (in a narrow sense—I still think we could stand to learn from William James and others in that tradition) lines of thought running through Kasama, along with many other lines.
We don’t know what Kasama “is” yet, and we are still thinking through what it ought to be.
But I think we have seen enough of the RCP’s instrumentalism, and clearly the RCP has seen enough of those who don’t think it is a good idea anymore to function within those instrumentalist parameters.
In some sense this is also evidenced by the whole, “if you leave the RCP you will eventually leave the revolution itself” line—as if the fact that there are a lot of people who are simply burned out from all of this is some sort of accomplishment. Maybe I’m just too sentimental for this kind of “politics”: yes, there are lines of demarcation, and we shouldn’t follow anyone into an economist or revisionist swamp, but what does it mean if we are actually happy that others are going into the swamp? In the recent Manifesto and Constitution there is no sense at all that this fracturing of the party has a tragic dimension. There’s no sense of loss—just, “you’re going in a different direction now (and we weren’t interested in your criticisms), so piss off!”
There might be a political value to a little bitterness about this from at least some of us. Maybe there is even some political value to a few more sentimental looks at that broken-down bus on the side of the road.
At the same time, for me at least, to give up on revolution and communism is to give up on the future of humankind, and I’m not going to do that, and I hope others don’t either. Where we go from here is difficult; obviously I have some proposals in my work, but what is more important now is the broadest discussion of committed radicals, a discussion that demands every ounce of critical thinking and creativity that we can muster. But again, and I say this not out of consideration for any career issues or a not-uncomfortable academic existence (though I did find that, around the Finkelstein work, most radical activists still know very little about how to function in the academic world), I would hope that Ethical Marxism could be taken up as part of the discussion of the next synthesis that we need.
Let me clear up one thing. The whole flap over the Zizek foreword did not precipitate any break, even if it deepened a certain wariness in me—and perhaps in BA as well. When the book finally came out, we had a very exciting time promoting it, doing what seemed to me to be some very good book events in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Berkeley. We had good crowds for all of them and had some good discussions.
No, the break really came, finally, when I made my one last attempt to communicate some things to the LPM, and then the RCP decided that they wanted to break with me. You could say that I pushed things such that they really had no other choice. But again, without wanting to overestimate what value I may have for the RCP or anyone, I did hope they would take it seriously that I was fed up and worn out by their half-baked theoretical work, especially when it was hyped to the stars. In addition to being sentimental and thin-skinned, I tend to be naïve and trusting.
Some of the “recoil” phenomenon may have been at work in the Zizek affair—especially in light of the fact that a number of ex-party members have told me they were not even aware of Zizek until the book came out. Clearly BA and the LPM didn’t know what they were getting into, which didn’t prevent at least the LPM from rushing into it.
Speaking of exhaustion, if you made it this far, thanks and congratulations for your patience!
Hi Chegitz! Amazing! (There’s a funny story there.)
The problem is that this is all too much, and yet there is still a good bit more to cover and there are things to be gotten into more deeply. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I could imagine that many readers (who probably didn’t make it this far) do not find this sort of discussion helpful. If no readers find my postings worthwhile, don’t worry about hurting my feelings, I can either stop them altogether or move them into some other forum (which will ultimately be preferable anyway). Otherwise, I look forward to developing some of the points raised here further, and revisiting the comments to which I might not have done sufficient justice, and getting into other issues altogether.
For the most part I see my place in the larger Kasama discussion as working in the movement from the “debriefing” of Maoism to the rethinking of Maoism and the forging of the next synthesis.
On the first of these (“debriefment”), I would especially appreciate comments on what I am calling the “recoil thesis”—if it is right, how is it right, and what are some instances of it; or, if this is not a helpful thesis, please help me see how this is the case.
Friendly regards,
Bill
[this is the last part in Bill Martin's Kasama Post #2]
Zack said
Would like to thank Bill for the very dense read(s). It seems clear that it had a lot to do with the RCP’s decision to come out and label the Kasama project as part of the enemy, no?
nando said
The RCP’s document on Counterrevolution was clearly written before Bill Martin’s Post #2 was posted.
I suspect that there are many reasons why this statement came out, including, at its root, that the RCP is losing three things:
They are losing any initiative they ever had in the broad discussion of revolutionary politics (including their own).
They are losing the ability to pretend that they are the only serious revolutionary effort in the U.S.
And they are losing any credible basis for claiming that their Chairman’s theories represents the much-needed breakthrough in Marxism.
They simply want all this to go away — and they think that they can accomplish this by growling at everyone that Kasama is counterrevolutionary and must be shunned.
