Comrade Friendly Fire

It was made in a lab! And we are all eating it!

Chemical baking soda

Oh no! Those dastardly molecules!

You want to pin down absolute definitions of idealism vs materialism

I want rigour in this stuff, rather than operating on vibes.

Also, I am myself a mathematical Platonist, meaning that I am an ontological idealist myself, and, given how many other socialists both at least claim to subscribe to materialism (which, I would argue, is not always a true claim) and at least claim that Marxism and idealism have significant incompatibilities (which I have not managed to encounter so far), I'd rather resolve this lack of coherence. Either my understanding is incorrect, or a lot of other people are being incorrect. I am fine with the matter being resolved with me being proven incorrect, but so far people have not managed to bring up any relevant incompatibilities.

but the precise meanings of these words are not agreed by all thinkers if they are consciously defined at all

That does not mean that we should avoid defining terms or explain understandings of words. Furthermore, a person can be aware of multiple incompatible linguistic frameworks and try to understand something by attempting to apply each of them. In particular, I brought up the fact that I am aware of multiple definitions for the terms 'idealism' and 'materialism'.
If one refuses to explain what they mean by their words, then they should not expect to be understood, I would also argue.

So what definition of idealism are you applying?

I provided relevant explanations elsewhere in this tree of comments, but the one that I consider to be a 'better' understanding of the word 'idealism' is one that characterises idealist schools of thought as positing that non-material stuff (not necessarily mental non-material stuff) has primacy over material stuff.

How can this be? Marx wrote a bunch of polemics against idealism

Well, just because somebody says something doesn't mean that they are correct. This might seem unwarrantedly harsh, but we do know that Marxist thinkers (obviously, not just them, but only they are relevant here) did not always make tested claims. Some of those claims were tested after being put into works, and some are yet to be tested (like Lenin's anti-parliamentarism from, IIRC, State and Revolution).

IIRC, Marx tried to define idealist schools of thought as positing that mental stuff has some sort of primacy over matter. That definition is bad at least because, according to it, schools of thought like Platonism (and its offshoots) and most variations of religious idealism - famous examples of idealist schools of thought - are not idealist schools of thought, which is silly.
I do not currently have time to delve into those works, as I have thousands of pages of dense reading material to go through that are much more important for me right now.

So, if there are incompatibilities between idealism and Marxism (however you understand what Marxism is), I'm all ears.

Are you defining Marxism as the school that emerged after Marx, or Marx himself?

I am making rather broad strokes here, but I'm pretty sure that what most people here would understand as Marxism doesn't actually have significant incompatibilities with idealism.

You gotta add Dialectics

Firstly, the word 'dialectic' doesn't mean anything specific outside of context. At most, it carries the meaning of 'something related to change', and can refer to anything from people having an argument to a framework with theses, antitheses and syntheses of things. Do you refer exclusively to the dialectic of nature?
Secondly, that claim is yet to be substantiated. Why does one 'gotta' 'add' any particular dialectics?

Nothing "idealist" exists

Taken at face value, you are claiming that idealist schools of thought do not exist.
If you mean that non-material things do not exist, then you subscribe to a linguistic framework that, among other things, makes engaging with math without compromising on your principles basically impossible, and also means that things like capitalism, social relations in general, numbers, functions, logic (none of which consist of matter) exist.

Trying to make a definition of "materialism" which says human consciousness is simple cells, chemicals, and electric is a straw man of good materialist analyses

This seems rather silly. If defining terms is 'a straw man (of good materialist analyses)', then I'm sorry, but how do you expect to communicate what materialism and idealism are? If you actively refuse to explain what you mean by certain words that are not used in a colloquial manner, how do you expect other people to understand you? The same criticism I actually have of philosophers in general as well, as the entire field seems to be actively resistant to properly defining their terms and being understood with minimal ambiguity.

materialist analyses

Also, a pet peeve of mine is how 'materialist analysis' is almost always better characterised as 'political-economical analysis' in socialist spaces. In particular, my basis for the claim is that such analysis can be done just fine within idealist frameworks, but also because it never actually draws any conclusions from materialism - rather, such analyses draw conclusions from understanding of economic base and superstructure, understanding of private property, understanding of classes.

why they run into the same issues that Plekhanov ran into

What issues did Plekhanov run into?

Are you insinuating that Wittgenstein's position of linguistic disagreements is applicable to differences of idealism and materialism?

