Re: [xmca] Progress: Reality or Illusion?

[Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>]

What about "sacred" and "profane" objects?
They can be compared, no?
Are their quantities of "sacredness" contained in one but not the other?
Or is the "sacred" object not really "sacred" (hence the need for scare
quotes)?

NB: I'm only taking slight issue with Andy's formulation of "only
quantities can be compared," but I am with Andy 100% on the importance of
thirds - there is certainly a third involved here as well. Here the third
is a social community, as Durkheim would have it; or alternatively, the
third is "God" or "the gods" (or "spirits" or "mana"...) as the natives
would have it). In the end, you get something very similar to exchange
value (and for any interested, Webb Keane has a wonderful paper on the
semiotics of material artifacts, and Paul Kockelman has a great one too
that compares Marx's exchange value with semiotic notions of "value").

-gt

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 3:20 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> You are correct, Steve. The example of exchange value is precise. The
> point Ilyenkov is making is correct: in order to compare two commodities, a
> third, money is required and is eventually produced by the historical
> process. But I still feel that to go straight to money from the problem of
> comparison both skips over the historical stage of the evolution of money
> and om the context of your discussion, skipped over the cognitive stage of
> abstracting quantity from quality. OK?
>
> Andy
>
>
> Steve Gabosch wrote:
>
>> Hi Bruce,
>>
>> I'm thinking about your comments about Novack.
>>
>> Meanwhile I am pondering Andy's claim.  He seems to be saying that
>> properties, qualities, objects, processes, or whatever is being compared
>> must all possess a common quantifiable aspect.  This aspect can be
>> objective or subjective.  We can both agree that something is "very
>> ridiculous," but in agreeing on that we are using a common quantity-like
>> scale.
>>
>> This quantifiability criteria is clearly the case in Marx's discussion of
>> exchange value.  He discusses the **amount** of abstract labor in a
>> commodity.
>>
>> It is even the case in Novack's formulations about how to objectively
>> determine progress when he says things like "The productivity of labor is
>> the fundamental test for measuring the advancement of humanity because this
>> is the basis and precondition for all other forms of social and cultural
>> advancement."  The productivity of labor is a quantifiable entity.
>>
>> (As a side note, this criteria Novack suggests regarding labor
>> productivity could be used as a way of shedding light not only on things
>> like differences between feudalism and capitalism, but also things like the
>> historical character of Stalinism in the USSR, which did much to hold back
>> labor productivity.)
>>
>> A counter-example is not immediately occurring to me to refute Andy's
>> claim that only quantifiable things can be compared.  Can you think of one?
>>
>> On the question of requiring a third something that I raised, here is a
>> discussion of that:
>>
>> Ilyenkov in Dialectical Logic Ch 1, p 18 says:
>>
>> "... when we wish to establish a relation of some sort between two
>> objects, we always compare not the ‘specific’ qualities that make one
>> object ‘syllable A’ and the other a ‘table’, ‘steak’, or a ‘square’, but
>> only those properties that express a ‘third’ something, different from
>> their existence as the things enumerated.
>>
>> "The things compared are regarded as different modifications of this
>> ‘third’ property common to them all, inherent in them as it were.
>>
>> "So if there is no ‘third’ in the nature of the two things common to them
>> both, the very differences between them become quite senseless."
>>
>> If Ilyenkov is correct on this, and Andy is also correct, then not only
>> is a 'third' required, but the common thing between the three things must
>> be quantifiable.
>>
>> Are you aware of any discussions of this question in Marxist or Hegelian
>> literature, Bruce?  How about you, Andy?
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 27, 2012, at 7:00 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>
>>  Any two things yes, but one must abstract from the "things" to carry out
>>> the comparison.
>>> EG I can say that red has a higher frequency of EM radiation than green,
>>> or I might say that in my survey more people selected red as their
>>> favourite colour than did green. But in what practical sense can I say that
>>> red is more than green?
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> Bruce Robinson wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Only quantities can be compared." Really?? Can't one compare any two
>>>> things?
>>>>
>>>> Bruce
>>>>
>>>> Andy Blunden wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Steve Gabosch wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Andy,
>>>>>> Let me see if I am grasping your point.
>>>>>> Let me begin by agreeing with what I see as your premise.  I agree
>>>>>> that two things can only be compared when compared to a relevant third.
>>>>>>
>>>>> No, that is not what I am saying, Steve. Only quantities can be
>>>>> compared. You can't compare, for example, red and green, and ask which is
>>>>> more. So before a quantitative comparison is to be made one must have
>>>>> settle the appropriate means of quantification and the practical means of
>>>>> comparison. The resulting claim then is meaningful: "Cats are heavier than
>>>>> mice."
>>>>>
>>>>> Andy
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> --
>>> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>>> ------------
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
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> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
>
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-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
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