"We are few, and they are not with us, not because they have failed to understand what we see, but because we have failed to understand what they have seen" YES. But how do you popularize this? How do we pull ourselves, let alone others, out of our habit in de-humanizing others?
we learn this is research methods. you learn to be curious and adventurous, to learn from others, that you are never as expert on another's experience as that person is.
I can give you a small list. 1. Realize that you can't save anyone until you've saved yourself. 2. Nobody responds positively to being called names. 3. Understand that they have a different set of ideas and information that you are woefully uneducated in, and you have information that they don't know about. Because of this you can see the exact same events and come back with different opinions on what exactly happened. 4. And lastly, although they can't see things from your perspective, they are rational actors, and will follow good examples. Unfortunately there are so many bad examples of socialism failing with catastrophic results, that it's difficult for them to want that for themselves. Just be a positive person, and understand that everyone doesn't agree with you, and it might also be good to tell your comrades that violent revolution leads to suffering by definition. Remember that Nazis saw themselves as victims of the oppressive capitalist Jew. You know the results of that mentality. Rich white man.....
The question is not whether it is human nature to be greedy and selfish, but whether humans desire more (and more comfort, specifically). Seems to be that this desire for comfort underpins cognitive (and dispositional) practices that enable us to suppress, forget, and marginalize our objective knowledge of endemic suffering and inequality. I think this topic is much more textured and complicated than how it has been handled by both the speaker and chair of this session.
I think your comment is marvelous! This question of whether human need/desire/want is the proper condition to be in is the very nub of the problem. One could say that it's the proper condition of the current physical status of the human (to want, be needy, cynical or angry), but then the is/ought logical fallacy comes into play. I'm not saying that these negative emotions need to be eradicated, just minimized. To gain a perspective on this we could see things that change the feeling of want, change the intensity of it. Is this something in the purely mental arena, or is there an underlying physical condition that plays a major role? Most of what I see in the human perspective, whether it's education, spiritual training (religion) or psychology has to do with mental re-education. This only works to a certain degree, on those who are amenable to it, and when the mob forms all this gets tossed out. Mind over matter just doesn't work well enough by itself, we need to correct the underlying problem and then use the mental tricks to mop up the bits. I believe that science is slowly coming around to the answer through the lens of process philosophy, and this will show how the inner physical state influences emotions, feelings and thoughts; an example is how an acidic body condition can lead to irritation and frustration (skinny people) or congested arteries can lead to the same in obese people, a kind of inner struggle where the ego wants the goodies but the part that maintains health says no...the inner struggle. This impacts the matrix of the society when enough of it takes place. In other words, it's the health of the human system that impacts the levels of negative emotions that plays a major role in deciding our society. The trouble is, our economic system is built around fulfilling this need, or at least holding out the promise of fulfilling it, and, at least in the context of prepared foods, may be a causal factor in creating that need.
I am with Marx and his materialist conception of human nature as formed by the totality of social relations. Take a real world example. The venture capitalist. It is rational for this venture capitalist to never extend loans but to want equity; to gain shared ownership of the firm, and ideally a controlling stake in the firm, as a loan can be paid off, at which point they have no further claim on the profits that labor creates within it. Equity capital is essentially exploitative and since they have a monopoly on the supply of Capital they demand it, and get it. The capitalist system rewards this behavior as the venture capitalist builds wealth generationally, wealth that results from the continuous capture of surplus value. It was rational for the wealthiest capitalists to create a global spider’s web of tax havens and the industry of tax avoidance, so they did. Which leads to governments outside tax havens to rationally lower taxes on businesses and on the rich themselves in a relentless ‘race to the bottom’. As taxes go unpaid due to widespread avoidance, government budgets feel the pinch, which in turn leads to cuts in vital public services. It also means governments increasingly rely on indirect taxation, like VAT, which falls disproportionately on the poorest people. These rational actions have led to tax avoidance being a global problem that is rapidly getting worse and harder to combat. Rational moves creating problems that allowed the Reagan's and the trickle down theorists to take the reigns. These problems are what allowed intellectual legitimacy to be gained by the dominant market fundamentalist world view that low taxes for rich individuals and companies are necessary to spur economic growth and are somehow good for us all. When technologies like the shipping container made capital far more mobile it made sense for elite bourgeoisie to offshore labor intensive production and to increase restrictions on the movement of labor between borders, especially between "developing" and "developed" countries, putting pressure on economies to attract capital investment and be wary of threats of capital flight.
