Socialism

Posted: 27 Aug 2005 09:51 pm Post subject: Analogies

Messages moved to this topic.

________________________________________

NEW: I just made a new site department for my favorite editorials by
De Leon (not pamphlets or addresses). Programming still a little bit buggy, but it seems to be functional enough to announce. Now that I have a scanner, expect additions soon.

http://www.deleonism.org/deleon-editorials.htm

Posted: 28 Aug 2005 01:01 pm Post subject:

Thank you Mike for the link.

Posted: 29 Aug 2005 02:42 am Post subject:

Trimming the god damned poodle. Now there's a great one - probably that one is responsible for more damage to the SLP than everything else put together (with the possible exception of hyperbole)

dave

Posted: 29 Aug 2005 04:22 am Post subject:

Dave, I know you dislike argument by analogy, but is your dislike for Trimming the Poodle the use of argument by analogy, or the argument itself, however it might be expressed?

Posted: 30 Aug 2005 10:53 am Post subject:

I am against it because of argument by analogy. And then analogy becomes what truth becomes measured by, instead of facts. I thought that Gallileo and the birth of scientific thought had settled all of that. But to be fair to DeLeon - it was a single editorial in a long line of editorials that he had to grind out every day (in addition to being the terrible tyrant that he was reputed to be :) I don't think that he intended the god damned poodle editorial to be used as the party yard stick for determining its position as regards to what is or isn't a "reform" - but it became that.

Analogies may have their use in science but only as one method out of many to promt us to ask questions. But when an analogy becomes the answer we are done being scientists.

Mike, you asked me: is your dislike for Trimming the Poodle the use of argument by analogy, or the argument itself, however it might be expressed?

My dislike for Trimming the god damned poodle is the use of argument by analogy, but to me it's not even argument by analogy becuase I can't even see what the argument is when analogy is used.

dave

Posted: 30 Aug 2005 09:03 pm Post subject:

I don't know if the analogy is effective or not, but the analogy that he apparently intended to make is that most of the "controversies" found in political arguments and the daily news are really matters of superficial appearance, like taking a brutal antisocial system to the beauty salon for a cosmetic makeover.

By connecting his analogy to the origins of species, he also made the point that, contrary to popular belief, the distinction between reform and revolution is not the distinction between slow and fast. When the reptile evolved into the mammal, that was a revolution, because it was a matter of internal structure. While it's achieved fast to tie a ribbon around the poodle, it's also superficial.

Posted: 30 Aug 2005 09:08 pm Post subject:

Posted for reference, excerpted from De Leon, "Reform of Revolution" ....

------------------------------------------------------------

We hear people talk about the "reform forces," about "evolution"
and about "revolution" in ways that are highly mixed. Let us
clear up our terms.

Reform means a change of externals; revolution - peaceful or
bloody, the peacefulness or the bloodiness of it cuts no figure
whatever in the essence of the question - means a change from
within.

Take, for instance, a poodle. You can reform him in a lot of
ways. You can shave his whole body and leave a tassel at the tip
of his tail; you may bore a hole through each ear, and tie a blue
bow on one and a red bow on the other; you may put a brass collar
around his neck with your initials on, and a trim little blanket
on his back; yet, throughout, a poodle he was and a poodle he
remains. Each of these changes probably wrought a corresponding
change in the poodle's life. When shorn of all his hair except a
tassel at the tail's tip he was owned by a wag who probably cared
only for the fun he could get out of his pet; when he appears
gaily decked in bows, probably his young mistress' attachment is
of tenderer sort; when later we see him in the fancier's outfit,
the treatment he receives and the uses he is put to may be yet
again and probably are, different. Each of these transformations
or stages may mark a veritable epoch in the poodle's existence.
And yet, essentially, a poodle he was, a poodle he is and a
poodle he will remain.

That is reform.

But when we look back myriads of years, or project ourselves into
far - future physical cataclysms, and trace the development of
animal life from the invertebrate to the vertebrate, from the
lizard to the bird, from the quadruped and mammal till we come to
the prototype of the poodle, and finally reach the poodle
himself, and so forward - then do we find radical changes at each
step, changes from within that alter the very essence of his
being, and that put, or will put, upon him each time a stamp that
alters the very system of his existence.

That is revolution.

So with society. Whenever a change leaves the internal mechanism
untouched, we have reform; whenever the internal mechanism is
changed, we have revolution.