As you note, Bill’s writings have made contributions to the process of reconceiving and regrouping because of their substance — but also because Bill had been one of the very few scholars who previously gave Avakian’s work the time-of-day.
Carl Davidson said
This may seem off-topic, or perhaps answered elsewhere, but why look for something called a ‘new synthesis’ at all, or even the restatement of an old one?
I’d much rather have some ‘working hypotheses’ put forward for discussion and testing.
Or is there some pressing virtue in the Hegelian ‘Aufhebung’, where the old has to be included in the new, even as the new overcomes and transcends the old?
I understand why it was important to Hegel.
Even the Ba’hais. They go for this, showing how every previous religion is both included and than overcome and transcended in the new synthesis of their own. I can see why they cling to it.
But why us?
But then I’m an american pragmatist when it comes to philosophy, which is much more in tune with modern science, and broke with this approach some time ago, thank goodness.
Again, put some hypotheses out there for us to work on, and set the ‘synthesizing’ aside for now.
TellNoLies said
I’d really like someone to answer Carl’s question. It seems like a pretty basic one.
xref said
I know this may be completely off topic, but Carl brought up Ba’haism which has been a subject of my interest for some time and of which I know very little and have tried to learn about; of course not from their evangelical point of propagation.
I know that it was founded at a time when Hegelianism was still popular and somewhat radical in Germany and concurrently there was also a messianic movement in Europe as in going to Jerrusalem and awaiting the ressurection and so on. But I did not know that there may have been some connection and philosophical “contact” between Hegelian movement and an Iranian Shi’a Mulla in Iraq which was part of the Othoman empire at the time.
This possible connection is also of interest to me because Ba’haism played a revolutionary role in peasant movement in Zanjan and other provinces of Iran; they implemented land to the tiler slogan. and of course their views and practices on the role of women in society was revolutionary too; they were the first to start schools for educating women and allowed women to elect and be elected in their local leadership comittees which was very advanced by any standard in the second half of the 19th century.
The history of their persecution in Iran is as bloody as the communists and they have often been forced to share prison cell and graveyards because they are both treated as none-believers.
It is ironic that their religon tells them not to get involved in politics.
Hegel of course is said to be politically reactionary too.
So, Carl, any insights into this possible connection would be much appreciated.
transprog said
I can agree with Carl against ‘synthesis’. Yet I don’t see how this is counterpoised to Hegelian (or Marxian) dialectics. ‘Aufhebung’ means transcendence not synthesis just so no one gets confused. I believe a synthesis implies that one is composed of only old elements, like a theoretical Frankenstein’s monster. But I think every new idea or a ‘working hypothesis’ has to borrow and come out of previous knowledge, even in science. Maybe I’m just misunderstanding Carl’s point.
How does pragmatism not work with old ideas to create new ones, do they pull them out of thin air? I can understand an argument against dialectics as a logical system, but your post lacks that, rather you seem to imply that dialectics is flawed because it uses old elements in new formulations. But I argue that pragmatism (or really any thought process) has to use old elements.
You make statements that you seem to assume that we’re take for granted. Yet I think you’re not fully explaining yourself and doing everyone a disservice by not fleshing out why ‘it was important to Hegel” and the Baha’ists and why it had to be broken with.
TellNoLies said
Is Carl critically viewing a synthesis as a “grand narrative” a la Lyotard? This seems a point of convergence with pragmatism. The problem is that any working hypotheses are going to be embedded in a larger theoretical framework, whether acknowledged or not. The opposition to grand narratives, therefore, paradoxically for some, privileges the unstated assumptions of the dominant order. In the social sciences the classic case of this is the structural functionalist Merton’s program of “theories of the middle range” and opposition to “grand theory.” I don’t really see how this is compatible with an orientation towards the revolutionizing of human social relations. On one level I agree with Carl that we need working hypotheses. My views on the value of supporting Obama certainly have no grander pretensions. But I don’t think that absolves us from developing an overarching theoretical framework, and given the inadequacy of is the existing models, one that is neccesarily new. The “new synthesis” formulation, it should be acknowledged, was coined by Avakian who has a very particular (and wrong) view of science proceeding through a series of syntheses each associated with a great head. The formulation seems very tied up with his (hallucinatory) self-conception of himself as the next great head. Now it isn’t so hard to liberate the term from that particular conception, but I think we might want to interrogate why precisely we want to.
Ben Seattle said
Hi Bill and other readers,
I have done my level best, over many years, to address some of the more fundamental questions related to the current “crisis of theory” related to:
(1) What kind of organization do we need ?
