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What's wrong in taking a class in anything including Marxist sociology? Are there some domains of knowledge which should be intentionally left unexplored, lest

by nzp 13y ago

What's wrong in taking a class in anything including Marxist sociology? Are there some domains of knowledge which should be intentionally left unexplored, lest we corrupt all our precious bodily fluids? What is this--Texas Board of Education? Seems to me too few people take classes in anything these days, let alone Marxist sociology.

cynicalkane 13y ago
The Popperian argument would be that Marxism is not a domain of knowledge, because it is not very good at making testable predictions about the world. Popper compared Marx to Freud, in that both people spawned a theory of knowledge that is very good at explaining what has already happened but horrifyingly bad at telling you how things will be tomorrow, and how to change those things. Almost sixty years after this observation nothing has changed. We now recognize Freud as pseudoscience, but Marxism remains unfortunately persistent. Marxists like to talk about how well Marx predicted the nature of the class struggle and stuff like that, but in a theory which sees everything in terms of class struggle, this is not a scientific prediction at all.
- skylan_q 13y ago
  Marxists like to talk about how well Marx predicted the nature of the class struggle and stuff like that, but in a theory which sees everything in terms of class struggle, this is not a scientific prediction at all. And they typically do him a dis-service. I find when "Marxists" speak of such things, "bad" is synonymous with capitalism just as "capitalism" is synonymous with bad.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  Popper does not have a monopoly on the definition of 'science.' For example, quantum mechanics is not exactly falsifiable... And the general idea of falsifiability has been criticized by many, including non-Marxists. When Marxists talk about it being 'scientific socialism,' they are contrasting with 'utopian socialism.' Scientific socialism takes the approach of examining the world, making changes, seeing how those work out, and then re-examining the theory. You can see how that relates to the scientific method.
  - Daniel_Newby 13y ago
    Quantum mechanics certainly is falsifiable. If the electron two-slit experiment produces a pair of humps, it is falsified to extremely high confidence. (Also, we'd have a hard time dealing with the Pauli exclusion principle, and therefore solid matter, without quantum mechanics.) Marxism is not scientific, as it does not attempt to falsify one of its core axioms—that the class struggle is over a local optimization game. A central committee can actually do a pretty good job of adjusting the ratio of copper tubing to copper wiring, but the actual challenge turns out to be making people want to invent things like graphene.
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      My physics knowledge is pretty limited, but I was under the impression that it's at least controversial. Regardless, you're not engaging with my core point, which is that 'scientific' in this context means something specific, not whatever you happen to think scientific means. Nobody is claiming Marxism is falsifiable, that's a red herring.
- Nitramp 13y ago
  > [Marx theory] is very good at explaining what has already happened [...] And that's exactly why you should learn about it, Marx analysis of economic conditions is pretty much spot on. What conclusions you draw from that analysis is a different topic. And of course all the work is interesting for historic purposes, it's pretty much impossible to understand the history of the 20th century without (at least some of) it. I also haven't met (or read) anybody for a long time who actually believed Marx' idea of class struggle by force of nature leading to a communist society, where do you still find those people?
- nzp 13y ago