Of course, no internal change is possible without external
manifestations. The internal changes denoted by the revolution
or evolution of the lizard into the eagle go accompanied with
external marks. So with society. And therein lies one of the
pitfalls into which dilettantism or "reforms" invariably tumble.
They have noticed that externals change with internals; and they
rest satisfied with mere external changes, without looking behind
the curtain. But of this more presently.

We Socialists are not reformers; we are revolutionists. We
Socialists do not propose to change forms. We care nothing for
forms. We want a change of the inside of the mechanism of
society, let the form take care of itself.

Posted: 31 Aug 2005 01:06 am Post subject:

Yes I remebered that it was in reform or revolution. That contains yet another rhetorical fault of DeLeon's - adding analogy to analogy -

Oh wasn't it totally understandable of what I meant by saying reform is like taking a god damned poodle to the parlor - I'll help you along - reform is on the outside and revolution is on the inside. Now isn't that helpful??

Inside or outside of what?

The surface of course. We can't see revolutions but we can see reforms?

Please.

To me analogeous argument indicates that the person giving it ought to have stayed at home and read a book.

IMHO and only MHO

dave.

Posted: 31 Aug 2005 05:07 am Post subject:

If an analogy is an argument, it's knocked down immediately by anyone who says that the situations being compared aren't analogous. An analogy can never prove a proposition. However, if the listener has already been persuaded by other arguments, or may be soon persuaded by other arguments, then an analogy can be used, not as further argument, but as an illustration to aid in clearer visualization of the point.

This is sometimes done in science. Werner Heisenberg himself used the following analogy to clarify the uncertainty principle, that is, why trying to measure the smallest things disturbs the very things you're trying to measure; he said: it's like using a bulldozer to feel around for the location of a ping pong ball.

Here's one used by Ernest Rutherford after he shot alpha particles at a gold foil and found some of the particles being deflected through large angles. He concluded that this proves that most of the mass of the atom must be concentrated in a small nucleus. Asked how he drew that conclusion, he replied: It's as though you were to fire fifteen-inch shells at tissue paper, and then a few of the shells came right back at you.

I must have a thousand of these. I collected them during my brief gig as a high school physics teacher.

Do they prove anything to someone who isn't otherwised convincible? No, and they shouldn't either, because that would be a fallacious "proof."

But for people who are otherwise convincible, the anecdotes might add a little dash of oh-yeah and a little dab of a-ha.

Maybe the speaker should add that he's being a bit poetic, and not implying that the situations are literally supposed to be parallel.

(To use the word "parallel" metaphorically Smile

Posted: 31 Aug 2005 05:33 am Post subject:

You make a good point -- if De Leon says inside/outside or internal/external, some people might think he was refering to what you can see /what you can't see. I never thought of that before. (Did you ever point that out to me before ... when I was sober ... ?)

Until you just said that, I assumed that it was clear that inside versus outside was meant to refer to more basic design criteria versus the less deterministic details, as in the case of locating the support beams of a house being a more important design decision than the selection of the paint. Yes, I suppose that such a simile would fail to enlighten some people. Particularly, if they think that some of the basic issues are preordained by "human nature", etc.

Posted: 31 Aug 2005 05:55 am Post subject:

Why is an unliked person often compared to the endpoint of the digestive system? :-)

Posted: 31 Aug 2005 05:43 pm Post subject:

"an analogy can be used, not as further argument, but as an illustration to aid in clearer visualization of the point"

A million times no. It ought not be done - says I.

"This is sometimes done in science. Werner Heisenberg himself used the following analogy to clarify the uncertainty principle, that is, why trying to measure the smallest things disturbs the very things you're trying to measure; he said: it's like using a bulldozer to feel around for the location of a ping pong ball."

What was he talking about electrons? A bull dozer is not designed to feel for ping pong balls. Would you try to measure electrons with something not deigned to do that?

I am against analogies not becuase it is impossible to convey a idea with them - it is because they are so very satisfying to the brain. Oh bulldozer and ping pong ball, I can visualize that - this satisfies me that now I have a good grasp on the uncertainty principle. The aim of science ought not to be to satisfy people's curiosity - it ought to dissatify people's curiousity at every moment. A scientist ought to go to bed thinking that s/he knows far less then when s/he woke up.

"Here's one used by Ernest Rutherford after he shot alpha particles at a gold foil and found some of the particles being deflected through large angles. He concluded that this proves that most of the mass of the atom must be concentrated in a small nucleus. Asked how he drew that conclusion, he replied: It's as though you were to fire fifteen-inch shells at tissue paper, and then a few of the shells came right back at you."

