Marxian Illustrations or Marxian Illusions?

Posted by Guest Blogger on Thursday, 16 February 2012 22:30.

by Graham Lister

If there was no difference between essence and appearance, there would be no need for science. - Karl Marx.

“Our discussions of non-purposive elaborations of functional claims suggest ways of filling that lacuna, but it is also necessary to point out that Marxists can be too sensitive to the charge that they perceive conspiracies everywhere. There is more collective design in history than an inflexible rejection of ‘conspiracy theories’ would allow, and richer scope for purposeful elaboration of Marxist functional theses than that posture recognizes. Thus while ideologies are not normally ‘invented’ to to fit the purposes they serve, a fairly deliberate and quite concerned effort to maintain and protect an existing ideology is not unusual. According to Christopher Hill, nobility and gentry in seventeenth-century England doubted they “would still be able to control the state without the help of the church”, and, therefore, “rallied to the defence of the episcopacy in 1641…for explicitly social reasons”. Ruling class persons of no special devotion to an Anglican God frankly professed obedience, and acted on that inspiration. Or, to take another example, when a high state functionary, reflecting on the unequal distribution of information in society, concludes that “this inequality of knowledge has become necessary for the maintenance of all the social inequalities which gave rise to it”, he may be expected to see the persistence of an educational structure which reproduces ignorance in the right places…But sentences beginning “The ruling class have decided…” do not entail the convocation of an assembly. Ruling class persons meet and instruct one another in overlapping milieux of government, recreation, and practical affairs, and a collective policy emerges even when they were never all in one place at one time.

There are, of course, many shades between the cynical handling of ideology just emphasized and an unhypocritical commitment to it, and a division of labour between lucid and engagé defenders of dominant ideas can be quite functional. If awareness of the true nature of the game penetrates too far down the elite, it could leak into the strata beneath them. There is always a mix of manipulation, self-deception, and blind-conviction in adherence to an ideology, the optimal proportions varying with circumstance.

All classes are receptive to whatever ideas are likely to benefit them, and ruling classes are well placed to propagate ideologies particularly congenial to themselves. But before an ideology is received or broadcast it has to be formed. And on that point there are traces in Marx of a Darwinian mechanism, a notion that thought-systems are produced in comparative isolation from social constraint, but persist and gain social life following a filtration process which selects those well-adapted for ideological service…There is a kind of ‘ideological pool’ which yields elements in different configurations as social requirements change.

Yet it is unlikely that ideas fashioned in disconnection from their possible social use will endorse and reject exactly what suits classes receptive to them. Here a Lamarckian element may enter, to make the picture more plausible. In Lamarck’s theory the equipment of the individual organism is somewhat plastic, for it changes under environmental challenge when it is put to novel use. Because of the delicacy of intellectual constructions, sets of ideas enjoy a partly similar plasticity: one change of emphasis, one slurred inference, etc., can alter the import of the whole. Such ‘Lamarckian’ possibilities are intimated in Marx’s review of the numerous uses to which a self-same Christianity is liable, and is it not because ‘Liberalism’ is an ambiguous term that its presumed teaching varies across space and time.”

- from “Karl Marx’s Theory of History – A Defence” by G.A. Cohen.

Let the discussion on ‘top-down versus bottom-up’ processes in the world of ideas and ideology begin.

Note- the act of quotation does not imply approval or agreement.

Tags: Activism, Cultural Marxism

Comments:

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:31 | #

@Gayham

1) The title is retarded my lofty intellect phd-waving friend. Marxist Illustrations or Marxists Illusions? Do you see any conflict here? Any redundancy? Has this random piece of text by Cohen caused the resident super-brain befuddlement?

2) You take this post-modernist dreck seriously…to such a degree you want to emulate it like a little monkey with a cup…you even claim to be more intelligent than your betters - because they do not emulate stupidity as unconsciously as you do ...and you have a bubblegum-machine ‘phd’ as your sham reward to impress the rubes.

