An interesting observation after traditional Christmas arguments with my right--wing relatives in Poland:
Alt-right is now talking 100% postmodernism.
History made full circle: half-century ago it was mostly far left who ranted about "gender aspect of mathematics" and "science as a social construct", basically denying humans ability to objectively describe reality.
These tools were initially forged by Marx to facilitate his wishful thinking about how societies operate that science did not support.
In 20th century far-left faced the same challenge and picked the same tools as they knew them well due to ideological compatibility and general inspiration by Marx.
Today the same Marx-inspired tools are being picked up by alt-right generation that talks about "evils of cultural Marxism" (a bullshit term on its own).
Sokal Affair was LOL, this is LOL squared.
@kravietz "These tools were initially forged by Marx" as somebody who is studying Marx, I'd like to know what you base this claim on. As far as I know, Marx was radically on the side of considering objective reality to exist and to be something we could understand.
Also, I'd like to point out that "science as a social construct" is not incompatible with a belief in the ability to objectively describe reality. Our descriptions are just prone to be influenced by our biases.
So while modern science has been always to some extent obviously impacted by human bias, the bias is perceived specifically as failure of science, and science has procedures to prevent the bias from happening.
In case of Marxism, the bias was at the heart of the ideology and any non-compliance with its fundamental assumption was immediately labelled as "reactionary" even if observed reality obviously contradicted the ideology.
@amici Marxist materialism didn't make it immune to bias. Quite the opposite. Marx believed very strongly (as most narcissist people do) that he discovered unique and absolute laws of history and economy. When observation didn't match the "laws", instead of modifying them he adapted his "analytical apparatus" to bend the reality around the laws, and then argued the "bourgeois science" is wrong, thus undermining the very basic assumptions behind scientific approach.
@kravietz My key question remains unanswered: who do you refer to specifically that believes that science generally fails because biases can occur? That believes a social construction of science means we can't objectively describe reality? Because I don't think that characterizes any significant amount of Marxists, and certainly not Marx himself.
@amici At the same time Marx's "laws of dialectical materialism" were mostly banal or vague or, as pointed out by Kołakowski, simply nonsense. Laws such as "everything in the world changes and is connected" are so vague that they cannot be either proven or disproven, yet for half century they were referred with quasi-religious care in serious policy and philosophical treaties. This annoyed Popper so much that the came up with the initial ideas on what we can actually call science.
@kravietz I am familiar with Popper, and I have read a significant chunk of his critique of Plato (though not his critique of Hegel/Marx yet). But I feel this conversation about dialectical materialism is off the track of what this conversation is about: namely Marx and Marxist's supposed (by you) belief that reality can't be objectively described due to the social construction of science.
If you read my initial comment, you will see that I did not say "Marx claimed reality can't be objectively described". I wrote Marx forged the tools that later opened the doors to the hell of postmodernist denial of science.
@kravietz That does not make much sense, since "These tools" would have to refer to something you said earlier, and the toot to which you attached the toot about "These tools" is the one about "basically denying humans ability to objectively describe".
But okay. If that's not what you meant then my question is unnecessary.
By "these tools" I meant diamat and histmat which Marx introduced basically because he wanted to obtain specific conclusions that "bourgeois science" wasn't able to deliver.
The statement about inability to objectively describe reality referred to 20th century postmodernists, I similarity in motives and mpde of operation of both Marx and postmodernists.
Now we got climate deniers, anti-GMO and anti-vaxxers who resort to the same techniques for the same reasons.
@kravietz "...I meant diamat and histmat which Marx introduced... to obtain specific conclusions that 'bourgeois science' wasn't able to deliver." Honestly this I have never heard of so I have nothing to comment here except it would be nice if you'd be able to point to where Marx writes about "bourgeois science" so I could understand the context myself. Without knowing context, I'd have to guess it refers to scientists who're afraid to speak truth to power because capitalists pay their salary
For detailed discussion of the scientific character of Marxism I recommend Kołakowski volume III chapter IV, which can be found in an old edition here https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafykbzacebo552r2kndqxzvf2byvpag4dz2z3eb2dylr5ziqj2hnbptqciwhu?filename=Leszek%20Ko%C5%82akowski%20-%20Main%20Currents%20of%20Marxism_%20Its%20Origin%2C%20Growth%2C%20and%20Dissolution_%20Volume%203%2C%20The%20Breakdown.%203%20%281978%29.pdf
@kravietz Does this contain an answer to my question about who specifically believes the idea that reality can't objectively be described?
Another in-depth analysis of scientific character of Marxist economy can be found in "The logic of the planned economy" by Pawel H. Dembinski (1991) which I'm unfortunately unable to find anywhere in electronic version and I have a paper copy.
@kravietz Same question as previously: does it answer my question. If not, then I actually have Marx's own texts and so I can find out there what he says about his dialectical materialism, historical materialism and so forth.
@kravietz "... modern science... to some extent obviously impacted by human bias, [it] is perceived... as failure of science..."
Isn't individual instances of science supposed to fail? That's what makes it able to progress? But I don't know of anyone, except perhaps the radically religious or -spiritual (quite opposite of Marxists who generally are hardcore materialists), who perceives science in general as a failed because biases can occur.
Who do u refer to specifically that believes this?