Marxism Is More Like a Bush in an Ecosystem
Posted by Mike E on July 15, 2010
Communist theory & practice has been more like an interconnected bush
This essay is a follow-up to the recent “Marxism is not a Layer Cake” — which discusses the linear view that communist theory consists of layers of theory, laid down building on each other, without much outside influence or internal negation. This was excerpted from a longer commentary within that “Layer Cake” thread.
By Mike Ely
We were discussing both how we will actually develop future communist theory — ways that engage and change the world we are living in.
The creation of existing communist theory has often been described as a kind of relay race — where the leaders of various parties hand off theoretical batons to each other in a linear ascent. It is not how Marxism will develop — and it is not (in fact) how it did develop.
The linear view (exemplified by the “5 heads” pantheon) underestimates the degree of discontinuity, difference, innovation and cross fertilization. And it greatly disguises the degree to which revolutionary theory was influenced (and needs to be influenced) by the larger thinking of its times. Communist theory does not present itself (if it is vibrant and organic) as “one to many” but as a part of a “many to many” dynamic with the creative and scientific thinking around it.
Why should we not consciously develop our revolutionary understandings today knowing that it will emerge as a contentious communist bush woven into a larger revolutionary and social ecosystem of ideas and struggles?
In some corners of communist activism there has been a great deal of debate about “who is in the line-up?” — where quite major questions of line and politics got concentrated in the historical (and iconographic) questions of whether you keep Stalin on a par with Mao and whether you elevate Mao to an “ism.”
These have generally been rather important matters of line — though they have been discussed in highly peculiar ideological ways — so that even many communists found them obscure and did not understand the life and death matters being worked out. It has been important to acknowledge that there was an element of the new (the quite radically NEW and discontinuous) in Mao — that is not an affirmation or extension of previous orthodoxy. There has been both affirmation and negation in comunist theory — and that is a good thing.
And (frankly) most people (and most revolutionaries) in the world are not that hung up on Stalin. It is a very very old question. And any attraction now to those politics of the “classical” Comintern is (at best) a yearning for a communist doctrine that is quite simplified, finished, coherent and rigidly authoritative. There is no such doctrine, and the Comintern’s claim to have one was deceptive.
John Steel writes:
“Honestly, the idea that to confront the crisis of our age we must regain an original purity whose loss is the source of our defeats — this is such an ancient and essentially religious stance that it’s strange to see it coupled with an invocation of ‘science’.”
Any search for a tidy previous cure-all doctrine (in the form of Back to Marx! or Back to Lenin! or Back to Stalin!) is naive at best. And it is certainly an idea that leads away from what we need to do. The theoretical knife has to cut deeper than that.
A Hoxhaist "history of shaving" -- one version of 5 heads
Really, what we need to do is get to the work of looking at how to make revolution in our world today (and in our particular social formations with their very particular histories and politics).
We need a verdict that says inherited communist theory is insufficient for what we now need to do. And we have to be far far more innovative than that to have the slightest chance of success.
Development of Complex Analysis is Bushy not Linear
In service to that goal — my discussion of the “5 heads” view of Marxism is not mainly a discussion of “who is in that line up” (however important that has been in the past). My immediate complaint is the very idea of this lineup of busts.
This “history of shaving” is as mistaken as that classic picture of “evolution” showing the linear “march” from fish to reptile to mammal to man (or the equally iconic and mistaken linear march from ape to man). No. things don’t emerge in such linear ways (even if some, like Avakian, describe them a little-more-dialectically as a series of sequential “leaps” — that too represents an ill-disguised linearity).
That is why I wrote a piece on the RCP’s debt to Althusser, and the reason that debt was whited out. Because the real world was and is bushy.
the discredited linear view of humanity's descent from apes
It is no accident that after asserting the label Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the Peruvians moved to establish Gonzalo as the “fourth sword,” And Avakian tried to present his diffuse ideas as a new world historic synthesis. And so on.
The assertion of MLM as the label for communist theory was the preparation for new cloistered “isms” with mistaken claims of universality (no matter what they chose to call them). It led to the narrowing of the discussion internationally, its ghettoization into jealously competing “isms” — at a time when the whole thing needs to be opened up a great deal, with some open-minded cross fertilization.
The assertion of MLM as a a linear sequence (even if a linear sequence of leaps) is, like the even more mechanical insistence on “continuity of program” in some Trotskyism, a declaration that privileges continuity over discontinuity, tradition over innovation.
