• plinky [he/him]
    ·
    11 months ago

    Somewhat, but two points:

    1. attractiveness is not material condition, standards of beauty change over time fairly significantly. Your physical looks are getting refracted by societal norms into attractiveness.

    2. these are not material conditions marxists bang on about

  • Kaplya
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    No, the Marxian term of material conditions is tied to the labor’s relation to production. For example, the labor wage relations necessitate that you sell your labor to earn a living, without which you cannot survive and will perish, and this in turn dictates your material conditions, and those of your family, and those of your community.

  • Yurt_Owl
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    If you're assuming these are physical traits you are born with then thats just a very problematic way of thinking.

    • 7bicycles [he/him]
      ·
      11 months ago

      I don't wanna dissect this on a word by word basis versus the title but I feel like this is well meaning but accidently veers off into bootstrap type things on the basis of many of those factors are heavily influenced by economic factors you get born into and if they're not great it'll fuck you out of half of them

      Someone working a menial job for 80 hours a week to survive is just not going to have energy to work on their intelligence or skills or health. I mean sure, some people manage, it ain't impossible, but I think setting that as the standard is the way to go.

    • Ultimate Communist@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Aren't physical traits material under materialism? So if these are material and they are conditions given to you by the universe, doesnt that make them material conditions?

      • GaveUp [love/loves]
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        Material conditions in this sense refers to the social and material environment that you are surrounded by and live in

        And the importance of material conditions is that it is the basis of which your ideas, beliefs, and thoughts are formed from; The physical world precedes and influences the immaterial

  • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    Not really. Luck isn't a real thing. It's a perception of our past and largely a cultural framing device for your feelings on events that occur in your life. You could argue that some people are lucky by being born into a specific family, but that's kind of a philosophical issue as it implies that that person may have instead been born into another family as if by some form of divine neonatal cleromancy.

    The rest of these for the most part are not material conditions, but are factors primarily affected by your material conditions. Health and appearance are largely affected by genetics, environment, and exposure to certain compounds. Someone raised or living in an area with poor air and water quality or with little access to healthcare is likely to experience more negative health effects than someone from a cleaner environment and access to healthcare and these can affect appearance greatly. One's intelligence, skill, or dexerity are heavily affected by education, quality of home life during childhood, level of practice, healthcare, nutrition, pollution levels, and other external factors.

    These external forces are largely the same for groups of people rather than individuals, which is where Marx largely applies the concept of historical (or dialectical) materialism.

    The German Ideology may be helpful for further study.

  • emizeko [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    I think I misunderstood your question


    seems to me that your material conditions affect your stress levels, confidence, clothing, and cleanliness, all of which will have some impact on attractiveness. and doesn't it make sense that looks, dexterity, intelligence, and health are all affected by the material conditions of your childhood and adolescent development even in the face of putative genetic factors. nutrition, noise, pollution, access to physical exercise and leisure time to do it in, etc.

      • emizeko [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        this is one of the Marx quotes that helped snap it into place for me

        Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.

        from 18th Brumaire

      • emizeko [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        okay I removed it but remember I was answering a different question and kinda talking past yours.

        remember you can view source with the little document button and read it that way too