3) Apropos of Nothing. Gayham you take your little yid quote and throw it out there for your intellectual inferiors cerebral nourishment and then pat yourself on the back at your rarified talent for curating such morsels of discourse. You intellectual good work is done today so you skip around in your lavender frock coat ‘I’m Gayham_Lister and I’m smart! Teeheehee’‘

4) Gayham You Are A Fucking Retard you need to expand your phd level intellect to cosmos scale concepts like the breadth and depth of your stupidity. No one minds some gay old poofter with a high opinion of himself, but you take the concept too far.

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:46 | #

Grim,

You go too far. The subject is dissemination in a hostile environment. The left, Jewish and gentile, face different challenges to us, obviously, but they have succeeded mightily. Why would you not find that worthy of thought?

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:27 | #

Marxist Illustrations or Marxists Illusions - dissemination in a hostile enviroment???

Why would you not find that worthy of thought?

Because this monkey-like imitation of intellectualism, the scurrying about like those little sand jawa’s from starwars, tearing off shiny little pieces of postmodernism, jumping and scurryin up the bars, and the masturbating in public…. ‘look how intelligent! You are not so intelligent!’ the throwing feces (somehow excreted straight from his forehead) from someone who’s rank in the dullard department is around 5 stars v.s.o.p. and a brass band and a corsage.
What good comes from entertaining these nabobs of boobosity? This place is practically a laughing stock as it is.
Now we have homosexuals doing in public the exact same things we despised the left for, courtesy of Mr. Blister - that’s how far nationalism has come in Britain has it?

Posted by Jimmy Marr on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:47 | #

GW,

It’s painful, on a personal level, to watch Grim assassinate Graham, but I think you bear some, if not all, the responsibility for encouraging this situation to develop.

You’ve taken measures to insure that no limits are placed on verbosity and obfuscation, but characterize the opposite condition as going too far.

This looks like an asymmetrical tactic to me.

Posted by Graham_Lister on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:51 | #

I rather like the concept of a quasi-Darwinian selection process (without over-investing in its explanatory power) from what might be dubbed a ‘memepool’ – but the question remains what is are the precise boundary conditions against which the ‘fitness’ of an idea is optimized? Truth (but radical liberalism is hardly ‘true’)? Usefulness for an agenda? If we dump the homogeneous ‘ruling class’ concept but instead think of various powerful ‘vested interests’ split along all sorts of cleavages (implying a somewhat heterogeneous ‘elite’ which is subject to intra-group conflict) then it might be a more useful analysis. There are potential fault-lines both within and between strata and different groups (vertically and horizontally if you like) - how precisely are these sociological fault-lines maximally opened or closed, exploited etc.?

But I thought it might be a useful starting point for a discussion on how the ideological ‘common-sense’ of an socio-political epoch is actually formed. Which it seems to me doesn’t have an ‘easy’ or simple and obvious answer. How top-down versus bottom up etc.? How expressive or instrumental are political ideas?

As Leon Haller has suggested ‘moral anti-racism’ seemingly trumps nearly all other political ideas. Rather like liberalism (in the widest sense of that term) it is like the unnoticed water that the fish swim about in without a second thought. Understanding that process as ‘scientifically’ as possible seems a worthy task.

And the idea of non-natural selection - cultural or social selection is not exclusively a Marxist idea - see for example the work of in economics, Nelson & Winter’s “Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change”; in sociology, W. G. Runciman’s “Treatise on Social Theory” and “Theory of Cultural and Social Selection”; in anthropology, Pascal Boyer’s study of belief systems, “Religion Explained”; and of course Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman’s “Cultural Transmission”.

The analytically difficult question is in the world of ideas - especially abstract political and moral ideas - what constitutes the basis for ‘fitness’?

