Letters

More popper

Jack Conrad is right to describe me as a “regular reader” of your paper (January 31). It is “essential reading” every week, head and shoulders above anything else on the left. Following the financial appeal, I promptly visited the bank to increase (albeit modestly) my quarterly payments to the Weekly Worker, as I hope most of your serious readers have done.

Jack was surprised I opened my brief comments on Popper with a sentence taken from his recently published Fantastic reality: had I perhaps missed his two-page article, ‘Powerful because it coherently explains’, “defending dialectical materialism against positivist critics, Popper included” (Weekly Worker December 6 2007)? No, Jack, rather I saw it as reflecting all the antiquated regurgitations I used to read in the official Soviet ‘philosophical texts’ of the Stalin era.

I am not interested in the comments Margaret Thatcher, Paul Johnson or any other establishment figures may have made about Popper or anybody else. My guess is neither of them ever opened a book by Popper, let alone read it, but with a reputation as the ‘man who demolished Marx’, both would have happily associated with any accolade in his honour (especially once he was dead!). Nor am I interested in defending Popper’s “piecemeal social engineering” - I joined the Communist Party nearly 60 years ago and, although I am not now a member of any party, I have been an active libertarian socialist ever since.

If my earlier contribution to the Weekly Worker (January 24) failed to convince readers of the outmoded ‘observation, verification and repeatability’ paradigm for science, I am not proposing to argue it again now. I am surprised that anyone, after Kant, fails to understand that human perception exists via our mental categories. Darwin is much closer to the Popperian line than Jack imagines - indeed, in chapter 6 of Origin of the species, Darwin states: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

I am surprised that Jack, writing in the 21st century, continues to believe “physics deals with matter at its simplest, most basic level and except with subatomic particles follows a relatively straightforward path from cause to effect”. Surprised, for he presents the topic in such a way as to suggest the subatomic stuff is just a side issue, rather than the very essence of everything we are talking about whenever we talk about ‘matter’. Jack obviously pines for the old Newtonian physics, grounded in the theological theorising of its founder.

It surprises me that Jack Conrad lives happily with the idea that his Marxism is “partial, partisan, adopting a viewpoint”. It doesn’t bother me, either - just surprises me - that he seems unable to grasp that all our knowledge is seen through the lenses of our ‘constructs’. In the realm of physics, it’s normally an unconscious process - and for the general populace that often applies when viewing social reality also … but the Marxist (or any politically aware individual) is instinctively aware of his/her partiality. I am not arguing against Jack here, just surprised that he is still embedded in pre-Kantian conceptuality elsewhere.

The greatest omission from Jack’s piece is his failure, as a Marxist, to develop further on the psychological theme: “The human brain being by far the most complex thing known to us in the universe”. How true this is, how relevant for advancing our knowledge of the world, how crucial to the ‘new physics’, prefigured by Mach and his disciple, Karl Pearson. As opposed to the earlier mechanical materialism, a dialectical philosophy should see humankind as the active force in society and the world. In a very real sense, we perceive the world through our mental, brain-made constructs, and it is these same constructs we need to progressively modify as part of the learning process. My Penrose triangle exercise attempted to illustrate how our constructs determine perceptions - as opposed to the so-called ‘objectivity’ of Jack’s “observation, verification and repeatability” (which, admittedly he confines to ‘physics’).

As Jack’s article is focussed on the ‘dialectic’, I had anticipated his article, exposing the errors of those he terms ‘positivists’, would take a serious look at Popper’s What is dialectic? (1937). What a disappointment that turned out to be! Rather than explore the article as such, he looks at the first four pages where the ‘dialectic triad’ (falsely ascribed by Popper and others to Hegel) is discussed and Jack comments: “Popper feels categorically obliged to adopt a stupidly dismissive attitude: ‘A statement consisting of the conjunction of two contradictory statements must always be rejected as false on purely logical grounds’.”

