He says this twice in TonF. The first time he says it is in the second Thesis:
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
The last, most famous line is a conclusion drawn from this. You can nit pick this semantically or whatever, but semantics aren’t Marxist.
It is what he is saying. Like I get your point that because capitalism creates two opposed classes, one which creates value through labor, and another that exploits that labor for their own benefit, that capitalism creates not just the possibility for the oppressed class to not just overthrow the power of the ruling class, but, because the working class is the vast, vast majority, we create a more just and democratic society. Where, for for the first time in history, the ruling class would be the vast mass of people, where cooperation and solidarity is our objective interest, which carries within it the possibility of abolition of class antagonism.
But you are going to have to provide something more substantive on your theory of individuals as pseudo-subjects. I’m not confused about this. I think you’re being overly mechanical, and dismissing my point without evidence. It seems like you’re just chucking subjectivity out the window, and giving into determinism. There is a deterministic element to Marxism, the world dictates the limits and possibilities, but people change it. I really don’t buy what your selling here, and you’re not supporting your argument, on this very load-bearing point.
I’m not getting rid of goals. To me the goal is to determine what is happening here and now, and make predictions and plans based in concretion. Marx’s theories about “communist society” are concrete enough to believe, but they are still very abstract and impossible to relate to directly. They change nothing on their own.
I’m not trying to disprove them. But I don’t see how something in the far flung future defines us, and you aren’t convincing me. To me its a very idealist attitude that isn’t based in people’s direct experience since it isn’t an absolute given that we experience the central contradictions of capitalism directly. The vast majority of people are unconvinced of it, and you can’t even convince me, a Marxist. If all you are gonna do is tell me I’m wrong without acknowledging a single point that I’ve made, and I don’t mean just quoting and debunking, but actually addressing, then thanks for your time.
I see a lot of people fixated on a future that doesn’t exist, and not really communists, who often are quite practical, even if it isn’t as practical as I would like. But lots of socialists and new people joining our movements, I don’t think the over emphasis on what comes way in the future is helpful. These people have to get out of their idealisms and into actual work. Communists balance this in practice, but emphasize the idealized in definition. New communists tend to learn axioms before learning about their own communities, which is exactly backwards, and not what Marxism teaches us.
He says this twice in TonF. The first time he says it is in the second Thesis:
The last, most famous line is a conclusion drawn from this. You can nit pick this semantically or whatever, but semantics aren’t Marxist.
It is what he is saying. Like I get your point that because capitalism creates two opposed classes, one which creates value through labor, and another that exploits that labor for their own benefit, that capitalism creates not just the possibility for the oppressed class to not just overthrow the power of the ruling class, but, because the working class is the vast, vast majority, we create a more just and democratic society. Where, for for the first time in history, the ruling class would be the vast mass of people, where cooperation and solidarity is our objective interest, which carries within it the possibility of abolition of class antagonism.
But you are going to have to provide something more substantive on your theory of individuals as pseudo-subjects. I’m not confused about this. I think you’re being overly mechanical, and dismissing my point without evidence. It seems like you’re just chucking subjectivity out the window, and giving into determinism. There is a deterministic element to Marxism, the world dictates the limits and possibilities, but people change it. I really don’t buy what your selling here, and you’re not supporting your argument, on this very load-bearing point.
I’m not getting rid of goals. To me the goal is to determine what is happening here and now, and make predictions and plans based in concretion. Marx’s theories about “communist society” are concrete enough to believe, but they are still very abstract and impossible to relate to directly. They change nothing on their own.
I’m not trying to disprove them. But I don’t see how something in the far flung future defines us, and you aren’t convincing me. To me its a very idealist attitude that isn’t based in people’s direct experience since it isn’t an absolute given that we experience the central contradictions of capitalism directly. The vast majority of people are unconvinced of it, and you can’t even convince me, a Marxist. If all you are gonna do is tell me I’m wrong without acknowledging a single point that I’ve made, and I don’t mean just quoting and debunking, but actually addressing, then thanks for your time.
I see a lot of people fixated on a future that doesn’t exist, and not really communists, who often are quite practical, even if it isn’t as practical as I would like. But lots of socialists and new people joining our movements, I don’t think the over emphasis on what comes way in the future is helpful. These people have to get out of their idealisms and into actual work. Communists balance this in practice, but emphasize the idealized in definition. New communists tend to learn axioms before learning about their own communities, which is exactly backwards, and not what Marxism teaches us.