Posted by Graham_Lister on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:12 | #

Just to say I very much dislike anything that smacks of ‘conspiracy’ talk. However, we can rethink the broader issues as a classic co-ordination problem. That is how intra-group co-ordination is achieved without any ‘central planning’ involved and how well that co-ordination problem is ‘solved’ by different groups etc., with regard to the impact upon any possible forms of intra-societal competition between groups with potentially widely differing interests.

And with that I am off to the world of Zzzzzz!

Posted by uh on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:20 | #

Jimmy,

You’ve taken measures to insure that no limits are placed on verbosity and obfuscation, but characterize the opposite condition as going too far.

It was an accurate characterization. Fleshing out anti-liberal discourse should not mean being locked in the hermetic container of J Richards’ private understanding of the world. There is as much obfuscation in a paranoiac’s narrowing of phenomena to simplistic terms as in Graham’s somewhat overbearing academic verbiage. The difference is that with Graham, no one feels like they’re being watched, so people feel free to interject, call him names, or take up his talking-points in a friendly manner as they list.

For some reason I can’t figure, you wish to be a slave to the opposite tendency, toadying for a petty tyrant like Bot ... and a vapid intellectual nobody who thinks he’s special like Soren.

Graham,

The analytically difficult question is in the world of ideas - especially abstract political and moral ideas - what constitutes the basis for ‘fitness’?

Broad-base inclusiveness. For a mixed population, or a population threatened by a mixing they cannot oppose, the most ‘inclusive’ / relativistic ideas would be favored over exclusive, which would single them out. Dopamine brah. Tend-befriend is much easier than fight-flight. That’s why MajorityKikes is full of spergs (males in flight).

And with that I am off to the world of Zzzzzz!

After inhabiting the world of lozozzzzzz

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:35 | #

the little monkey chitter chatters and plays with his little monkey bollacks.

The above…Mr. Gayham Blister, is a good example why this segment of British Nationalism is a laughing stock and a farce….look for yourself:

I rather like the concept of a quasi-Darwinian selection process (without over-investing in its explanatory power) from what might be dubbed a ‘memepool’ – but the question remains what is are the precise boundary conditions against which the ‘fitness’ of an idea is optimized? Truth (but radical liberalism is hardly ‘true’)? Usefulness for an agenda? If we dump the homogeneous ‘ruling class’ concept but instead

like a little machine pumping out bollacks and mental feces. This type of obvious mental pathology is what you allow people in your midst to claim as ‘intelligence’.

You let this type of idiot interrupt and correct people of whom this man is too stupid to correct their house plants…and should be sitting to learn from their pets.
This and other morons and idiots of this stripe pollute and degrade the comments and posts with their mental detritus and stink of insanity and depravity…is this where Nationalism has fallen?

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:51 | #

Whatever one says about the J lizards or bots…they at least mean what they say and discuss things rationally as in human being to human being

not po-mo waste disposal unit to ho-mo waste disposal unit…like most especially Blister, Haller and a few others…... this place is a fucking fruit salad

What’s a matter, you don’t have enough of the completely stupid and utterly nonsensical in your daily diet?

Hey! Why not marry utter inanity with Nationalism! What a jewfect idea. How yiddisherful!

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:21 | #

@uh

Fleshing out anti-liberal discourse should not mean being locked in the hermetic container of J Richards’ private understanding of the world.

Do you understand what hermeticism means? Perhaps you mean ‘hermetically sealed’ container of J. Richards…..which still means nothing.
This is what I mean, you all talk complete shit…you have shit for brains and shit for ideas. And you have others, of which Blister is a prime example, encouraging you in shitting more shit into where your shit brains should be. You don’t come here to learn, share and grow something worthwhile, and the many who do soon learn to go elsewhere…you come here to shit among other shit heads because this is a repository of shit ideas about our countries turning to shit.

There is as much obfuscation in a paranoiac’s narrowing of phenomena to simplistic terms as in Graham’s somewhat overbearing academic verbiage.

