Was Marx Right

[Advocate]

[quote=Nick_A post_id=492057 time=1611438846 user_id=7881]
So which is it? Does our consciousness determine our existence or does the quality of our existence determine our consciousness?

If Marx is right mankind is the Great Beast which must be conditioned by society with the goal of producing utopia. If Plato and the essence of Christianity are right, Man can evolve to become consciously human rather than the reacting creature called the Great Beast which inhabits Plato's Cave.

Who is closer to the truth: Marx or Plato?
[/quote]

Why must the answer be a universal one? Perhaps ordinary schlubs are guided by a social conscience and thoughtful people guided by their own? Consciousness as simple awareness of a different issue. There is literally no such thing as social awareness; that just means an average, not to be applied to any particular case.

[Nick_A]

So which is it? Does our consciousness determine our existence or does the quality of our existence determine our consciousness?

If Marx is right mankind is the Great Beast which must be conditioned by society with the goal of producing utopia. If Plato and the essence of Christianity are right, Man can evolve to become consciously human rather than the reacting creature called the Great Beast which inhabits Plato's Cave.

Who is closer to the truth: Marx or Plato?

Why must the answer be a universal one? Perhaps ordinary schlubs are guided by a social conscience and thoughtful people guided by their own? Consciousness as simple awareness of a different issue. There is literally no such thing as social awareness; that just means an average, not to be applied to any particular case.

First a seeker of truth must distinguish between the animal mind inhabiting Plato's cave and the human mind aware of the conscious potential for freedom from cave life. From Simone Weil's "On the Abolition of all Political parties."

Collective thinking… is an animal form of thinking. Its dim perception of goodness merely enables it to mistake this or that means for an absolute good.

The same applies to political parties. In principle, a party is an instrument to serve a certain conception of the public interest. This is true even for parties which represent the interests of one particular social group, for there is always a certain conception of the public interest according to which the public interest and these particular interests should coincide. Yet this conception is extremely vague. This is true without exception and quite uniformly.

Once the growth of the party becomes a criterion of goodness, it follows inevitably that the party will exert a collective pressure upon people’s minds. This pressure is very real; it is openly displayed; it is professed and proclaimed. It should horrify us, but we are already too much accustomed to it.

Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The avowed purpose of propaganda is not to impart light, but to persuade… All political parties make propaganda

Marx prefers the good defined by cave life, the collective mind (animal mind). Plato seeks reunion with the needs of the Good or universal purpose.(human mind)

It does seem that the collective mind as witnessed in political parties is becoming increasingly dominant.

[Nick_A]

So which is it? Does our consciousness determine our existence or does the quality of our existence determine our consciousness?

If Marx is right mankind is the Great Beast which must be conditioned by society with the goal of producing utopia. If Plato and the essence of Christianity are right, Man can evolve to become consciously human rather than the reacting creature called the Great Beast which inhabits Plato's Cave.

Who is closer to the truth: Marx or Plato?

Why must the answer be a universal one? Perhaps ordinary schlubs are guided by a social conscience and thoughtful people guided by their own? Consciousness as simple awareness of a different issue. There is literally no such thing as social awareness; that just means an average, not to be applied to any particular case.

First a seeker of truth must distinguish between the animal mind inhabiting Plato's cave and the human mind aware of the conscious potential for freedom from cave life. From Simone Weil's "On the Abolition of all Political parties."

Collective thinking… is an animal form of thinking. Its dim perception of goodness merely enables it to mistake this or that means for an absolute good.

The same applies to political parties. In principle, a party is an instrument to serve a certain conception of the public interest. This is true even for parties which represent the interests of one particular social group, for there is always a certain conception of the public interest according to which the public interest and these particular interests should coincide. Yet this conception is extremely vague. This is true without exception and quite uniformly.

Once the growth of the party becomes a criterion of goodness, it follows inevitably that the party will exert a collective pressure upon people’s minds. This pressure is very real; it is openly displayed; it is professed and proclaimed. It should horrify us, but we are already too much accustomed to it.

Political parties are organisations that are publicly and officially designed for the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice. Collective pressure is exerted upon a wide public by the means of propaganda. The avowed purpose of propaganda is not to impart light, but to persuade… All political parties make propaganda

Marx prefers the good defined by cave life, the collective mind (animal mind). Plato seeks reunion with the needs of the Good or universal purpose.(human mind)

It does seem that the collective mind as witnessed in political parties is becoming increasingly dominant.

"All our theories of improving the world, while we are still asleep, merely intensify the sleep of humanity." ~ Maurice Nicoll

Marx believed in indoctrinating the collective animal man, asleep in Plato's cave, to improve the world as is happening now. Plato believed in consciously awakening a minority of Men by anamnesis or remembering what has been forgotten as the sole influence for improving the world. I've read that without a sufficient conscious influence in the world, it is doomed to self destruction through battling collectives. A scary thought.

[Conde Lucanor]

The only change is with technological knowledge but Man's being still expresses the same cycles it always has. We can kill more efficiently because of scientific knowledge but the need to kill hasn't changed.

Technology represents a new approach to the relation with nature that makes everything different, especially because it also involves a different type of association among the members of the species to produce material life. Technology enters directly into the domain of labor, and labor mediated by technological development and social organization is the ultimate hominization mechanism. So even though technology and nature are part of the process, as Marx said: the root of man is man himself, its historical being depends on the relation of men with each other.

Do you disagree with the cycles explained in Ecclesiastes 3:

3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

It's a nice poem, especially if sung by The Byrds.

A society and people within it is born, matures, and dies. That is the cycle of life for Animal Man on earth along with the rest of organic life. Do you really think anything has changed?

Yes, exactly how each society has been born, matured and died. The process involves a different path than the rest of organic life.

[Advocate]

"There is a time for every purpose under heaven." is an entirely meaningless statement. Is there a time for that song to be logically inaccurate?

[Nick_A]

"There is a time for every purpose under heaven." is an entirely meaningless statement. Is there a time for that song to be logically inaccurate?

All life follows the cycles of life. It is born, matures, reproduces, and dies. It is considered a meaningless statement. Who can find meaning in something so absurd? Yet some do. Are they ignorant for finding meaning or are the educated ignorant for not?

[Advocate]

[quote=Nick_A post_id=493424 time=1612034372 user_id=7881]
[quote=Advocate post_id=493419 time=1612033116 user_id=15238]
"There is a time for every purpose under heaven." is an entirely meaningless statement. Is there a time for that song to be logically inaccurate?
[/quote]

All life follows the cycles of life. It is born, matures, reproduces, and dies. It is considered a meaningless statement. Who can find meaning in something so absurd? Yet some do. Are they ignorant for finding meaning or are the educated ignorant for not?
[/quote]

A deepity is a proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed. It has (at least) two readings and balances precariously between them. On one reading it is true but trivial. And on another reading it is false, but would be earth-shattering if true.

[Nick_A]

Quite true. If the universal meaning and purpose of human life on earth were understood, it would be earth shattering. Machines could serve Man rather than Man serving machines in Plato's cave. We don't have to worry about it since the educated would never allow this quality of understanding. So the cycles of life continue as is including the cycle of war and peace