It is much more useful to explore Bill Martin’s term: the vital mix – which tried to capture how conjunctural incubators forged revolutionary ideas that didn’t respect or reinforce mechanical demarcations.
The 1960s Maoists learned from Black nationalists, and feminists, and Althusser, and Marcuse, and Abby Hoffman, and Stephen Gould’s post-modern questions about linear directionality – whether anyone publicly acknowledged it or not. And why should such influences not be acknowledged — the way Marx and Engels celebrated the thinkers around them?
Why should we not consciously develop our revolutionary understandings today knowing that it will emerge as a contentious communist bush woven into a larger revolutionary and social ecosystem of ideas and struggles?
Communism’s emergence and development is more of a cross fertilizing bush of pathways (and always has been) — than a relay race of singular theorists. Marxism emerged as a bush that included some outstanding theorists. But we also need to recognize the cross fertilization of ideas (including from non-Marxists to Marxists) if we are to develop a communism for our time that is able to embrace and connect with some real clarity.
land said
These are great pictures to illustrate what the emergence and development of communism is and is not.
Carl Davidson said
This is good, Mike. The reference to Stephen J Gould and his approach to science as nonlinear, as in any straight line notion of progressive evolution, is especially important. I believe he was one of those who used ‘the bush’ metaphor in describing human and other aspects of evolution, and not only that. He notion of ‘punctuated equilibrium’ also allowed for wild cards and downplaying teleology.
The ‘Five Heads’ approach is in large part a coherence theory of truth, whereby something is true if it fits within the larger earlier body of accepted truth. This is characteristic of medieval thinking. A good deal of it originally can be found in Stalin, which I attribute, in part, to some of his earliest training in a religious seminary as a young man. I even recall one worker in a study group back in the 1970s saying he liked the ‘Foundations of Leninism’ because its simplicity reminded him of the ‘Baltimore Catechism’ that all us former Catholics remember from our early religious instruction. Some of it is also the undue influence of Hegel, not that Hegel isn’t worth studying.
Two other points. One, when we mainly study works that were part of successful revolutionary upsurges, we also build in a one-sided bias. These are largely lessons for period of revolutionary upheaval, whereas at the movement we are in a non-revolutionary period, and we would do well to re-examine other writers and workers from more defensive periods (which hopefully will change, the sooner, the better). Two, every successful revolution broke the earlier mold on how it was ‘supposed to be done.’ What is supposedly ‘revisionism’ and what is not is often defined anew each time by the upcoming new victors, rather than something you can tease out of a CODA somewhere.
Nat W. said
Mike says:
“It is much more useful to explore Bill Martin’s term: the vital mix – which tried to capture how conjunctural incubators forged revolutionary ideas that didn’t respect or reinforce mechanical demarcations.”
I think there is some where in between “the vital mix” and “mechanichal demarcation” or better yet demarcation proper. Contniuity is not a curse word even while it is necessary and creates a more amicable and vibrant social and political environment when we recognize the way in which non-Marxist or people outside of a certain Marxist or radical trend have contributed to our understanding of the world.
It is true that the greatest Marxist thinkers, and I woulod hold that there were Marxist thinkers that stood out among others, always were aware of the intellectual and political currents around them and integrated them into their own thinking, however it is also true that these thinkers did demarcate their ideas and the methodology they were weilding from the broader currents and these demarcations were made clear in often very sharp and sometimes abrasive terms.
Here in the US, there are those, even among liberals who beilieve the constitution is a living document and should be changed sometimes to keep up with the times; who celebrate the founding fathers, they have their mount rushmores and monument halls, etc. I don’t think we need the five heads as ideological framework, in such a way, that we see there writings as the layer cake in which you describe. Recognition of negation is necessary becuase it is true, as is the influence of diverce intellectual currents on our movement. However, I do feel like these leaders, the five or the three, or whatever, I have my own opinions and I’m open to others, deserve there special place in our history, their monuments and such, as those of the capitalist are torn down and their mountains rushmores dynamited.