My morning stool has more fibre and it requires less thought. Grahams overbearing academic verbiage? I’ve worked in academia for decades…any frosh coming around spouting such idiocy would have my boot up there ass so fast your nose would blow itself

The difference is that with Graham, no one feels like they’re being watched, so people feel free to interject, call him names, or take up his talking-points in a friendly manner as they list.

Graham is a fucking idiot, is that how you like it?

Broad-base inclusiveness. For a mixed population, or a population threatened by a mixing they cannot oppose, the most ‘inclusive’ / relativistic ideas would be favored over exclusive, which would single them out. Dopamine brah. Tend-befriend is much easier than fight-flight. That’s why MajorityKikes is full of spergs (males in flight).

Here you reveal yourself.

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:48 | #

I shouldn’t lump Haller in with Blisters homo waste unit. Haller has Austrian problems, but he’s not a homo (like he should say straight out Jew economics and not blacken the name of a great country like Austria)

Posted by uh on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:01 | #

Perhaps you mean ‘hermetically sealed’ container of J. Richards …..which still means nothing.

I meant exactly what stands.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hermetic

As for what it means, it’s just a metaphor.

You don’t come here to learn, share and grow something worthwhile,

You may be right about that. No, let me be honest: you are right about that. On the other hand, MajorityRichards was no improvement. Point stands that he attempted to sew up all discussions into his own too narrowly defined terms. He had his own website a while ago, for whatever reason pulled, and if you ever saw it, you would see his “work” here was identical to it. In other words, he’s just another Eric Hufschmid type conspiracy loon.

There’s nothing to learn from that, and your allegiance in the matter vitiates your moralistic appeal to “learn, share and grow”. What you want is conspiracy talk. You dangled some shady metsada bullshit at us last year and you’re sore that no one paid attention. Guess what? There’s extremely little honor at MajorityRights because we’re all adult males with highly idiosyncratic personalities with ethnocentric pretensions. That isn’t a recipe for trust and honor. Pretty much all the real life honor you’ll find exists between danielj, myself, and our friends. Jimmy too, though he’s an idiot for siding with the Bot.

Here you reveal yourself.

Oh please.

Look, I’m not about to trade insults with you — for one because there’s no grudge between us, for another, I’ll always be grateful to you for that post of yours some time ago about your walk in a remote park wherever it was in Canada. That was quality. I like the reflective, poetic Grimoire with interesting stories from his life. I don’t like the aimlessly nettled Grimoire. If you want to teach us a lesson about quality online behavior, do more of what you are best at.

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:18 | #

@uh

You may be right about that. No, let me be honest: you are right about that. On the other hand, MajorityRichards was no improvement. Point stands that he attempted to sew up all discussions into his own too narrowly defined terms. He had his own website a while ago, for whatever reason pulled, and if you ever saw it, you would see his “work” here was identical to it. In other words, he’s just another Eric Hufschmid type conspiracy loon.(uh)

I don’t know much about the J bot…I’ve only had a cursory glance around recently. It seemed to me he ran into the ’900 foot Godzilla of Abject Stupidity’ which is a mind numbing terror in itself…it would make you gnaw your foot off to get away. You may be right or not, but it seems to me anything is an improvement and ultimately modifiable.

There’s nothing to learn from that, and your allegiance in the matter vitiates your moralistic appeal to “learn, share and grow”.(uh)

What I want is rational discussion among intelligent people.

What you want is conspiracy talk. (uh)

Sometimes a gas…. other times a bore.

You dangled some shady metsada bullshit at us last year and you’re sore that no one paid attention.(uh)

That was hot stuff and a lot of laughs….but I was looking for more technically capable types on that and it didn’t really matter if MR types were in on it. Still, your loss.

There’s extremely little honor at MajorityRights because we’re all adult males with highly idiosyncratic personalities with ethnocentric pretensions. That isn’t a recipe for trust and honor.(uh)

Yes, there is a recipe, and contrary to what is spread by this culture, it is normal for adult males, and intrinsic to European males, to sort themselves out into a unit that ends up many times more powerful than the sum of it’s parts, the recipe is; rationality, responsibility and accountability.