(2) What kind of society must be our goal ?
My theoretical work started with the second question above [1].
Earlier this year I wrote an article attempting to grapple with the first question [2].
The Kasama project devoted a page to the article above [3] but in spite of this, unfortunately, the article and the ideas within it have received relatively little attention from the community organized around the kasama web site. (There were a few dozen comments–but, unfortunately, most were somewhat superficial.)
I would like to see the organizing principles that I haqve described discussed in greater depth by the more serious and experienced people here. I do not say this because I consider myself to be some kind of brilliant theoretician (I am not) — but simply because I believe the principles which I describe are central to what it is that we need to do.
The crisis of theory will not go away until we confront it squarely–and resolve it. I have concluded that this resolution may be along the following lines:
————————————————————
(1) What kind of society must be our goal ?
————————————————————
Our goal must be a society where the working class not only rules by means of a representative organization (or, equivalently, some system of organizations) but also has a functioning “immune system” that will allow it to organize independent mass struggle against (and overthrow) any and all people, policies, principles or organizations within its own ruling state that prove to be hypocritical, incompetent or corrupt. In the context of a modern society (with a modern economy and communiciations infrastructure) this will mean that everyone (even “counter-revolutionaries”) will have the democratic rights to make their views known and to organize on the basis of those views. Those who advocate for a return to bourgeois rule will be effectively opposed by:
(a) the principle of the “separation of speech and property”. This will mean that commercial resources (including wage labor) will not be allowed to amplify the voices of reactionaries. Political speech will be essentially unregulated by the state only when it is based on volunteer labor.
(b) the spontaneous actions of the masses who will oppose backward or reactionary views in millions and billions of encounters in all kinds of forums and arenas of struggle.
————————————————————
(2) What kind of organization do we need ?
————————————————————
The organization we need, today, to organize the working class, in its millions, for the overthrow of bourgeois rule–may emerge from the development of a revolutionary pole within a broader mass organization that emerges around the common work of creating a revolutionary news service that will offer comprehensive news, analysis and discussion from the perspective of the material interest of the working class. This news service will be open to contributions from all progressive trends (and from ordinary people) and will
also provide a platform for the struggle of trends. This news service will make use of both paper and digital forms of communication but it will be the digital backbone of this service that will eventually extend its reach to many millions of people on a daily basis who will rate, filter and discuss articles from a wide range of sources.
Ben Seattle
(http, etc) //struggle.net/ben
(to speed up the appearance of this article on Kasama–I will post the footnotes with clickable the web addresses in a separate post)
Notes:
——
[1] For a good introduction to my work on this topic read:
“Workers’ Rule: Is it Dead or Alive?” at
(http, etc) //struggle.net/ben/2008/eric/moment_of_truth.htm
[2] See: “How to Build the Party of the Working Class”
at: (http, etc) //struggle.net/Ben/2008/222-HowTo.htm
[3] See: (http, etc) //mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/on-the-party/
Ben Seattle said
Footnotes (with clickable the web addresses) for my comment above:
Ben Seattle
http://struggle.net/ben/
Notes:
——
[1] For a good introduction to my work on this topic read:
“Workers’ Rule: Is it Dead or Alive?” at
http://struggle.net/ben/2008/eric/moment_of_truth.htm
[2] See: “How to Build the Party of the Working Class”
at: http://struggle.net/Ben/2008/222-HowTo.htm
[3] See: http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/on-the-party/
Carl Davidson said
The problem with ‘new syntheses’ is that
1)to do them properly, it requires a recapitulation of everything that has go before and
2) it usually involves some form of a coherence theory of truth, ie, to be ‘true’, each item has to fit in somewhere in a large scheme or system.
I think it better to start with the statement of a current problem–small or large, local or global–work out an analysis and assessment of conditions, then posit possible solutions, and a framework for testing, a working hypothesis. A subtext of old ideas can be important, but not decisive. The main thing is can we use these ideas to move toward our more strategic goals.
I think a good starting point, for instance, is a work like David Schweickart’s ‘After Capitalism,’ which posits the working hypothesis of Economic Democracy as a ‘successor system’ to modern capitalism, which he analyzes in some detail, and how this is both a component and bridge to socialism as itself a transitional form between class and classless society.
It’s a fairly important work, being studied across world in critical areas–Vietnam, Venezuela, China–but it also is largely written for societies such as our own.
Likewise for the Mondragon coops in Spain, which inspired Schweickart. They have been growing and thriving for nearly 50 years, and have a rich practice, as well as pose critical problems.
