I feel like I understand communist theory pretty well at a basic level, and I believe in it, but I just don’t see what part of it requires belief in an objective world of matter. I don’t believe in matter and I’m still a communist. And it seems that in the 21st century most people believe in materialism but not communism. What part of “people should have access to the stuff they need to live” requires believing that such stuff is real? After all, there are nonmaterial industries and they still need communism. Workers in the music industry are producing something that nearly everyone can agree only exists in our heads. And they’re still exploited by capital, despite musical instruments being relatively cheap these days, because capital owns the system of distribution networks and access to consumers that is the means of profitability for music. Spotify isn’t material, it’s a computer program. It’s information. It’s a thoughtform. Yet it’s still a means of production that ought to be seized for the liberation of the musician worker. What does materialism have to do with any of this?
this feels weirdly condescending
Apologies. I meant it as an embrace of solidarity instead of a knowing smirk. We all struggle to do the right things. The idea that beliefs are not enough to change behavior is, in part, a disagreement on what constitutes a belief. Believing that you will be happy or safe following an outcome is a belief that changes behavior. Believing you have more pressing problems that require attention is a belief that changes behavior. Adopting a net new belief is often not enough to change behavior. It takes time to incorporate that new belief into your system of beliefs and to change many other beliefs. Think of it this way - your behavior is caused by a network of millions of beliefs, so adding one more new belief is less than 0.001% of your internal causal network.
Of course, environment plays a huge part here in that if you believe you should always help dig holes when possible, but you never encounter a shovel in your life, well your behaviors are severely constrained. These are what are generally considered environmental conditions, but conditions en toto includes the beliefs of members of society. Often we find that propaganda is not sufficient, but it is in fact necessary. Likewise, environmental conditions are not sufficient but are necessary. The sum total of environmental and mental conditions are what we term the “material conditions”, because they are all material to the revolution, that is to say they all have causal effects on the revolutionary potential of a moment.
Can people change their beliefs without outside prompting? I understand where you’re coming from with this one, but it’s tough to answer because I don’t know you well enough. On the one hand, no, the liberal theory of individualism is garbage. On the otherhand, all prompting is external even if no other human is involved. For example, if I find that my beliefs lead to bad outcomes for me, I can choose to change my beliefs. A lot needs to be right for that to happen. I need to have beliefs about my beliefs, beliefs about the outcomes I experienced, beliefs about myself. But yes, I can change things about myself without someone else agitating me to do so, but yes there are preconditions, but no those preconditions are not universally external prompting by other people, but yes development of those preconditions is a function of society and therefore is dependent on other persons.
It’s hard to answer. The best I can say is I firmly reject the liberal framing of individualism but I do not believe individuals lack the power to change their own beliefs and behaviors. Reality is dialectical in this way.
I don’t mean any of this in a hostile way
I did not receive in this way. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
if I find that my beliefs lead to bad outcomes for me, I can choose to change my beliefs.
This is what I disagree with. I cannot do that and many can’t.
Again, I think this is more a problem of definitions than of disagreement. The learning process relies on the ability for the learner to change their beliefs. You see a berry, you believe the best way to get the berry is to grab it. You get stabbed by thorns. You change your belief because the old belief harmed you. This is how learning actually works. So it’s not really up for debate whether a person can change their own beliefs. The question is the details - to what extent, under what circumstances, limited by what conditions, etc.
I think even the implication this is possible is a blatantly false suggestion implanted in people’s heads by years of liberalism and notions of Christian “free will”.
Right, I know this position and I agree that what liberalism and Christian free will are peddling is pure bullshit. However, the idea that you personally cannot choose to change your beliefs based on outcomes you experience is something I cannot comment on. But for everyone else, I’ve seen it happening in real-time. It is the basis for the learning process not merely for human persons but essentially for all persons. In fact, one of the things that clearly delineates persons from non-persons is the ability for persons to adapt their behaviors based on stimulus-response. Do plants have beliefs? Not the way we think of beliefs as embodied in neurological wiring within gray matter, but plants take actions based on what is best for them given that which they can sense and when they sense different things they change their actions. Do plants learn? I don’t know. It seems like the research is heading that way.
I am not the exception. I am the rule
You are both. As we all are.
Nobody has control over themselves
This is a problem with defining what control means and what self means. I would argue that only persons have control over themselves, because I include brain physiology, neurology, stimulus response, and sensory apparatus in the self. When define this way, what else could possibly have control over a person in the sense we are discussing?
nobody can change themselves to be better. Self improvement is a myth
Again, a definitional problem because your claim on its face is clearly disproven by the body’s responses to progressive load. Muscles become stronger in response to working harder. The components of the cardio-pulmonary system become more efficient in response to working harder. Blood vessels, neurons, connective tissue, even bone “improves” along certain qualities based on stimulus. If the body is the self, then self-improvement is literally how the body functions at its base level. Obviously you mean something different by what you’re saying. I would contend that whatever you mean when you say what you say is probably more invested in the liberal/Christian concepts of mind-body dualism, free will, self-as-alien than my position is.
But that is entirely different from the classic notion of “self-improvement”, of “mind over matter”.
Which has never been what I’ve espoused. You are arguing against something that is worthy to argue against, and I argue against it too, but you are not arguing with me. You are importing your quarrel with someone else into this conversation. I do not blame you for it. It is something I have done in the past. I hope if you re-read our conversation you can find what I was actually saying and how it’s possible to have volition and to change your beliefs even in a deterministic world without needing to rely on free will, quantum magic, or woo. There is a more nuanced position than the one you are espousing and the one your arguing against and I think I’ve done a decent job of representing that position (though I am open to critique in both my delivery and my argument)
I’m really curious how you would explain the emergence of vegetarians and vegans who were not raised to be one in your belief system.
For instance, my partner and I were never exposed to anyone not a meat-eater till we were adults, yet we came to the belief that eating animals is wrong and now eat a predominantly vegan diet without that decision coming from social pressure.