Here you reveal yourself.
Oh please.
(uh)

Fine, I was reaching there, so I took a shot…. anyway I was nettled about the decisiveness and the reign of stupidity…I’m saying so. I’ve seen a lot of good people try to say things here, get some help and brain power going around…. and the bureau of the homointern shuts them down. Generally I’m not divisive….and agree the tend/befriend outlook is one of the keys in life… but I reserve the option to kick some ass if necessary, because there is no substitute for getting things done.
I can’t remember the storey about a park. Anyway, I do not dislike Lister, on the contrary, but he’s just too full of himself now. And he needs to apologize to Jimmy’s ‘green energy ray’...I could tell you a story about the origin of the ‘green blaze’ later if you want.

Posted by Jimmy Marr on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:30 | #

I could tell you a story about the origin of the ‘green blaze’ later if you want.

I’m all ears.

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:32 | #

ok later

Posted by Graham_Lister on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:49 | #

OK so I’ve now collected ‘socialist scum’ (an early one from Leon), ‘evil’ , ‘Jew crew/Jewish’ now ‘homosexual’. Really ‘your soooooo gay’ is what kids in a primary school shout at each other. Sometimes it’s OK to ‘play the man’ (ooh misses!) if the man is the predominant issue (‘l’affaire Richards was firstly about his highly idiosyncratic personality and secondarily what the consequences of that baseline issue were for the direction of MR), and sometimes one needs to ‘play the ball’.

It’s not good enough to engage in endless ad hominem unless you have some evidence such that in a judgementally rational manner one can demonstrate a fundamental flaw or recurring pattern of error in how someone generically reasons. Generally because you don’t like who is saying something isn’t really a knock-down objection to what they have said.

As for my front page items – well GW has to post them on the front page on my behalf - that does not imply approval or agreement but it does suggest he judges them to be of interest. So is GW also ‘gay’?

On the ‘esoteric’, ‘new age’ or whatever I find it all bullshit but don’t worry I have compared Catholicism to Voodoo so I’m not picking on Jimmy’s esoteric library out of spite. I just think conspiracism per se, mono-causality and related ‘esoteric’ topics are seriously deflationary in their effects upon serious thought and analysis. Is it OK for me to have such a position?

Posted by Grimoire on Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:19 | #

No Graham, you’re a nance because you hide behind po-mo logorrhoea and you even have the audacity to not only pretend you’re saying something of value, when you are expressly not - but to pretend this somehow has proper middleclass unction…. as if this mattered….. it beggars the imagination really, as I’ve said before. And you’re not done straining incredulity there! Your brain has morphed to the vagina wavelength to the degree that you not only think you are extremely intelligent for serving as a world class example of a absolute prat…. but you get all hissy if any of your intellectual hair-brushing regimens are interrupted…and threatened to scratch peoples eyes out, telling on them.

As if Britain isn’t in the trouble it is in because of little fairy princesses such as dear Graham… reciting your pomo nursery rhymes….’la la la la’...looking for approval from the most jejune and contradictory of sources (that would be; the proper authorities and belief systems that put Britain and the rest of us in this situation).

Anyway, as if intellectual transvestism has anything to say about Nationalism. And give up this golem like appeal to personal vanity - that you’re so much more intelligent than others (‘ my pretty precious- ‘phd’). You can be a pleasant enough fellow at times, but brilliant you are not. And the pretence you’re the scourge and exorcist of ‘new age’ back-sliding….you’re a stooge for the status quo only, you have no ideas of your own so don’t pretend you do.
You’ve set yourself up as one of the worst things about MR - the voice of an orthodox, sissy, denatured, unoriginal, crabbed, inverted, completely futile, stalled, boring and gelded faction. ‘The controlled opposition’.