None of these requires a ‘new synthesis,’ although one could elaborate one, if one chose. Better is to just go over them, and take and stand, one way or another, and have a civil debate and discussion.
I think it most fruitful to use tools like these to see how they can help solve the problems at hand. If they fail, then we use what we have learned, and try something else, until we get somewhere. But the last think I’m interested in is a Talmudic exercise to see if and how it all ‘coheres’ with the collected works of Lenin, Stalin and Mao, and to reject it if it doesn’t. It’s not that I’m against studying these works–I’ve gone through them all, and many more–but the old method is what I’m setting aside.
I don’t know if that helps or not, but it’s how I view what we need to be doing.
TellNoLies said
Whats wrong with a “coherence theory of truth”?
It seems to me that even if one pursues the method you suggest that in the background there has to be an idea of a particular problem fitting into a larger system of ideas, presumably coherently. The danger is that by not making that larger system explicit it tends to become the common-sense of the existing world, i.e. bourgeois ideology. Thus even if one develops a critical analysis of a corner of the life-world there is a de facto subordination of that critique to the ruling ideas of the system as a whole.
redflags said
What’s wrong with a “coherence theory of truth”?
What? You don’t want an incoherence theory of truth?
LMAO.
The argument is truly method. The pragmatic triangulators believe that “our” position is always between to points on the political spectrum: what the ruling class allows and the “coherent” interests of the social bases we seek to mobilize.
Any theory of the truth (or political line) that doesn’t fall smack dab in the middle of that is a problem for this politics of position, and is therefor a dogma/sectarian/whatever.
Pragmatism in this sense can be both dynamic and profoundly conservative. It’s the genius of American capitalism, and seemed to work pretty well with a periphery to externalize crisis and get all the goods the fill up the pantry.
We are revolutionaries not because we are revolutionists, but because we can’t triangulate our way out of imperialism. This is why we need a coherent understanding of the world, and not to promote imperialism with or without illusions.
Carl Davidson said
Coherence theories of truth, much admired in feudal, theocratic and religious orders, where all parts ‘cohere’ and prove each other, are usually closed systems, even if they can expand through subdivision. They often culminate in an Absolute Idea or Godhead, to which all the component parts are subordinate.
But the universe, life, politics–all have an open future, and are not closed systems.
Pragmatism’s more modern instumentalist theory of truth is much closer to what scientists actually do when they do science, which is why I prefer it over both coherence and correspondence theories.
I’ve learned the the RCP uses this ‘instrumental’ term in some special way that I know little about, but I used it in the sense that William James and John Dewey had in mind when they coined it.
It has nothing to do with ‘triangulation’ a la Clinton.
Xref said
“Pragmatism’s more modern instumentalist theory of truth is much closer to what scientists actually do when they do science …”
This repetitive asertion almost every other post, is itself a mythical religious belief that is probably based on a real lack of knowledge about “what scientists actually do when they do science.”
It is hard to imagine if there could be any more dogmatic view of scientific endevour than this.
I was hoping someone would take this wrong assertion to task, but it seems I have to find some time for it soon.
TellNoLies said
Carl,
What most NATURAL scientists do may not be the best model for a scientific approach to social and political questions where the possibilities for isolating questions through experimental methods are much less. In that context I think the question of coherence with our understanding of the social system as a totality takes on greater importance. The problems of essentially reliogious self-verification is, I concede, a real one.
Xref said
“Pragmatism’s more modern instumentalist theory of truth is much closer to what scientists actually do when they do science …”
This repetitive asertion almost every other post, is itself a mythical religious belief that is probably based on a real lack of knowledge about “what scientists actually do when they do science.”
It is hard to imagine if there could be any more dogmatic view of scientific endevour than this.
I was hoping someone would take this wrong assertion to task, but it seems I have to find some time for it soon.
Carl Davidson said
I suppose I could use different words, or put them in another order, but we’re using a lot of shorthand exchanging these posts.
But yes, if you want to make a different case for a different theory of truth, go for it. If it’s more in tune with modern science, I’ll accept it. The last thing I’m interested in is clinging to any dogma, especially if it’s one I’m holding myself.