That seems to not be quite right.

If you tried to shoot a cannon ball through tissue paper and the cannon ball came right back to you - would you conclude therefore that the mass of an atom was concentrated in its nucleus?

"Do they prove anything to someone who isn't otherwised convincible? No, and they shouldn't either, because that would be a fallacious 'proof.' "

Well put. My main objection to the god damned poodle is not that it is a bad anology - its a good analogy - except that the damned thing was so good that 100 years later there is virtually no agreement on the topic. How many of the "disruptions" splits defections etc in the SLP and others were over the issue of reforms. Not because poeple thought that there ought ot be reformism - but because some people thought that some things were reforms and some things not - and somethings didn't matter if they were reforms or not such as civil rights and national liberation, and of course other people thought differently.

Lets go back to the basics on reform - what did DeLeon say about the god damned poodle again? Oh yes, now I am quite clear.

Maybe that's why I don't like analogies so much - that they SEEM to clarify things. And even that's an anology - clarity. Ought we perceive clarity when things really are not?

dave

Posted: 31 Aug 2005 11:07 pm Post subject:

I think the poodle needs to present his side of the story:

http://joecartoon.atomfilms.com/pages/poodle/

Of couse, it is errrrr, uuuummmm, pointless.

Posted: 01 Sep 2005 02:51 am Post subject:

"What was he talking about electrons?"

No one can accurately measure the momentum and position of any particle. To do anything to increase the accuracy of one of these two measurements always decreases the accuracy of the other measurement. This is a basic property of matter, not a limitation of particular instruments.

Posted: 01 Sep 2005 02:59 am Post subject:

"If you tried to shoot a cannon ball through tissue paper and the cannon ball came right back to you - would you conclude therefore that the mass of an atom was concentrated in its nucleus?"

The important words in what I wrote were "some of them." You're shooting through many places of a flimsy barrier, and a small number of the impact points are a lot harder than everywhere else.

Posted: 01 Sep 2005 03:41 am Post subject:

Here are some more that are often used in science:

Organic chemistry ... The carbon-to-carbon bonds, C-C-C-C-C-C-C , function as the "backbone" of an organic molecule.

Here's one from biology: The long-term energy storage in glucose and the short-term energy storage in ATP are like the body's "saving account" and "checking account."

Here are two popular ones that are often used in atomic physics:

The Aufbau Principle: The electrons in an atom will fill the energy levels and sublevels in the order of increasing energy. Analogy: In a parking garage which has several floors, drivers who find that all the parking spaces on the first floor are filled will go up to the second floor. If the second floor is filled, they go up to the third floor, etc.

Hund's Rule: Each sublevel in an orbital will receive a single electron before any sublevel receive a second electron. Analogy: Everyone at a birthday party gets his or her first piece of cake before we will give anyone a second piece of cake.

Another physics classic .... The doppler effect: If the source of a light or sound wave is approaching the observer, the observer measures a higher frequency than what the source observes. Analogy: You stand still as I'm running toward you ... I throw you baseballs at a rate of ten per minute, while you catch them at a rate of eleven per minute.

While waves in water move only on the surface, acoustical waves in a solid move in all directions. Analogy: the molecules of a solid pull on each other in all directions, like the individual springs in a box-spring mattress.

It doesn't take work to make electric charge flow to a lower potential. It happens spontaneously, like water flowing downhill. You have to expend work to make charge move to a higher potential -- it's like pumping water uphill.

Am I driving you crazy yet? :-)

Concept of "limiting reactant" and "excess reactant" in chemistry. If the formula for sandwich is 2 bread and 1 cheese, then suppose you have 24 slices of bread and 30 slices of cheese. You will be able to use 24 bread and 12 cheese. You can't use the rest of the cheese -- it's in excess. You are limited by the bread. Got that? Now, say the formula for water is 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen. Suppose you have 24 moles of hydrogen and of 30 moles of oxygen....

Okay, I'll stop now !!!! :-)

Posted: 01 Sep 2005 02:13 pm Post subject:

"What was he talking about electrons?"

"No one can accurately measure the momentum and position of any particle. To do anything to increase the accuracy of one of these two measurements always decreases the accuracy of the other measurement. This is a basic property of matter, not a limitation of particular instruments."

I am sure that I do not understand the above - so where do the ping pong ball and bulldozer come in? I thought I knew something with the bull dozer and ping pong ball and now you are telling me that it's not the size or cumbersomness of the bulldozer reagrding the ping pong ball but that those particle measurements have ultimate limitations (that we know so far). So the "clarification" led me astray.