You can't say socialism will quell racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry because those are mostly or always developed from negative stereotypes perceived by certain groups in society You can also never get rid of negative stereotypes in society because as long as there are different groups interacting in a society, there are gonna be positive and negative stereotypes about them Racist actions tho can be done by choice, if the person knows it's bad but also can be done out of ignorance You'd be wasting your time and frustrating yourself and everyone if the goal of your activism is to eradicate racism completely by forcing everyone to "examine" their unconscious racial biases or call themselves bigots when they aren't or something like that as if it's some kind of conversion therapy
you can do it individually though, im not necessarily saying it's gonna be a solution to anything on a higher level but it's good to take a look at what we're doing wrong, why and how to fix it so we can live a better life without being targeted by misinterpretation
Does anyone know what Jacobin's definition of socialism is? Also if everyone is inherently and primarily selfish, capitalism still fails to perform. If we are truly purely greedy and that is our justification for the current system then it is also justification to abolish it. What of the greed and selfishness of the workers? Our greed and self interest is relegated to the margins of the ruling class's greed. If greed is their justification for domination then it is our justification for pursuing our interests in removing them from power and relevance.
Also we can seize bourgeois rhetoric to argue against them, we may ask for example, why a person would ever want to start a small business! Well to be their own boss! To escape, at least on face value, the bosses and workplace domination. A simple example.
Socialism is the social ownership and democratic control of the means of production (and distribution) and their operation for human needs (and not, as in capitalism, for private profit).
I don't t think they've ever said - at least not that I've seen. But what I've read from them does strongly imply that is the case. Jacobin is generally multitendency (though I know Bhaskar Sunkara's a Trot) but their articles usually appear to assume some Marxist background. It's also worth pointing out that they publish A LOT of stuff from non-staff writers, so I don't think you could judge the staff in general based on one or two specific articles.
Who actually subscribes to the blank slate view of humankind (other than Locke)? Is the only alternative to the blank slate ideology a universalist one?
To the point of human nature: in the words of Dr Gabor Matte “a predisposition is not the same as a predetermination”. We are 99.9% products of our environment! Very good overall. But speaker says that capitalism has provided the best standard of living but he has no idea about the 200,000+ years of peaceful human civilisation before the invention of capitalism/money where people lived in peace COOPERATIVELY. And I’d say it’s more technology that’s provided that.
@@blink8235 we did not fully develop consciousness till the late 10,000 - 5,000 years. Therefore humans are different from those who 'lived peacefully' in the last 200,000 (not sure how you know they lived peacefully). Looking back on the history since we evolved consciousness, it is quite clear the oppressor and oppressed has existed this whole time.
I don't know about you, but I have found it way more effective to bypass the human nature question completely and talk about how socialism or parts of it (like worker coops and single payer health care) actually work in the real world. NEVER ARGUE HUMAN NATURE! EVER!
He es so lost. Take for example around 20 minute, he accepts that human nature is self-interest and accept it. But this isn't going to be a problem in a society that encourage the person to take care of the poor. And how do we achieved this? Of course with a society which meets anyone else needs where there would be less reason for violence and depravation. well-being. Yeah right we all agree, we didn't need a 20 mins talk to see this. The question is how we start building that society? He gave a hint, though. Persuading our adversaries that they are moral, analytical and political wrong... ok. Rather, shouldn´t we be discussing how to develop such a society, discussing tool, experiments, and so on?
