I feel like I understand communist theory pretty well at a basic level, and I believe in it, but I just don’t see what part of it requires belief in an objective world of matter. I don’t believe in matter and I’m still a communist. And it seems that in the 21st century most people believe in materialism but not communism. What part of “people should have access to the stuff they need to live” requires believing that such stuff is real? After all, there are nonmaterial industries and they still need communism. Workers in the music industry are producing something that nearly everyone can agree only exists in our heads. And they’re still exploited by capital, despite musical instruments being relatively cheap these days, because capital owns the system of distribution networks and access to consumers that is the means of profitability for music. Spotify isn’t material, it’s a computer program. It’s information. It’s a thoughtform. Yet it’s still a means of production that ought to be seized for the liberation of the musician worker. What does materialism have to do with any of this?
itt: proof you should never seriously read david hoffman.
Idk if you’re doing a bit, but assuming that you’re serious and having read through some of your comments below, I think the problem that you’re having is largely based in a misunderstanding of what people tend to mean when they argue that something is socially constructed. And, relatedly, that you’re working from an opposition between the real and the imaginary that can’t account for the complexity of their actual relation. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your basic assumption seems to be that if something is socially constructed then it is imaginary/‘ideal’ and, therefore, that isn’t real/material. And, further, that if something is socially constructed then it emerges as a creation of the individual human mind.
The problem with the first assumption is that socially constructed forms are still real and material forms. Even what at first glance might appear as immaterial forms (such as the dominant ideas of a society or music) emerge from within a historical and material context that works to structure them and provide the conditions of possibility for certain ideas and forms to emerge, and these likewise operate back upon that context in real ways. To use your example of the commodities produced by the music industry, the apparent ‘immateriality’ of a song still depends upon a wide range of material forms. Among these are the material forms of the instruments used in its creation, the historical traditions of music and the material forms necessary for archiving and preserving them into the present of the song’s production, the material networks that facilitate and determine the song’s distribution (which include everything from the record companies that sign and promote artists, to the mines in which the raw materials that are used in the production of both the instruments being played and the computers and speakers upon which the song eventually comes to be heard are excavated). You can see here already that the relationship between the apparently ‘ideal’ and the ‘material’ is far more complex than a simple binary opposition.
This leads to the problem with the second assumption that you seem to be making, which is that you seem to be positing a genuinely idealist understanding of ideas and the human subject in which ideas emerge in the manner of a virgin birth from the individual human subject (this being the only form that would preserve their genuinely ‘ideal’ being from being muddied by a dirty materialism). The problem with this belief is that it fails to account for the historical production of that subject - a historical production which is, ironically, a key idea within social constructivist theories. Ideas are necessarily social forms, their existence implies intersubjectivity through the existence of language. In this sense, ideas necessarily have a material dimension that fatally undermines the kind of idealist conception that you seem to be expressing. This is because our individual subjectivity and thus our ability to have ideas emerges within a substrate that is outside and beyond us. We are already structured in certain ways as a condition of being able to think and this is the basis of a materialist understanding
That’s not what materialism means in the context of communist theory.
When communists talk about materialism, we generally refer to historical materialism, the theory that a society’s culture and politics (its superstructure) are shaped by its material forces (its base). This isn’t strictly a one-way street, mind - it’s cyclical, with each exerting some influence on the other, though the base dominates. See this diagram. This view is generally contrasted with liberal idealism, which assumes that ideas and culture are the dominant drivers of society.
To give an example in the most straightforward terms possible, let’s take the question: “What is the connection between the 19th century US southern aristocrats’ Christianity and their support for slavery?”
Idealism says that these aristocrats were pro-slavery because they interpreted the Bible to be pro-slavery.
Materialism says that these aristocrats interpreted the Bible to be pro-slavery because they were pro-slavery.
Ultimately, they were following their economic and material interests in a society in which Christianity was the dominant religion. Anything they may have believed or professed to believe about Christianity emerged from that.
Well I sure disagree with everything you just said. I think it’s reductive, simplistic, and appeals to problematic realist sensitivities. What does everything you just said have to do with communism?
Respectfully, it has been repeatedly proven that human beings respond to their environment with more intensity than their own minds. This is verifiable by just checking in with your own emotions at any point.
This doesn’t mean that the environment fulfills some specific sit of criteria or that I’m a “realist” instead of an “idealist”. I don’t think what makes up the fundamental environment matters nearly as much as the idea that people are affected by that environment and often can’t help it.
This has to be true, by necessity, for anything at all to make sense. Think about this: If you were never exposed to anything, ever, and had absolutely no senses, including pain or bodily sensations, since the moment you were born, how would you be able to formulate thoughts or take action? You couldn’t, there would be nothing to make up their content. This demonstrates that the material is essential to human thought.
