Re: [DEBATE] : Chávez's U-turn on Socialism

[peter waterman]

Dominic:

If you have a source for the revolutionary nature of the concept 'concrete' 
and its evil opposite 'abstract', do let me know.

I recall us making fun of it, along with a whole body of standardised 
Party-Talk, in the British Young Communist League, c. 1953.

Much of this concrete, I recall, ended up in the Berlin Wall, or East 
Berlin's Stalin Allee. Its function there was to defend something called 
'Really-existing Socialism'. This concrete expression of socialism was 
contrasted, of course, with that abstract kind of socialism being expressed 
by 1) socialist critics of concrete socialism or, 2) flesh-and-blood 
proletarians, occasionally breaking up the concrete and throwing chunks 
back.

So I am just wondering whether the revolutionary couplet ought not to be 
flesh-and-blood v. concrete.

Peter W.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dominic Tweedie" <dominic.tweedie at gmail.com>
To: "debate: SA discussion list" <debate at debate.kabissa.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: [DEBATE] : Chávez's U-turn on Socialism


> There is a problem about a formulation like: "less empty words, more
> concrete results", or like: "concrete problems e.g., crime, inflation,
> housing shortage" (plus a further indefinite list of abstractions).
>
> I mean that the word "concrete" has a vulgar meaning as well as a
> revolutionary-philosophical meaning, and these two meanings are almost
> totally mutually exclusive. The forms of words that have been used
> here in theis thread do nothing to disabuse the reader of the
> impression that what is meant is "solid", or "real", or frankly,
> merely utilitarian.
>
> The revolutionary term "concrete" has everything to do with "the unity
> and struggle of opposites" and with the "ascent from the abstract". It
> has nothing to do with the "greatest good for the greatest number".
>
> I do believe this "DEBATE" is the kind of forum where such points
> should be attended to properly, and I do think that a proper
> appreciation of the relation of the abstract to the concrete is a
> necessary pre-requisite to progress in South Africa and in Venezuela.
> The theory of abstract and concrete is the only means by which it
> becomes possible to discriminate between what can be joined together
> and what cannot.
>
> It is also necessary to insulate the theory of abstract and concrete
> from any taint of "realpolitik", which is the inevitable trajectory of
> the vulgar, untheorised sense of the word "concrete".
>