It is not human nature that makes socialism impossible but Marxism. Marx did understand capitalism well but knew nothing about socialism. His revolutionary ideas stopped the development of humankind. The most important part of socialism must be equal human rights and no one even understand what does it mean. You may find more about it in my article "The failures of Marxism and the right path to socialism and communism" here www.sarovic.com/marxism.htm
If you think socialism should be grounded upon equal rights, then you are not a socialist. You are a liberal. Marx never offered a theoretical rendering of socialism, not because he "knew nothing about socialism." Marx believed that socialism must be worker self-determined. Radical democratization of society means there is no way to say this, this, this is how it's going to be. Production for use and need, not exchange and profit. Free as opposed to wage labor. Abolition of private property (means of production). Participatory democratic institution etc. That is the general idea of socialism found in Marx's writings. He purposely did not dictate terms out of respect for the working people of the world who must determine their own way forward, not out of ignorance of socialism.
I am not a liberal. I am a humanist who claims that equal human rights are the only condition for creating a good society. Socialists liked more authorities than equal human rights and that is the reason socialism never worked. I am also the only person who has theoretically and technically defined the path to socialism and communism (to each according their needs). No one else has come even close to define this path. Can you imagine how worker's self determination looks like? Or radical democratization? There is no such thing even in theory. Production for use and need, not exchange and profit is a fairytale that never worked in authoritarian society and never will. One day it will work but only when equal human rights are established.
"Can you imagine how worker's self determination looks like? Or radical democratization?" Paris Commune of 1871, Russian Soviets 1917-18, Revolutionary Catalonia 1936-39 are some historical precedents (they'd look something like that). Socialism must be international and it must be "from below." Islands of socialism in a capitalist sea will not work. Capitalists will use and have used economic, military, and ideological violence to suppress fledgling socialist movements. And socialism from above start from or devolve into capitalist economic and social relations, the bureaucrats become the capitalists and workers are exploited. I recommend you read Hal Draper's "The Two Souls of Socialism," if you have not already. The problem with rights based approach to society is 1) rights have to be based on something. This "something" has traditionally been property. But it is theoretical possible that rights could be based on something else..but what? shared humanity? That is problem 2) Rights assume that we need protection from each other. They posit isolated, antagonistic individuals who are under threat from each other and, thus, they need protection from each other through rights. So, in a humanistic society, rights become meaningless and redundant because they would be unnecessary. Positing the need for rights denies humanism by creating an image of human beings that is essentially liberal, bourgeois and capitalist. For that reason, rights will not get us to a humanist society . And in a humanist society, rights are already superfluous.
You Marxists live in 19th century and refuse to move forward. Imagine if car producers did the same? Even worse, Marxism was supported by capitalism right from the very beginning to make sure nothing can replace capitalism. History has proven it.
And were are these attempts? Nowhere, they failed as Marxist socialism will always do. Socialism must be imposed by power? Nonsense. Socialism must be more productive then capitalism, more acceptable than capitalism to all. Equal human rights means only one thing: What ever is allowed to somebody must be allowed to everybody assuming no one takes freedom from others. At first that would be right to work. We must shorten work hours proportionally to the rate of unemployment. When we create lack of workers, employers will have to rise wages. For example worker Ronaldo earns more than his employer. Then capital loses its importance and that opens the door to socialism. Reform is much better than revolution. Then equal human right would offer everyone equal rights to protect themselves from other. I know you cannot even imagine something like this because you live in 19th Century. I can suggest you reading as well: The Future of Democracy www.sarovic.com/future_of_democracy.htm
"We are few, and they are not with us, not because they have failed to understand what we see, but because we have failed to understand what they have seen"
YES. But how do you popularize this? How do we pull ourselves, let alone others, out of our habit in de-humanizing others?
we learn this is research methods. you learn to be curious and adventurous, to learn from others, that you are never as expert on another's experience as that person is.