  The comparison is deeply flawed. Psychoanalysis is not good at explaining what has already happened. It only seems good if you don't know that those "explanations" have no actual basis in reality. Psychoanalysis is mostly based on completely made up "facts", not just on badly interpreted facts. This is a big difference if we're talking about philosophy of science (which we are if we're discussing Popper's views on what is science). By the way, Marxism can make testable statements about the world ("prediction" is a too strong requirement for this domain of reality, it's too complex; fluid mechanics can't make any predictions about turbulent flows, but that doesn't mean it's not science). This is why my stomach turns when Popper is mentioned. The idea of falsifiability and testable statements being the essence of science is the best known guiding principle in scientific methodology. Having articulated this wonderful idea, he just couldn't help but muddy the water and misuse it to peddle his political and social views. EDIT: I forgot to give an example of a falsifiable prediction in Marxism: the outcome of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the transitional socialist state leading to communism. It was actually falsified successfully by Soviet Union et al.
  - quadrangle 13y ago
    tl;dr: Psychoanalysis is not good at anything, so it is unfair to compare Marxism to that since Marxism has at least some merit.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I forgot to give an example of a falsifiable prediction in Marxism: the outcome of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the transitional socialist state leading to communism. It was actually falsified successfully by Soviet Union et al. That's debatable, given the modifications to Marxism made in Leninism -- the actual "Communist" states all were based on Leninism, rather than Marxism. The advanced democratic capitalist states that had the foundations which Marx saw as essential for the transition to socialism on the way to communism have generally transitioned in the direction of socialism since Marx's time, though in a rather gradual way. At least in the direction of the natural progression beyond the model of political-economic system that Marx and other 19th century socialists critiqued under the name "capitalism", Marx seems to have been very broadly correct -- as to whether that eventually leads to communism is, well, something that we're probably several generations away from seeing. I think that its a lot more likely that something like the modern mixed economy -- evolving with productivity in a way that increasing has a greater domain of social support and responsiveness -- will be dominant for a very long term. OTOH, I can envision that happening in a way where the social support is delivered in a way based on private property (e.g., through a mechanism like basic income) with social goods delivered more through the market than directly by the state. With sufficient productivity (and hence, goods being less scarce) this would in many ways resemble communism (while still having features of socialism and capitalism.)
delinka 13y ago
The problem is not "taking the class." The problem is "taking the class and presuming it makes one an expert." After a single facet of study, it's certainly not possible to be an expert.
cema 13y ago
Your thesis assumes that Marxist sociology is a domain of knowledge. Apparently the parent hinted it is not. There is some controversy here, certainly. However people who have lived in, or learned about, the societies where the Marxist ideology was (supposedly?) placed in the foundation, can be excused if they have strong opinions about it, and mostly negative. Perhaps Marxism could be studied as a specimen of a certain mindset, like intellectual design: "learn about it", not "learn it". One problem is so many people (millions!) have had Marxism shoved in the throats. No wonder it tends to go out the other way. (Sorry for the graphic image.)

