Anonymous #3 2d

marx and engels also weren’t the only contributors to these ideas too. there’s lots of communist/marxist thinkers that expand on their ideas and modified them. there’s more than just classical marxism. marxism tho quite literally is scientific tho, it’s used in social science even when they don’t call it that.

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Anonymous #2 2d

Do you believe it’s possible to read an argument and disagree with it?

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Anonymous OP 2d

Sure, but plenty of non-Marxists would disagree without ignoring the fact that Marxism is a Materialist ideology not a utopian one

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Anonymous #3 2d

Catholicism was used by scientists, that doesn’t mean it was ever scientific

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Anonymous OP 2d

marxism as a methodological/theoretical lens is one focused on conflict theory and dialectical/historical materialism (tho this has expanded). it’s basically stating that the material political-economic reality and conflict surrounding it are main drivers of society and culture. anyone looking at the base structure to analyze society/superstructure could fall under the marxist umbrella

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Anonymous #3 2d

others that study/focus on ideology and hegemony also tend to come from marxist stock (gramsci, frankfurt school, etc.)

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Anonymous #1 2d

Science tests ideas that can be proven wrong. Marxism is prophetic dogma: it promises a perfect society yet never defines conditions under which its predictions could be falsified.

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Anonymous #2 2d

Marxism is utopian in the sense that it promises the eventual coming of a utopian society.

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Anonymous OP 2d

Marxism never claims that, you’d know that if you read any of Marx’s work instead of just claiming to have

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Anonymous #2 2d

people out here thinking the manifesto is the sum of the man’s work like even marx didn’t disagree with marx sometimes 😭

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Anonymous #2 2d

Marx explicitly claimed that the fall of capitalism was inevitable, and heavily implied that socialism and communism were too. You’d know that if you actually read his work.

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Anonymous OP 2d

Yes, they are inevitable due to the inherent material contradictions within the capitalist system and the logical end point of class conflict, in which only one class (the proletariat) can usurp the other, as the bourgeoisie need the proletarian labor to exist as a class, whereas the proletarian dosent need the capitalist. None of what you said shows anything utopian at all.

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Anonymous #2 2d

Declaring that a utopia is inevitable is as utopian as it gets. Declaring unfalsifiable inevitabilities is as unscientific as it gets.

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Anonymous #3 2d

None of this makes Marxism a science, or any less utopian

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Anonymous OP 2d

Socialism and communism are not utopia, people will still die in accidents and disease, there will still be grief and suffering. You haven’t actually read his work because you don’t understand what these stages of human development are holy shit.

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Anonymous OP 2d

other marxist thinkers have also discussed what would happen if it didn’t turn into communism/socialism and that’s where you get the idea of neo/techno-feudalism

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Anonymous OP 2d

Ok so I guess you’re just saying it’s unfalsifiable ig I know nothing about what Marx actually wrote so idk

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Anonymous #2 2d

Utopia is an idealized society, not a society free from any problems.

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Anonymous OP 2d

And Marxism dosent deal with idealism or ideal societies because it is a MATERIALIST ideology which you’d know if you ever fucking read the work of the man we are discussing holy shit

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Anonymous #2 2d

Marx’s conception of communism was absolutely idealistic. You’re confusing the contemporary definition of idealism with the philosophical tradition of idealism.

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Anonymous OP 2d

We shouldn’t be using subjective contemporary definitions in a philosophical discussion you clown

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Anonymous #2 2d

How dare I reference the concept of idealism 😂

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Anonymous OP 2d

Yeah using a contemporary and subjective definition instead of the philosophical one in a conversation about Marxist philosophy is boldly idiotic

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Anonymous OP 2d

Words have meaning, and if you aren’t using a philosophic definition of idealism in a philosophic discussion even a non Marxist would rightfully mock you for it lmao

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Anonymous OP 2d

did you not read what i said 😭 it’s a theoretical framework. it’s just what you look at and how you analyze how are you not getting this dude

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Anonymous #3 2d

OP doesn’t give a fuck about anything except “feeling right”, no matter how wrong they are lol

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Anonymous #2 2d

Most people are able to understand context clues. An “idealized society” clearly refers to a society that embodies high ideals, and not to hegelian philosophy.

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Anonymous #3 2d

Sure its a theoretical framework, but its not a scientific one because it’s unfalsifiable and its certainly not a science itself.