So I think there is a relationship, a dialectic between the vital mix and demarcation, between continuity and discontinuity and just because one or more trends that we were involved with seemed to negate discontinuity and the vital mix then we go ahead and negate continuity and demarcation. If we do that we really run the risk of falling into relativism.
that guy said
I also enjoyed getting some Gould in that post. But while I certainly get it, I worry there is problem with presenting marxism as a fuzzy bush instead of a nice trajectory has the unfortunate consequence of unhinging marx from communism, dissociating an anti-capitalist theory from goal oriented communist action. And that is whole reason why there is a question in the first place, people see what’s going on around them & they want to act in a concerted way that is effective. I understand that some marxists have a “sour grapes” attitude towards figures like stalin, but I would say, just because certain battles werent won, that doesn’t necessarily mean those battles should be forgotten (like there is very specific reason for keeping unions de-politicized in the usa). There actually is a linear aspect to events and the historical application of marxist ideas to communist goals cant resist that trail. I’m not saying there aren’t other trails worth following, but you know, marxism can be de-politicized too.
Nat W. said
I realize that I am disagreeing the proposal of looking at communist theory as a bush in a larger ecosystem of revolutionary ferment. I still feel communist theory and politics should seek to march at the head of things on a world scale, even while it learns from all other currents of thought. Let me pose this question. If communist theory is a just a bush in an ecosystem then what does that mean for getting to the final goal of a communist future. It seems a bush, a many with many approach is not a logical approach for meeting the end goal. However, I’m eager to hear that elaborated on
Carl Davidson said
Seeing that humanity is rather diverse, it seems likely that, if it survives and doesn’t self-destruct, it will also likely achieve a classless society unevenly and asymmetrically–many paths and varied arrival times. I’ll liken it to the ‘Rose of Sharon’ bush in my yard–many branches, with even more twigs, with some of them, but not all, topped with beautiful red blossoms, popping out every few days, but not all of them simultaneously.
Tell No Lies said
Carl writes
This seems an odd formulation and I can’t help wondering if its really just a way of rationalizing focusing exclusively on non-revolutionary work. Of course most of what Marx wrote and much of what Lenin wrote was produced during periods when revolutionary forces were on the defensive, so I’m not really even sure what this suggestion would mean. Its hard to say without example being put forward. But if we are looking for works in relation to periods of defense and offense it seems to me that we should be looking at those that were able to go from defense to offense and that we should avoid those that are defined by their defensive posture.
Carl Davidson said
I’m thinking main of most of Gramsci’s work, but also Dimitrov and Lenin vs. the ‘Ostovists, or ‘left’ liquidators. Even Kautsky’s work is worth re-examining in certain respects, prior to 1914. I’ve also been a fan of the early Wilhelm Reich, and Serge Mallet and the early Andre Gorz of the French CP, as well as Tito.
Dave Palmer said
Revolution is a process and one learns from mistakes. No revolution in history has ever been 100% successful in every regard — if they were, then what’s class society still doing here? — so there is a lot of material to learn from.
I think it is quite obvious that, as Mike says, “inherited communist theory is insufficient for what we now need to do.” Somebody once said something about dead generations weighing like nightmares on the minds of the living. Amen to that.
The idea of continuity with previous struggles, when combined with excessive reverence to their leaders, can easily degenerate into a sort of “apostolic succession” myth.
I’m sure I’ll be accused of eclecticism and utilitarianism and every other cardinal sin for saying this, but I think it is best to take whatever useful lessons can be learned from the past, and leave the dead to bury their dead.
Or, as Chairman Mao said: “Test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.” (1 Thes 5:21)
Nat W. said
I’ve reread and thought more about the idea “bushiness” and think I may understand it better than I did in my first posts. We are talking about many theoretical communists “bushes” enmeshed in a vast revolutionary ecosystem with many other non-communist radical “bushes”. I think Carl’s illustration above that posits aroad to communism by saying:
is helpful.
However I want to look at how an ecosystem works for those who are sustained by it. Lets say that in this ecosystem there are many bushes, trees, plants, and such all yeilding vegetation, fruit, berries, etc. The food yeilded by these bushes, plants; provide those sustained with varying degrees of nutritional value. Some bushes may grow berries with provide a very high degree of nutritional value, thus their value to those sustained is the most significant. Others may provide some basic vitamins and minerals cannot be considered staples because they don’t provide enough for the body to really flourish. Still other bushes may be poisonous and people may have to learn to stay away from them.
In any respect it is certainly the case that there people cannot rely on one type of food to provide for all the various nutrients so in fact we do need to understand the whole ecosystem as best we can. But we have to understand it precisely in order to be able to create the better nutritional diet. There may be many communist bushes and many other radical bushes and I like the idea the idea of them in a vast ecosyatem where in some ways they will depend on each other for life. Though it is necessary to understand that bushes, plants, trees, etc have varying degrees of value and we will always need to find those combinations that produce the best value in order to sustain revolutionary life at the highest levels.
