Marxism, Apocalypticism and the world today

[Vincent]

This is my first post here in a while. So, hello.

Last year I wrote an essay which looked at millenarian and apocalyptic literature. So, I was studying ideas people have had throughout history about the end of the world (as we know it). The essay suggested that Marxism, and historical materialism, was comparable to the eschatology of Christian and Judaic belief systems. I thought this might be interesting to discuss here.

Basically, I found that Marx's historical materialism, as a way of understanding history, was apocalyptic in nature. It described a linear history, which ultimately ended (by conflict of thesis and anti-thesis) in the 'golden' synthesis - the communist society. If this needs explaining more, let me know.

I also found that apocalyptic literature was often produced in times of social crisis - Saint Augustine's City of God, for example, was written in the aftermath of the pagan Goth invasion of Rome in 410, and it suggested a linear history, which culminated in the Golden Age... the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, as he said. Marx was writing during the Industrial Revolution, arguably a period of great social unrest, and he suggested a linear history which culminated in a kind of economic and social 'Heaven on Earth'.

It's interesting to note that the general public is most susceptible to apocalypticism and End Of Time-type things when there is much social unrest. The idea of linear history appeals to people because it works on promises; 'this WILL happen... we WILL see change for the better'. When people are scared, or oppressed, or just unhappy, apocalyptic literature provides a kind of hope for the future.

So, do people think this is a pretty acceptable analysis?

When you look at the news, theres a new crisis every night. It's like a bad soapie. But lots of people respond to these crises. And there are always funny cults and movements promising people some kind of hope.

Take for example the Zeitgeist Movement. Funny as hell, but basically what I'm talking about. It's a reaction to the economic depression at the moment, and its little friend, the Venus Project, promises a kind of golden age on a floating village in space. It's like Marx had babies with Rael. But, as socialism and communism does, it offers hope to people.

Given, this, do we think that - since the public respond to readily to millinarian movements offering peace and love and the end of the world as we know it - we should be engaged in developing a comprehensive, practical and responsible 'doctrine', or ideology, or ism, or whatever..? The Zeitgeist Movement has a big following, but the Venus Project is impracticable and irresponsible.

As a Marxist, or whatever you are, do you think you are responsible for developing a 'system of belief' which might actually live up to its promise of providing people with real cange?

I've rambled.. but yes. What do we think?

[Dimentio]

The Venus Project has some good sides and some less good sides. I do not personally believe that resource-based economics is very practical. But I think that most of their long-term proposals are realistic.

[ComradeOm]

It described a linear history, which ultimately ended (by conflict of thesis and anti-thesis) in the 'golden' synthesis - the communist societyExcept that this is a complete vulgarisation of Marx that bears little resemblance to any of his works. Which is the real problem with attempts to shoehorn the man into a particular school of thought


As a Marxist, or whatever you are, do you think you are responsible for developing a 'system of belief' which might actually live up to its promise of providing people with real cange?As a Marxist I'm opposed to any 'system of belief' that requires blind faith. The goal of Marxists is to not to "offer hope to people" by arguing that things will someday change for the better. Rather our goal is to explain the root causes of the current difficulties and propose practical alternatives

[ZeroNowhere]

Basically, I found that Marx's historical materialism, as a way of understanding history, was apocalyptic in nature. It described a linear history, which ultimately ended (by conflict of thesis and anti-thesis) in the 'golden' synthesis - the communist society. If this needs explaining more, let me know.
Oh, please. Marx didn't use the 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' crap. Research is a good idea.


I also found that apocalyptic literature was often produced in times of social crisis - Saint Augustine's City of God, for example, was written in the aftermath of the pagan Goth invasion of Rome in 410, and it suggested a linear history, which culminated in the Golden Age... the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, as he said. Marx was writing during the Industrial Revolution, arguably a period of great social unrest, and he suggested a linear history which culminated in a kind of economic and social 'Heaven on Earth'.
No, he didn't.


It's interesting to note that the general public is most susceptible to apocalypticism and End Of Time-type things when there is much social unrest. The idea of linear history appeals to people because it works on promises; 'this WILL happen... we WILL see change for the better'. When people are scared, or oppressed, or just unhappy, apocalyptic literature provides a kind of hope for the future.
You seem to be talking about orthodox Marxism, as opposed to Marxism. Anyways, we can leave the hoping to the liberals, we prefer self-emancipation.


When you look at the news, theres a new crisis every night. It's like a bad soapie. But lots of people respond to these crises. And there are always funny cults and movements promising people some kind of hope.
My cult is not funny, it's fucking metal.


As a Marxist, or whatever you are, do you think you are responsible for developing a 'system of belief' which might actually live up to its promise of providing people with real cange?
Marxism does not provide 'the people' with liberation, only 'the people' themselves can do that.

[pauljpoposky]

if Im not mistaken, Marx once denounced those who would attempt to use his theories and his historical analysis as a sort of "new faith". the self emancipation of the masses is the only way forward, "faith" and "isms" simply will not do and cannot act as a substitute.

I dont think marx's analysis is necessarily 100% linear, as it does accept the contradictions and setbacks we experience in the real world. marx's analysis is scientific and constantly sought to understand objective conditions, not to develop a sort of "unified field theory" of economics that reality then has to somehow fit into. I think that it is a misconception to believe that marxism is deterministic or apocalyptic.

[Vincent]

Please, if you want to wave your arms and scream 'Revolution', go ahead. But not here... I asked for people to consider a historical interpretation of Marxism.

This is why I left this place. The moment someone offers an opinion which isn't a bunch of revolutionary, hack student activist, rhetoric, you get labeled some kind of capitalist pig who knows nothing.

It's like trying to tell an evangelical American Christian to consider that the Bible isn't god's word and that there are rational explanations for its contents.

[Vincent]

I think that it is a misconception to believe that marxism is deterministic or apocalyptic.

Plenty of Marxist historians would disagree with you.

But they just 'don't get it' right?

[ComradeOm]

Please, if you want to wave your arms and scream 'Revolution', go ahead. But not here... I asked for people to consider a historical interpretation of MarxismNo, you completely misinterpreted Marx's theories in order to make them fit your own worldview. More importantly, you've entirely failed to present any evidence to support this thesis (that historical materialism posits "a linear history"). Then when people object you throw a hissy fit and insinuate that our scepticism is born of dogmatism! No wonder you can't stick it around here if this is your reaction to every minor disagreement

Usually I'd hold that the burden of proof lies on yourself (as the one making the assertion) but I think its worthwhile in this case to let the man speak for himself. After all both Marx and Engels spent many years railing against the very vulgarism that you accuse them of. Witness Marx writing to a Russian paper (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/11/russia.htm) to defend himself from the exact same deterministic charge that you place before him:

"[My critic] feels himself obliged to metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale [general path] imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately arrive at the form of economy which will ensure, together with the greatest expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete development of man. But I beg his pardon...

...events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical"

Or Engels in the Anti-Duhring (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch07.htm):

"Anyone therefore who sets out in this field [history] to hunt down final and ultimate truths, truths that are pure or absolutely immutable, will bring home but little, apart from platitudes and commonplaces of the sorriest kind..."

Deterministic and apocalyptic my arse. Historical materialism is, and outside the hands of people like yourself, always has been "a guide to study, not a lever for construction". (To quote Engels again (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm)). If you think I'm wrong then lay aside the insults and temper tantrums and set out to prove it

[pauljpoposky]

Plenty of Marxist historians would disagree with you.

But they just 'don't get it' right?


but marx himself would disagree with those same '"marxist" historians'. it is always better to go to the source than to read what someone else 100+ years later says about the writer of that source.

[Vincent]

No, you completely misinterpreted Marx's theories in order to make them fit your own worldview. More importantly, you've entirely failed to present any evidence to support this thesis (that historical materialism posits "a linear history").

Flattering, but my thesis wasn't borne of my own worldview and I'm sorry to say it wasn't my own original thought to begin with. But okay, here we go.

To start with, Francis Fukayama put it concisely when he said:

'Both Hegel and Mrx believed that the evolution of human societies was not open-ended, but would end when mankind had a chieved a form of society that satisfies its deepest and most fundamental longings.'


He is speaking about the idea of directional history, history with a purpose, history which is going somewhere. Marx himself summed it up pretty well at the start of the Communist Manifesto: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class-struggles. Or, Engels, in The German Ideology: ...the whole evolution of history is a coherent series of forms of intercourse. I don't think I need to harp on about it to much, but this is basically the whole 'driving force of history' thing. What 'moves' human society through its phases is revolution borne from class struggle, basically.

Bertrand Russell describes Marx's idea of history: Marx's philosophy of history is a blend of Hegel and British economics. Like Hegel, he thinks that the world develops according to a dialectical formula, but he totally disagrees with Hegel as to the motive force of this development ... For Marx, matter, not spirit, is the driving force.

Now, Marx's philosophy of history was concerned with feudalism, represented by the landowner; capitalism, represented by the industrial employer; and socialism, represented by the wage-earner. Russell continues: [Marx] disclaimed all ethical and humanitarian reasons for preferring socialism ... maintained, not that this side wa ethically better, but it was the side taken by the dialectic in its wholy determinisitc movement.


To fill in the gaps here, Marx's version of the Hegelian dialectic described a history which has a driving force, and that driving force was class struggle - rather than Hegel's 'spirit'. It was inevitable, for Marx, - in the same was that the end-of-history was inevitable for Hegel - that history would culminate in socialism.

Now, the idea of a directional history (I won't call it linear, because some people didn't like that) is inherently eschatological (if you want to look into that, do so, but just take my word for it - historical writings on the influence an evidence of eschatology are dense and distinctly postmodern). Even though Marx vehementoly opposed Hegel's kind of 'lazy' take on history (see the 11th these on Feurbach - Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.), the 'dialectic', whatever its form, is a specifically directional philosophy of history - history with a beginning and an end; it doesn't matter what form the 'driving force' takes, there is an inherent aspect of eschatological thinking. In other words, the Marxist idea of social progression - the changing of society toward the ideal - as the force behind history is teleological. In fact, Hegel is consdidered the epitomy of teleological historians. But is Marx to be considered in the same light? Is historical materialism sufficiently different to dissassociate it from Hegel's eschatological philosophy of history?

After all both Marx and Engels spent many years railing against the very vulgarism that you accuse them of.

That they surely did. And so would I. It can be strongly argued that Marx and Engels were far more 'practical' about history than Hegel was, and therefore - because historical materialism wasn't some Universal Law - they aren't to be accused of being historical deterministic. But, even if they didn't say 'history WILL unfold like this', they still regarded history as being governed by a law; that historical development will be limited and conditioned by what 'came before'. And, whilst stepping around absolutes, Marx predicted the fall of capitalism, as a result of class struggle amongst other things, and the eventual replacements of it by communism.

Now, because I'm lazy, I'll concede that Marx and Engels weren't your typical apocalyptic-type fellows - they weren't running around screaming 'the end is nigh!'. But, their method of history was. Der deutsche Bauernkrieg analysed early Protestant Germany in terms of growing capitalism, for example. I would say that a similar approach to history was taken in the Communist Manifesto, the German Ideology and the Eightenteen Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte...

And, to give them a bit of leniancy, they were living in a period when 'history as social progress' was the bees-knees. Everyone was in on it, from the beginning of the Englightenment onwards - and, I think, the best example of its affect on the way history was 'done' can be seen in Hegel.

But marx himself would disagree with those same '"marxist" historians'. it is always better to go to the source than to read what someone else 100+ years later says about the writer of that source.

I agree ... but, what is the difference between you or me going to to source and interpreting it and a historian going to the source and interpreting it? This is what modern historians do; they don't take 'what is said' to be truth - they analyse it and try to explain it. Marx and Engels might have spent much energy telling people their philosophy of history wasn't deterministic, but that is no proof to say that it wasn't.

Ronald Aronson has said that '..simultaneosly then, Marxism was eschatological at its core and in bas conscience about it.' Of course Marx would shudder at the very though of his philosophy being compared to a mode of thought that was previously only existant in religious doctrine. But, as Derrida and Fukuyama have famously noted, Marx made eschatology secular. The fault is probably Hegel's, but its still there in the writings of Marxism.

No, you completely misinterpreted Marx's theories in order to make them fit your own worldview.

Though I qouted this before, I'd like to come back to it. It's ironic that I'm being accused of 'misinterpreting' something to fit my own worldview, when what I'm arguing was that Marx interpreted history to fit HIS worldview. Thie idea of 'misinterpretation' isn't really a coherent attack on historical analyis; historians don't work with truths, they work with sources which are to be interpreted. I'm not saying 'Marx purposefully used eschatological undertones in his writings'. He didn't. He lived in a society which thrived on the idea of progression and movement, and was influenced heavily by someone who put those ideas into the philosophy of history. Theses are just observations, but the rise in popularity of post-modern historiography has given me a tool, a method, of looking at Marxism and trying to put together a coherent answer to the questions 'Where did it come from? Why is it so resonant with people?' And so on.

I apologise if my first post misled people to think I was working with truths. I'm not. It simply the easiest way to express an idea. Filling it with 'only in my opinion's and 'but this is not conclusive' and basically writing like someone who is afraid of actually making a statement only makes it difficult for you to get at what I'm putting on the table.

Cheers!

[ZeroNowhere]

but marx himself would disagree with those same '"marxist" historians'. it is always better to go to the source than to read what someone else 100+ years later says about the writer of that source.This post makes a valid point.

[Vincent]

This post makes a valid point.

Just to clarify, when I speak of 'Marxist historians' I'm not referring to historians who going about their work using a kind of bastardized Marxist historiography (they, who most Marxists would distance themselves from, view all history in terms of class struggle .. as in, everything can be explained by reference to class conflict). I am referring to historians who have written histories on Marxism.

Of course you need to go back to the source, and all historians do this. But to 'do' history, it is the job of the historian to interpret events and sources; they would have no job if we all just said 'Marx said this and that's all there is to it'. Added to this, historians need to engage with secondary sources. That is, they need to debate and consider what other historians have said previously. A typical historical analysis will take what one historian has said as a starting point, and will then go ahead and try to confirm, critique or deny that interpretation. This is what I am doing, and I am trying to argue for that interpretation. Whether or not any such argument constitutes an absolute truth is another matter. All that I would venture to say is that I simply agree with an interpretation, and given that objective truth is a *****, that interpretation is what I might consider to be 'closest' to the truth.

[Cumannach]

Vincent, do you think that all of the things you're saying about Marxism can be equally validly applied to Darwinism or Cosmology?

[Vincent]

Vincent, do you think that all of the things you're saying about Marxism can be equally validly applied to Darwinism or Cosmology?

By Darwinism I'm going to assume that you're referring to the 'social Darwinism' of Herbert Spencer. I can see where you draw the link; Spencer accounted for the evolution of human society in the same way Darwin accounted for biological change in species - Spencer thought that, because humans didn't appear to be evolving, we were simply evolving through societal change. So, there is a similarity in that both the Marxism I am speaking of and social Darwinism view the history of human society as having a 'driving force', or a mechanism in-built to account for change. But, as far as I know, Spencer didn't ever say that a certain state of human evolution would be the 'ideal' or the end-point, where history 'stops' - that is why I would say no, I don't think what I'm saying about Marxism can be completely applied to Darwinism.

As for cosmology, it really depends what account of the universe we're going to look at. There are countless variations of the Big Bang theory, with expanding universes, shrinking universes, universes that do both. And then there's newer theories which almost do away with the Big Bang and suggest that what we see as the big bang is kind of a 'bottleneck' in the universe. But, let's assume we're speaking of an account of the universe which somehow says 'the universe as we know it will end'. The reason I wouldn't draw a comparison is because the universe ending is not really an ideal, unless you believe in an afterlife - eschatological belief can work in a number of ways. Often, its presented in religions by this whole idea of an afterlife which is much better than the real life; its an ideal state of affairs, and its inevitable. Some strands of thought are more like 'at such and such time, this will happen, and for some reason, a few of us will be in an ideal state of affairs - its inevitable'. And there are variations on the theme, but basicaly we are looking at the inevitability, due to a percieved mechanism of life or history, of the development of some kind of ideal state of affairs for all humans or for some. Although cosmology could present us with an inevitable end-time in some sense, it would probably only work on an eschatological level with those who thought that death was a better state of affairs, or that there was an afterlife.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ZeroNowhere:


Oh, please. Marx didn't use the 'thesis-anti-thesis-synthesis' crap.

In fact, he did when he was young --, but in his defence, he had unwisely appropriated the ideas of one of his teachers, a Hegel 'scholar' called Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus who confused Kant and Fichte's system with Hegel's, Here is what I have posted on this in Philosophy:



Some say Hegel used the method of: thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and others deny this. Who is correct?

The most vexing and devastating Hegel legend is that everything is thought in "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." [...] The actual texts of Hegel not only occasionally deviate from "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis," but show nothing of the sort. "Dialectic" does not for Hegel mean "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." Dialectic means that any "ism" - which has a polar opposite, or is a special viewpoint leaving "the rest" to itself - must be criticized by the logic of philosophical thought, whose problem is reality as such, the "World-itself."

Hermann Glockner's reliable Hegel Lexikon (4 volumes, Stuttgart, 1935) does not list the Fichtean terms "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" together. In all the twenty volumes of Hegel's "complete works" he does not use this "triad" once; nor does it occur in the eight volumes of Hegel texts, published for the first time in the twentieth Century. He refers to "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" in the Preface of the Phenomenology of Mind, where he considers the possibility of this "triplicity " as a method or logic of philosophy. According to the Hegel-legend one would expect Hegel to recommend this "triplicity." But, after saying that it was derived from Kant, he calls it a "lifeless schema," "mere shadow" and concludes: "The trick of wisdom of that sort is as quickly acquired as it is easy to practice. Its repetition, when once it is familiar, becomes as boring as the repetition of any bit of sleigh-of-hand once we see through it. The instrument for producing this monotonous formalism is no more difficult to handle than the palette of a painter, on which lie only two colours ..." (Preface, Werke, II, 48-49).

In the student notes, edited and published as History of Philosophy, Hegel mentions in the Kant chapter, the "spiritless scheme of the triplicity of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" (geistloses Schema) by which the rhythm and movement of philosophic knowledge is artificially pre-scribed (vorgezeichnet).

In the first important book about Hegel by his student, intimate friend and first biographer, Karl Rosenkranz (Hegels Leben, 1844), "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" are conspicuous by their absence. It seems Hegel was quite successful in hiding his alleged "method" from one of his best students.

The very important new Hegel literature of this century has altogether abandoned the legend. Theodor Haering's Hegels Wollen und Werk (2 vol., Teubner, 1929 and 1938) makes a careful study of Hegel's terminology and language and finds not a trace of "thesis, antithesis, synthesis." In the second volume there are a few lines (pp. 118, 126) in which he repeats what Hegel in the above quotation had said himself, i.e., that this "conventional slogan" is particularly unfortunate because it impedes the understanding of Hegelian texts. As long as readers think that they have to find "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" in Hegel they must find him obscure - but what is obscure is not Hegel but their colored glasses. Iwan Iljin's Hegel's Philosophie als kontemplative Gotteslehre (Bern, 1946) dismisses the "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" legend in the Preface as a childish game (Spielerei), which does not even reach the front-porch of Hegel's philosophy.

Other significant works, like Hermann Glockner, Hegel (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1929), Theodor Steinbüchel, Das Grundproblem der Hegelschen Philosophie (Bonn, 1933), and Theodor Litt, Hegel: Eine Kritische Erneuerung (Heidelberg, 1953), Emerich Coreth, S.J., Das Dialektische Sein in Hegels Logik (Wien, 1952), and many others have simply disregarded the legend. In my own monographs on Hegel über Offenbarung, Kirche und Philosophie (Munich, 1939) and Hegel über Sittlichkeit und Geschichte (Reinhardt, 1940), I never found any "thesis, antithesis, synthesis." Richard Kroner, in his introduction to the English edition of selections from Hegel's Early Theological Writings, puts it mildly when he says: "This new Logic is of necessity as dialectical as the movement of thinking itself. ... But it is by no means the mere application of a monotonous trick that could be learned and repeated. It is not the mere imposition of an ever recurring pattern. It may appear so in the mind of some historians who catalogue the living trend of thought, but in reality it is ever changing, ever growing development; Hegel is nowhere pedantic in pressing concepts into a ready-made mold. The theme of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, like the motif of a musical composition, has many modulations and modifications. It is never 'applied'; it is itself only a poor and not even helpful abstraction of what is really going on in Hegel's Logic."

Well, shall we keep this "poor and not helpful abstraction" in our attic because "some historians" have used it as their rocking-horse? We rather agree with the conclusion of Johannes Flügge: "Dialectic is not the scheme of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis imputed to Hegel."

In an essay by Nicolai Hartmann on Aristoteles und Hegel, I find the following additional confirmation of all the other witnesses to the misinterpretation of Hegel's dialectic: "It is a basically perverse opinion (grundverkehrte Ansicht) which sees the essence of dialectic in the triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." The legend was spread by Karl Marx whose interpretation of Hegel is distorted. It is Marxism superimposed on Hegel. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, Marx says in Das Elend der Philosophie, is Hegel's purely logical formula for the movement of pure reason, and the whole system is engendered by this dialectical movement of thesis, antithesis, synthesis of all categories. This pure reason, he continues, is Mr. Hegel's own reason, and history becomes the history of his own philosophy, whereas in reality, thesis, antithesis, synthesis are the categories of economic movements. (Summary of Chapter II, Paragraph 1.) The few passages in Marx' writings that resemble philosophy are not his own. He practices the communistic habit of expropriation without compensation. Knowing this in general, I was also convinced that there must be a source for this "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis," and I finally discovered it.

In the winter of 1835-36, a group of Kantians in Dresden called on Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, professor of philosophy at the University of Kiel, to lecture to them on the new philosophical movement after Kant. They were older, professional men who in their youth had been Kantians, and now wanted an orientation in a development which they distrusted; but they also wanted a confirmation of their own Kantianism. Professor Chalybäus did just those two things. His lectures appeared in 1837 under the title Historische Entwicklung der speculativen Philosophie von Kant bis Hegel, Zu näherer Verständigung des wissenschaftlichen Publikums mit der neuesten Schule. The book was very popular and appeared in three editions. In my copy of the third edition of 1843, Professor Chalybäus says (p. 354): "This is the first trilogy: the unity of Being, Nothing and Becoming ... we have in this first methodical thesis, antithesis, and synthesis ... an example or schema for all that follows." This was for Chalybäus a brilliant hunch which he had not used previously and did not pursue afterwards in any way at all. But Karl Marx was at, that time a student at the university of Berlin and a member of the Hegel Club where the famous book was discussed. He took the hunch and spread into a deadly, abstract machinery. Other left Hegelians, such as Arnold Ruge, Ludwig Feuerbach, Max Stirner use "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" just as little as Hegel

(quote from the article of Gustav E. Mueller: The Hegel Legend of "Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis", in "Journal of the History of Ideas", Volume XIX, June 1958, Number 3, Page 411. The article is still as valid today as it was in 1958)

From: http://www.hegel.net/en/faq.htm#6.4

As well as:


"Britannica: One of the things most associated with Hegel's thought is the thesis/antithesis/synthesis scheme, the process by which reality unfolds and history progresses. But you claim this never appears in Hegel's work.

"Pinkard: This myth was started by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus. It appears in a history he wrote of recent German philosophy (published in the 1840s), in which he said, roughly, that Fichte's philosophy followed the model of thesis/antithesis/synthesis, but Hegel went further and cosmologized that notion, extending it to the entire universe. The book was widely read (apparently the young Marx was one of its readers), and the idea stuck. It's still touted in a lot of short encyclopedia entries about Hegel. Like many little encapsulations of thought, it has the virtue of being easy to understand and easy to summarize. It's just not very helpful in understanding Hegel's thought. It has also contributed to the lack of appreciation of Hegel in Anglophone philosophy. It's not too hard to point out all the places where it doesn't apply, dismiss it as a kind of dialectical trick, and then just go on to conclude that Hegel isn't worth reading at all."

From:

http://www.postelservice.com/archives/000008.html

These might help kill this legend if they are left permanentely on display.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

There is no evidence in his mature work that Marx still accepted this schema, and later Marxists (such as Plekhanov and Lenin) rejected it as far too crude.

However, even in his early work, Marx referred to this a 'wooden trichotomy'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


Last year I wrote an essay which looked at millenarian and apocalyptic literature. So, I was studying ideas people have had throughout history about the end of the world (as we know it). The essay suggested that Marxism, and historical materialism, was comparable to the eschatology of Christian and Judaic belief systems. I thought this might be interesting to discuss here.

The thing with millenarianism is that, among other things, it is based on the banal observation that human societies, every so often, undergo crises, and either change or die as a result.

The difference between religious millenarianism and Marxism is that the latter seeks a materialist explanation of this phenomenon, while the former seeks a supernatural 'explanation'.

End of story...

[Vincent]

The thing with millenarianism is that, among other things, it is based on the banal observation that human societies, every so often, undergo crises, and either change or die as a result.

Absolutely ...I know most people would call what Marx and Engels did 'banal', but it was based on the observation that human societies (or... maybe just Lancashire) every so often, undergo crisis. Now, that doesn't make Marx millenarian by itself...

The difference between religious millenarianism and Marxism is that the latter seeks a materialist explanation of this phenomenon, while the former seeks a supernatural 'explanation'.

And my point is that Marxism could be seen as a secularised eschatology, which not a controvesial or new opinion.

[el_chavista]

Is this quotation from the Communist Manifesto "apocalyptic"?:
"...oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

[Vincent]

Is this quotation from the Communist Manifesto "apocalyptic"?:
"...oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

Can I pick this apart, for fun?

...oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight...

Here is the 'driving force of history' idea; history, whilst not being determined down to all actual events, progresses according to a pattern of class struggle.

...a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes...

'It's the end of the wooorld as we know it.. it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...'

The pattern of class struggle, by its nature, dictates a movement towards - but through various phases - an ideal structure of human society, which is classless. Thus the progression and evolution of human society, which is 'powered' by this mechanism of class struggle, ends. The progression of the history of human societies ends here - at this classless society. I stress that this is a distinctively secular eschatology. Now, to clarify, it wouldn't be eschatological if it didn't posit some kind of end. Not the end of the world, but the end of the world as we know it. The comments I made first, about hope and stuff, came from this observation that what we're dealing with is the end of the world as we know it ... a world, presumably, better than the oppression of capitalism, imperialism, and so on.

Cheers!

PS... I have no idea, el_chavista, if you are with me or not.. but hey thanks for the quote!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


And my point is that Marxism could be seen as a secularised eschatology, which not a controvesial or new opinion.

"Seen" by whom? And why?

You may not think it 'controversial', but it is, especially here.

In that case, unlike elsewhere, you will need to justify that smear.


The progression of the history of human societies ends here - at this classless society.

On what basis do you attribute this idea to Marx?

[Vincent]

"Seen" by whom? And why?

By me (in an essay, which means nothing - my essay was just an exercise in historical analysis) , Bertrand Russell, Francis Fukuyama, Martin Buber... and broadly speaking for the reasons I have presented here. Do a Google search. Just because I haven't extensively quoted them here, doesn't necessarily mean I haven't met the burden of proof, and therefore I fall to cries of 'pwned' and 'OP=fail'.


You may not think it 'controversial', but it is, especially here.

Sure, its debatable, but its not exactly a new interpretation. If it's controversial here, so what? It makes for interesting discussion.