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Anonymous OP 2d

Even then you are still wrong, Marxism being a materialist philosophy argues there are material factors that predict societal development, not arguing to strive for a certain society based on high ideals. Please read his work

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Anonymous OP 2d

do you not know what social science is you num-nut

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Anonymous #3 2d

Do you think social science means that you don’t test measurable claims?

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Anonymous #2 2d

“Embodies” not “based on”. Marx absolutely saw communism as a morally superior system, and modern Marxists do too. The fact that he saw it as inevitable just underlines my point that Marxism is not scientific.

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Anonymous OP 2d

not in the traditional sense, psychology is probably one that runs the most experiments in the traditional sense. these tests have varying degrees of replicability due to the complexity of human sociality. it also tends to use both quantitative and qualitative data that play off of each other. ur theoretical framework will generally guide how you approach this data, what questions you ask, the methods you use, etc. we’re using both deductive and inductive reasonings

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Anonymous #3 2d

we rarely end up with hard absolute results, rather we end up with patterns that have varying degrees of predictability. these are complex networks and systems. if i’m using a critical, pol-econ, or marxist lens i’m going to focus on things like power, hierarchy, and economic aspects of a given problem

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Anonymous #3 2d

Marxism doesn’t run experiments. It just assumes the reasoning of Marx and Engels is true. It’s not even close to being equivalent to psychology.

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Anonymous OP 2d

psychology isn’t the only social science goofy. there’s also soooo many types of marxism, not all of them agree with marx or engels. it’s highly dependent on your school of thought, the groups you’re studying, and what ur investigating

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Anonymous OP 2d

*i'm* a social scientist, one that could be called a marxist, but i'm not basing my research on the writings of marx and engels, im using those that built off it and account for the flaws in the original theory (graeber, wolf, althusser, wallerstein, baer) i reference marx and their works are foundational, but they are by no means perfect or always applicable to the things i'm looking at

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Anonymous #3 2d

Psychology isn’t the only social science, of course. But what makes any social science a science is that it tests claims that can be measured. Yes, there are many versions of Marxism, and some don’t 100% agree with everything Marx and Engels said. Still, what makes them Marxist is that they start by accepting at least some of the core conclusions from Marx and Engels as true, which is explicitly anti-scientific.

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Anonymous OP 2d

ok what explicitly is not scientific, i’ve already explained that marxism is not communism. explain what aspect of it as a methodological lens is anti-scientific

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Anonymous #3 2d

Marxism’s claims about the progression of history are unfalsifiable. Using an unfalsifiable methodological lens is anti-scientific.

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Anonymous OP 2d

it is explicitly a framework of interpretation, these are not generally empirical in the first place and that’s not their purpose. if ur talking about their predictions of the future, sure, there’s no way to know the future. but the prediction was not and isn’t the methodology itself, the methodology was applied to observations and trends to arrive at a possible outcome. you know, like what social sciences such as economics and sociology do

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Anonymous OP 2d

so say i was investigating crime levels in a specific neighborhood. a functionalist would look at how crime and the actions around it function of crime within the social system. an individualist would investigate the individual outlooks, psychology, and perspectives of criminals (asserting that crime is a problem on the individual level). a marxist/critical theorist would investigate the economic pressures, ideology, resource access, and power dynamics that make crime seem reasonable

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Anonymous #3 2d

A pastafarian would investigate pirate suppression and cultural indoctrination against the Flying Spaghetti Monster. You can swap in almost any worldview as a “lens.” That doesn’t make it scientific. Even if you call Marxism a methodology rather than an ideology, it’s telling that it keeps landing on the same conclusions even when evidence points elsewhere.

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Anonymous OP 2d

buddy just admit you don’t know how to conceptualize analytical theory

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Anonymous OP 2d

The core argument for Marxism is made purely on scientific analysis of class conflict without any moral justification. Now sure will Marx and the proletariat find it more moral leading to them to revolt? Sure, but Marxism is not a “morals based” philosophy because Marxism views morality as subjective. There’s not god to dictate what is moral and what is not, that’s for the people to decide.

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Anonymous #2 2d

There was nothing scientific about his analysis. He didn’t test any measurable hypotheses. He did however, promise that the coming of utopia was inevitable.

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Anonymous OP 2d

Illiteracy’s biggest warrior

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