Sunday, November 17, 2013
friedrich engels - on the history of early christianity
readable
this is a curious essay that seems to be letting on quite a bit about what engels really thought of workers, or at least did near the very end of his life. the editors of the text i'm pulling it from want to suggest that it's evidence of the christian nature of the communist movement, and a sort of weak point where engels manages to accidentally contradict himself. it may, perhaps, have been influential on various christian left movements (such as canada's ndp). insofar as that's true, however, engels is actually launching an attack on the mindlessness of the working class. when he compares the gestating continental workers movement to early christianity, the aim is not to stress the inherent morality of communism or to place religion as an important part of a workers' program but to stress the idiocy of the uneducated worker; unfortunately, from engels' perspective, the german proletariat is as hopelessly stupid and painfully naive as the early christians were. yet, engels seems to present this hopeless worker ignorance as an opportunity for a charismatic leader to take advantage of.
given that this text was written at the end of engels' life, it may have a certain "bitter old man" quality to it. yet, it may also display a higher level of honesty than earlier propaganda pieces. with his comrade long dead and no future to plan for, perhaps engels is finally telling us what he really thinks.
there's been this underlying concern regarding marxism from the very start, coming from both liberals to marx' right and anarchists to marx' left, that it's really just an elaborate justification for despotism, and that the intended despot was always marx himself. was marx merely trying to build a proletariat army in which he could conquer europe like napoleon did? we'll never truly know the answer to this. this particular text is written by engels after marx' death, but if you read their joint writing carefully what comes out (especially in the dictatorship of the proletariat) is something that seems rather similar to the counter-enlightenment position of enlightened despotism. see, one could conceivably derive the counter-enlightenment (a peculiarly tory position) from a dialectical combination of enlightenment and anti-enlightenment. it's easy to see why marx may have seen something of interest, then, in counter-enlightenment toryism. of course, marx was certainly a product of the enlightenment. yet, he seems to have spent his whole life arguing against it. true, historical materialism is not toryism. yet, in the sense that an enemy's enemy is a friend? the truth is that marx and engels seem to have been very much aligned with the counter-enlightenment, a deeply aristocratic movement. they may have claimed they were attacking the bourgeoisie from a working class perspective, but they lived the lives of aristocrats and their writings stress that point rather clearly from time to time.
this text by engels is a good example of that. it is technically a defense of historical materialism as it relates to the collapse of the roman empire. engels very briefly argues that christianity was the socialism of late antiquity, and the rise of christianity in the empire was equivalent to a socialist revolution. curiously, the revolution failed because the dictatorship of the blessed prevented the meek from inheriting the earth. might there be lessons for the marxist in this realization?
yet, this is really just a lot of hand-waving. what engels really wishes to discuss is how the history of christianity provides lessons to control the german workers with. once engels lays out the argument that the intellectually feeble german working class should be as easy to control through charismatic leadership as the early christians were, he completely changes the topic to an academic debate about the age of the book of revelations, as though he is trying to demonstrate his point: as christianity was a construction of the roman elite designed to control the mass of peasants, communism may be used by the german elite to control the gestating worker movement.
some specific notes:
- engels stresses the idea of communism differing from christianity primarily in where the utopia is placed. engels carefully points out that conditions in the empire were so terrible that christians could be convinced that their death was preferable. communism, on the other hand, aims to convince workers to seek their utopia as built from their own hands. it's not hard to see which approach would be more productive.
- the precise comparison that engels draws is between a greek named proteus (who first convinced some early christians he was a prophet, then used that position of trust to try and take control of them) and a german named kuhlmann (who managed to convince a group of swiss workers that his wisdom was so great that he should be their pampered leader).