But I have complete faith Jimmy’s ‘green energy ray’ could heal you….. better apologize to him…it’d be a ‘miracle’..but wha’ ta hell.

Posted by Silver on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:04 | #

I don’t see how the title of this post relates to anything contained in the quoted passage.

Let the discussion on ‘top-down versus bottom-up’ processes in the world of ideas and ideology begin.

The “essay” (or portion of it, or whatever) argues that ideologies are formulated at the top but are tweaked as they are confronted by those whose interests they (might) serve or (might) threaten. These tweakers could be thought to constitute something of a “bottom” but surely they’re not the real bottom. It seems to me that the only way the real bottom might have any say in it is indirectly, by way of wholesale rejection of an ideology that is imposed on them (including rejection of a status quo whose “imposition” they come into awareness of), thus opening the way for the ideologues and tweakers in the opposing camp to effect some change. I conclude that it’s always a case of top-down, but may occasionally be a case of top-down as well as (a loosely defined) bottom-up.

Also, this isn’t important, but this sentence is bugging me: Such ‘Lamarckian’ possibilities are intimated in Marx’s review of the numerous uses to which a self-same Christianity is liable, and is it not because ‘Liberalism’ is an ambiguous term that its presumed teaching varies across space and time.”

Is that referring to Christianity’s teachings or Liberalism’s? Based on the thrust of the quoted passage ( the whole thing) I’m assuming the latter, but the quoted passage is part of a book or a longer essay so there may have been something else said earlier that could mean the former.

Posted by Graham_Lister on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:34 | #

@Silver

Cohen’s prose but ‘its’ does mean Liberalism in this case.

The point was to spark a debate about how and why ideas become dominant in a particular social order…obviously this is not within the modal ‘comfort zone’ of MR. One can take issue with the premise and ideas of the sketch outlined in the longer quote but at least going beyond this:

That’s a fucking Jew Commie - he is EVIL and WRONG!!!!

Well how is he wrong? As I said I think he might have half of a point but it’s not a ‘conspiracy’ it’s about coordination problems/issues.

Posted by JannikT on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 08:21 | #

@Graham_Lister

I think its a very well chosen quote. Too bad it did not stimulate any further discussion of the substance.
I personally dont think it detracts from its quality that its produced by a marxist jew. But i guess some people on this board will reject it precisely for this reason.

Calling it “Pomo” i think is technically speaking wrong. This Cohen guy was more of a classic marxist, albeit in a more updated version, taking issue with the newest developments in political philosophy produced during the 70ties.

Posted by Graham_Lister on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:18 | #

@JannickT

Well yes it was sad that any sensible discussion seems hard to get going here (can we think of ideology as a co-ordination problem? etc.) - btw please Mr. Richards do hurry up with your project we all wish you Godspeed - and I never called it the quote POMO.

Cohen is an ‘analytical Marxist’ (well he was). His position later changed to being an non-Marxist ethical socialist before his death I believe.

Posted by JannikT on Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:37 | #

@Graham_Lister

“If awareness of the true nature of the game penetrates too far down the elite, it could leak into the strata beneath them. There is always a mix of manipulation, self-deception, and blind-conviction in adherence to an ideology, the optimal proportions varying with circumstance.”

This is a very telling quote. What is he referring to by “true nature of the game”? He actually makes it sound like the “elite” are engaging in a conspiracy of some sort. I suppose you have a better grasp of his writing, is this what he has in mind? Off course i am acknowledging that he is a marxist of some sort, so it can hardly come as a surprise.

I think he is correct when he says that adherents to an ideology practice conscious self-deception and at other times seem blindly convicted. I see it as strategy aimed at minimizing the cognitive dissonance which must likely will occur when reality comes at odds with ideology.

Off course you didnt call it “pomo”, but some of your critics did. Grimoire i believe.
Analytic philosophy is in general not very tolerant of POMO. Primarily because of methodology and reasoning style. POMO is normally associated with the continental tradition.
But i presume that you are well aware of this.

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