This I think is part of the dialectic between the need for the vital mix (which is a real need and exists objectively in any regard) and the need for some demarcation.
In regard to leaders Dave Palmer says:
“The idea of continuity with previous struggles, when combined with excessive reverence to their leaders, can easily degenerate into a sort of “apostolic succession” myth.”
I do believe in celebrating our leaders and the history of our movement and I think it is especially important to celebrate our successes, even while, yes there were problems even with our greatest successes and we need to examine this history critically and negate some aspects of what they got wrong and what does not apply to these times. I don’t want to make the argument that everything written by Lenin or Mao (or certainly Stalin) should be taken for divinely revealed scipture. I’m for the critical approach and the necessary negations, however I think some of these leaders and some who havn’t emerged yet should be celebrated for the accomplishments they did make as part of celebrating the history of our movement. I’m not against heroes in that respect. And we should make monuments to the “unknown” heroes as well, I think this should be part of communist culture. I guess in that regard there is conitnuity with how feel about some aspects of the culture of the 20th century revolutions (though I recognize there may be some contradictions here with breaking down contradictions between leaders and led, and thus the need for evaluating the ways in which we celebrate the “big” leaders.
Otto said
On one hand the five heads tells us where we come from, as an idiology. But I can see to an outsider it might look downright silly. Also I notice there are no women heads. The Hoxha thing looks kind of funny since hoxha looks kind of like George Bush. Jiang Ching would be a good choice or maybe Rosa Luxemberg.http://www.freewebs.com/plasmodium99/Someguys.jpg
Maybe that is just to create interest by women, but they must also want a female head on the”five heads.” Even if we don’t really need all those heads in the first place.
Joel said
That guy said:
//like there is very specific reason for keeping unions de-politicized in the usa///
I’m not from the states, that seems like a pretty big assumption. Could you explain the basis behind it?
Mike E said
I think the question of bushes and ecosystem should be explored in much more detail.
TNL, in particular, has argued that there is an ecosystem of revolutionary ideas. Here is what I understand by that:
If you look at actual revolutions many different processes draw large numbers of people toward supporting radical change. It is not one simple process (in which workers move to a workers party, and overthrow the rich grouped around a pro-capitalist pole). Lenin talked about revolution being a process of one class overthrowing another, which takes the form of a war between two sections of the people.
On the revolutionary side, there is (historically and inevitably) a multiplicity of political parties and forms that prepare the ground for revolution — and then, on the eve of decisive battles, “one eats up the other,” i.e. some fall away, some become isolated, some switch over to the enemy camp, some fuse together, some form tight alliances.
For example, in Russia there were two generations of revolutionaries who undermined Tsarism and prepared the great revolution — among them were the Marxists (which were a complex structure of different trends and ideas), but there were also the Narodniks and the left SRs. John Reed talk about a moment in the October Revolution when the moderate socialists walk out (never to return to the revolution), and he notes two things: both that they had been involved in the preparation of the revolution, and they proved unable to understand the real-life form it ultimately took.
And it needs to be said that in a large country (like China, or Russia or the U.S. or India etc.) the political currents are inevitably complex and diverse with real differences between urban and rural areas, national minority areas etc. Different paces of revolution, different mixes of political complextion. etc.
In the U.S., the revolution has a particular character: to win and to liberate, a revolution in the U.S. has to fuse (combine) a movement of national liberation by oppressed nationalities with a multinational movement for socialism.
And if you think of that fusion process…. it is (on one hand) quite favorable if a single organizational hard core emerges that can (within itself and alliances it influences) combine those many “rivulets” of radical resistance into a single torrent and a common vision. The more unified that becomes, the more possible a revolution is. The more separated and mutually in-comprehending the various rivulets are the more unlikely revolutionary attempts and revolutionary victories are.
So how do we get to a moment (or a protracted period) where the various streams of discontent and rebellion recognize each other as allies and comrades of a common movement? I don’t think it will simply work to create a small mini-party that proclaims that it can act as an umbrella (to embrace while not replacing…) and then invite all the streams to subordinate themselves. It is a naive approach.
In some ways (and this is my understanding of TNLs approach) there will be an element of revolutionary currents finding roots in different places, and then reaching out to engage with each other (in “unity and struggle”) forging alliances and higher forms of unity. This was certainly true in the 1960s, when the Black Panthers served as a catalyst for bringing the most radical white revolutionaries into alliance and cooperation with the most radical of the nationalist currents.