- engels' biblical scholarship is interesting, but likely out of date. it seems to be that the majority position is currently to take a late authorship (c. 95) of the book of revelations due to the author being a persecuted christian and persecutions beginning under domitian. engels himself also points out a prophesy of the eighth emperor, indicating a later date (by his own logic of prophecy in scripture indicating a date of composition later than the prophesied events). one needs to be careful with these arguments, though. i'm not fully convinced that christians were persecuted at all, under domitian or not. i'm not convinced there were even early christians! and, how much of a difference does 25 years really make? more interesting to me is engels' deconstruction of the text. the dating is a strong focus of the article, but the real point is that the text is constructed. well, with this particular text, it could be said this is obvious; we don't really need an argument against the historicity of the book of revelations. it's quite obviously either a work of complete fiction or a psychedelic hallucination. while the latter option is not to be completely discounted, if it is the case then the interpretation of that trip is certainly a work of fiction. so, it's a work of fiction either way, and this much is blatantly obvious. the key here is that engels points out that the entire thing can be easily deconstructed into source material. the underlying implication is that the religion is a construction of the elite - just as communism is.
- engels curiously draws the comparison between the different kinds of socialism (marxists, proudhonists, anarchists) in the 1800s and the different kinds of christianity that existed until the church managed to stamp them all out. it's curious in the sense that it assigns marxism to the role of the catholic church in the analogy. considering that engels is deconstructing christianity as a created religion of the upper classes in this very text, this comparison only makes sense if he sees marxism in a similar light. the analogy also naturally produces the non-marxian forms of socialism as analogous to the purer sects of christianity that were stamped out by the centralized church. is this really the future that engels desires? is this really how he sees marxism in relation to the other types of socialism?
full text:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_On_the_Histsory_of_Early_Christianity.pdf
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/HX/6.N5/index.html
at
23:59
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i just got my quarterly stomach ache, but there's a big mass of unusually warm air moving in so i'm not sure if i can safely declare the beginning of winter or not.
at
07:19
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
listen, i'm all for using the climate crisis as an excuse to seize control of factories, but you really lose me when you start talking about controlled economies.
marxism was a failure, and few smart people today want to repeat those mistakes. this isn't a cheeky retro article; the emotion that this kind of rhetoric invokes in myself is fear. that is the correct emotion from an enlightened people in the post-marxist period.
post-marxist. deal with it.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19872-capitalism-and-the-destruction-of-life-on-earth-six-theses-on-saving-the-humans
we need socialism without centralization.
marxism was a failure, and few smart people today want to repeat those mistakes. this isn't a cheeky retro article; the emotion that this kind of rhetoric invokes in myself is fear. that is the correct emotion from an enlightened people in the post-marxist period.
post-marxist. deal with it.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19872-capitalism-and-the-destruction-of-life-on-earth-six-theses-on-saving-the-humans
we need socialism without centralization.
at
07:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prison-beatings-caught-on-video-at-ontario-and-quebec-jails-1.2426904/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-real-poison-is-to-be-found-in-arafats-legacy-8945393.html
current solar technology has resource limits in it's use of metals and a carbon footprint in mining them. it's potentially profitable. i get that. but a seriously sustainable solution uses plants to generate electricity, not photovoltaic cells.
http://phy.so/303362659
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electron-spherical-electric-dipole-moment&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-physicists-uncollapse-partially-collapsed-qubit.html
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/2013/11/11/what-happens-to-google-maps-when-tectonic-plates-move/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
http://www.nature.com/news/weak-statistical-standards-implicated-in-scientific-irreproducibility-1.14131
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/5815/a-new-microbe-living-in-spacecraft-clean-rooms
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-samsung-quiet-mobile-os.html
yeah. i've been in arguments about this. let's see if this has an effect.
http://phy.so/303468346
this is tinfoil hat shit, but i've often wondered if the reason that modern physics makes no sense is that you need military clearance to access it.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/06/serving-reich-physics-philip-ball-review
http://ow.ly/qKiV9
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2013/seaquest-seeks-the-secrets-of-the-proton
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2013/pr-nickel-water-splitter-111213.html
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00625/full?utm_source=NPG&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=content+marketing&utm_campaign=FBK_SM_1311_FPSYG&WT.mc_id=FBK_SM_1311_FPSYG
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-discovery-prompts-global.html
http://phy.so/303568379
a polio epidemic developed out of the mess in syria, and is starting to spread through israel. yes, polio.
http://scim.ag/HRSqDa
anthropomorphisms aside, this is neat.