Regardless of if reality is real or not, our fundamental experiences are still defined by it, and that’s what the root of Marxist materialism is. Not a belief that metaphysics aren’t real, not a belief that physical matter is of a certain character or is even unassailable in it’s reality, but a belief that human beings are fundamentally altered and influenced by it.
What does everything you just said have to do with communism?
It’s the entire basis of communist theory. Capitalism cannot be “fixed” because its basic structure consists of two classes with different relations to the means of production, the bourgeoise and the proletariat, who have diametrically opposed material interests. The way to resolve this contradiction is to do away with the parasitic capitalist class and reorganize society so that it consists only of workers.
This is 101-level Marxism. If you don’t agree with any of it, then, uh, you may be on the wrong site.
To be entirely fair, anarchists and other non-Marxists are completely allowed on this site
I agree with everything you just said and don’t see how it depends upon the stuff I disagreed with
If material reality (or, to hopefully bridge a terminology barrier, our perceptual interface) didn’t matter, that would mean that the struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie is fundamentally inane, and would suggest an entirely different approach other than communism is necessary.
I agree, however, I think our perceptual interface matters
If you think it matters, and I have repeatedly suggested how treating the perceptual interface with respect would be identical to the function of Marxist materialism, what are we even arguing about?
Idealism, the opposite of materialism, when translated to this new conception of reality, would just be believing that things we consciously make up matter more than our perceptual interface.
That seems to be moving the goalposts quite a bit.
so you are not a marxist, bye lol :)
i’m joking. but you really need to read about marxism.
What does everything you just said have to do with communism?
It’s the very basics of our theory. and it’s basically what i told you before.
ofc, you can believe in socialism without being a marxist. You might be interested in reading Polanyi for example.
No, I do understand everything you just said, I just think it’s wrong and that a properly communist analysis would demonstrate that. Are you telling me that historical materialism is just one of multiple ways of arriving at communist conclusions?
Communism is usually associated with historical materialism, the theory that everyone here is trying to explain to you. However, there have been other forms of socialism before and after Marx. You might find interesting Henri de Saint-Simon and his theories, Paul Lafargue, or for another, more recent example of non-Marxist socialist, Karl Polanyi.
If you don’t believe in Marxism, that’s okay. But you need to study it first, and based on your original post, it might require some more time, patience, and reading.
I think you and a lot of people in this thread have confused disagreement for ignorance due to a failure of cognitive empathy. Which is understandable, because neurotypical cognitive empathy doesn’t work properly on autistic people. I’ll check out those sources you linked.
lol, i see vast agreement in the answer you got. but you need to be a bit more careful and thoughtful. your ideas so far are a confused potpourri. you need to read what marxist theory and communism are, more than a few slogans. and this can be done just alone, with a book. perhaps start here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/marx-a-very-short-introduction-9780198821076 (Marx: A Very Short Introduction - Peter Singer)
Do not read that, Singer is a terrible interpreter of Marx
Half an hour ago, you didn’t know what historical materialism meant. You are in no position to tell anyone what a “properly communist analysis” would demonstrate.
No investigation, no right to speak.
i think they must be very young, no need to be hostile :)
i find this whole discussion kinda cute to be honest…
I knew what historical materialism meant, just didn’t see what it had to do with communism other than Marx believed in it. I don’t really understand Marx’s thinking in associating the two, but this thread is helping. It seems like y’all are already materialists and just need a material analysis of class because you’re not ready to understand the big stuff.
It seems like y’all are already materialists and just need a material analysis of class because you’re not ready to understand the big stuff.
Oh, fuck off
That quote should be a site tagline lmfao
ok this is definitely an elaborate bit
I fully understand the philosophical perspective you’ve adopted, I simply disagree with it.
I missed out on a lot of discussion, but if it hasn’t been linked, I am once again asking every Hexbear to read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
The gist of what Marxists believe is that all things come from a material reality, even intangible things like music, religion, and ideas. They come from the human brain, which is itself influenced by the material world it observes and interacts with. So I would say that even though Spotify and the songs on there aren’t “materials” in a certain sense, they are still things that require a material reality to produce them. You cant have music or spotify without musicians and programmers.
Yeah, I used to agree with marxists on all that when I was a baby commie, but then I got radicalised further to the left and I no longer believe in a material reality essential to cognition or perception. And I don’t see how agreeing with Marx on all that is necessary to maintain a belief in communism. I’m sure it’s helpful if you’re already a realist and you need a realist reason to become a communist, but I don’t think it’s useful at all for idealists. That’s my synthesis between what the realists said and what I said.