There was a failure to form a single multinational revolutionary communist party out of that process… for reasons we can explore (and debate). But you can see in that experience how different forces tried to take root and then reach out. And how the raw material incubated in rather diverse places might (under some conditions) prove to be a basis for a common revolutionary movement (and forms of revolutionary organization).
Will we have one revolutionary party or several in a future revolutionary process? It is hard to predict, and it is not a given that there will be only one party all the way through. In fact, it seems clear to me that a revolutionary movement that can take root in the South (or Appalachia or Arizona) will be rather different than one that emerges in New York City. In some places in the U.S., multinational organization comes naturally. In some places, the struggle will almost inevitably take forms of national self expression of the oppressed attracting to itself a spectrum of diverse allies. (How you not have multinational organization in the East Bay of San Francisco, how can the revolutionary movement in Jackson Mississippi not revolve around a core of African American revolutionaries?)
And I don’t think there will be a process where someone (some genius) invents the strategy, and the constitution, and the tactics of a future revolutionary process — and then the movement goes from not existing to congealing around that.
ON the contrary, the forms of future revolutionary expression will be idiosyncratic — and will be marked by their time and place (and in the U.S. by the constellations of nationality).
And the diversity of expression will not just be a “weakness” to be overcome — but it will be (if we are lucky and wise) a case of “growing out of, and growing together,’ where various diverse streams “play their part” in preparation and mass line. Where things emerge, then demarcate (shake out), both divide and consolidate as the whole matures (as the revolutionary movement matures and as a specific revolutionary crisis matures).
So this is the question of an “ecosystem.”
* * * * * * * * *
And within that larger process, there is a struggle for the emergence of an extremely radical pole (within that larger ecosystem) — that actually wants to consciously carry out socialist revolution, as part of a process of moving the world toward communism. That is internationalist and universalist (i.e. is not anchored in the most specific conditions of one grouping but has a sense of common interests and common destiny for humanity overall). That wants to identify and end all oppression in a continuous revolution (not just “this is a stickup we are coming for what’s ours.”) And that communist movement will (again, if we are lucky and wise) be like a complex bush operating within that larger eco system.
Nat wrote:
Well, frankly, it depends which “communist theory and politics.”
One reason I left the RCP is that i suddenly realized “I would not like to see these people rise to power.” I would not like to see their “theory and politics” come to the head of things — first, i thought their theory would never come to the head of things, it was sterile and self-isolating. But then (increasingly) I realized that if they came to power, they could not do anything good with it.
Should the communist pole lead things? Well, it should if it is prepared to actually make communist revolution, if it is prepared to actually serve the people.
It’s not like communism just exists (ready-made) and we want to make it a leader on a world scale. (that is the demand of the Peruvians “Make Maoism the Commander!” — as if the movements exist, and Maoism exists, and our task is to get one to run the other.)
There are competing and quite opposed communisms. Some communist forces are frankly wannabe tyrants wanting to create a situation where they can brush aside all other views, and simply e their own (narrow and apriori) prejudices. (I feel that some so-called “tankie” forces, who actively like it whenever tanks roll across crowds of sincere dissidents in Tienanmen or elsewhere, have an ugly streak that makes their politics intolerable — as in “they will never do any good.”)
Some have a vision of “socialism” that is little different than capitalism with some welfare provisions. And their politics are really more a variant of capitalist politics, than a variant of radical and revolutionary politics.
So for communism to lead it has to deserve to lead — and that is a process, and a work of creation, in actual practice, under specific conditions — not something we declare, or we simply assume is always happening. That “bush” of communist theory and practice needs to develop in close connection with its surrounding — changing, learning, adapting and sinking its own roots. And if it doesn’t, it will never be able to lead anything. And we can want it to lead, or believe that it is needed to lead, all we want — but we won’t have an actual living connected communist movement that can get out of its own sandbox.
Carl Davidson said
I think one good way to lead is to solve some major problems. Whoever solves the problems will gain some leadership.
Just for starters, here’s a few.
–The working class lacks basic organizations to defend its immediate interests, as well as longer term. Only 12 percent have unions. Walmart is the largest single employer and no one, communist or trade unionist, has been able to organize it. There are many, many more.
–The worker class needs to win some elections with its own organizations. That requires breaking up the Dems in a mass way, but in a way that serves the left, not the right. Solve that problem, and we make a big step forward.
–The Black community has been devastated by oppression and lack of organization. Rhetoric and spontaneity only get so far. The objective conditions are over-determined, but the subjective ones quite difficult to solve.
