And what I’m saying is that you’re arguing against a straw man because nowhere did I make this argument. My argument, as I’ve repeatedly explained, is that Lenin built on the ideas that Marx championed.
Right and the ideas of Lenin are not the ideas of Marx. Hence the author is dead etc.
So when talking about Marc it is inaccurate to say he wrote about “communism coming out of socialism”. He didn’t. He wrote ahout a lower and higher stage of communism. To take lenins terminology and impose it on older author is anachronistic in the same way that some fascist trying to invoke the Roman empire for their own ideology, or some modern GOP pundit claiming they’re in the party of Lincoln.
You did not refute the central point which is that ideas are not transferable between people. You cannot equate the ideas of two disparate people.
If that’s not what you’re doing that’s fine. But then if that’s jot what you’re doing you shouldn’t be using anachronistic terminology when talking about Marx.
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)
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.
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.
What I said is that the transitionary period is what we commonly refer to as socialist phase in modern parlance.
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.
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.
Right and my contention is that it is not correct to equate parlance like that.
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.
And what I’m saying is that you’re arguing against a straw man because nowhere did I make this argument. My argument, as I’ve repeatedly explained, is that Lenin built on the ideas that Marx championed.
Right and the ideas of Lenin are not the ideas of Marx. Hence the author is dead etc.
So when talking about Marc it is inaccurate to say he wrote about “communism coming out of socialism”. He didn’t. He wrote ahout a lower and higher stage of communism. To take lenins terminology and impose it on older author is anachronistic in the same way that some fascist trying to invoke the Roman empire for their own ideology, or some modern GOP pundit claiming they’re in the party of Lincoln.
I’ve already addressed this point at length above.
You did not refute the central point which is that ideas are not transferable between people. You cannot equate the ideas of two disparate people.
If that’s not what you’re doing that’s fine. But then if that’s jot what you’re doing you shouldn’t be using anachronistic terminology when talking about Marx.
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.