Poirot,

"Most dwellers in our society don't bother, or don't have the time to think (let alone "decide for themselves") where they are going, how to relieve the stress or how best to live their lives.
They are recumbent on the conveyor belt....and they just keep gliding along."

That's a bit cynical isn't it?! Surely we are capable of thinking for ourselves as well as going to work, hanging out with our families etc!

"...Marx wrote in 1859: "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness."
Why do you find this nonsensical?"

I find this non-sensical for the reason mentioned in my earlier post; if our society sucks, we will not necessarily start to suck ourselves. We will reject our society. In other words, thought will change our society.

We can therefore measure shifts within our society at least equally as well in terms of shifts in consciousness, as compared to shifts in patterns of production as Marx has focussed on. The enlightenment, the renaissance, the reformation etc all involved shifts in consciousness that then drove the direction of the society.

To further critique Marx, IMO, any eco-utopian shift within our society is likely to come from the middle class and be driven through democratic processes of government. Not through any overpowering of capitalists by oppressed workers.

David f.

You employ an interesting debating technique at times.

The minute anyone endeavours to engage you in any meaningful analysis of Marx's theories (as separate from their falsified appropriation by the Soviet Communists) you immediately invoke your "mounds of corpses", while reinforcing the whole hellish tableau with your incantations against "evil crap".
For someone who boasts of their love for fair and free expression, you seem overly keen to accuse people of being ideologues, even though they have made it clear that they wish to explore concepts and ideas. You seem to go out of your way with a vehemently closed-mind, to extinguish any alternative view in a welter of offended humanity.
It does you a disservice

>>"...Marx wrote in 1859: "It is not the consciousness
of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary,
their social being determines their consciousness."
Why do you find this nonsensical?"

>I find this non-sensical for the reason mentioned in my
earlier post; if our society sucks, we will not necessarily
start to suck ourselves. We will reject our society. In
other words, thought will change our society.

I'm amazed that people can continue to spout this Idealist nonsense with straight faces (so to speak). All of human society -- all of LIFE, period -- is a struggle for the material resources with which to survive another day on the planet: and yet this 'philosopher' can dismiss the obvious primacy of this struggle, because of his own particular narrow personal/social interests and history. As have many vested interests before him.

The best that can be said about the intellectual confusion exhibited above, is that what Holmes is *really* driving at is how the _subjective_ factor involved in conscious human praxis, in its turn, conditions those primary material conditions of existence, in an endless ('ascending') feedback loop of dialectic; but of course, marxists are a quantum leap or two or three beyond this rather threadbare and topsy-turvy, funhouse reflection on reality.

>To further critique Marx, IMO, any eco-utopian shift
within our society is likely to come from the middle
class and be driven through democratic processes of
government. Not through any overpowering of capitalists
by oppressed workers.

Proving nothing so much as (beyond the narrow-minded hubris of such a statement) that Gilbert Holmes not only is exactly the type of person with the sort of agenda we have asserted from the beginning; but that he understands absolutely nothing about how the world actually works.

Of course, Karl Marx is the genius in question here. Gilbert Holmes is merely the comic relief.

Gilbert Holmes,

If we use the example of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, are you saying that the change in the mode of production from a cottage base to a factory one, and the ensuing shift of the population from a rural setting to an urban one, was "not" the driving force behind the shift of consciousness that followed?
Are you saying that a new consciousness sprang up amongst the population that preceded the change in the mode of production that it would be beneficial for them to live in an urban conglomeration, employing machinery to do what they had done by hand - and that therefore they had better get cracking to develop the technology to make it possible?
If that is what you are saying, then it seems illogical.

The change in the mode of production and the accompanying economic imperatives drove the changes that lead to a shift in consciousness.

I guess the conclusion to all of this is that interesting as
it was at its time, today Marxism is largely out of date,
for of course Marx could not predict the future, just like
the rest of us.

But I concede, it will keep the likes of Grok and Squeers
amused and busy for years, which is not such a bad thing
in the end, better then them being bored.

Marx could not have dreamed, that our capitalism/ social
welfare mix, would land up seeing workers largely own
the means of production.

Marx could not have forseen, that "work" in the modern
world would not be the sweat and toil of his day, but
see workers spend increasing work time, fooling around
on the internet or facebook and still be paid for "work".
Marx might be amazed, that many workers do in fact enjoy
their work with a passion.

Marx could not have forseen, that modern banking, venture
capital and similar, would do far more to give people
the choice to function at their potential, then any of
his theories.

Marx could not have forseen, that other species are not
that different from ours, as he seemed to think. Perhaps
he was still influenced by the old Descartes scientists,
who used to nail dogs feet to the floor and claim they
were mere machines, when they howled in pain.

So we shall have to put Marx to rest as an interesting
and quaint part of history, but certainly a total failure
in terms of changing human society for the better, as all
attempts by others to implement his theories, shows.