Yes, that was the ‘principle of formal logic’ and Popper’s handling of it in The open society is not one I could support. However, Popper ‘moves on’ to examine some of Engels’ ridiculous examples, while tragically Jack Conrad, after throwing in another quote from somewhere (not at the reference he offers), moves on to the “idiotic delusions” of eminent scientists - which, I hope my previous contribution showed, is irrelevant to their contributions to human knowledge.

More popper
More popper

Naked truth

Esen Uslu’s article gave a fascinating insight into the complex relations between the army, bourgeoisie and islamists in Turkey (‘Riddle of the headscarf’, February 7). I agree with his conclusion that neither the bourgeois ‘secularists’ nor the islamists have a democratic agenda: only the working class can achieve that. Yet he does not tell us what his position on the wearing of headscarves actually is.

He writes, on the one hand: “… the communists are, of course, against any bans, restrictions or discrimination imposed by the state.” On the other hand, “Support for the rights and freedoms of fundamental islam … would be a serious mistake.” As we know, individual muslims, as well as the islamists, are demanding the right to wear the headscarf, but it seems that comrade Uslu wants to oppose both the ban and the move to overturn it.

The best way to avoid siding either with the Kemalists or the islamists would, I think, be to support the right of everyone to wear whatever they want in public (health and safety considerations aside). In Britain it isn’t technically illegal to walk naked in the street, though I’ve never seen anyone avail themselves of that right. This would offend the islamists’ dowdy puritanism and it would also expose the lack of secularism of the ‘secularists’. A genuinely independent working class position which is both rational and democratic. And one that could split believers from the reactionary religious establishment.

By the way, I think comrade Uslu is a bit complacent about the role of christianity in the west. Note its influence on the Republican right in the USA. Religion and charity grow in proportion to the lack of state welfare services and social alienation. No different to the situation in Turkey.

Naked truth
Naked truth

Overlooker

I must respond to Tommy Teutel, who says: “It is a gross misconception among us that the working class are the people who clean toilets, dig holes and roll their own fags. Class is an economic distinction, not one of culture. It is perfectly possible to be of the working class culture but have millions in the bank. Conversely, the opposite is true” (Letters, January 31).

Let me tell you that I am a toilet cleaner in a factory and, although I do not smoke myself, the workers that do smoke roll their own fags, mainly because of their economic situation - ie, that’s all they can afford and, let’s be honest, it’s mostly bought from the black market. If they had millions in the bank, they would probably smoke huge Cuban cigars and they certainly would not be working in the factory.

The working class is usually educated to a poor level in comprehensive schools, ready and able to do factory/cleaning work, ‘McJobs’ and dig holes for the minimum wage or thereabouts. When we find someone to live with or marry, we struggle to get social housing. Then we continue to work for the minimum wage, maybe have children, paying rent up until the day we die, with the help of a state pension or benefits (at the moment) if we are lucky.

The middle class is usually educated in fee-paid schools, where they are made ready and able to go to university. When they finally leave there, they are ready and able to join the management teams standing in opposition to the interests of the workers on behalf of those who have the capital.

They are then able to get a mortgage and live in a nice area nowhere near the crappy ‘council estates’. In addition, they are able to pay off the mortgage before they retire, sell the house, make a huge profit and buy a small bungalow by the sea, where they live off the interest. They also get the state pension, which increases their large private pension.

This, of course, is simplified and would probably take a book to explain, but I hope it helps.

Also, Tommy, maybe you could brush up on your Marx, because, as the following excerpt from the Communist manifesto explains, it is from the overlooker that we have a problem: “Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.”

Overlooker
Overlooker

Never forget

Jack Conrad’s analysis of fascism is good, apart from the fact he does not mention that there is either dictatorship of the proletariat or dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (‘What is fascism?’ February 7).

Liberal democracy is just a form of bourgeois dictatorship, and it can and will change depending on the level of class conflict, on the level of the threat to bourgeois rule. The bourgeoisie will change the state from a liberal democratic state to a fascist state if there is a threat from the working class, to smash the working class movement by force, and then return to liberal democracy.