I must have told you this - that I had a physics professor who tried to get the college to have, or sponsor, or send him to some seminar on, of all things, MAGIC. He reasoned that if scientists became more familiar with how magic leads us to come to false conclusions - then scientists might try to apply the way magic misleads us to better understanding how nature may mislead or hide something from us.

To me this is a productive use of analogy - the professor's analogy (Sam Olanoff was his name) that magic and nature may fool us in similar fashion. He didn't anwser a question with anaolgy or define anything by analolgy - the analogy lead to useful questions about a possible adventageous way of looking at nature that may not have occurred before in any systematic way.

Magic hides things from us. Nature hides things from us. There may be similarities that we can learn from magic to improve our science.

DeLeon unfortunately did not write that we know of - Is there anything about taking an animal to a grooming parlor that can can help us come up with a better way of determineing which specific proposals are in the long term useful to the labor movement in bringing about socialism?

I rewally would like to see this issue discussed.

dave

Posted: 03 Sep 2005 04:55 am Post subject:

> I thought I knew something with the bull dozer and ping pong ball
> and now you are telling me that it's not the size or
> cumbersomness of the bulldozer reagrding the ping pong ball but
> that those particle measurements have ultimate limitations (that
> we know so far). So the "clarification" led me astray.

It's not a limitation of any particular instrument, but a limitation of the act of instrumentation itself. To observe something always exchanges some energy with it. Even if the observation is said to be true, it would be true of what WAS, before you observed it, but because you observed it, it probably isn't true any longer.

:-) The cops want to arrest me, so suppose they call me first to see if I'm home. I answer the phone, so now they know I'm home, or, rather, they now know I would have been home if they hadn't called, but, as a result of the phone call itself, I might not be home any longer.

> Is there anything about taking an animal to a grooming parlor
> that can can help us come up with a better way of determineing
> which specific proposals are in the long term useful to the labor
> movement in bringing about socialism?

I don't think so, but maybe De Leon was trying to add comic relief. The reference to the bow and tassle makes it appear that he was joking. Many years later, Lenny Bruce and Dick Gregory would use humor to bring attention to social issues.

> like to see this issue discussed

This, and several other kinds of logical fallacies. Arguments along the line of it-must-be-true-because-here's-a-quote-by-John-Adams is another embarrassing fallacy that we have sometimes used.

Posted: 03 Sep 2005 05:27 am Post subject:

I said this one wrong:

Posted: 04 Sep 2005 05:21 am Post subject:

What glycogen is: It's a large number of glucose molecules that are grouped into bunches, like grapes on a vine. Whenever the cellular respiration process needs another glucose molecule, it "picks another grape."

Posted: 05 Sep 2005 12:02 am Post subject:

Here's an analogy from De Leon that I've never understood. His editorial on the subject of "human nature." I don't have a copy currently, or I would post it. The question debated since ancient times is "human nature is basically good" versus "human nature is basically evil". He uses an analogy about a birthmark on a woman's face, perceived in some societies as a beautiful feature, and perceived in other societies as a defect. I have never been able to figure out what this example has to do with the question. The age-old question wasn't about whether standards of beauty are cultural conventions; the argument is about whether, in the absense of compulsory rules, people tend to compassionate or to be cruel to each other.

Posted: 05 Sep 2005 12:06 am Post subject:

De Leon's frequent comparison between SIU departmental structure and the structure of an army with numerous divisions.

???

I don't get it. I don't see any similarity between these cases.

Posted: 05 Sep 2005 02:01 am Post subject:

good and/or bad compared to what? Is what I have always asked.

This is off on a tangent - but it illustrates a use of analogy - I was thinking for some reason about menn's fraternal organizations - the elks, the lins, the eagles, on and on.

These clubs it seems reached their high point about 100 years ago - and have since dwindled - in many cases now, merely these clubs are a plce to hang a provate liquor licence. I wonder about whther these organizations dwindled down for the same reasons that the SLP did - and what were those similar reasons, if any.

dave

Posted: 06 Sep 2005 04:29 am Post subject:

Men's clubs aren't very popular because men usually like to drink booze in a place where they can talk to women. Even if they're not seeking mates, at least they like to look and converse. So what's the point of patronizing a bar in a place that's guaranteed not to have any women present? Sure, it might have pay-per-view sports on the TV, but so does the integrated public tavern. And it's uneconomical to dues just for the privilege of having a hall at your disposal in the event that you have a wedding reception -- in such an event, it's cheap enough to rent the fire department hall for a day.