I can give you a small list. 1. Realize that you can't save anyone until you've saved yourself. 2. Nobody responds positively to being called names. 3. Understand that they have a different set of ideas and information that you are woefully uneducated in, and you have information that they don't know about. Because of this you can see the exact same events and come back with different opinions on what exactly happened. 4. And lastly, although they can't see things from your perspective, they are rational actors, and will follow good examples. Unfortunately there are so many bad examples of socialism failing with catastrophic results, that it's difficult for them to want that for themselves. Just be a positive person, and understand that everyone doesn't agree with you, and it might also be good to tell your comrades that violent revolution leads to suffering by definition. Remember that Nazis saw themselves as victims of the oppressive capitalist Jew. You know the results of that mentality. Rich white man.....
The question is not whether it is human nature to be greedy and selfish, but whether humans desire more (and more comfort, specifically). Seems to be that this desire for comfort underpins cognitive (and dispositional) practices that enable us to suppress, forget, and marginalize our objective knowledge of endemic suffering and inequality. I think this topic is much more textured and complicated than how it has been handled by both the speaker and chair of this session.
I think your comment is marvelous! This question of whether human need/desire/want is the proper condition to be in is the very nub of the problem. One could say that it's the proper condition of the current physical status of the human (to want, be needy, cynical or angry), but then the is/ought logical fallacy comes into play. I'm not saying that these negative emotions need to be eradicated, just minimized.
To gain a perspective on this we could see things that change the feeling of want, change the intensity of it. Is this something in the purely mental arena, or is there an underlying physical condition that plays a major role? Most of what I see in the human perspective, whether it's education, spiritual training (religion) or psychology has to do with mental re-education. This only works to a certain degree, on those who are amenable to it, and when the mob forms all this gets tossed out. Mind over matter just doesn't work well enough by itself, we need to correct the underlying problem and then use the mental tricks to mop up the bits.
I believe that science is slowly coming around to the answer through the lens of process philosophy, and this will show how the inner physical state influences emotions, feelings and thoughts; an example is how an acidic body condition can lead to irritation and frustration (skinny people) or congested arteries can lead to the same in obese people, a kind of inner struggle where the ego wants the goodies but the part that maintains health says no...the inner struggle. This impacts the matrix of the society when enough of it takes place. In other words, it's the health of the human system that impacts the levels of negative emotions that plays a major role in deciding our society.
The trouble is, our economic system is built around fulfilling this need, or at least holding out the promise of fulfilling it, and, at least in the context of prepared foods, may be a causal factor in creating that need.
I am with Marx and his materialist conception of human nature as formed by the totality of social relations.
Take a real world example. The venture capitalist.
It is rational for this venture capitalist to never extend loans but to want equity; to gain shared ownership of the firm, and ideally a controlling stake in the firm, as a loan can be paid off, at which point they have no further claim on the profits that labor creates within it.
Equity capital is essentially exploitative and since they have a monopoly on the supply of Capital they demand it, and get it.
The capitalist system rewards this behavior as the venture capitalist builds wealth generationally, wealth that results from the continuous capture of surplus value.
It was rational for the wealthiest capitalists to create a global spider’s web of tax havens and the industry of tax avoidance, so they did.
Which leads to governments outside tax havens to rationally lower taxes on businesses and on the rich themselves in a relentless ‘race to the bottom’.
As taxes go unpaid due to widespread avoidance, government budgets feel the pinch, which in turn leads to cuts in vital public services. It also means governments increasingly rely on indirect taxation, like VAT, which falls disproportionately on the poorest people.
These rational actions have led to tax avoidance being a global problem that is rapidly getting worse and harder to combat.
Rational moves creating problems that allowed the Reagan's and the trickle down theorists to take the reigns. These problems are what allowed intellectual legitimacy to be gained by the dominant market fundamentalist world view that low taxes for rich individuals and companies are necessary to spur economic growth and are somehow good for us all.
When technologies like the shipping container made capital far more mobile it made sense for elite bourgeoisie to offshore labor intensive production and to increase restrictions on the movement of labor between borders, especially between "developing" and "developed" countries, putting pressure on economies to attract capital investment and be wary of threats of capital flight.
Hi :) What a good work on this channel. I'm from Brazil and I would like to ask for videos with portuguese subtitles, please. Thanx !