That’s not getting more left, sounds more like getting confused about solipsism or something.
Have you read Hegel? I think you don’t really get the philosophical foundations of Marxism but that’s the domain in which you are trying to make criticisms.
I think the materialist view is important to understand what drives people and what drives history. You can believe in communism, but materialism can help u understand the reality under which you live and through which you must bring forth communism. Bringing forth communism is difficult enough but probably impossible if you have no understanding of the historical period you are living through, the material conditions that make people reactionaries or bootlikers or demsocs etc. It’s by looking at the material reality that you can understand (ie. hopefully predict) the actions taken by capitalists and imperialists, the contradictions reigning, the material needs and wants driving things.
of course marxists can say communism is inevitable to follow from capitalism and understanding what i mention above is not necessary so i dunno
But I understand all of those things without materalism. I understand history and science and labour relations as products of the human mind, and I can apply discoveries of the scientific method to make accurate predictions about the perceptual world. And I understand why people adopt certain positions in relation to class struggle and how they’re related to the perceived world. No materialism needed.
I understand history and science and labour relations as products of the human mind
this is an idealist perspective common among liberals. materialists view it in the opposite direction: the human mind is a product of the material world. our the natural (material) world amd our relationship to labor and production shape our understanding of the world and our consciousness. the world isnt changed by ideas, ideas are changed by the world. actions lead to societal change. liberals think if a majority of people thought a certain way, the world will change. Marxists hold a materialist perspective that opposes this and instead posits that society changes when people act to enact change
I wish that was true. If liberals weren’t such huge realists they’d be less transphobic. I mean, I’ve even taken transphobia from liberals on Hexbear who had a problem with my gender for being incompatible with reality. Realists always act like that. If mainstream liberals were idealists, it wouldn’t have taken until last week for me to be open about my gender on a public site. I wouldn’t be scared of them doing hate crimes at me for being unreal.
i said it was common among liberals, not predominant. in this context, realists believe that political and social change come solely from those that seek to rule. might makes right and all that. it doesnt really have much to do w bigotry other than realists tend to hold more bigoted views bc those in power uphold bigotry. idealists are still usually bigoted in some way just bc of how they are socialized
and i have seen the ppl on here doubting your gender, which is rude and im sorry you have to see that. but the majority here have been acting in good faith toward you and most questions have been to actually learn abt dronegender/swarmgender and NPD acceptance. ik its hard to find a community that doesnt immediately reject you, im sorry, ik that must be hard, but try to act in good faith bc a lot of ur activity here seems like attempts to stir the pot
Yeah, I am acting in good faith. And I do appreciate the open mindedness and support from mods. I’ve seen people come to understand my gender and neurotype and that’s awesome. So I would characterise a lot of the people who initially reacted with hostility as well meaning liberals. Whereas the leftists who already had an education on xenogenders accepted me instantly, like that one angelgender person.
But I have a whole lot experience of denialism of my gender identity, and since I don’t expect anyone here to have been in the same subreddits or discord servers or local orgs as I have and seen this for themselves, talking about through-lines that I’ve seen here is the best way to make my claims verifiable for others and prove I know what I’m talking about and I’m talking about it in good faith. So I talk about the realist bigotry here as a case study to help others understand the rest of my life. And the bottom line is: people who put reality above feelings are cruel to trans people. Trans “allies” who have been convinced reality is compatible with binary trans people are usually still enbyphobic. It’s only the nonrealists who act with true acceptance. Because I will always have to justify my existence to realists, and even if science and kindness are on my side, it’ll still be a struggle to get them to open their minds for the next marginalised experience
materialism = ideals and beliefs come from material reality. The exact character of material reality, be it an illusion, a real thing, or a physically existing 3d hologram, is not nearly as important as the realization that ideals and beliefs stem from it
Being against the idea of this is problematic because it implies you care more about what we think, than what we do
I think
“but I just don’t see what part of it requires belief in an objective world of matter.”
that’s not what materialism means, at least in marxist therm. materialism means humans facts are dependent on space and time, so to say. so, the relationships of productions, are historically connoted and situated in space. that’s why we are materialists. historical materialists.
we reject idealism: we don’t believe that culture is the engine of history, for example. we reject all forms of idealism, we reject the “idea” of state (for example), the state for us is a product of the relationships of production . we believe material relationships of production are the engine of history.
that’s a very synthetic answer. but the point is: materialism is not primarily concerned with physical objects or “things.” Instead, it centers on the intricate interplay of historical and spatial contexts in shaping human realities.