As I have stated, I have not investigated the matter as of yet.

SMH my head. This comment section is being very rough on this African American. /s

I said they are my personnel favorites

I requested an explanation for what you meant by a setting not being a 'wallpaper'. That was the explanation that I got, along with 'appreciation of scale' which itself requires an explanation.

and unless you find settings that are internally inconsistent to be good writing, certainly not "overrated"

Internal inconsistency of a setting is not (usually, at least) good writing, but something can be written well while having its world not be consistent. So yes, I maintain that worldbuilding is overrated. I am not sure what your refutation is.

BUT IF YOU'RE GOING TO INCORPORATE A SETTING then the requirements I laid out are crucial to allowing worldbuilding and characterization to mesh in ways that doesn't undermine either one, that's been my point the whole time

Can you substantiate that point, i.e. that worldbuilding has to specifically be used to make main characters to feel 'small and insignificant', and using worldbuilding to instill something else is somehow not good? Do you consider works where characters do not feel 'small and insignificant' to be badly written just on that basis alone?

Yes the world should be bigger than the characters, if you're gonna have a world;

Over the Garden Wall has a setting that is substantially different from real life (in contrast to works set in historical and contemporary settings). Its worldbuilding, however, is both minimal (we know basically nothing about the world outside of the main characters' immediate surroundings) and doesn't make the characters feel 'small and insignificant'. And yet, you and I both seem to concur that the work is written well.

unless you believe characters should be bigger than their worlds outside of character focus and viewpoint, do you find most power fantasies evocative or examples of good writing?

Firstly, do I understand it correctly that you divide narratives that involve characters into ones where characters are 'small and insignificant' and ones that are power fantasies?
Secondly, I actually can appreciate some power fantasies, but I would rather not get into this particular topic.
Thirdly, not sure what you mean by a world being 'bigger/smaller than the characters'.

In that case I got a million isekais for you

'I can appreciate some power fantasies' and 'I like all power fantasies' are two different statements. Do you suggest I say that you are obligated to love every narrative with 'small and insignificant' characters?

Why do you have such a literal view of the words I use

Okay, can you explain what you mean, then? Surely, you don't consider me obligated to try to guess when you mean something very different from what you are saying and then try to divine what you mean, do you?

when I say "small and insignificant" I don't literally mean physically tiny or always at the bottom of the social ladder

What do you mean, then?

when I use "triumph" I don't literally mean the characters at the end of every narrative hold a Roman style Triumph

There is a huge gap between characters not holding a 'Roman-style Triumph' and a story having a saddening/bad conclusion for the characters, so I'm not sure where the claim that I read you too literally is coming from in this case.

It's relational and contextual, like with Over the Garden Wall, where "small and insignificant" means children lost in a dark forest with no knowledge of its inner workings, in another story it means something else

If 'small and insignificant' can mean basically whatever you want it to mean, then your initial words about wolrdbuilding having to make main characters feel 'small and insignificant' are simply not informative at all.

Also, let's consider another example - Bojack Horseman. Do you consider characters from there to feel 'small and insignificant'? If so, in what way do they feel 'small and insignificant'?

lmao you're just replacing the word "worldbuilding" with "surroundings" yes i.e. THE WORLDBUILDING AND THE SETTING which plays a crucial role in the narrative

I am not. If you think those words to be interchangeable, then we should be able to say the following:

as the narrative is focused almost entirely on them and their immediate worldbuilding, with surroundings being limited to, well, said worldbuilding

That obviously does not sound right, as worldbuilding is a literary tool, and the word 'surroundings' refers to people and things in one's vicinity. Those words are not synonymous, and this accusation is rather silly.

Yes that's part of my original point, nothing is really answered concretely, no over-explanation of how the forest works, the mystery, the questions are still intact throughout the show and elevates and pushes the narrative along, that is what I mean by effective worldbuilding and effective lore, take the forest away it's not Over the Garden Wall anymore, it's a different show which may or may not be good

Notably, none of those things make characters feel 'small and insignificant' to me. If anything, the smallness of the setting makes one feel as if the main characters are some of the few actors capable of making an impact on the forest, and the fact that the story focuses on the main characters' interpersonal relationships rather than on some world-ending threats or global politics makes them feel very important (because they very much are in their relationships, which is the focus of the narrative).

