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— V. I. Lenin
16 comments
So what the guy was saying is that, since a basic study of human nature and economics makes his pet theory look bad or even *gasp* questions it openly, said study itself must be bad.
And people wonder why Marxism is mocked so...
Lenin is just like the libertarians: he has a philosophy he believes in, which he thinks absolves him of the need to consider facts or counter examples. Any reasonable political philosophy should be less ideologically pure.
I'm sure Russians were aware of at least one nearby country that produced a lot of good science without being socialist. There were a few right there in Europe.
Seems to me the quote is correct.
@flabberface blubstatep; "Communist science"
Nice strawman.
@blazereaux; "So what the guy was saying"
No, (western) economics IS politically motivated (to support capitalism) and not really an objective science at all (despite all the sciencey stuff they try to put in).
And people wonder why Capitalists are selfish greedy assholes ...
@Psalmanazaar & @KingOfRhye
Social sciences =/= Socialist science
Actually, I would disconnect the picture and the quote. The quote in itself is true. Evolution or gravity is true whether you believe it or not.
If you cut taxes of the rich, the poor will get richer.
-Ronald Reagan George Bush the other George Bush Mitt Romney Sarah Palin Batshit Shelly Donald Trump and all the rest
... i think someone's trying to discredit science in general on the basis that Lenin said something debatable about social science in particular [within the context of his time and place, one presumes]. but i'm not entirely sure.
even if that's actually the right way to read this, why should anybody take Lenin's word for this thing? the man had a late-1800's Russian law degree, and AFAIK never even practiced law; what makes him any authority on anything but the politics of a world now long past?
@Dyz
While I respectfully disagree with your assessment of economics, that doesn't absolve the quote of putting down psychology, sociology, and anthropology (the other social sciences... that I remember). How is psychology (often used as a tool... badly... by the Soviets) defensive of Capitalism or even inherently inimical to Marxism, for example?
The busts in the picture are best seen as a cautionary tale - when you stick a "science" label on your ideology you end up with a pile of crap. There are historical reasons why people in the hard sciences are leery of sociology, psychology, etc.
Yup, you're talking about "social science" alright. I hate that they have co-opted the name, because social science is really social philosophy, with statistics....as distinguished from RRAL science. You know, the stuff that is demonstrably true.
Michael Behe is a Professor of Biochemistry.
His 'Belie fs' didn't help him much in his testimony for the defence in Kitzmiller vs. Dover.
...and when Politics can come up with a FTL propulsion system, get back to us. Also when you learn how to spell, little boy. Otherwise:
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As the East Germans used to say, capitalism is the exploitation of man by man and socialism is the opposite.
@ Kanna
It's not so much a co-option of the word science as an imprecise translation of the German word "Wissenschaft" which is rather broader in meaning than the English word "science"; "nauka" in Russian (and equivalent words in many other languages) is closer in meaning to "Wissenschaft" than "science." It's also fair to point out that social science has its origins in the early nineteenth century when disciplinary boundaries were not as strong as they are today; think, for example, of the natural science which was then called "natural history."
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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