Well I don’t believe in spacetime either. I think it’s a mental construct. In the Information age, much of the means of production are explicitly, indisputably made of information. Agreements to buy, sell, and distribute which form the basis of capitalism are social constructs, existing only as products of human thought. Belief in currency, and capital, and wealth, is the driving force of history. That’s part of culture.
I think it’s a matter of scope you’re not considering. Mechanical materialism is what you are referring to when you are creating a division between mechanical substance and metaphysical substance. Marx draws on Hegel who draws on Spinoza who says that mechanical substance and metaphysical substance are composed of the same thing, while understanding that metaphysical substance is self generative and not determined by mechanical substance in and of itself.
Marx’s dialectical materialism is a unity of social reality meaning it’s an understanding that there is both a true form of existence in the material world with complex social concepts existing as a part of that reality. The point of this epistemology is that it helps us understand where truth comes from (that is beyond metaphysical symbolic truth), which is a useful tool in actually changing the world.
Sure there are mystic truths beyond the scope of Marxism, but they are functionally useless in changing the world which is the primary goal of Marxism.
Are you saying that property dualism is compatible with Marx’s materialism?
Sure there are mystic truths beyond the scope of Marxism, but they are functionally useless in changing the world which is the primary goal of Marxism.
Oh, now this seems like a concrete claim we can test. So, would propaganda fall within one of these mystic truths or within Marxian materialism?
Marxian materialism. It is not property dualism because in my view Marx agrees with Hegel that property dualism subjects the metaphysical to be subordinate to the physical. Propaganda is a metaphysical notion informed by physical observations but those also physical observations get their character from the notion. It’s a bit ridiculous to assume propaganda, which is defined by its capability to propagate ideology, is a purely physical thing and would involve a ridiculous amount of loopholes to explain within a mechanical materialist worldview. Marxian materialism doesn’t hold a primacy of one or the other but doesn’t claim an agnosticism to the difference, rather there is a very specific dialectic between the two.
“It is dualist because it is monist. Marx’s ontological monism consisted in affirming the irreducibility of Being to thought, and, at the same time, in reintegrating thoughts with the real as a particular form of human activity.” Sartre, Critique of Dialectic Reason
Philosophy is not exactly my strong point but I think you might get a kick at least out of Critique of Dialectic Reason if you are trying to triangulate how you feel about Marxian materialism. As you are now, you are completely denying the character of the real as possible to be understood at all and reducing it to a matrix of symbols completely detached from the real at all, which doesn’t incorporate that while the symbolic and social reality is the lens with which our minds functions to make “sense” of the real there still exists a real that informs those symbols at the same time.
Or in other words how can you possibly hope to change anything when you can only ever know nothing.
Or in other words how can you possibly hope to change anything when you can only ever know nothing.
There’s an old saying from chaos magic, and maybe you’ve heard it in Assassin’s Creed as the philosophy of the Assassins too: “nothing is true. everything is permitted.”
If I believe in nothing, then I can choose to believe in anything. I find unrealism to be revolutionary.
I think that is a great basis for revolutionizing our ideas, and in many many ways I adhere to that same ethos. I think it needs to be dialectically balanced however with the need to enact real social change on a society wide scale, where things are true given certain assumptions. While the assumptions may be problematic in certain contexts, the outcomes are undeniably real and that is the strength of Marxism. We can deny the symbolic as “truth” but we can’t deny the real no matter how we try.
I don’t believe in spacetime either. I think it’s a mental construct
Outside of a misunderstanding of materialism, what does this mean? Like, do you not believe that time is a dimension of space? That was the big breakthrough of Einsteins theory of relativity. He proved that gravity only works if time is a dimension of space.
Oh, Einstein’s theory is beautiful. It’s elegant, and there’s a lot of truth to it. It accurately predicts our future perceptions within relativistic situations, far better than Newton’s theory. However, that’s all it is - perception. Einstein accurately described the interface of our minds and created a model we can use to better use that interface. But understanding an interface is not the same as understanding the truth beneath the interface. That’s probably why Einstein’s theory can’t account for quantum science.
interface of our minds
What? It’s not just perception, it’s repeatable measurements. Anyone on earth, even a machine, can run the same experiments (or for astrophysics, observe the same phenomenon) and get the same numbers.
I suppose technically it’s just a model, but if it answers all of our questions it seems to be correct.
That’s probably why Einstein’s theory can’t account for quantum science.
No, that’s because that’s a different problem entirely. Though all models of quantum physics assume that time is a dimension of space as well.
It’s not just perception, it’s repeatable measurements
A repeatable perception of measurements. To think that perceiving something enough times in a row makes it true is a fallacy. Every time I load this here silver disk into my DVD player, I perceive Luke Skywalker lifting a rock with his mind. That doesn’t make my perception true, no matter how repeatable it is.
