this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2022
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No, that's just a straw man you keep making. I've repeatedly explained that Lenin built on the ideas of Marx. And I've also explained that the idea of a transitionary period Marx describes has evolved into what we commonly refer to as socialism nowadays. What you keep trying to argue is that Lenin introduced the concept of socialism as opposed to terminology, and that's at odds with the facts.
I think I've been pretty clear in what I said above, and I don't know why you keep twisting it into something other than what I said.
I didn't argue that Lenin introduced socialism. I'm saying that Marx did not use the term socialism to refer to a transitory period. That is the only argument I'm making. Using anachronistic terminology confuses the issue. There's no point in trying to ad hoc impose Lenin terminology on Marx work. It's bad historical practice at the very least.
I mean I get it when people say "Jesus was a commie". It's a rhetorical tool. Obviously Jesus did not identify as following a specific historical tendency birthed out of the industrial revolution and colonialism. But I get the point that people are trying to make. But it would be absolutely absurd and not useful rhetorically to say "Jesus was a maoist". That just confuses the issue with anachronisms.
I am not twisting what you've said. I'm trying to make a very specific point about how language is used and you're not listening (or I'm not explaining it well. I admit I am not perfect but I'm trying my best)
And I've never disputed this point. What I said is that the transitionary period is what we commonly refer to as socialist phase in modern parlance. I'm honestly not sure what the point is disagreement is here.
Right and my contention is that it is not correct to equate parlance like that.
It would be like saying "Jesus was a Maoist" because you believe that his particular gospel of apocalyptic anti-imperialist spiritualism was structurally similar to certain tenets of Mao and therefore creates some sort of transhistorical link.
Ideas aren't transhistorical. They are not independent of human minds. They are necessarily embedded in their historical context. They're not transferable just because they look similar.
To help make this more concrete consider convergent evolution and genes. You've probably heard of carcinisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
That's the tendency of animals in specific kinds of environments to trend towards a crablike body form. This has happened dozens of times independently across the Tree of Life over the last couple of billions of years.
There is no "crab gene". There is no gene which is "crabness". Two crabs look similar, they have similar material conditions that gave rise to them and we can use human language to draw parallels between them but to reify "crab form" as the concrete "crab gene" would be a mistake.
A gene is a concrete thing. It's a very specific chemical encoding with a concrete physical history. The "crab body form" is not concrete. It's an idea, it's a useful idea but it's not the physical concrete material reality itself, and confusing the two creates misunderstandings about what is a crab or isn't a crab.
I guess I look at this from a completely different perspective. My view is that there is a particular state the society goes through which is the transition between capitalism and communism. We gain increasingly more understanding about how this transition looks like based on developing increasing complex theories and testing them. I'm not sure if you've seen this essay, but it sums up the process pretty well https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html
From this point of view, what matters is that there is a necessary transitional period, and it makes sense to refer to this period as socialism in the context of Marxist theory. Whether Marx used the term or not is not really an interesting or even important question. This is why I don't see this as conflating ideas.
You seem to be incapable of separating map and territory in your mind. I do not know what more I can say.
The issue is not that Marx did not merely use a specific piece of vocab. It is that you can not treat ideas as transhistorical.
Here's another way to put it by analogy: the gravity of Einstein is not the gravity of Newton. Newton's worldview and his understanding of his theories in that worldview does not reflect in the worldview of Einstein. We can certainly recognize how Newton influenced Einstein and how that gave foundation for new ideas and evolution of ideas but when Newton says "gravity" he does not mean the same thing as when Einstein says "gravity". They are using the same word to mean different things. Their use of the word is historically contingent.
As I've just explained, I don't think that's a very useful way to look at the world. Gravity is gravity, and Newton's conception of gravity was less accurate than Einstein's conception. How each individual conceived of gravity does not change how gravity works. Similarly, the socialist phase of development is a material phenomenon that the society must go through. How Marx or Lenin conceived of this phase does not change the nature of this phase. Fixating on historical understanding of this phenomenon is not useful outside of doing historical analysis.
Gravity is not the word gravity though! The idea of gravity is not the same thing as the force itself. The word "socialism" is not the material transition of society.
Seriously please take this issue under consideration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
That's literally my point, the words are just labels for underlying concepts. I didn't say the word socialism is equivalent to the material transition of society. What I said is that it best captures our current understanding of this concept.
And I'm arguing that concepts have no independent reality apart from words.
The word is not the concept. But the concept is also jot the material reality. You're reifying concepts and treating them as if they have some sort of transhistorical reality.
I completely agree that the word is not the concept, that's literally what I've been saying in the past few comments in several different ways.
I'm not reifying concepts and treating them as if they have some sort of transhistorical reality. I'm saying that at any point in time we have a particular understanding of the concepts which builds on prior ideas.
I feel like we're just talking past each other at this point, and we're clearly not getting anywhere. I propose we stop here. Nothing new has been said for a while.