RW Harvey said
It seems that Thomas Kuhn, back in 1962, in his “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” critiques the idea of a pragmatic chiselling towards more and more facts and more and more truth is the way science works:
[Check website at the conclusion] Science is Non-Cumulative Because Terms Change their Meanings: In the meantime, Kuhn mounts an attack on the common idea that scientific knowledge is accumulative. He begins with the often quoted idea that most often, “the new paradigm, or a sufficient hint to permit later articulation, emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply immersed in crisis.” (p.90)
If paradigms change in such a sudden way, how can they simply built on prior knowledge? For Kuhn (p.92), this indicates that scientific revolutions are “non-cumulative developmental episodes in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one.” Moreoever, paradigm choice in science are “Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life.” And the choice is a choice in community alliance, for “As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice-there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community.” (p.94)
Kuhn, of course, is acutely aware of the controversial nature of his denying standards higher than the assent of the relevant community. Traditional philosophy of science is premised on the claim that the logical structure of scientific theories provides intrinsic reasons for theory change independently of the prevailing social conditions. Kuhn is quick to confirm the impression that he rejects this working assumption. (p.95)
[http://philosophy.wisc.edu/Forster/220/kuhn.htm]
zerohour said
One of the best known scientific debates of the last two decades centers around building a synthesis. At least since Einstein, physicists have been attempting to produce a unified field theory to account for both quantum mechanics and relativity. String theory has emerged as one possible, if problematic, candidate with others, such as quantum gravity, also in contention.
In biology, this has already been achieved by incorporating Mendelian genetics with Darwinian evolution. In fact it’s even called the modern evolutionary synthesis but has also been referred to as the new synthesis, the modern synthesis, and the evolutionary synthesis.
Some scientists DO work towards syntheses, and I’m not aware of any who dispute its importance. They recognize that this is how empirical observations make any sense at all.
Ben Seattle said
(I attempted to post this three days ago–there may be some kind of technical snafu — I am reposting)
Hi Bill and other readers,
I have done my level best, over many years, to address some of the more fundamental questions related to the current “crisis of theory” related to:
(1) What kind of organization do we need ?
(2) What kind of society must be our goal ?
My theoretical work started with the second question above [1].
Earlier this year I wrote an article attempting to grapple with the first question [2].
The Kasama project devoted a page to the article above [3] but in spite of this, unfortunately, the article and the ideas within it have received relatively little attention from the community organized around the kasama web site. (There were a few dozen comments–but, unfortunately, most were somewhat superficial.)
I would like to see the organizing principles that I have described discussed in greater depth by the more serious and experienced people here. I do not say this because I consider myself to be some kind of brilliant theoretician (I am not) — but simply because I believe the principles which I describe are central to what it is that we need to do.
The crisis of theory will not go away until we confront it squarely–and resolve it. I have concluded that this resolution may be along the following lines:
————————————————————
(1) What kind of society must be our goal ?
————————————————————
Our goal must be a society where the working class not only rules by means of a representative organization (or, equivalently, some system of organizations) but also has a functioning “immune system” that will allow it to organize independent mass struggle against (and overthrow) any and all people, policies, principles or organizations within its own ruling state that prove to be hypocritical, incompetent or corrupt. In the context of a modern society (with a modern economy and communiciations infrastructure) this will mean that everyone (even “counter-revolutionaries”) will have the democratic rights to make their views known and to organize on the basis of those views. Those who advocate for a return to bourgeois rule will be effectively opposed by:
(a) the principle of the “separation of speech and property”. This will mean that commercial resources (including wage labor) will not be allowed to amplify the voices of reactionaries. Political speech will be essentially unregulated by the state only when it is based on volunteer labor.
(b) the spontaneous actions of the masses who will oppose backward or reactionary views in millions and billions of encounters in all kinds of forums and arenas of struggle.
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(2) What kind of organization do we need ?
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The organization we need, today, to organize the working class, in its millions, for the overthrow of bourgeois rule–may emerge from the development of a revolutionary pole within a broader mass organization that emerges around the common work of creating a revolutionary news service that will offer comprehensive news, analysis and discussion from the perspective of the material interest of the working class. This news service will be open to contributions from all progressive trends (and from ordinary people) and will
also provide a platform for the struggle of trends. This news service will make use of both paper and digital forms of communication but it will be the digital backbone of this service that will eventually extend its reach to many millions of people on a daily basis who will rate, filter and discuss articles from a wide range of sources.
Ben Seattle
(web address:) struggle.net/ben
Notes:
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(the links below will work if pasted into your browser address bar)
[1] For a good introduction to my work on this topic read:
“Workers’ Rule: Is it Dead or Alive?” at
(web address:) struggle.net/ben/2008/eric/moment_of_truth.htm
[2] See: “How to Build the Party of the Working Class” at:
(web address:) struggle.net/Ben/2008/222-HowTo.htm
[3] See: (web address:) mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/on-the-party/