Anyone on earth, even a machine, can run the same experiments
You mean you can perceive a machine running the same experiments and you will perceive the machine agreeing with your perceptions. That’s hardly an unbiased experiment.
If we cannot currently influence this interface, and as of our current perception it is effectively one and the same with reality, why is this at all relevant to Marxist materialism?
It wouldn’t be relevant if we couldn’t influence it, but we can influence it.
Ultimately, though, all the infrastructure to support that exists in the material world. You cannot have a modern information age economy without the material basis of mines to dig up the raw material for those computers, factories to assemble those computers, and power to run those computers.
Right, but the mines, factories, and power are just a symbol created by the human brain to abstract away reality from our perceptions.
You can call them what you want, but you won’t have an information economy without them.
Oh yes, I believe in taking the rules of my perceptual interface very seriously. If people believe in mines, then I get to work on computers. See, that’s culture creating labour relations. That’s what I’m talking about with idealistic communism.
Taking the rules of your perceptual interface seriously is literally just Marxist materialism
The idealist perspective (which it opposes) would suggest that merely the ideas of mines (as in, the simplistic, vague abstractions we make when imagining things, not the perceptual interface idea of mines), is important.
The Marxist materialist, and by extension, the someone who took their perceptual interface seriously, would instead contend that the information (the imaginary mine in our heads) is not as important as the abstraction either our brain made for us or the real physical mine that exists (depending on what you believe). In the case of the non-realist, I;E, the one who suggested the mine is not “real” but is a useful abstraction made by our brains, it would still be more important than our even more unreal imaginary conception of a mine, because the former is an abstraction of a an actually real real thing, albeit one we can’t comprehend, and until/if we’re able to figure out what the mine represents in our perceptual interface, it is literally the most important iteration of the Mine that exists
I have a suspicion there’s a language barrier here so let me ask some questions that should hopefully help me understand
OP, if all humans on earth died, every single one of them, and then, somehow, a human being was born, would they be able to see all the things human beings had built? I’m not asking if they would see them the same way, just if they could perceive them in general
I think the answer to that question is unknowable at our current level of scientific development. There is an argument to be made from Occam’s razor that the answer is “no”, because that’s the simplest explanation for the available data. Likewise, the “no” answer does afford us the greatest revolutionary potential. Believing it is beneficial to human welfare. On the other hand, Donalf Hoffman proposes a theory I find intriguing, called conscious realism, which says the answer is “yes”. I would be willing to entertain the idea that the answer is “yes” for purposes of smoother communication with people who aren’t quite ready for the level of revolutionary potential I propose.
You mentioned David D. Hoffman, but I don’t think he would support what you’re saying here. He seemed to propose that we had an inaccurate view of reality, not that a reality did not exist, or that things would disappear when we died.
Sorry you’re getting bad answers. There is actually a real answer to this.
The first part I think most people got right: you are using a different definition of materialism than Marx did.
What Marx means when he says materialism is where everyone is failing you. For example, Marx and Engels disagreed on Engels project to demonstrate that the physical world operates dialectically. Marx was very clear on his position: the metaphysical expression of that which is material is immaterial.
And here we have a glimpse of the meaning of materialism.
Material here is not a noun. It’s an adjective. That which is material TO SOCIETY stands in opposition to that which is immaterial (not material) TO SOCIETY. Not “is it matter?” but “does it matter?”
Society exists in the real world. Human society is also socially constructed in the minds of persons. What is in the minds of persons is material to society, even if that which is in the minds of people refers to things that are immaterial.
How is this possible? It is possible when we use this definition of materiality:
That which is material is that which is causally linked.
That’s it. Cause and effect are the easiest way to understand materiality. What is immaterial? Objective morality is immaterial. Whether something is objectively good or objectively evil has zero causal impact on the world (except mentally, but I will get to that). Whether morality is objectively real or not is also immaterial, again because of a lack of casual connection to anything. Platonic forms, also completely acausal.
So whether the expression of that causality is through substance or not is immaterial, in so far as the metaphysics has no bearing on causal relationships. If it turns out that matter is not real, as you say, we must still contend with cause-effect relationships. If your chosen metaphysics is closer to real reality than contemporary mainstream understandings, it will be judged so because it offers better explanatory power for society to bring about changes to conditions. The correct answer to what is reality is always material to society if it offers society causal mechanisms for effective change.
So what about beliefs? Persons act. That much is true. Those acts we call behaviors. Those behaviors are causally linked. They cause things to change. But what are behaviors caused by? Beliefs. Your behaviors are caused by your beliefs. And what causes your beliefs? Your experiences. Experiences cause beliefs, beliefs cause behaviors, behaviors cause changes in the world. That causes experiences? Changes in the world. So when someone behaves near you, you sense those behaviors and the changes those behaviors cause and you experience something and it causes changes to your beliefs.
