Surely you've heard this popular puzzle, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?". Apparently, this question has no answer. But, I think the puzzle is nice also to be the question, "What is the link between egg and chicken puzzle with Marxism?
My close friend said, "The relation between egg and chicken is dialectical, Ma Chérie! We can't determine which came first. Your question is not intellect. Let's think carefully. Both are just making it up, as taught by Martin about dialectics, co-relative, the one presupposes its existence on the other in an inseparable relationship. Anyone who tries to prioritize one over the other will fail because there is no earlier and the later. We will undoubtedly fall on determinism and reductionism when imposing ontological preliminaries of one of them. Hell No! As the educated Marxists, we must stay away from the bourgeois science totem!"
Very clever! His answer sounded like an ardent Marxist answer. Of course, my friend was basing his answer on the most fundamental dialectic's principles, which is called the doctrine of internal relations. Everything constitutive to everything else. Because I smiled heartily at him, he continued to add his argument from a corpus of Marxism, "Engels teaches that the dialectic is working in mind, nature, and society. Chicken and egg dialectics is a proof that our nature is a dialectical reality. Marx also teaches us that not individual units but relationships that filled the most basic niche of reality, doesn't he? Capital is social relations, not an entity. Similarly with the superstructure base. If we do not believe in dialectics, "he said," We are not Marxist!"
Another friend whispered to me. He gave another answer about the chicken and eggs puzzle. The proof? Well, Gallus (genus name of all kinds of birds, including Gallus gallus domesticus) is family member of Galliformes, one of the Aves class member in animal kingdom. Its ancestor is Archaeopteryx, a type of dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago. Dinosaurs reproduced by eggs that incubated outside the parent. It means, before chicken appeared in biological evolutionary tree, egg came first. So, for any chicken at all, eggs already exist in nature. So, the egg came first than chicken.
His answer also sounded like a Marxist answer. He was basing his answer on the material conditions of relation existence. For him, outside the internal relations of chicken and egg "at this time", there's external relation which allows altogether the existence of internal relations, namely the evolution fact that the eggs which are incubated outside the parent has existed earlier than the chicken evolution from phylogeny of previously laying species.
With emphasis on materiality of the existence of individual things relation, his view is also historical. There is the origin of relational matters: chicken and eggs, employer and servant, or capitalist and proletariat. If Marxism is a materialist worldview, then based on my friend's view, he can be regarded as a Marxist, right?
According to my materialist's friend, dialectical answer above sounds naive. Although it sounds like an ardent Marxist argument, but it's wrong at the most fundamental thing. The mistake lies in prioritizing dialectic materialism above. The answer implies that the relationship is everything compared to the materiality of existence which linked by the relationship. Arguably the answer is more Hegelian than Marxian.
According to my friend, this is one of contemporary Marxist diseases in this country, petty bourgeois disease that preaching dialectic blindly and hence claiming to be a Marxist. According to him, before dialectic, Marxism is a materialist. Dialectical is only predicate or just the nature of materialism. Just because "dialectical materialism" is one word, it does not mean automatically to equalize the degrees between materialist and dialectical into symmetrical relation.
If this happens, Marxism can fall into the abyss of unforgivable idealism and will also be indistinguishable from Marxism's enemies. Ignoring the materialistic nature of Marxism for dialectic that may sound more intelligent can remove the basis of Marxism altogether.
Furthermore, he said that the dialectic could be dangerous without materialism, for example, the link between the existing and the mind, between reality and desire. As in chicken and eggs relation, in the link between the existing and the mind, the reality and the will, of course, there is an internal relation between them. That between the reality and the will or there's a linkage between the existing and the mind, it does not have to be denied, because the linkage that allows the ideological criticism as operated by the economic-political critique of Marx and sociology of contemporary knowledge. But what needs to be emphasized is that the link between them is not symmetric as in Hegel's doctrine about internal relations. If the relation is symmetric, then we can just start from the opposite case of economic-political criticism. We can get caught up in the young Hegelian disease who thinks that the conversion of mind and will can change the reality. That the categories of political economy (mind), for example, is related to the condition of the material / class so that neoclassical economics is nothing more than the reflection of capitalist will class over the economic reality in which they live and fight to win the battle against the proletariat class, maybe it's true. But just changing the categories (knowledge or awareness of people on reality) does not automatically resolve the problem at reality level.
Abandonment in the presence of external links of the internal relations of individual things can lead to militant daydream to -- for example -- love. Love is certainly a relationship that links two individuals desire internally to each other. But before any of this relation and its internal dynamics, there is a prerequisite material in the form the existence of desire from a real person to the real thing outside of oneself, as well as a place for passion is intended. "Love," Marx said, "Can't have a reference to the internal development [merely] because love can't be built a priori, because its development is a real thing that takes place in the sensory world and between real individuals. In addition, because the "beloved" is sensory object, and if Criticism pretends to recognize an object, it takes at least an object without senses".
