I like leftist critique's aims, but making every single thing be a result of material conditions is so...asphyxiating...

Because life escapes the scientific method of analysis.

To empirically test it would probably be "inhumane" or whatever

Not only that but there are plenty of methodological problems that studies frequently ignore, because it is more profitable to conclude that behavior is genetically determined (after all, if you will act in a certain way because of your gene, I can sell you what I want by doing the right thing 100% of the time). That is one of the reasons why there are som many of these studies and so many are just bad science.

For example one major problem is of course that nature vs the environment is a poorly defined problem. While we can precisely measure DNA, we cannot do the same for the environment, the "nurture" side of the story is a vague bubble of nothing and everything. This invariably produces a heavy bias in favor of genetics, because everthing that I fail to register as environment inevitably gets included in the genetics side. This is starkly evident in the studies that utilize twins, which are routinely utilized to proclaim everything we do is genetics.

It merely looks at one aspect of society, why do you assume it asserts itself to be the only form of analysis?

No, Marxism is just really dominant.

> therefore every on eof their actions is at least in part dictated by the ideological structure that they learned in their socialization process

So what? All you've done is tried to redefine 'the political' as 'the human condition' - well done, but please tell me why this matters if everyone is necessarily human anyway. You haven't actually done or proved or demonstrated anything apart from limit the scope of human experience (which is broader and more diverse than you or I have any conception of)

If your claim is that 'every human action is in part dictated by ideological structures' then it's up to you to prove that in regards to literally every human action, the burden of proof is on this claim. I'm not denying that ideological structures can influence human actions, but rather that this extends to literally every aspect of existence

>Marx: it's up to the workers to seize control and create the new world!
>user: leftists need more sense of responsibility

>it's up to you to prove that
why do people on Yea Forums need to teach you Marxist theory? go read a book about it, then come and argue about it on Yea Forums. most of the people on here trying to disprove philosophers actively ask other people to explain those theories to them, when that in itself should disqualify your opinion. if you don't understand what you are arguing against, why the fuck are you wasting your time arguing it?

I have studied Marxist theory in relation to literature actually, and thought most of that 'theory' was pretty fucking terrible in that application - particularly if it were to be considered by anybody other than the 'fellow travellers' in the seminar group who all believe the same things anyway

In any case I'm critiquing what another poster said, this is quite literally the point of the board. If you have any meaningful response I'd be glad to read it

You are quite naive if you believe that ideology does not literally define our perception of the world, and consequently our actions.
Ideology is the underlying structure with which we interpret our social reality, just like we use our concepts of time and space to construct our perception of our physical world.
The entire realm of the social is imbued with ideology, without which we would not be able to communicate or act in a socially acceptable way. Whatever you think is universal and embedded in the nature of humanity is simply the deepest levels of this ideological construct that we carry.

The concept of private property for example, or the family unit, or the monopoly of violence of the state, all concepts that are essential to interpret our world that actually did not exist for most of the history of the species, in fact the oldest has maybe a few thousands of years on its shoulders and the youngest is barely a couple of centuries old. none of the three are genetically predetermined to exist in our minds, but we could not think of the world without them.

And since they are part of our perception of the world, they guide our actions by establishing what can and cannot be done. The same way you know that you cannot go into a restaurant naked, eat on the floor and leave without paying by just living in our society, you absorb uncritically all kinds of ideological messages, which, by virtue of being part of the background for your perception, are not even recognized as ideological in nature.

The materialist analysis of history tells us that this ideology is not simply product of fate or chance, but a process of integration between old cultural values and new social forces arising from the material conditions. A stark example of this is the acceptance of slavery throughout history: In the Roman empire, slavery was accepted as part of life, even the slaves revolting did not want to end slavery, they merely wanted to regain their freedom.
Yet despite being millenia old, it eventually died with capitalism (mostly, at least), why? Because the new social forces that capitalism created through its new way of managing the material forces that kept society going had no interest in keeping slavery alive, in fact it was a net negative for the industrial powers to have large quantities of slaves in their population (in other countries, however....).
And so the good old slavery was (sorta) abolished, but its cultural legacy did not, it was integrated and transformed by the new culture that grew out of capitalism, and so the capitalist countires had a ready-to-be-used excuse to "colonize" the savages that could not possibly self-govern themselves.