Frankly, I suspect your definitions of "lore" and "worldbuilding" simply don't mesh with mine, for me the "lore" of Over the Garden Wall is fully developed despite the narrative being unfinished

Well, Over the Garden Wall has basically no lore to speak of (at least, not within the cartoon). And the work doesn't need more of it.
As for the narrative being unfinished, I do not understand. In what way is it unfinished when the characters got a thorough conclusion to their stories?

Mandate of heaven: lost

By how much in radians?

i personally thought the most common form of idealism was summed up as this: "humans cannot perceive reality perfectly, they perceive things to their human limit and see appearances of things" or, alternatively: "humans have experiences that trascend humanity itself and can't be fully understood by humans"

It is definitely not that. The points about imperfection of perception are not relevant to either of idealism and materialism themselves.

For Marx in particular, he saw any theory divorced from practical experience as a slipperly slope towards idealism

I have not encountered Marx saying so, but that would be silly, as idealism isn't some sort of a detachment from practice, and I would argue that there are no serious incompatibilities between idealism and Marxism (at the very least, nobody has managed to bring any of such to my attention, so far).

Right now, I don't have any sources ready, and I know for certain that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on idealism explicitly excludes non-recent branches of idealist schools of thought.

There are at least two definitions of ontological idealism (and two corresponding ones for ontological materialism) that I have seen. One of which characterises idealist schools of thought as positing that (some) non-material things have some sort of primacy over material things (note that non-material things are not limited to thoughts). Another definition is broader and simply requires idealist schools of thought to posit that non-material things exist (while the corresponding definition for materialism requires those schools to posit that only material things exist).

Contrary to popular perception, idealism does not require you to believe in magic, including that we can psychically change matter. Simply, for example, subscribing to the idea that math does not depend on matter is idealist.
Also, while religious idealism (most prominently Christian idealism) does require you to believe in magic, it also doesn't require one to believe that it is thoughts that have any sort of primacy over matter.

I am also pretty sure that I'm not alone in considering relevant disagreements to be at least mostly linguistic in nature. I have heard that Wittgenstein said something to the same effect, but have not checked.

Most people - including Marxist thinkers and people here on Hexbear - do not understand what idealism is and subscribe to a critique of it that says that Platonism and most versions of religious idealism - probably the most popular examples of idealist schools of thought - are not idealist schools of thought.

People also seem to unfortunately like to come to a conclusion first, and then try to fit the facts to match that conclusion, like when people try to argue that the PRC's economy is currently socialist despite it featuring significant private property (and, thus, profit motive). (Going to note here that there is a room to argue that it isn't capitalist on the grounds of the capitalist class not being sufficiently dominant, which I am not equipped to discuss right now, and why I do not call it such.)

For all Hexbears there exists c/math

I use it to check if my calculations are correct.

Lithography machines

Internal consistency and appreciation of scale are my personnel favorites, but there are so many ways to create interesting worlds so it depends on the type of story

So, you find any internally-consistent setting to 'not be a wallpaper'? That roughly means that every historical/contemporary setting qualifies as such, even though basically no worldbuilding is done, and there are definitely works in such settings that do not instill any sort of feeling that the main characters are 'small and insignificant'.

Furthermore, I'd argue that internal consistency of any given setting is overrated.

That's a perfect example of what I mean when I say worldbuilding should make the characters feel small

Except, it's not. I did not say anything about making characters feel small. The setting can be just a small piece of land, and the story might be focused on interpersonal relations between a few characters, for example.

so their development resonates more profoundly later on

Why is that only achievable by making the main characters feel 'small and insignificant'?

obviously in the beginning of the narrative those characters aren't going to immediately have the power to topple colonial structures or bring about revolution are they?

Nobody said anything about them doing so at all, or a story focusing on that. A story can be focused on something else entirely in such a setting.

I think you're stuck on my word choice of "small and insignificant" while missing the far more important "when they triumph their accomplishments resonate that much more" part

Because you said that worldbuilding should be used specifically for making the main characters to feel 'small and insignificant'. Do you rescind that claim?

while missing the far more important "when they triumph their accomplishments resonate that much more" part

Also, on this topic in particular, this ignores the pieces of art where there is no triumph to speak of, and this also ignores how triumphs and accomplishments can be made to resonate with people without making the main characters feel 'small and insignificant'. I am also not sure why you aren't considering how making main characters feel 'small and insignificant' can also make their triumphs accomplishments feel the same - small and ultimately insignificant instead of personal and relevant to a given story.