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/5812/glassy-coating-keeps-viruses-happy-in-harsh-environments
http://phy.so/303633386
http://www.nature.com/news/astronomers-surprised-by-large-space-rock-less-dense-than-water-1.14135
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-distant-artificial-atoms-cooperate-physicists.html
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/09012013/article/study-reveals-more-clues-to-origins-of-domesticated-dog
http://globalchange.mit.edu/foodsymposium
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/single-photon-detected-not-destroyed
http://phy.so/303650520
http://phy.so/303676085
http://www.nature.com/news/photons-detected-without-damage-1.14179?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dengue-fever-makes-inroad&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/09/mira-n09.html
http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/dear-mainstream-media-word-rape/
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/11/intense-smog-making-beijings-massive-surveillance-network-practically-useless/7481/
http://truth-out.org/news/item/19935-us-a-favorite-roost-of-vulture-funds
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10975
http://www.ifex.org/ecuador/2013/11/08/video_censorship/
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-real-poison-is-to-be-found-in-arafats-legacy-8945393.html
current solar technology has resource limits in it's use of metals and a carbon footprint in mining them. it's potentially profitable. i get that. but a seriously sustainable solution uses plants to generate electricity, not photovoltaic cells.
http://phy.so/303362659
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electron-spherical-electric-dipole-moment&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-physicists-uncollapse-partially-collapsed-qubit.html
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/2013/11/11/what-happens-to-google-maps-when-tectonic-plates-move/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
http://www.nature.com/news/weak-statistical-standards-implicated-in-scientific-irreproducibility-1.14131
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/5815/a-new-microbe-living-in-spacecraft-clean-rooms
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-samsung-quiet-mobile-os.html
yeah. i've been in arguments about this. let's see if this has an effect.
http://phy.so/303468346
this is tinfoil hat shit, but i've often wondered if the reason that modern physics makes no sense is that you need military clearance to access it.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/06/serving-reich-physics-philip-ball-review
http://ow.ly/qKiV9
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2013/seaquest-seeks-the-secrets-of-the-proton
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2013/pr-nickel-water-splitter-111213.html
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00625/full?utm_source=NPG&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=content+marketing&utm_campaign=FBK_SM_1311_FPSYG&WT.mc_id=FBK_SM_1311_FPSYG
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-discovery-prompts-global.html
http://phy.so/303568379
a polio epidemic developed out of the mess in syria, and is starting to spread through israel. yes, polio.
http://scim.ag/HRSqDa
anthropomorphisms aside, this is neat.
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/5812/glassy-coating-keeps-viruses-happy-in-harsh-environments
http://phy.so/303633386
http://www.nature.com/news/astronomers-surprised-by-large-space-rock-less-dense-than-water-1.14135
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-distant-artificial-atoms-cooperate-physicists.html
http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/09012013/article/study-reveals-more-clues-to-origins-of-domesticated-dog
http://globalchange.mit.edu/foodsymposium
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/single-photon-detected-not-destroyed
http://phy.so/303650520
http://phy.so/303676085
http://www.nature.com/news/photons-detected-without-damage-1.14179?WT.mc_id=FBK_NatureNews
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dengue-fever-makes-inroad&WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/09/mira-n09.html
http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/dear-mainstream-media-word-rape/
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/11/intense-smog-making-beijings-massive-surveillance-network-practically-useless/7481/
http://truth-out.org/news/item/19935-us-a-favorite-roost-of-vulture-funds
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10975
http://www.ifex.org/ecuador/2013/11/08/video_censorship/
at
06:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
well, let's see.
1) tar
2) water
3) carbonic acid
4) dead fish (sugar)
the oceans are officially turning into a lake of coke.
http://phy.so/303625303
1) tar
2) water
3) carbonic acid
4) dead fish (sugar)
the oceans are officially turning into a lake of coke.
http://phy.so/303625303
at
03:32
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
this is a little clearer. he found a correlation and speciously attributed it to cfc reduction.