That is what happened in Spain, Italy and Germany - places where the working class movement was at its strongest. This should never be forgotten.

Never forget
Never forget

While stocks last

I was interested to see Daniel De Leon’s Two pages from Roman history quoted in Chris Gray’s article on ancient Rome (‘Patricians and plebeians’, February 7).

Readers may like to know that this much neglected and hard to find Marxian classic is still in print and can be obtained from Redline Publications, PO Box 6700, Sawbridgeworth, CM21 0BS, for £2 post paid.

While stocks last
While stocks last

Rational

Terry Liddle asks how I know that I “would not benefit from a lecture on the health and social dangers of alcohol” from him (Weekly Worker February 7). It is because I am already familiar with your ill-informed, anachronistic arguments, Terry.

He refers to a recent survey which, using scientific evidence, showed that “alcohol was more dangerous than ecstasy”. Terry could well mean the Horizon documentary shown on BBC2 on February 4. This very informative programme did indeed come to this conclusion, after reviewing the dangers - to users and wider society - of 20 drugs. However, its conclusions went much farther than Terry reports.

According to the programme’s findings, alcohol is the fifth most dangerous drug after heroin (first and illegal); cocaine (second and illega1); barbiturates (third and legal); and methadone (fourth and illegal). Ecstasy in fact ranked 18th in the survey, although it is an illegal ‘class A’ drug, and was therefore shown to be less dangerous than cannabis, flatliners, LSD and anabolic steroids - all illegal drugs!

Using Terry’s logic, the programme presents a case for prohibiting not just alcohol, but all 17 of the drugs shown to be more dangerous than Ecstasy. Perhaps you are not as rational as you hope I am, Terry! A rational response to the evidence proffered would be to decriminalise all recreational drugs, which is surely CPGB policy.

Terry obviously totally misunderstands the point I was making about the rights of young adults and the age of consent. The legislation regarding this issue is in almost as big a mess as the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, depicted in the Horizon programme. At the moment 16- and 17-year-olds are free to have a shag, but not to have a fag! Again CPGB policy on the rights of young adults are inconsistent with Terry’s suggestion to raise the legal drinking age to 21.

Terry informs us that the legal drinking age in some states in the USA is 21, and counsels that we should “see how it works there and adapt these measures ...” But we know how it works there, Terry - it doesn’t! Like all laws which are not supported by a consensus of the population, especially regarding prohibition, they simply exacerbate the social problems which people of Terry’s mindset are unable rationally to diagnose.

I am sure that the Red Army “banned its troops from drinking alcohol”, in the same way as alcohol possession and consumption was banned for sailors on United States navy ships. The reasons for these restrictions were probably at least as valid as those prohibiting doctors, airline pilots and bus drivers from drinking on duty.

Finally, may I say that it is time that the debate on this subject between Terry and myself is brought to an end. It has become obvious that Terry and I are both rational comrades. I think, however, that most on the left will conclude that I am more rational than he.

Rational
Rational

Mouthpiece

As I understand it, Derek Conway grew up as a working class person, but this did not stop him becoming an incredibly corrupt Tory (‘Conway scandal silence’, February 7). The same is true of Ann Winterton.

The only way of stopping opportunism and careerism like this (such as Galloway) is to limit the shekels earned by socialists, communists, or working class MPs.

A recent TV programme by Peter Snow and his son stated that the average British wage is £24,000 and that the top 10% earn over £46,000. “Only £46,000?” I hear you say. Yes, I was surprised as well, because the CPGB is always moaning about money and yet its incredibly wealthy intellectual friends keep their shekels from view.

I have donated £25 tonight, though I can’t really afford it. When the CPGB start to campaign for a cap on income, then I’ll believe you are a true communist organisation rather than another mouthpiece for the left bourgeoisie.

Mouthpiece
Mouthpiece