Let's consider Over the Garden Wall again, as an example. Would expanding the worldbuilding to elaborate on topics that are completely irrelevant to the story and making the main characters feel 'small and insignificant' make the story that is primarily about their relationship better, and their accomplishments - localised entirely within their pairing - more resonant with somebody? And you do realise that you would have to actually set aside resources (including runtime of the cartoon) to communicate said worldbuilding at the cost of something else, right?

That is another perfect example of how world building elevates the narrative, the main characters literally start the story as "small and insignificant"

Except, they don't, unless you consider almost all characters from all stories 'small and insignificant'.
How many examples of characters can you provide that do not feel 'small and insignificant' to you?

they're children in a dark forest inhabited by supernatural beings, children who encounter enclosed magical societies, mysteries, terror, the world building is not rationed or subdued, it defines the setting and the characters, it elevates the narrative, 'over the garden wall' is a new world that the children didn't know existed and as they explore that world their characterization develops alongside it

You can use this justification to claim that all characters from almost every piece of art feel 'small and insignificant', in which case there is no distinction between characters supposedly feeling that way and not.
The main characters of Over the Garden Wall do not feel 'small and insignificant', as the narrative is focused almost entirely on them and their immediate surroundings, with worldbuilding being limited to, well, said surroundings. It is all very localised, and not expanded upon within the work. There are no explanations for how this world works, what its history is, what is where and who or why the Beast is, and so on, and so forth.

Because usually you don't begin stories at the end, again unless you're a highly skilled author who can effectively subvert conventions, which most authors are not

I'm not sure how that is relevant to using worldbuilding to make main characters feel 'small and insignificant', and not recognising that it can be used for a lot of other things, some of which are more general and important than this extremely narrow usage.

my point is as the narrative progresses the preservation of mystique, grandeur, awe, wonder, terror, etc. requires careful attention to how characterization and world building interact and without the two working in concert the lore is gonna usually suck

I maintain that lore is an overrated element of a narrative. In the case of Over the Garden Wall, for example, developing its lore would just detract from the work.

But if you're going to have worldbuilding and a setting that isn't simply wallpaper

What does it mean for a setting to 'not be a wallpaper'?

then the points I made are absolutely crucial

I strongly disagree. This seems like it is extremely narrow to consider worldbuilding as only being useful for instilling the sense of main characters of a narrative to feel small and insignificant. What would prevent you from, for example, using worldbuilding to create parallels with real-world anti-colonial struggles and making a narrative about gloom or bloom in a colonial environment?
Why specifically have worldbuilding specifically for making main characters 'feel small and insignificant' when you can (despite it still being an overrated tool in my opinion) use it for quite a bit more?

and unless you're a highly skilled author it's not enough to simply have characters, but the world they inhabit has to feel alive and bigger than them

A few points I'd like to make/reiterate:

1. You still actually need either characters or some other narrative tools in addition to worldbuilding, while worldbuilding can be done without, basically.
2. You don't need more worldbuilding than a particular narrative demands. Consider, for example, Over the Garden Wall, where almost nothing is known about the world except for what we see directly, and that doesn't actually hurt the narrative in any way.
3. Why specifically limit the usage of worldbuilding to making main characters 'feel small and insignificant'?

mystique, grandeur, awe, wonder, terror, these are emotions where characterization invariably meets the implications of the setting thru implied/explicit mystery and questions inevitably asked by the audience, and I've seen so many stories where authors fail to recognize that inflection point and end up with convoluted untethered characterization, dead empty settings or worse both

Notably, none of those things require lore development, and lore development can even hurt those, like how it is the case with what somebody else has already mentioned in this comment section.

never answer questions directly but hint and create even more questions than before, it has to make the main cast feel small and insignificant so when they triumph their accomplishments resonate that much more

Disregarding my point, I think that this is an incredibly narrow view of an artistic tool.

If anything, worldbuilding does not make a compelling narrative on its own. It can tickle one's brain with concepts of some narratives, but almost never anything more than that, I'd argue.
I do think that worldbuilding's primary purpose should be to elevate the rest of a given narrative. Worldbuilding itself can even be harmed if it means achieving that effect, I would argue, though, as it is ultimately not important.

I'd argue that (extensive) worldbuilding is generally overvalued.

We have the technology! We can make them denser!