....which makes zero sense.
usually, the argument is presented as follows:
- increases in greenhouse gasses have contributed to warming
- increases in aerosols have counter-acted that warming
- the net effect is that the greenhouse gases have had a stronger effect.
you'll hear skeptics talk about how "they used to think it was cooling". well, yeah. they thought the effect of aerosols was stronger. then they learned otherwise.
now, aerosols are a warming factor? again, no. there's merely a correlation between aerosol reduction and decreased warming, and a lot of people jumping to ridiculous conclusions.
again: why isn't anybody studying the effects of warfare on the climate? wait: government funds almost all research. right. of course.
http://www.nature.com/news/ozone-hole-treaty-slowed-global-warming-1.14134?WT.mc_id=GPL_NatureNews
....which makes zero sense.
usually, the argument is presented as follows:
- increases in greenhouse gasses have contributed to warming
- increases in aerosols have counter-acted that warming
- the net effect is that the greenhouse gases have had a stronger effect.
you'll hear skeptics talk about how "they used to think it was cooling". well, yeah. they thought the effect of aerosols was stronger. then they learned otherwise.
now, aerosols are a warming factor? again, no. there's merely a correlation between aerosol reduction and decreased warming, and a lot of people jumping to ridiculous conclusions.
again: why isn't anybody studying the effects of warfare on the climate? wait: government funds almost all research. right. of course.
http://www.nature.com/news/ozone-hole-treaty-slowed-global-warming-1.14134?WT.mc_id=GPL_NatureNews
at
03:21
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
this is incoherent. aerosols are generally thought to produce a cooling effect. the article only makes sense if it's talking about soot, but it clearly isn't. a decrease in aerosols should lead to an increase in global temperatures.
i have a theory that the pause is related to the increase in warfare that's happened since 2001.
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-ozone-pact-cool-planet.html
(very mild nuclear winter, basically)
they were using extremely powerful conventional bombs in iraq, and they've been blowing up mountains in afghanistan. it's hard to think this has not had an effect on the atmosphere.
i have a theory that the pause is related to the increase in warfare that's happened since 2001.
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-ozone-pact-cool-planet.html
(very mild nuclear winter, basically)
they were using extremely powerful conventional bombs in iraq, and they've been blowing up mountains in afghanistan. it's hard to think this has not had an effect on the atmosphere.
at
03:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i find the academic reaction against wikipedia is more out of fear and doesn't really hold up to serious scrutiny.
if i write you a paper, i'm going to provide citations for anything that seems like it should require one. if you don't trust me, you check the source. when wikipedia produces an article, it is supposed to cite a source - and usually does. if you don't trust it, you check the source. if it doesn't provide a source, you point out it's not sourced. so, it's the same thing, either way.
contrary to the prevailing mythology, wikipedia is actually a valuable resource precisely because it collects a huge number of sources together into one place.
that's frightening to a professional researcher that may see a challenge to their vocation.
i mean, obviously, we all need to be rigourous in checking our sources. but if you carefully work through the issue, wikipedia doesn't come off worse than any other type of mass media or personal communication, and the process of verifying information is really precisely the same.
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/the-dayside/wikipedia--pro-and-con-a-dayside-post
if i write you a paper, i'm going to provide citations for anything that seems like it should require one. if you don't trust me, you check the source. when wikipedia produces an article, it is supposed to cite a source - and usually does. if you don't trust it, you check the source. if it doesn't provide a source, you point out it's not sourced. so, it's the same thing, either way.
contrary to the prevailing mythology, wikipedia is actually a valuable resource precisely because it collects a huge number of sources together into one place.
that's frightening to a professional researcher that may see a challenge to their vocation.
i mean, obviously, we all need to be rigourous in checking our sources. but if you carefully work through the issue, wikipedia doesn't come off worse than any other type of mass media or personal communication, and the process of verifying information is really precisely the same.