It means, just the desire and the will to love will not change the reality that a person is still single. There are prerequisites for any external material at all internal relations of two categories in love. And these prerequisites precede as well as support (supervene) the will and relation of two categories in love later.
In the "science" of humanities, the position of my dialectical friend who does not understand the meaning of love, dreamily, manifests into the thought of idealistic anthropologists such as Franz Boas, Durkheim, or Lévi-Strauss who said that human and culture were one existence package.
"Let's look at the evidence of cultural evolution," he said. "One of empirical evidence for the existence of a symbolic capacity is non-utilitarian archeological objects of human creation, whose function is not for subsistence or survival alone. Why is this used as the benchmark? If just the capacity to use (and make) the tools, all great apes and some species of monkeys also use the tools in subsistence activity and retain their lives. Only human who can produce non-utilitarian objects such as daily meme on facebook or potpourri of Engels. Because the objects not directly related to actual-empirical subsistence, then it means their existence involves a symbolic system or meaning, no matter how simple it is.
If this is the benchmark, we can take the oldest evidence in the form of tiny statue which depicts the figure of a fat woman (because breasted woman, fat because distended stomach). From the oldest evidence, the "culture" has just appeared no older than 40 thousand years ago, whereas the existence of homo genus has existed since two million years ago. If we narrow it to the emergence of Homo sapiens, then its own species already exist in the form as fully as we are at 165 thousand years ago. It means, there is a delay of several tens of thousands of years before cultured capacity appears. So, where is the "culture" during the time if it is true that people and culture have existed, hand in hand from the beginning?
What is missing from the observations of pan-culturalism (and of course my dialectical friend) is that the culture is human culture. Culture presupposes a human being first. There are material conditions that must be met prior to any culture at all. "These conditions", Marx said, "Relying on "human's physical organization". And now the science of evolution gives us a lot of evidence that humans are products of nature, the evolution result of their ancestral ape without culture. The next materialist question will be, "How culture arises entirely from the evolution of uncultured creatures? The answer must be sought from the scientific investigation of material conditions which allows its emergence, not to take for granted the existence of inherent culture in humanity. In this way, this materialist tactics closes the opportunity for "mystery" to the explanation of human and cultural as well as asserts a historical perspective, because everything is seen to have its origins.
Thus, the dialectic must be abandoned? "Of course not," my dialectical friend said. "Dialectic is useful in probing the structural problems when the problem's origin is considered completed. But if the problem is origin, and in political class struggle at the level of ideological, the origin is in connection with the legitimacy of individual things existence, then materialism -- which allows the historical point of view -- must become its commander."
Based on the opinion of my materialist friend above, then there are at least two lessons can be learned. First, Marxist prioritizes materialism than the dialectics, emphasizing on material reality rather than categorical relations which links it later, or we can be a kind of a stubborn Marxist who imposes the "thought" of Marx and Engels or Great Russia at the material reality we face today here. If it's indeed so, then Marxists will not make any difference with Mystics.
Second, in an effort to confirm the Marxist materialism, we also must be familiar with the findings of natural science and work hard to make it a weapon in the long battle against idealism, or we will easily fall when the enemy shoot us only with one bullet from the findings of strong natural sciences into our Marxist theoretical building. You certainly remember Lenin's advice, "The troops who are not trained to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare such as owned by their enemies means reckless."
Although it does not directly connect with the above explanation, it will be nice if integrated science as preached by Martin as a Marxist program in our ideological battle begins to be initiated, to strengthen resistance to supernatural explanations or supra-historical without imposing reality on our revolutionary eagerness solely. Only materialism can help us today. And to arrive at a thorough materialism, some friends, including me, well, I may have to start it with love; by trying to leave the life of radical single and start loving someone other than myself, and all the daydreams of my romantic nights but sometimes painful. However, Marx said, "Love is the first thing earnestly teach us to believe in the objective world outside ourselves".
***
My close friend said, "The relation between egg and chicken is dialectical, Ma Chérie! We can't determine which came first. Your question is not intellect. Let's think carefully. Both are just making it up, as taught by Martin about dialectics, co-relative, the one presupposes its existence on the other in an inseparable relationship. Anyone who tries to prioritize one over the other will fail because there is no earlier and the later. We will undoubtedly fall on determinism and reductionism when imposing ontological preliminaries of one of them. Hell No! As the educated Marxists, we must stay away from the bourgeois science totem!"
