[Xmca-l] Re: Understanding/changing "something"

[Andy Blunden]

... if you want to know about changing History specifically, 
i.e., History as something which is *made* (as opposed to 
"changed"), the main reference would be the famous maxim of 
Marx in "18th Brumaire":

        "Men make their own history, but they do not make it
        as they please; they do not make it under
        self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances
        existing already, given and transmitted from the
        past."
        https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm

So I think for Marx it was not a question of "understanding 
history" by "making history", but rather that he would have 
interpreted "changing history" as "making history" which 
meant "overthrowing all existing social conditions" (to use 
the phrase of the Communist Manifesto) and for Marx this was 
not something that individuals did or that was done in a 
"scientific" way at all. The scientific principles could be 
grasped, according to Marx, only post facto. But I don't 
know that Marx would ever have said one changed history *in 
order to understand it*! But I think he did see the 
experience of the working class as a learning process. 
Should I try to find something to justify that, or are we 
already too far away from your original question?
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
On 29/05/2015 12:29 PM, mike cole wrote:
> But who talked about "If you want to understand HISTORY 
> try to change it" ?
> m
>
> The russians went nutso over this question.
>
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 6:33 PM, Andy Blunden 
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     In "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" (1908), a book
>     by Lenin which Vygotsky quoted from time to time,
>     Lenin quotes Engels:
>
>        “The most telling refutation of this as of all other
>        philosophical crotchets <em>(Schrullen)</em>is
>     practice,
>        namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to
>     prove
>        the correctness of our conception of a natural process
>        by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of
>        its conditions and making it serve our own purposes
>     into
>        the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian
>        incomprehensible [or ungraspable,
>        <em>unfassbaren</em>—this important word is omitted
>     both
>        in Plekhanov’s translation and in Mr. V. Chernov’s
>        translation] ‘thing-in-itself.’ The chemical substances
>        produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained
>        just such ‘things-in-themselves’ until organic
>     chemistry
>        began to produce them one after another, where upon the
>        ‘thing-in-itself’ became a ‘thing for us,’ as, for
>        instance, alizarin, the colouring matter of the madder,
>        which we no longer trouble to grow in the madder roots
>        in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply
>        from coal tar”
>
>     For the original words by Engels, see
>     https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/ch02.htm
>     - this little book was always a standard component of
>     any Marxist education program and there is no doubt at
>     all that Vygotsky had read it.
>
>     Andy
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Andy Blunden*
>     http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>     <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>     On 29/05/2015 8:40 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>
>         Henry, et al,
>
>         I wonder how revolution corresponds to violence if
>         the violence is built into a tool, such as the
>         case of gun design. After all, a bullet cannot do
>         harm unless it is catapulted at a very fast velocity.
>
>         Revolution need not be violent, right?
>
>         Another thought: how does violence and the future
>         connect if an adherent of violence as a means of
>         production can only see what is an imagined
>         freedom, instead city streets full of blood, or
>         the maiming of innocents and the emotional
>         upheaval of their families and communities and the
>         repercussions from all that (which is future
>         history). How is this actually freedom, when it
>         only creates future enemies?
>
>         Why is the interconnectedness of us all completely
>         forgotten in this (imagined) vision of freedom?
>
>         This argument might be offered against any
>         adherent of violence (as a means of production),
>         which (to me) seems to coincide with the notion of
>         disrespect and how disrespect is proffered and
>         perceived in extreme forms.
>
>         Is this captured in the tool design?
>
>         Henry, your post has made me consider what it
>         means to be a radical vs a revolutionary: both
>         seem preoccupied with change and with history, no?
>         What is the difference?
>
>         These are questions I have... not sure what the
>         answers are...
>
>         Thanks for the prod, and also thanks for all the
>         XMCA dots, everyone!
>
>         Annalisa
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable 
> which makes
> you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see 
> something
> that isn't even visible. N.McLean, *A River Runs Through it*
>
>
>