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/the-dayside/wikipedia--pro-and-con-a-dayside-post
at
02:14
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
i'm a little disappointed. corporate personhood is a necessary result of the socialization of production. reversing it is about as well thought out as supporting right-to-work legislation. it's ideological liberalism.
rather, there needs to be a focus to reverse the second half of the ruling, which focused on limited liability. limited liability is about reducing investor risk. this is the real problem, here. if you put the risk back in the investment, these companies will be unable to get off the ground.
for the few that do, a better incentive is to hold the entire organization accountable. no one person can claim that this labour belongs to them; no one person can claim this decision belongs to them.
http://passmassamendment.wikispaces.com/Endorsements+%26+Advisors
what you're going to end up with if you abolish corporate personhood is a mess of liability. investors will rarely be held negligent, as they'll rarely have any direct decision making power. rather, you'll have middle management and low level workers constantly taking the blame because they're the ones that were legally negligent. you'll have people in the same company suing each other.
it will be yet another example of the failure of liberalism. as if we needed another.
on the other hand, if you socialize liability across the company then you necessarily ultimately place all negligence in the hands of the owners. again: the key here is not taking away personhood, it's abolishing limited liability.
more to the point, it's hard to see why chomsky (of all people) would argue that the solution to neo-liberalism lies in continuing the process of atomization.
rather, there needs to be a focus to reverse the second half of the ruling, which focused on limited liability. limited liability is about reducing investor risk. this is the real problem, here. if you put the risk back in the investment, these companies will be unable to get off the ground.
for the few that do, a better incentive is to hold the entire organization accountable. no one person can claim that this labour belongs to them; no one person can claim this decision belongs to them.
http://passmassamendment.wikispaces.com/Endorsements+%26+Advisors
what you're going to end up with if you abolish corporate personhood is a mess of liability. investors will rarely be held negligent, as they'll rarely have any direct decision making power. rather, you'll have middle management and low level workers constantly taking the blame because they're the ones that were legally negligent. you'll have people in the same company suing each other.
it will be yet another example of the failure of liberalism. as if we needed another.
on the other hand, if you socialize liability across the company then you necessarily ultimately place all negligence in the hands of the owners. again: the key here is not taking away personhood, it's abolishing limited liability.
more to the point, it's hard to see why chomsky (of all people) would argue that the solution to neo-liberalism lies in continuing the process of atomization.
at
01:03
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
"He attributed it not to the geometry of 3-D space, but to the algebraic properties of the symmetries inherent to the sphere."
...which are clearly inconsistent with each other given the result.
in other words, the system that group theorists use to describe this sphere is not actually describing this sphere at all, but describing something else.
if it was actually describing this sphere, it couldn't come up with such a ridiculous result.
rejection of the system at such a deep level is far too traumatic for the average mathematician to even contemplate. it is what is.
i think that the evidence regarding the axiom of choice is that it is sometimes true, and that the focus should be on determining a different axiom that allows it to be true under certain circumstances. the axioms should be chosen in such a way that it is demonstrable that the axiom of choice cannot be used to derive this paradox because the condition in which it is true would fail.
however, i think this relies on a deeper geometric question that i cannot formulate and the requires empirical evidence to demonstrate. my faith in our geometric concept of space is very weak.
http://phys.org/news303637618.html
...which are clearly inconsistent with each other given the result.
in other words, the system that group theorists use to describe this sphere is not actually describing this sphere at all, but describing something else.
if it was actually describing this sphere, it couldn't come up with such a ridiculous result.
rejection of the system at such a deep level is far too traumatic for the average mathematician to even contemplate. it is what is.
i think that the evidence regarding the axiom of choice is that it is sometimes true, and that the focus should be on determining a different axiom that allows it to be true under certain circumstances. the axioms should be chosen in such a way that it is demonstrable that the axiom of choice cannot be used to derive this paradox because the condition in which it is true would fail.
however, i think this relies on a deeper geometric question that i cannot formulate and the requires empirical evidence to demonstrate. my faith in our geometric concept of space is very weak.
http://phys.org/news303637618.html
at
00:15
Location:
Windsor, ON, Canada
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