Very clever! His answer sounded like an ardent Marxist answer. Of course, my friend was basing his answer on the most fundamental dialectic's principles, which is called the doctrine of internal relations. Everything constitutive to everything else. Because I smiled heartily at him, he continued to add his argument from a corpus of Marxism, "Engels teaches that the dialectic is working in mind, nature, and society. Chicken and egg dialectics is a proof that our nature is a dialectical reality. Marx also teaches us that not individual units but relationships that filled the most basic niche of reality, doesn't he? Capital is social relations, not an entity. Similarly with the superstructure base. If we do not believe in dialectics, "he said," We are not Marxist!"
Another friend whispered to me. He gave another answer about the chicken and eggs puzzle. The proof? Well, Gallus (genus name of all kinds of birds, including Gallus gallus domesticus) is family member of Galliformes, one of the Aves class member in animal kingdom. Its ancestor is Archaeopteryx, a type of dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago. Dinosaurs reproduced by eggs that incubated outside the parent. It means, before chicken appeared in biological evolutionary tree, egg came first. So, for any chicken at all, eggs already exist in nature. So, the egg came first than chicken.
His answer also sounded like a Marxist answer. He was basing his answer on the material conditions of relation existence. For him, outside the internal relations of chicken and egg "at this time", there's external relation which allows altogether the existence of internal relations, namely the evolution fact that the eggs which are incubated outside the parent has existed earlier than the chicken evolution from phylogeny of previously laying species.
With emphasis on materiality of the existence of individual things relation, his view is also historical. There is the origin of relational matters: chicken and eggs, employer and servant, or capitalist and proletariat. If Marxism is a materialist worldview, then based on my friend's view, he can be regarded as a Marxist, right?
According to my materialist's friend, dialectical answer above sounds naive. Although it sounds like an ardent Marxist argument, but it's wrong at the most fundamental thing. The mistake lies in prioritizing dialectic materialism above. The answer implies that the relationship is everything compared to the materiality of existence which linked by the relationship. Arguably the answer is more Hegelian than Marxian.
According to my friend, this is one of contemporary Marxist diseases in this country, petty bourgeois disease that preaching dialectic blindly and hence claiming to be a Marxist. According to him, before dialectic, Marxism is a materialist. Dialectical is only predicate or just the nature of materialism. Just because "dialectical materialism" is one word, it does not mean automatically to equalize the degrees between materialist and dialectical into symmetrical relation.
If this happens, Marxism can fall into the abyss of unforgivable idealism and will also be indistinguishable from Marxism's enemies. Ignoring the materialistic nature of Marxism for dialectic that may sound more intelligent can remove the basis of Marxism altogether.
Furthermore, he said that the dialectic could be dangerous without materialism, for example, the link between the existing and the mind, between reality and desire. As in chicken and eggs relation, in the link between the existing and the mind, the reality and the will, of course, there is an internal relation between them. That between the reality and the will or there's a linkage between the existing and the mind, it does not have to be denied, because the linkage that allows the ideological criticism as operated by the economic-political critique of Marx and sociology of contemporary knowledge. But what needs to be emphasized is that the link between them is not symmetric as in Hegel's doctrine about internal relations. If the relation is symmetric, then we can just start from the opposite case of economic-political criticism. We can get caught up in the young Hegelian disease who thinks that the conversion of mind and will can change the reality. That the categories of political economy (mind), for example, is related to the condition of the material / class so that neoclassical economics is nothing more than the reflection of capitalist will class over the economic reality in which they live and fight to win the battle against the proletariat class, maybe it's true. But just changing the categories (knowledge or awareness of people on reality) does not automatically resolve the problem at reality level.
Abandonment in the presence of external links of the internal relations of individual things can lead to militant daydream to -- for example -- love. Love is certainly a relationship that links two individuals desire internally to each other. But before any of this relation and its internal dynamics, there is a prerequisite material in the form the existence of desire from a real person to the real thing outside of oneself, as well as a place for passion is intended. "Love," Marx said, "Can't have a reference to the internal development [merely] because love can't be built a priori, because its development is a real thing that takes place in the sensory world and between real individuals. In addition, because the "beloved" is sensory object, and if Criticism pretends to recognize an object, it takes at least an object without senses".
It means, just the desire and the will to love will not change the reality that a person is still single. There are prerequisites for any external material at all internal relations of two categories in love. And these prerequisites precede as well as support (supervene) the will and relation of two categories in love later.
In the "science" of humanities, the position of my dialectical friend who does not understand the meaning of love, dreamily, manifests into the thought of idealistic anthropologists such as Franz Boas, Durkheim, or Lévi-Strauss who said that human and culture were one existence package.
"Let's look at the evidence of cultural evolution," he said. "One of empirical evidence for the existence of a symbolic capacity is non-utilitarian archeological objects of human creation, whose function is not for subsistence or survival alone. Why is this used as the benchmark? If just the capacity to use (and make) the tools, all great apes and some species of monkeys also use the tools in subsistence activity and retain their lives. Only human who can produce non-utilitarian objects such as daily meme on facebook or potpourri of Engels. Because the objects not directly related to actual-empirical subsistence, then it means their existence involves a symbolic system or meaning, no matter how simple it is.