Why does this matter? Well, if you believe in objective morality, your behavior will be different than if you did not. If you believe one thing to be good and another to be evil, those beliefs will impact your behavior. If those beliefs change, your behaviors will change. Therefore, what you believe is material to your behaviors, and your behaviors are material to society. Therefore, if we want to change society, we have to change it via behaviors and if the behaviors we observe are not the behaviors that will lead to the desired change then it becomes imperative to change beliefs. Knowing that beliefs change by experiences and that experiences are responses to change and change occurs through behaviors we can alter our behaviors to generate new experiences that will alter people’s beliefs that will alter their behaviors that will alter society. In this way morality qua beliefs people have about morality is material but metaphysically objective morality is immaterial.
I hope that helps.
Notice that they are replying to others but not you lol.
The issue here isn’t not answering the question correctly, it’s that they don’t know how to put together a coherent question about this in the first place but seem to feel threatened by/dismissive towards materialist critiques. Despite presenting as interested in feedback and learning, they’re spending their efforts replying to disagree wherever they feel comfortable doing so. A faux humility to launder unearned dismissiveness.
nailed it. Seen this infuriating behavior a lot from libs recently since federation
I agree with this but I do want some clarification
The “altering behaviors” thing refers to changing your environment, right? Not changing your brain using sheer force of will/pulling yourself up by your bootstraps
I’m skeptical of the idea that people change their fundamental habits without external prompting. I’ve heard too many stories about morally upstanding people turning out to be total pieces of shit and experienced too many examples in my life of wanting to do the right thing but having to fight an uphill battle to do it
The way I am reading your words is not matching the way I am conceptualizing these things, so I will attempt to both clarify and respond to your question and statements.
When I say altering behaviors I mean changing the behaviors of humans. So you go to the diner on the corner every Monday for dinner. That’s a series of behaviors, both the “every Monday” series and the “go to the diner for dinner” aggregate of behaviors. These behaviors are rooted in beliefs. If you were to change your beliefs, your behaviors would change. For example, if you believed the diner was closed permanently your behaviors would change. If you believe the food was causing you intense distress, your behaviors would change. If you believed that making dinner on Mondays was more important to you than eating at the diner, your behavior would change.
So, beliefs have a causal linkage with behaviors. Therefore, if we wish to alter behaviors, we must alter beliefs.
Changing your brain using sheer force of will
Charitably, this would be a cognitive behavior. Uncharitably, this is impossible. You cannot change your physical brain through sheer force of will. However, there is evidence that you can change your physical brain through your behaviors, but your bodily behaviors and your cognitive behaviors. (CBT is an example). But what would cause you to attempt to change your brain through cognitive behaviors? Beliefs. Beliefs cause your behaviors, whether those beliefs are that a bus is hurtling towards you or your belief is that you can earn a profit from buying low and selling high.
I am skeptical of the idea that people can change their fundamental habits without external prompting
Even that external prompting is mediated through sense experience to form beliefs. You can externally prompt someone all you want but unless they can form sense experience, organize that experience, and form beliefs about that experience your prompting will zero causal impact. Ultimately people change themselves in a causal linkage that involves their sense-making apparatus which formulates beliefs from their sensory experience. This is not to say that all we have to do is show people the truth and they will change. It is to say that if you wish to change the behaviors of others you must change the beliefs of others and if they don’t change their beliefs that’s on you for failing to figure out to create the change.
This is what propaganda is. Literally it propagates beliefs into the minds of other persons with the explicit goal of changing their behaviors.
I’ve heard too many stories about morally upstanding people turning out to be total pieces of shit
Generally, this anecdote points to something we have observed pretty consistently - beliefs in the existence of morality are highly correlated with anti-social behavior and atrocities. Empirically we are seeing that the utility of morality is not social good but actually social ill - morality is invented by the ruling class to control the masses behaviors and to indoctrinate new members of the ruling class into the behaviors that maintain the status quo.
As for wanting to do the right thing but fighting an uphill battle to do it, welcome to the struggle. We’re all here trying to figure it out. It turns out the ruling class will never yield without the masses forcing them to. Now the challenge is creating the beliefs in the masses that will result in coordinated effort to bring force against the ruling class, sustain it, and build a new society.
Yeah, I think I communicated what I meant to say unclearly
What I am basically asking is if you are suggesting that human beings can change how they act by simply wanting to act differently or believing something else, without outside prompting. I do not think they can and I’ve never seen evidence to the contrary. If someone was told that eating lettuce is good but they didn’t know what lettuce was, how would they be able to act on it? There is at least one prerequisite for acting on beliefs- further knowledge.