–Organizing among soldiers to oppose the wars is very critical. A few beachheads have been established, but who can solve this one?
There’s lots more where these came from, but you should get the idea. Revolutionary theory, and groups that claim it, but that can’t show how practical problems are solved, and then do it, doesn’t help much.
Nat W. said
Your last post was really clear to me Mike. Also I agree that “which communism leads” is a very important question and that there are many communisms out there seeking political credit and that not all are desirable.
I used to think, perhaps out of naivity, that just the existence of the RCP and the fact they were politically and theoretically toward revolution would give them an advantage in any revolutionary period. I can see that that idea doesn’t make real sense. Reading your last post and thinking about the 1960s put things into more perspective and I can see the basis in your concpetion of how a revolution may come together.
I guess, if the RCP is even that significant in any a rev situation (I don’t see them being around after the 60s generation starts to die out, if that long); I guess in a way they can see them playing a role as a kind of a Progressive Labor type (potentially), trying to win the organic movement to unite around their vision, maybe even getting some people to look at Marxism, but turning alot of people off with their…vision.
In the sixties the organic movement rejected the old communist forces and rejected PL trying to take over their movement and yet the movement still ended up fragmenting in its own right. The diverse forces making up the “vital mix” never coalesced. I can see how it would be much more favorable in the future if the various currents of resistance, the nationality and immigrant and perhaps a resurgent womens’ movement were able to coalesce, especially the most “extremely radical” core, into a coordinated revolutionary force…and how failing to do this would be unfavorable.
Otto said
Carl Davidson said
“The worker class needs to win some elections with its own organizations. That requires breaking up the Dems in a mass way, but in a way that serves the left, not the right. Solve that problem, and we make a big step forward.”
I think you have a point. For many leftists the idea of working with elections in any way shape or form amounts to heresy. While the Communist Party USA has almost become a cheer leader for the Democrats, which is not revolutionary, The RCP and others have condemned any electoral work of any kind. I’m not sure we can’t occasionally make use of an election to make a point or boost the moral of the workers who right now are being clobbered by a clever Republican Party and like minded movements such as the Tea Party, to the point where they see no alternative in the short run.
No one expects a revolution to take place before the next major election. It’s a little like telling workers to put their needs on hold until we all get exactly what we want.
Mike E said;
“There are competing and quite opposed communisms. Some communist forces are frankly wannabe tyrants wanting to create a situation where they can brush aside all other views, and simply e their own (narrow and apriori) prejudices. (I feel that some so-called “tankie” forces, who actively like it whenever tanks roll across crowds of sincere dissidents in Tienanmen or elsewhere, have an ugly streak that makes their politics intolerable — as in “they will never do any good.”)”
I share that fear of a wannabe tyrant wanting to be the next Deng or Stalin who is willing to roll over anyone who doesn’t follow his party line. That’s why I strongly favour a directorate, revolutionary organization or something that is made of a committee and directly accountable to the people. I realize that Pol Pot and the French revolutionaries proved such governments can be just as tyrannical, but these governments were secretive and kept the people from knowing their grand plans. If the people know exactly who their leaders are and exactly what they plan on doing, this could prevent a cult of personality. We had that under Ronald Reagan under this system. Elections alone didn’t prevent that.
If someone wants to be “the fourth sword of Mao” as some revolutionaries had been anointed in the past, they can publish their ideas and share them with a directorate.
andy said
“I think the question of bushes and ecosystem should be explored in much more detail.” -Mike
I disconnect really quickly when somebody overdoes a graphical representation of thought processes or social processes.
The classic case being “spiral-conjuncture theory”. In order to have a spiral you have to have a field for it to spiral in and you have already set up the process of reality as a line in a Cartesian grid. Tired of it. its not the social world. Its a head game.
Now we have the ‘Bush in an Ecosystem Question’. OK, you make a passing reference to an analogy, I’m OK with that. But then you start analyzing the analogy. I got tired of the RCP setting up categories, and then analyzing the categories, instead of reality, and tired too of the same with graphical representations.
I could say ‘Its not a bush, its a vine’, or a tree, or pancake syrup (pancake syrup is very dialectical), or a bacterium, but then somebody could come back and say its a paramecium instead.
Its not about the vision of Thought, its about what goes on in reality. I don’t want to ride down that slippery slope where everything leads to solipsism that Lenin describes so well in the context of Russian philosophy.
Let’s not overdo the analogies.