• jackalope
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    2 years ago

    Not sure where you’re suggesting I’m arguing otherwise. What I actually said was that Lenin built on the ideas Marx put forward, and fleshed these ideas out through the process of implementing them. There is no disagreement between Marx and Lenin.

    Marx and Lenin are not the same person. Lenin built off of Marx but what he espoused is not identical to Marx. To treat Marx’s ideas as if they have some independent reality apart from his articulation, as if Lenin could be said to have somehow fulfilled and brought to fruition it’s true final platonic Form is an idealist ontological view.

    The Author is Dead dude.

    Lenin and anyone else interpreting or reading Marx are by definition in some capacity transforming whatever idea they’re inspired by.

    Here’s another somewhat creative way to illustrate this argument I’m making:

    Let’s actually look at the word “inspire”. Etymologically comes from the Latin for “to breathe into”. To “inspirit” a thing. https://www.etymonline.com/word/inspire

    Spirit? A spirit? A ghost? What?

    This concept of spirit is old. It’s relevant in a lot of Bible translation stuff. The greek equivalent is “pneuma” (the basis for the word pneumonia since this concept of spirit has been tied with this concept of breathing animating force for something)

    If I breathed out and you breathed in some of the air I breathed in, would you say you now are breathing my breathe? Maybe, but I wouldn’t. I would say you’re breathing the air that I blew out as part of my process breathing. But the breathing part is tied to the thing I’m doing. The physical concrete reality of my actions. You can put air in a bottle because it is a substance but a “breathe” isn’t something that exists as substance in isolation from it’s form. The “team spirit” isn’t a substance, it’s a particular set of concrete relationships within a team. Marx’s “spirit” that inspired Lenin is not Lenin’s spirit.

    Treating spirit like it’s some concrete reality is Hegel, it’s idealistic, it’s not materialist at all. It’s reification ( in the general rather than specifically Marxist sense). Marx wrote a concrete set articulations of his ideas. His articulations inspired other people. But other people’s interpretations and reinventions of his articulations is not identical to his articulations.

    I know some of this etymology stuff sounds a bit goofy but it helps to have some of the background on how the ideal/materialism debate originally evolved out of the greek and latin writers that came before.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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      2 years ago

      Marx and Lenin are not the same person. Lenin built off of Marx but what he espoused is not identical to Marx. To treat Marx’s ideas as if they have some independent reality apart from his articulation, as if Lenin could be said to have somehow fulfilled and brought to fruition it’s true final platonic Form is an idealist ontological view.

      Once again, ideas are living and evolving things that are rooted in experience. Lenin took the ideas that Marx established and built on these ideas through practice. That has nothing to do with any Platonic forms or idealist ontological view. What I actually meant was that Marx had a theoretical understanding of the ideas he put forward based on his observation of the capitalist society he lived in. Lenin had more direct experience that helped flesh these ideas further. I don’t know why you keep insisting on twisting that into something else.

      Lenin and anyone else interpreting or reading Marx are by definition in some capacity transforming whatever idea they’re inspired by.

      Not sure why you’re implying that I said anything contrary to that.

      Treating spirit like it’s some concrete reality is Hegel, it’s idealistic, it’s not materialist at all. It’s reification ( in the general rather than specifically Marxist sense). Marx wrote a concrete set articulations of his ideas. His articulations inspired other people. But other people’s interpretations and reinventions of his articulations is not identical to his articulations.

      And that’s literally what I said in my previous comment. Perhaps I was not articulating myself clearly, but I think I was clear in what I said here: “Lenin built on the ideas Marx put forward, and fleshed these ideas out through the process of implementing them.”

      I did not say anything about things being identical. I said that experience adds fidelity to the ideas and evolves them.

      Once again, I’m talking about a materialist dialectic understanding of how ideas evolve through praxis.

      I highly recommend reading this book on dialectical materialism to see the key differences from the prior idealist philosophies https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/185265.ABC_of_Dialectical_and_Historical_Materialism

      • jackalope
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        2 years ago

        I know what dialectical materialism.

        What I actually meant was that Marx had a theoretical understanding of the ideas he put forward based on his observation of the capitalist society he lived in. Lenin had more direct experience that helped flesh these ideas further. I don’t know why you keep insisting on twisting that into something else.

        And what I’m saying is that Marx’s ideas are not Lenin’s ideas.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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          2 years ago

          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.

          • jackalope
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            2 years ago

            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.

              • jackalope
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                2 years ago

                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.

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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                  2 years ago

                  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.

                  • jackalope
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                    2 years ago

                    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)