I deleted my original comment because it wasn’t worded very well and came from a place of frustration and exhaustion. But what I was attempting to get at with “context-dependent dynamics” is that the model of history described by Marx can’t be claimed to hold explanatory power in every possible aspect of sociology/anthropology/social sciences generally, because that’s not how any model of anything works (as you said). Whenever I get into these conversations with MLs, it feels like they can’t conceive of there being an aspect of how the human world works that isn’t reducible to class struggle and dialectical materialism. Comparing it to physics, it’s like they’re hearing about quantum mechanics and all the extra complications and nuances that introduced in order to explain results that classical physics couldn’t, and just perpetually going “nah, classical physics has been right about everything else. We must just be mismeasuring these results.”
Respectfully, I’m not sure you are appreciating just how expansive the realm of materialist analysis is, considering it’s just applying the scientific method to understanding the world. If it can be observed, it can be analyzed. I don’t reject the notion of that you’ll never quantify everything, but I also don’t think it’s worth it to let unknowns paralyze us in our actions when we’re in such a dire situation, out of time, and 95% sure of our course.
Respectfully, I’m not sure you are appreciating just how expansive the realm of materialist analysis is, considering it’s just applying the scientific method to understanding the world.
But the realm of materialist analysis is not equivalent to dialectical materialism. If the former is just applying the scientific method to understanding the material world (which, I’ll add, doesn’t mean much in isolation), dialectical materialism is a specific framework by which the scientific method is applied. Sort of like how physics and chemistry are both just applying the scientific method to understanding the natural world, yet each has their own framework that may capture the truth to different degrees in different situations.
I also don’t think it’s worth it to let unknowns paralyze us in our actions when we’re in such a dire situation, out of time, and 95% sure of our course.
I don’t disagree, which is why I happily do mutual aid work with MLs. I know we all want the same things, materially speaking. The problem is that anarchists have the underlying fear that our allies will, at some point, decide to violently enforce their own framework of how the material world works (or can work) onto us, justifying it by claiming you’re simply using science. It doesn’t help that y’all already take every opportunity to explain how those of us who are rightfully wary of people claiming to have absolute truth are simply misguided or uneducated.
I deleted my original comment because it wasn’t worded very well and came from a place of frustration and exhaustion. But what I was attempting to get at with “context-dependent dynamics” is that the model of history described by Marx can’t be claimed to hold explanatory power in every possible aspect of sociology/anthropology/social sciences generally, because that’s not how any model of anything works (as you said). Whenever I get into these conversations with MLs, it feels like they can’t conceive of there being an aspect of how the human world works that isn’t reducible to class struggle and dialectical materialism. Comparing it to physics, it’s like they’re hearing about quantum mechanics and all the extra complications and nuances that introduced in order to explain results that classical physics couldn’t, and just perpetually going “nah, classical physics has been right about everything else. We must just be mismeasuring these results.”
Respectfully, I’m not sure you are appreciating just how expansive the realm of materialist analysis is, considering it’s just applying the scientific method to understanding the world. If it can be observed, it can be analyzed. I don’t reject the notion of that you’ll never quantify everything, but I also don’t think it’s worth it to let unknowns paralyze us in our actions when we’re in such a dire situation, out of time, and 95% sure of our course.
But the realm of materialist analysis is not equivalent to dialectical materialism. If the former is just applying the scientific method to understanding the material world (which, I’ll add, doesn’t mean much in isolation), dialectical materialism is a specific framework by which the scientific method is applied. Sort of like how physics and chemistry are both just applying the scientific method to understanding the natural world, yet each has their own framework that may capture the truth to different degrees in different situations.
I don’t disagree, which is why I happily do mutual aid work with MLs. I know we all want the same things, materially speaking. The problem is that anarchists have the underlying fear that our allies will, at some point, decide to violently enforce their own framework of how the material world works (or can work) onto us, justifying it by claiming you’re simply using science. It doesn’t help that y’all already take every opportunity to explain how those of us who are rightfully wary of people claiming to have absolute truth are simply misguided or uneducated.