This is fantastic and everyone on the left should watch this.
Go live on Venezuela.
@@commiezombie2477 I suppose that if I were a slave on the plantations, this is the type of person who would tell me to get back to Africa .
You can't say socialism will quell racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry because those are mostly or always developed from negative stereotypes perceived by certain groups in society
You can also never get rid of negative stereotypes in society because as long as there are different groups interacting in a society, there are gonna be positive and negative stereotypes about them
Racist actions tho can be done by choice, if the person knows it's bad but also can be done out of ignorance
You'd be wasting your time and frustrating yourself and everyone if the goal of your activism is to eradicate racism completely by forcing everyone to "examine" their unconscious racial biases or call themselves bigots when they aren't or something like that as if it's some kind of conversion therapy
you can do it individually though, im not necessarily saying it's gonna be a solution to anything on a higher level but it's good to take a look at what we're doing wrong, why and how to fix it so we can live a better life without being targeted by misinterpretation
Historically, there are very low levels of racism in unions. Solidarity is not limited by race or gender.
Does anyone know what Jacobin's definition of socialism is?
Also if everyone is inherently and primarily selfish, capitalism still fails to perform. If we are truly purely greedy and that is our justification for the current system then it is also justification to abolish it. What of the greed and selfishness of the workers? Our greed and self interest is relegated to the margins of the ruling class's greed. If greed is their justification for domination then it is our justification for pursuing our interests in removing them from power and relevance.
Also we can seize bourgeois rhetoric to argue against them, we may ask for example, why a person would ever want to start a small business! Well to be their own boss! To escape, at least on face value, the bosses and workplace domination. A simple example.
that is a very interesting point!
Socialism is the social ownership and democratic control of the means of production (and distribution) and their operation for human needs (and not, as in capitalism, for private profit).
I adhere to that definition, I just wonder if the staff at Jacobin are the same.
I don't t think they've ever said - at least not that I've seen. But what I've read from them does strongly imply that is the case. Jacobin is generally multitendency (though I know Bhaskar Sunkara's a Trot) but their articles usually appear to assume some Marxist background. It's also worth pointing out that they publish A LOT of stuff from non-staff writers, so I don't think you could judge the staff in general based on one or two specific articles.
Great Series
Who actually subscribes to the blank slate view of humankind (other than Locke)? Is the only alternative to the blank slate ideology a universalist one?
How many houses does Bernie have?
To the point of human nature: in the words of Dr Gabor Matte “a predisposition is not the same as a predetermination”. We are 99.9% products of our environment!
Very good overall. But speaker says that capitalism has provided the best standard of living but he has no idea about the 200,000+ years of peaceful human civilisation before the invention of capitalism/money where people lived in peace COOPERATIVELY. And I’d say it’s more technology that’s provided that.
LiftedSlayer thank you. You are the only one making any sense
Peaceful under authoritarian rule/monarchy
@@blink8235 we did not fully develop consciousness till the late 10,000 - 5,000 years.
Therefore humans are different from those who 'lived peacefully' in the last 200,000 (not sure how you know they lived peacefully). Looking back on the history since we evolved consciousness, it is quite clear the oppressor and oppressed has existed this whole time.
@@jamesturnbull9266 i don't really remember exactly what i was refering ro but my comment there was sarcastic 😂
@@blink8235 fuck I didn’t mean to reply to you. More the person who initially commented. Sorry aha
I don't know about you, but I have found it way more effective to bypass the human nature question completely and talk about how socialism or parts of it (like worker coops and single payer health care) actually work in the real world. NEVER ARGUE HUMAN NATURE! EVER!
Both human nature and blank slate are one sided. This guy could have been more dialectic.
Human nature makes Fascism fashionable
These people will not leave you alone.
shame he speaks screaming! why is that?