As for wanting to do the right thing but fighting an uphill battle to do it, welcome to the struggle
This feels weirdly condescending? I am not complaining, I am sharing my lived experience- that being that believing in things is not, by themselves, enough to change my behaviors. I can believe that working towards revolution every day of my life is a proper and beneficial thing to do, but I rarely ever actually do it (likely because I have numerous mental disorders)
this feels weirdly condescending
Apologies. I meant it as an embrace of solidarity instead of a knowing smirk. We all struggle to do the right things. The idea that beliefs are not enough to change behavior is, in part, a disagreement on what constitutes a belief. Believing that you will be happy or safe following an outcome is a belief that changes behavior. Believing you have more pressing problems that require attention is a belief that changes behavior. Adopting a net new belief is often not enough to change behavior. It takes time to incorporate that new belief into your system of beliefs and to change many other beliefs. Think of it this way - your behavior is caused by a network of millions of beliefs, so adding one more new belief is less than 0.001% of your internal causal network.
Of course, environment plays a huge part here in that if you believe you should always help dig holes when possible, but you never encounter a shovel in your life, well your behaviors are severely constrained. These are what are generally considered environmental conditions, but conditions en toto includes the beliefs of members of society. Often we find that propaganda is not sufficient, but it is in fact necessary. Likewise, environmental conditions are not sufficient but are necessary. The sum total of environmental and mental conditions are what we term the “material conditions”, because they are all material to the revolution, that is to say they all have causal effects on the revolutionary potential of a moment.
Can people change their beliefs without outside prompting? I understand where you’re coming from with this one, but it’s tough to answer because I don’t know you well enough. On the one hand, no, the liberal theory of individualism is garbage. On the otherhand, all prompting is external even if no other human is involved. For example, if I find that my beliefs lead to bad outcomes for me, I can choose to change my beliefs. A lot needs to be right for that to happen. I need to have beliefs about my beliefs, beliefs about the outcomes I experienced, beliefs about myself. But yes, I can change things about myself without someone else agitating me to do so, but yes there are preconditions, but no those preconditions are not universally external prompting by other people, but yes development of those preconditions is a function of society and therefore is dependent on other persons.
It’s hard to answer. The best I can say is I firmly reject the liberal framing of individualism but I do not believe individuals lack the power to change their own beliefs and behaviors. Reality is dialectical in this way.
if I find that my beliefs lead to bad outcomes for me, I can choose to change my beliefs.
This is what I disagree with. I cannot do that and many can’t. I think even the implication this is possible is a blatantly false suggestion implanted in people’s heads by years of liberalism and notions of Christian “free will”.
I am not the exception. I am the rule, made more obvious for everyone to see. Nobody has control over themselves and nobody can change themselves to be better. Self improvement is a myth. The only thing that can come close is incremental change of one’s surroundings, which can eventually change oneself.
The idea that we can change ourselves is a comfortable lie, told to make ourselves feel like the rational, superior beings we consider ourselves to be. But we are not. We have more understanding than most animals, yes, but our main difference is a marked increase in pattern finding. This does not imply an increased ability to change those patterns within our own brain, only an ability to understand patterns so our very small ability can be multiplied, our small pushes applied in just the right place to give the outcome we need.
We do not have bigger pushes than other animals, and make no mistake, we are all animals, we just have an easier time noticing where to put them
So we can “change ourselves”, but in the sense that humans can change other humans, and that we can influence our own thoughts in subtle but important ways. But that is entirely different from the classic notion of “self-improvement”, of “mind over matter”.
Important edit: to be clear, I don’t mean any of this in a hostile way. I guess i just say this as an opportunity to put my manifesto down
Matter in the context of of philosophical materialism just refers to the external world that humans find themselves within. I suppose you don’t have to believe in the explanations given by the field of physics to recognize this world as something that exists, if that’s what you mean. Philosophical materialism is just the position that this external world and it’s relationships (including to humans) have the primary role in determining human ideas, and that ideas have no other basis than the material structure and internal relationships of the human brain (no Ideals floating around in the ether that humans have discovered).
Materialism became a core component of Marxism, scientific socialism, and the communist movement from the very beginning in contrast to other studies of political economy and philosophy of the time (and today!) because Marxism seeks to explain and analyze why society is the way it is and how to make it better by understanding the only observable, testable universe we know of: the universe of material things and their relationships that we live within. This stands in contrast to, for example, liberal political philosophy which holds that capitalism is just the natural, most advanced, and final state of society that humans were always inherently going to create. In other words, capitalism is just a fact of reality and a natural idea that humans have discovered and that it’s this idea that is responsible for creating capitalist society.