If this is the benchmark, we can take the oldest evidence in the form of tiny statue which depicts the figure of a fat woman (because breasted woman, fat because distended stomach). From the oldest evidence, the "culture" has just appeared no older than 40 thousand years ago, whereas the existence of homo genus has existed since two million years ago. If we narrow it to the emergence of Homo sapiens, then its own species already exist in the form as fully as we are at 165 thousand years ago. It means, there is a delay of several tens of thousands of years before cultured capacity appears. So, where is the "culture" during the time if it is true that people and culture have existed, hand in hand from the beginning?
What is missing from the observations of pan-culturalism (and of course my dialectical friend) is that the culture is human culture. Culture presupposes a human being first. There are material conditions that must be met prior to any culture at all. "These conditions", Marx said, "Relying on "human's physical organization". And now the science of evolution gives us a lot of evidence that humans are products of nature, the evolution result of their ancestral ape without culture. The next materialist question will be, "How culture arises entirely from the evolution of uncultured creatures? The answer must be sought from the scientific investigation of material conditions which allows its emergence, not to take for granted the existence of inherent culture in humanity. In this way, this materialist tactics closes the opportunity for "mystery" to the explanation of human and cultural as well as asserts a historical perspective, because everything is seen to have its origins.
Thus, the dialectic must be abandoned? "Of course not," my dialectical friend said. "Dialectic is useful in probing the structural problems when the problem's origin is considered completed. But if the problem is origin, and in political class struggle at the level of ideological, the origin is in connection with the legitimacy of individual things existence, then materialism -- which allows the historical point of view -- must become its commander."
Based on the opinion of my materialist friend above, then there are at least two lessons can be learned. First, Marxist prioritizes materialism than the dialectics, emphasizing on material reality rather than categorical relations which links it later, or we can be a kind of a stubborn Marxist who imposes the "thought" of Marx and Engels or Great Russia at the material reality we face today here. If it's indeed so, then Marxists will not make any difference with Mystics.
Second, in an effort to confirm the Marxist materialism, we also must be familiar with the findings of natural science and work hard to make it a weapon in the long battle against idealism, or we will easily fall when the enemy shoot us only with one bullet from the findings of strong natural sciences into our Marxist theoretical building. You certainly remember Lenin's advice, "The troops who are not trained to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare such as owned by their enemies means reckless."
Although it does not directly connect with the above explanation, it will be nice if integrated science as preached by Martin as a Marxist program in our ideological battle begins to be initiated, to strengthen resistance to supernatural explanations or supra-historical without imposing reality on our revolutionary eagerness solely. Only materialism can help us today. And to arrive at a thorough materialism, some friends, including me, well, I may have to start it with love; by trying to leave the life of radical single and start loving someone other than myself, and all the daydreams of my romantic nights but sometimes painful. However, Marx said, "Love is the first thing earnestly teach us to believe in the objective world outside ourselves".
***
C'est l'histoire d'une poule pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf. Elle a grandi normalement jusqu'à posséder une petite taille semblable à celle d'un oeuf. Cela n'est pas inquiétant, elle n'en éprouve ni plus de honte, ni plus de crainte, une poule pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf n'a pas plus de chance d'être croquée par un prédateur qu'une autre. La poule pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf ne craint rien, elle n'a pas peur, elle a tout pour elle, elle est belle. Poussin, elle avait déjà la taille d'un oeuf. En grandissant, elle s'est développée et a changé et s'est transformée, elle a vu ses couleurs se métamorphoser. Elle est devenue une petite poule jolie pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf. Elle a gardé la taille qu'elle avait, elle pouvait entrer dans un oeuf, elle entre encore dans un oeuf, la petite poule jolie pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf. Elle est séduisante avec sa petite taille et toutes ses couleurs et ses formes de grande poule pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf. Elle pond un oeuf pas plus petit qu'un oeuf, de la taille d'un oeuf de poule. Elle a tout pour plaire. Ses petite poussins ne sont pas plus grands qu'elle. Ils grandissent, ils se transforment, ils gardent la hauteur d'un oeuf. Elle est belle la pondeuse et la souriante petite poule avec ses rouges oranges et dorés. Elle était jaune, poussin, jaune clair quand elle était dans l'oeuf. Elle a grandi, elle est devenue jolie avec ses couleurs rougeoyantes, elle a bien changé, assez jolie et assez petite pour tenir toujours dans un oeuf. Un oeuf blanc crème, coquille. La poule pas plus grosse qu'un oeuf est rouge orange et ronde. Quand elle dort, elle ressemble à un oeuf rouge.
***
L'Oeuf - Christophe Tarkos
***
L'Oeuf - Christophe Tarkos
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