by nzp 13y ago

cynicalkane 13y ago

The Popperian argument would be that Marxism is not a domain of knowledge, because it is not very good at making testable predictions about the world. Popper compared Marx to Freud, in that both people spawned a theory of knowledge that is very good at explaining what has already happened but horrifyingly bad at telling you how things will be tomorrow, and how to change those things. Almost sixty years after this observation nothing has changed. We now recognize Freud as pseudoscience, but Marxism remains unfortunately persistent. Marxists like to talk about how well Marx predicted the nature of the class struggle and stuff like that, but in a theory which sees everything in terms of class struggle, this is not a scientific prediction at all.

skylan_q 13y ago
Marxists like to talk about how well Marx predicted the nature of the class struggle and stuff like that, but in a theory which sees everything in terms of class struggle, this is not a scientific prediction at all. And they typically do him a dis-service. I find when "Marxists" speak of such things, "bad" is synonymous with capitalism just as "capitalism" is synonymous with bad.
steveklabnik 13y ago
Popper does not have a monopoly on the definition of 'science.' For example, quantum mechanics is not exactly falsifiable... And the general idea of falsifiability has been criticized by many, including non-Marxists. When Marxists talk about it being 'scientific socialism,' they are contrasting with 'utopian socialism.' Scientific socialism takes the approach of examining the world, making changes, seeing how those work out, and then re-examining the theory. You can see how that relates to the scientific method.
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago
  Quantum mechanics certainly is falsifiable. If the electron two-slit experiment produces a pair of humps, it is falsified to extremely high confidence. (Also, we'd have a hard time dealing with the Pauli exclusion principle, and therefore solid matter, without quantum mechanics.) Marxism is not scientific, as it does not attempt to falsify one of its core axioms—that the class struggle is over a local optimization game. A central committee can actually do a pretty good job of adjusting the ratio of copper tubing to copper wiring, but the actual challenge turns out to be making people want to invent things like graphene.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    My physics knowledge is pretty limited, but I was under the impression that it's at least controversial. Regardless, you're not engaging with my core point, which is that 'scientific' in this context means something specific, not whatever you happen to think scientific means. Nobody is claiming Marxism is falsifiable, that's a red herring.
Nitramp 13y ago
> [Marx theory] is very good at explaining what has already happened [...] And that's exactly why you should learn about it, Marx analysis of economic conditions is pretty much spot on. What conclusions you draw from that analysis is a different topic. And of course all the work is interesting for historic purposes, it's pretty much impossible to understand the history of the 20th century without (at least some of) it. I also haven't met (or read) anybody for a long time who actually believed Marx' idea of class struggle by force of nature leading to a communist society, where do you still find those people?
nzp 13y ago
The comparison is deeply flawed. Psychoanalysis is not good at explaining what has already happened. It only seems good if you don't know that those "explanations" have no actual basis in reality. Psychoanalysis is mostly based on completely made up "facts", not just on badly interpreted facts. This is a big difference if we're talking about philosophy of science (which we are if we're discussing Popper's views on what is science). By the way, Marxism can make testable statements about the world ("prediction" is a too strong requirement for this domain of reality, it's too complex; fluid mechanics can't make any predictions about turbulent flows, but that doesn't mean it's not science). This is why my stomach turns when Popper is mentioned. The idea of falsifiability and testable statements being the essence of science is the best known guiding principle in scientific methodology. Having articulated this wonderful idea, he just couldn't help but muddy the water and misuse it to peddle his political and social views. EDIT: I forgot to give an example of a falsifiable prediction in Marxism: the outcome of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the transitional socialist state leading to communism. It was actually falsified successfully by Soviet Union et al.
- quadrangle 13y ago
  tl;dr: Psychoanalysis is not good at anything, so it is unfair to compare Marxism to that since Marxism has at least some merit.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > I forgot to give an example of a falsifiable prediction in Marxism: the outcome of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the transitional socialist state leading to communism. It was actually falsified successfully by Soviet Union et al. That's debatable, given the modifications to Marxism made in Leninism -- the actual "Communist" states all were based on Leninism, rather than Marxism. The advanced democratic capitalist states that had the foundations which Marx saw as essential for the transition to socialism on the way to communism have generally transitioned in the direction of socialism since Marx's time, though in a rather gradual way. At least in the direction of the natural progression beyond the model of political-economic system that Marx and other 19th century socialists critiqued under the name "capitalism", Marx seems to have been very broadly correct -- as to whether that eventually leads to communism is, well, something that we're probably several generations away from seeing. I think that its a lot more likely that something like the modern mixed economy -- evolving with productivity in a way that increasing has a greater domain of social support and responsiveness -- will be dominant for a very long term. OTOH, I can envision that happening in a way where the social support is delivered in a way based on private property (e.g., through a mechanism like basic income) with social goods delivered more through the market than directly by the state. With sufficient productivity (and hence, goods being less scarce) this would in many ways resemble communism (while still having features of socialism and capitalism.)

delinka 13y ago

The problem is not "taking the class." The problem is "taking the class and presuming it makes one an expert." After a single facet of study, it's certainly not possible to be an expert.

cema 13y ago

Your thesis assumes that Marxist sociology is a domain of knowledge. Apparently the parent hinted it is not. There is some controversy here, certainly. However people who have lived in, or learned about, the societies where the Marxist ideology was (supposedly?) placed in the foundation, can be excused if they have strong opinions about it, and mostly negative. Perhaps Marxism could be studied as a specimen of a certain mindset, like intellectual design: "learn about it", not "learn it". One problem is so many people (millions!) have had Marxism shoved in the throats. No wonder it tends to go out the other way. (Sorry for the graphic image.)