 |
Unfortunately most socialist organisations are not up to the job currently... |
Building the Effective Force of Real Change
Part I: Underlying Theory is Paramount
Having been a politically-active and committed-Socialist all my adult life, and been the driver of several worthwhile, if meagre, local victories, I have naturally wondered, long and hard, why the organisations I was involved with had so little effect upon the possibility of building the forces to actually achieve Socialism.
And also, thereafter, having finally become fully aware of the real paucity of Theory in such organisations, I have, for, the last decade, dedicated myself entirely to attempting to remedy this totally debilitating lack of the essential means to succeed!
As a 19 year old student I found the only sound criticism of the current theoretical stance in my chosen discipline (Physics) in an old book by V.I. Lenin, entitled Materialism and Empirio Criticism, I could, finally, clearly see where the appropriate stance in Modern Sub Atomic Physics should be, and naturally turned next to the Father of that stance, Karl Marx, to learn more: and that I did!
My introduction to Marxism was through theory rather than politics, but I was soon committed to Marx's objectives. I became preoccupied with day-to-day political activism, within one or another of then-existing Marxist tendencies, which I successively joined. And, each time, I naturally trusted their general theoretical stances, in the policies they, and therefore I, pursued.
So, preoccupied totally with such activism, I did not pursue what had originally brought me to that position. I did no theoretical work in Physics at all! Indeed, I was actually dissuaded from doing so, by my comrades, as there was always a great deal of immediate and urgent activity to be undertaken.
But, I was wrong to be so dissuaded, as the current theoretical developments within all of those organisations was literally zero. Marxism was not being developed by the real Marxists, and by this I do NOT mean being applied to new situations, as they occurred. They were certainly doing that.
It was perhaps 'up-to-date', but certainly not up-to-the-job!
Now, Marxism has truly enormous untapped potential, particularly in the Sciences.
But, in order to conquer this enormous and important area, there was still a great deal to be addressed philosophically: and that was certainly not being done. And, in addition, even the political work of committed socialists was majorly undermined too. For, the vital, creative heart of this Dialectics has to be its Holist stance. But, the reasoning of my comrades was almost never holistic: it depended upon the Pluralist stance of both everyday and academic reasoning - it simply was not fit for purpose.
Marxism was not, and should never be allowed to become, a set of recipes uncovered by Marx to address all conceivable problems. It was still to this day, gravely inadequate in a vast area of serious intellectual disciplines, without which it was doomed to merely being various kinds of fixed analyses, and a consequent set of programmes. Marxism needed to continually address these diverse areas to keep on developing! I had been wrong to abandon applying it seriously to other fields, and at a high level of research to my professionally qualified area.
I didn't even realise this until I changed my discipline, after a move to a new post.
I became a lecturer in a college, and did mathematical research in my own time. And, this soon began to make increasing demands, that required my learning to program a mainframe computer (this was the 1970s!), as the calculations were becoming increasingly onerous. Surprisingly, I discovered that I was very good at both Systems Design and Investigational Programming. And, I fairly quickly climbed the appropriate academic ladder to become an essential colleague to researchers across the whole range of disciplines, in Higher Education, from Engineering to Biology, Optics to Mathematics, and Taxonomy to Dance!
I finally achieved a professorial-level post as Director of Information Technology in a College of London University, and, thereafter, working with a researcher in Dance Performance and Choreography, with whom I had previously managed to win an award from the British Interactive Video Awards (BIVA) organisation. But, continuing this work still futher, required significant developments in philosophy, to enable both the philosophic discoveries and the technical inventions required, in wedding filmed or videoed footage of Dance to an effective means of Access and Control, for teaching purposes. And the solution to these problems was found to involve a significant extension of my current "Marxist" philosophy required.
Finally, the dice had been cast for a long overdue return to Marxism and Physics, as the solution achieved in handling the dynamics of movement actually pointed to what was necessary in many of those areas too.
The problems encoutered in revealing the many dynamic complexities of Dance Movements in understandable and instructive ways, were relevant in Sub Atomic Physics too, and I could finally address a trenchant criticism of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and begin to construct its replacement by an increasingly Holist approach, involving real qualitative changes, which the Pluralist approach of current Physics was totally incapable of supplying.
It has taken some time!
By 2011 the Anomalies of the Double Slit Experiments were beginning to be explained purely physically, and an important paper upon The Processes and Productions of Abstraction was produced, followed by the Theory of Emergences.
But, these were only the beginning!
All the research was being published in a monthly online magazine called SHAPE Journal, which was supported by this blog, and SHAPE Youtube Channel. We are now approaching the 9th Anniversary of the birth of these publications, which has involved well over 110 Issues involving around 900 papers.
And with the last Special Issue on Death to Copenhagen, we have now completed our primary objective theoretically!
But, of course, that was a means to another end, namely the re-grounding of Marxist Theory. And, the next objective has to be the rejuvenation of that Theory in radically changing current Marxist Practice in building the effective means to end Capitalism forever!
Part II: New Marxist Theory and Practice will follow soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment