http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2014/10/culture-is-objective-condition.html
Culture is an objective condition. Culture by and large does not change itself. It is a conservative force. Culture is a formal logic, not a dialectical logic. It only changes in the rare revolutionary changes which well up from the base and change the super-structure. Most of the time of history culture rules. Culture is the reign of convention; Necessity, material necessity , is the mother of invention, of revolution. Most of the time of history, culture reigns, convention. Revolutions are very rare.being determines consciousness discontinuously, intermittmently, rarely. :
"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. "https://www.marxists.org/.../critique-pol.../preface.htm
Economic Manuscripts: Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Karl Marx 1859 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy , Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas. marxists.org|By Karl Marx Just now · Edited · Like · Remove Preview
Charles Brown By vulgar marxism I mean a constructive critic of fancy marxism and its left-liberal cousins. My general attitude is to extract the rational kernel from the modern and post-modern left neo and paleo liberals from Hegel to post-Foucaultists. So, I like the kernel of truth metaphor used in the list discussion in the last day. As to the true universal Doug asked Yoshie for, I would build it. not on a new idea, but Marx and Feuerbach's species-being. All of the workers and other people represented by other social movements are human species-beings. Although biology only limits us human beings because we have culture (super-natures and natures ) this contradiction between biology and culture is still where it is at in generating universals or big generals. Being determines consciousness is still a focal rule of thumb (guide to action) for building a universal, real common interests among huge numbers of people, the masses. My first post-Marx development of species-being is to derive women's libertion organically from historical materialism's premises, as Marx and Engels derive workers' liberation from those species-being historical premises. It is a correction of classical Marxism, but based on Marxsim's own premises. In ways its too vulgar for pomos and fancy marxists. However, the pomos and their old cousins, Frankfurt school, Gramsci, exitentialists, et al. all the fancy marxists have taught us something: being determines consciousness discontinuously, intermittmently, rarely. Through most of the actual time of history, consciousness and being are reciprocally determining. Only rarely, in revolutions, primarily and ultimately does being utterly determine consciousness. Today, that means that the direct naked appeal to the working class' class self-interest is inadequate in itself-necessary but not sufficient in the formal logical sense -to inspire revolution. That appeal cannot be dropped - the vast majority are working class, wage laborers - but must be complemented with appeals to other consciousness, other consciousness determined by being (gender, for example) and consciousness that is determined more by consciousness. Overall one wants to change the world based on interpreting it, changing it through practical-critical activity, a unity of theory and practice still. All Power to the People as a whole.http://www.driftline.org/cgi-bin/archive/archive_msg.cgi... Folder Contents driftline.org
Marxism is human historical evolution I’d say the natural science that is most important to relate to Marxism , early and late , is Natural History / Darwinism . Early , the _Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_ develop Feuerbach’s concept of species-being , species is a biological concept. Marx’s most fundamental materialism is biology ; humans as an animal species with the unique characteristic contrasted with all other species of having history it makes itself - custom , tradition, culture. Marxism is human historical evolution. It is a dialectical unity of cultural and natural history. Late, Marx says in _Capital_: “My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of _natural history_ ( emphasis added -CB) , can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains ( CB: a natural history species-being), however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.” ( CB: an anti-Individualist , anti-Privatist anti-Bigman , anti-Subjective Idealist , creed) Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I
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