Check out this essay by Mao Zedong if you wanna read further in better words than my own lol: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_30.htm
I suppose you don’t have to believe in the explanations given by the field of physics to recognize this world as something that exists
Well actually the cutting edge of physics is beginning to get at the idea that this world doesn’t exist. And evolutionary science has already gotten there with the fitness beats truth theorem and the interface theory of perception.
The conclusion I’m getting from this thread is that marxists were already materialists before they learned about communism, and they need a material theory of communism because they wouldn’t understand the ideal theory of communism.
Well actually the cutting edge of physics is beginning to get at the idea that this world doesn’t exist.
No offense, but do you have any proof? That’s kinda the thing about idealism, once you become separated from trying to analyze the testable, material world around us you can kinda just assert whatever you want to be true. That’s why Marxists care so much about materialism. Deviating from it can result in some really weird, ineffective stuff. Like maybe we just need to get enough people together to think communism into existence.
Donald Hoffman explains it very well in his book The Case Against Reality. Here’s the short version of the Fitness Beats Truth theorem:
If our ancestors had evolved to see truth, then they’d have all died before passing on their genes, because they would have been outcompeted by the organisms which perceive fitness. Perceiving truth is a waste of energy and resources. Creatures that perceive fitness will always adapt better to the environment with fewer resources.
I can’t say I’ve heard of that book. I’ll have to look into it.
About your theorem:
Tbh, I just kinda see it as an affirmation of the kind of materialism Marxism is talking about. There no eternal “Truth” to be perceived, it’s all relative. In the context of natural selection, maybe truth is the best strategy to survive. When organism are struggling for the best fitness they are entering into a complex web of material relationships with their environment. This process of natural selection has been going on for far longer than humans have been able to conceive of it. Marxism is just the theory of evolution by natural selection but for the development of human society. Unless I missed the point of your theorem…
I think you missed at least some of the point. Note that the theory of evolution holds true within any system of competing agents capable of hereditary changes. Even for memes, which can only exist in the minds of intelligent species. The theory of evolution holds true even in situations where the environment in which human beings truly exist is not a world. There must be an environment of some kind, yes, but that environment does not require matter, energy, spacetime, or any number of other symbols from our interface to exist. The FBT theorem does not depend upon there being a world in order to hold true. Rather, it erodes the concept of there being a world such as humans would understand it to be a world, because it confirms that our perceptions of the world are perceptions of fitness, not truth. Our reality is simply a tool to help us survive and reproduce. It is not passed down from God to show us truth.
That’s certainly interesting, but it implies that there is still some kind of reality, just that the way we interpret it is somewhat false, which is probably correct. This is not at all incompatible with Marxist materialism, because our perceptions of reality not being literally true is irrelevant to if we’re influenced by it or not. It merely suggests that our minds evolved a specific way of perceiving reality and, until we can fundamentally alter our brain chemistry, it will be the best we’ve got.
The difference between perception and truth is not a criticism of the materialist perspective and would arguably align with it better than the alternative.
Though I’d say that anyone making sweeping generalizations about evolutionary fitness either doesn’t understand it or is oversimplifying for effect.
I’ve taken several undergraduate courses in evolutionary biology and done a 4th year research course. I really struggle to understand what is being said.
I often try to take what others say prima facie and interpret it my own way, that is in a scientific and materialist way.
Perhaps one interpretation could be the sum total information available to our sensory organs needs to be filtered through heuristics to determine what is useful in order to contend with immediate needs so as to survive and reproduce. Any deviation from the ‘analog’ world or of whatever external material world there is and our own reductionist understanding hides the truth from us. Therefore the claim is the ownership of an epistemic advantage or insight unavailable to most others. This treads on relativism and solipsism, since if this is true, it does not do very much to help the rest of us.
I don’t know, I tried to engage respectfully but I’m still drawing blanks.
I think the academic in question is making a very simple claim while using obscuring language and methodologies.
It’s literally just that perception can do a good, and even better job of increasing fitness by latching on to not-exactly-true things, and in fact does not necessarily ever need to actually identify true things. Just true-ish things such that there can be useful response to the environment.
Kind of like how we see faces where they don’t exist. Our brains have evolved to recognize certain patterns as faces, which is surely very useful for fitness in various contexts (recognizing another human). But the perception is buggy, it’s fuzzy, it makes a pretty good number of false positives. Did we evolve to see the “truth” of existing faces, or just an approximation?
Anyways the topic is cool but I’m convinced OP doesn’t understand it.