I reccomend watching "Pervert's Guide to Ideology" it's a fascinating watch. vimeo.com/280081736

Actually Marx and Engels refuted this misunderstanding of their work as "deterministic" profusely. Here is what Engels stated in his "Letter to J. Bloch":

"I qualify your first major proposition as follows: According to the materialistic conception of history, the production and reproduction of real life constitutes in the last instance the determining factor of history. Neither Marx nor I ever maintained more. Now when someone comes along and distorts this to mean that the economic factor is the sole determining factor, he is converting the former proposition into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis but the various factors of the superstructure – the political forms of the class struggles and its results – constitutions, etc., established by victorious classes after hard-won battles – legal forms, and even the reflexes of all these real struggles in the brain of the participants, political, jural, philosophical theories, religious conceptions and their further development into systematic dogmas – all these exercize an influence upon the course of historical struggles, and in many cases determine for the most part their form."

So here is Engels explicitly stating that historical materialism is not meant to be deterministic, for anybody interested. This non-determining superstructure is what allowed so many critical theories to proliferate in the 20th century and analyze culture and media in meaningful ways.

Source: marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol01/no03/engels.htm

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Psychohistory's current equivalent is not Sociology lol, it's Econometrics. And Econometrics is quite a respectable field today, basically the only truly scientific part of Ecocomics.
As long as you use quantifiable observable data and the analysis is econometrically correct, you can make small scale predictions on specific areas. It is expected that with the addition of Big Data much greater predictions will be possible in the coming years.

Even if our material conditions were all met wed still find a way to hate each other even in mass scale. How would EXTREME lookism be curbed in these conditions? Eugenics?

This, of course, is not the only application of mathematics within economics, frequently it is simply used to explain concepts.

I think Statistics is a valuable tool within economics. But economics is not supposed to use statistics to predict things, it’s supposed to use logic B3

"Racism is present even in the simplest, everyday things and that infiltrates into much bigger, more obvious, possibly violent things."

Leftist praxis
lul

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This is why conservatives will continue winning, they always fall in line in the end, while the left continues doing this bullshit.

>The concept of private property for example, or the family unit, or the monopoly of violence of the state, all concepts that are essential to interpret our world
Everyone knows this. This is such a banal point as to be basically meaningless to say. This goes back to basically being human nature, since every group of humans comes from a LE SOCIETY.
Again though, this denies the abilities of people to question societal constructs, which they do, even banal statements made by cashiers like "Why do I have to work 5 days a week?" are inquiries into the ideology and structure of society.

You are more of a slave to ideology than the working stiffs and the consumers that you probably consider yourself superior to. Nothing is political. Not even politics.

Left wing ideology is all about avoiding responsibility. Women not shaving their pits isn’t about free expression, it’s a symbol to tell everyone they can’t be held accountable or be told what to do. You can analyze 100% of key issues on the left that way.

That seems like it completely contradicts his entire theory.
>and in many cases determine for the most part their form."
how can you reconcile this phrase with
>The economic situation is the basis

If the superstructure can determine the form of historical struggles how is the economic situation the basis?

The responsibility of working literally determines this. I agree 100% that corporate power exploits the workers but the left only cares insofar of what it can do for them. That’s why they bend over for corporate cock in all other aspects of their lives. They boycott local restaurants instead of chains, purge people from their insular communities, and are happy to garble corporate entertainment like Its Always Sunny while purity testing every local band.

Because I went to college and in nearly every class I took this was the central takeaway. There is no individual, everything is society, everything is political. I'm not the one saying I hate leftism or anything, but the ideology that everything is exclusively determined by societal constructs and no one can think for themselves is a total avoidance of personal responsibility.
I recognize that this only represents a certain group of people's viewpoint, but I dislike that viewpoint.

Whether it's a misunderstanding or not I don't really care. In fact, I'm sure you're right, but a lot of people in seats of power in schools push this reading hard.

It's more like
>Person A: Society determines everything you do. You're completed limited by society.
>Person B: Person A needs more sense of responsibility.

Society as a nebulous concept is so spooky. Individual actors and the stage of society have become to far removed

Don't take it too seriously, Marxist theory is sufficiently flexible to say whatever the theorist needs it to say. "Given the relative development of the productive forces on society X, Marxist theory tells us thay Y will happen, but when Y doesn't happen, this result is actually precisely what Marxist theory tells us because Z. Learn dialectics and read a book."