99% of the time, Materialism means being driven by greed(material wealth), while idealism means being driven by moral principles(ideals). This set of definitions is NOT the one that philosophers used.
Marx and Engels discussed materialism and idealism in philosophy, which is a completely different thing. Even in philosophy, both terms are extremely vague and are not enough to mean anything on their own without pages upon pages of elaboration.
It's laughable how online leftists throw around these words without even knowing what they mean. No, calling something "idealist" is not a valid critique and saying "material conditions" instead of "reality" does not make your argument stronger. Read an actual book for once and never ever use those words again. Save them for serious writing of substance.
as a philosophy major, if anyone is wondering, you can safely ignore this person's post.
As a STEM major with an English minor I have analyzed the chemical structure of this post and can safely say it is a rose by any other name, except instead of a rose you had a steaming pile of shit.
oh no, not the philosophy major coming in with the immortal sciences of bourgeois academia!
"materialism" and "idealism" are used as big words to make things sound smarter than they are
everything I don't like is bourgeois
lol
“materialism” and “idealism” are used as big words to make things sound smarter than they are
I literally said when they are used out of context.
everything I don’t like is bourgeois
Capitalist society => Bourgeois education, are you going to dispute that?
All hail Stalin, glorious big daddy who saved the world from fascism and built socialism in one country.
:stalin-heart: :halal: :hammer-and-vibe:
How is diamat connected to stalin exclusively?
Describe to me where society comes from
Well the dialectical materialism most people know of is dialectical materialism as the official soviet philosophy, and that was established under Stalin. Out of Stalin's many successes, this was one of his failures.
Again, where does society come from? I can’t seriously engage in philosophical arguments on unknown terrain, maybe you are subjective idealist, and I’m but a figment of your imagination
So you are a stalinist :very-smart:
You know, you can engage in good faith instead of feigning air of superiority, and disappearing into the mists
Yes, you can say I'm a Stalinist, but his dialectical materialism that was popularized in the soviet union was dogmatist garbage.
Sure, the lad was prone to mechanical interpretation, instead of taking reality as it is, I wouldn’t call it all garbage though, maybe scientifically conservative/overinteprative, but history-wise fine.
As well as starting point of your topic - calling liberals idealists is fine I feel, they think society is shaped by ideas and great leaders with those ideas
I‘ll put it this way, Stalin's dialectical materialism was a tool that was limited to the time and completed its historical mission of industrializing and defeating the nazis. Because of its nature as a tool, it is obsolete nowadays, unlike the philosophy of Marx.
Lmao Orthodox Marxist calling others dogmatic. This is a great bit please continue.
yeah the two types of marxists, stalinist or kautskyite, you must be an expert
99% of western leftists are idealists. I learned about communism as a teen from my cousin who was in the CPRF Komsomol at the time, and had a thorough education of dialectical materialism. I was 25 by the first time I encountered someone claiming to be a "materialist", and all of really meant was that they were against liberal identity politics. I can sympathize with that, but the more I talked to these people the more I realized they were basically just a different flavor of liberal (Stupidpol folks).
The grim reality is that the only materialist leftists in the west have realized that material conditions aren't anywhere near the point where revolutionary potential is recognizable and have thus given up and sunk into their personal lives for an attempt at happiness, or at the very least an escape from misery.
“Reality” doesn’t even convey the same meaning as “material conditions.” Conservatives will reply with “this is reality, not everyone will have a home and that’s their fault.”
Also, I’ve never seen someone use “idealist” as in as “someone being driven by ideas”. I’ve only seen it used as in “a naive person who doesn’t account for reality (material conditions)”. And this is way before I even knew what a leftist was.
Idealist as naive is another definition I guess, but also one that has nothing to do with philosophy.
"This is the material conditions, the productive forces are not advanced enough and therefore exploitation of workers is justified" is something I hear a lot from these people lol, they are literally used the same way.
ohhh you’re one o’ them sinophobic peeps. Okay cool, what’s your opinion on Bordiga or Gonzalo?
:jesse-wtf:
Yeah, that’s how I feel about both of them too.
In my head this sounded like Don Draper when he says "cigarettes"...
Broad brush strokes:
idealism: consciousness is the primary origin of phenomena
materialism: matter is the primary origin of phenomena
consciousness has material origins
These aren't really falsifiable propositions. You can't actually state that as fact.
yea, this is a rabbit hole lol I've gone into this a few times before and am not sure how productive this conversation can be. Mind being an epiphenomena of the brain is an assumption, a philosophical position, that is not an actual scientific fact. There are other areas of knowledge that point to that assumption being incorrect. One example is research into near-death experiences.
There are studied reports of people having mystical near-death experiences when they are measurably basically brain dead. Of course this also can't be stated as a fact in the same way other concrete material statements can be.
If I understand correctly, also psilocybin intoxication actually results in reduced brain activity. So, even if there is causation from matter to consciousness like that, it's still basically impossible to explain exactly how that works in a concrete sense.
never ask a materialist/idealist what is matter/geist, worst mistake of my life
It very much depends on context. In marx and engel's time it was the conflict between religious authority vs progressive philosophy
I feel like this post would be more productive if you raise some specific criticisms rather than leaving this as a general statement.
this is all that you can criticize because these people are literally stuck in the stage where they don't even know the correct definition. has anyone in this thread tried to argue that idealism and materialism are meaningful labels outside of philosophical discussion? there is no deeper critique other than pointing out the infantile circlejerk that is online leftists and their silly jargon.
keep twisting my words lmao, my point cannot be more clear, and that is online leftists dont know the meaning of the words they are saying. everything in this thread is only proving my point, including you
You refuse to clarify anything or attempt to define the words you claim are being used wrong. If anyone is circlejerking in an ivory tower of academia it's you because literally everyone else here is like :jesse-wtf:
I gave the definitions in the post, what is there to clarify? No one has asked for clarification. A definition of idealism I missed was idealism as in being naive to reality and living in delusion.
You then went on to denounce ivory tower intellectuals. You want to do real revolutionary work? Stop being a pedantic armchair "Marxist" (you keep throwing out labels for your interlocutors but assume none yourself).
I am inclined to believe you're a contrarian/wrecker based on this thread. This is coming from an active labor organizer that actually does real fucking work so I don't take kindly to your attitude here.
If you want to bring up an actual argument, I'm happy to listen but throwing out your qualification as an "active labor organizer" and taking issue with my attitude? I am a full member of the CPC so I'm inclined to think I have had a systematic marxist education as well as the real fucking work that comes with being in a functional party.
Calling bullshit because you wouldn't be making a post like this so hostilely intonated. This was :bait: from the start.
I should have noticed when you said that most western leftists equate "materialism" with greed. Or the fact that you said "leftists" to begin with which is itself an ultimately meaningless term.
I'd rather have it "hostilely intonated" than to allow people to continue in their delusional LARP. If you have no actual points aside from taking issue with my tone, I see no point in continuing wasting my time with you.
:wojak-nooo:
"Read an actual book for once and never ever use those words again."
:gigachad:
in material conditions, your argument is quite idealist
proceeds to read astolfo doujinshis for free
badtakes is that you? I've always liked how your posts really rile up the site
One hilarious side effect of this is that some leftists end up thinking that liberals are idealists in the sense that they are driven by moral principles and are convinced that being an idealist is a bad thing.