The SLP is small because it's extremely restrictive in its membership requirements. If it has a 300 official beliefs, and you agree with 299 of them, then you can't be in it. You have to agree with all 300. That's a sure way to have a membership that can meet in a phone booth.

Posted: 11 Sep 2005 11:46 am Post subject:

Thinking further on the poodle analogy - what part is there for human intervention if revolution of socialism is like evolution into a poodle? Another confounding variable with the poodle - is that recognized "breeds" of dogs have been subjected to generation after generation of unnatural selection.

Posted: 11 Sep 2005 11:54 am Post subject:

Mike, on the fraternal organization thing I'm going to see - if I ever get a damnded chance to pull out some literature on such organizations. Even apaprt from the male and female reparte - same sex fratenal orgs. abounded and still do to some extent - deer camps - Volunteer Fire depts. and such. But at the beginning of the 20th cent - and well into it these org. were big. Again I'll have to break down and do some actual reading before I can say more.

Posted: 12 Sep 2005 06:01 am Post subject:

On the poodle, he seems to be likening "fundamental structure" = the most basic principles of society's institutions = highest taxonomic group of animal (mammal, reptile, bird, etc.) = both evolution and revolution, and also likening "details of form" = political reforms = giving a dog a haircut = neither evolution nor revolution.

It's misleading to bring evolution into the discussion, because evolution is a totally unconscious and aimless process, which we hope social activity won't be.

I would rather go for an architectural analogy: the constitution is like the foundation and framing a house, and the reformers are so busy discussing the fancy door-knockers to notice that the foundation and framing are questionable.

Posted: 13 Sep 2005 01:23 am Post subject:

Why don't you just get a god damned gun and shoot me?!!

Posted: 13 Sep 2005 06:08 am Post subject:

I find it difficult to talk about anything without metaphors. It seems to me that language is mostly made out of metaphors. I agree if you want to say that they can't add up to a convincing argument, and certainly not a formal proof. But what about being simply a colloquial form of speech?

Posted: 13 Sep 2005 10:16 am Post subject:

Latin colloquium `speaking together'

Yes fine - but we get so used to our formal metaphores that they very quickly substitute for thought - and people start to be excluded because of a different set of metaphores. My experience with the SLP, and I stress the "my" was that they hurt the party. I could be over reacting on this, but that never stopped me before.

Posted: 15 Sep 2005 05:18 am Post subject:

Yes, a substitute for thought. I think you've convinced me that the failure of the poodle parable is that it doesn't help us locate the line between reform and revolution. In any particular application, we still don't know how to discern what to do, like the example you gave - the SLP didn't speak up for the opposition to Plessy v. Ferguson (racial segregation in public schools). In a specific situation, when people are going "I don't know what to do! What to do now?!", it doesn't help to offer the tale about the poodle. In fact, I'll bet Trotskyists would like the poodle story.

Posted: 17 Sep 2005 01:54 am Post subject:

Plessy v. Ferguson I believe had to do with riding in a train. Homer Plessy had a black great grandmother as i recall, and becuase of that geat grandmother - he could not ride inthe whites only cars. Separate was alright if it was equal according to the supreme court of the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

Posted: 18 Sep 2005 05:06 am Post subject:

I thought the Democrat senators -- Biden, Feinstein, Schumer, Kennedy -- and nonvoting but testifying Lewis of the House of Rep., did a nice job grilling Roberts about the fact that segregation wouldn't have ended when it did if the Supreme Court had held as strictly as Roberts does to the policy of stare decisis [usually defering to precedent], and his strict constructionism [legislators make all laws; judges are nothing but "umpires" (Robert's word)]. One of the senators held up big chart of about a dozen pre-Brown decisions upholding Plessy, and showed Roberts the degree of precedent that was in place.

Posted: 18 Sep 2005 05:37 am Post subject:

It irritates me that judges and lawyers only cite the 4th amendment "unreasonable searches and seizures" when finding a case uphold Roe v. Wade. I would like to see the 1st amendment's "establishment" clause cited. IMO, all opposition to legal abortion is based on the religious views of the one doing the opposing. To outlaw aboriton would be exactly the same as if the law-makers were Hindus and they outlawed eating beef -- it's nothing more than some people using state coercion to impose their religious practices on others.

Posted: 18 Sep 2005 05:42 am Post subject:

Oops - I thought I was in the IN THE NEWS topic. Posted the above in the wrong place.