He es so lost. Take for example around 20 minute, he accepts that human nature is self-interest and accept it. But this isn't going to be a problem in a society that encourage the person to take care of the poor. And how do we achieved this? Of course with a society which meets anyone else needs where there would be less reason for violence and depravation. well-being. Yeah right we all agree, we didn't need a 20 mins talk to see this. The question is how we start building that society? He gave a hint, though. Persuading our adversaries that they are moral, analytical and political wrong... ok. Rather, shouldn´t we be discussing how to develop such a society, discussing tool, experiments, and so on?
Try Democracy, especially when it comes to controlling the means of production.
It is not human nature that makes socialism impossible but Marxism. Marx did understand capitalism well but knew nothing about socialism. His revolutionary ideas stopped the development of humankind. The most important part of socialism must be equal human rights and no one even understand what does it mean. You may find more about it in my article "The failures of Marxism and the right path to socialism and communism" here www.sarovic.com/marxism.htm
If you think socialism should be grounded upon equal rights, then you are not a socialist. You are a liberal.
Marx never offered a theoretical rendering of socialism, not because he "knew nothing about socialism." Marx believed that socialism must be worker self-determined. Radical democratization of society means there is no way to say this, this, this is how it's going to be.
Production for use and need, not exchange and profit. Free as opposed to wage labor. Abolition of private property (means of production). Participatory democratic institution etc. That is the general idea of socialism found in Marx's writings. He purposely did not dictate terms out of respect for the working people of the world who must determine their own way forward, not out of ignorance of socialism.
I am not a liberal. I am a humanist who claims that equal human rights are the only condition for creating a good society. Socialists liked more authorities than equal human rights and that is the reason socialism never worked. I am also the only person who has theoretically and technically defined the path to socialism and communism (to each according their needs). No one else has come even close to define this path.
Can you imagine how worker's self determination looks like? Or radical democratization? There is no such thing even in theory. Production for use and need, not exchange and profit is a fairytale that never worked in authoritarian society and never will. One day it will work but only when equal human rights are established.
"Can you imagine how worker's self determination looks like? Or radical democratization?"
Paris Commune of 1871, Russian Soviets 1917-18, Revolutionary Catalonia 1936-39 are some historical precedents (they'd look something like that).
Socialism must be international and it must be "from below." Islands of socialism in a capitalist sea will not work. Capitalists will use and have used economic, military, and ideological violence to suppress fledgling socialist movements. And socialism from above start from or devolve into capitalist economic and social relations, the bureaucrats become the capitalists and workers are exploited.
I recommend you read Hal Draper's "The Two Souls of Socialism," if you have not already.
The problem with rights based approach to society is 1) rights have to be based on something. This "something" has traditionally been property. But it is theoretical possible that rights could be based on something else..but what? shared humanity? That is problem 2) Rights assume that we need protection from each other. They posit isolated, antagonistic individuals who are under threat from each other and, thus, they need protection from each other through rights. So, in a humanistic society, rights become meaningless and redundant because they would be unnecessary.
Positing the need for rights denies humanism by creating an image of human beings that is essentially liberal, bourgeois and capitalist.
For that reason, rights will not get us to a humanist society . And in a humanist society, rights are already superfluous.
You Marxists live in 19th century and refuse to move forward. Imagine if car producers did the same? Even worse, Marxism was supported by capitalism right from the very beginning to make sure nothing can replace capitalism. History has proven it.
And were are these attempts? Nowhere, they failed as Marxist socialism will always do. Socialism must be imposed by power? Nonsense. Socialism must be more productive then capitalism, more acceptable than capitalism to all. Equal human rights means only one thing: What ever is allowed to somebody must be allowed to everybody assuming no one takes freedom from others. At first that would be right to work. We must shorten work hours proportionally to the rate of unemployment. When we create lack of workers, employers will have to rise wages. For example worker Ronaldo earns more than his employer. Then capital loses its importance and that opens the door to socialism. Reform is much better than revolution. Then equal human right would offer everyone equal rights to protect themselves from other. I know you cannot even imagine something like this because you live in 19th Century. I can suggest you reading as well: The Future of Democracy www.sarovic.com/future_of_democracy.htm