In that case, unlike elsewhere, you will need to justify that smear.

Interpreting Marxism through eschatological/millenarian historical discourse does not mean I am making a smear against Marxists... I'm exercising analysis and interpretation skills. marxists.org, under its listing for Eschatology, tells us that it is an anti-communist description of Marxism. It would be if I had said 'Marxism is eschatological, therefore it sucks' Or something equally as incoherent and vague. But I didn't.


On what basis do you attribute this idea to Marx?

Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement [alienation], and hence the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man. It is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social — i.e., human — being, a restoration which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature, and between man and man, the true resolution of the conflict between existence and being, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution.

Karl Marx - Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution.

I consider this description of communism as '...the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature...', as a solution to the 'riddle of history', as 'the complete restoration of man to himself as a social being...', to be quiet indicative of a general facet of Marxism which considers a communist state as some kind of ideal. Sorry, but referring to marxists.org again, in its entry for 'Communism':

While aspects of Communist society can be compared to primitive communism, full Communism will only be achieved after class society has run its full course: through its inception (slave society), creation (feudalist society) and absolute dominance (capitalist society ), through to its gradual downfall (socialist society). At this point the motion of human history will have run the full course of this cycle, having come from primitive communism to the most divided class society.

That is the basis on which I make the claim the progression and evolution of the history of human societies ends at communism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


By me (in an essay, which means nothing - my essay was just an exercise in historical analysis) , Bertrand Russell, Francis Fukuyama, Martin Buber... and broadly speaking for the reasons I have presented here. Do a Google search. Just because I haven't extensively quoted them here, doesn't necessarily mean I haven't met the burden of proof, and therefore I fall to cries of 'pwned' and 'OP=fail'.

Excluding you (I hope!), those you mention are all enemies of Marxism. Do you really want to be associated with such reactionaries?


Sure, its debatable, but its not exactly a new interpretation. If it's controversial here, so what? It makes for interesting discussion.

Not 'interesting', since this slur has been around for many years, and is no more 'interesting' than debating whether or not Marx was a Mason, an Illuminati or a devil worshipper.


Interpreting Marxism through eschatological/millenarian historical discourse does not mean I am making a smear against Marxists... I'm exercising analysis and interpretation skills. marxists.org, under its listing for Eschatology, tells us that it is an anti-communist description of Marxism. It would be if I had said 'Marxism is eschatological, therefore it sucks' Or something equally as incoherent and vague. But I didn't.

I beg to differ, as will any others here. And we have yet to see the proof.

And, the quotation you give does not support what you allege, since it mentions no end of history, which was the point you were trying to make, here:


The progression of the history of human societies ends here - at this classless society.

We have yet to see where Marx says this, or anything like it.

The other quote comes not from Marx but from here:

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/o.htm

This is not a Bible of Marxism, but a page that reports opinion as much as it does fact.

The rest of what you say is opinion, too, to which you are, of course, welcome. But we still await the textual proof from Marx's own work.

By the way, please use the quote button, since it is not always easy to decide what in your posts is a quote and what are your own views.

[Hyacinth]

The progression of the history of human societies ends here - at this classless society.

Marx did not believe this:


The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production - antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formations brings, therefore, the prehistory of human society to a close.

[Vincent]

Just quickly then.

Marx didn't have to say 'history ends at communism' - it is implied, and I am arguing for that.

In simple and obvious and probably 'vulgar' terms - if the history of human societies is the history of class struggle, and if that class struggle is the mechanism that drives human society through its phases, then communism - being a classless state - will not evolve, via the mechanism of class struggle, through to another stage. Thus, the history of human societies, if it is the history of class struggle, ends at communism.

Now in dot point form....

-the history of human societies is the history of class struggle
-this is taken to mean that the mechanism by which human society progresses through history is 'class struggle'.
-class struggle ends at communism.
-no class struggle, no progression of human society, no history of that progression.

If you seriously can't operate without quotes, then I give up!

But, to clarify and perhaps make you see my argument in a different light - I am not anti-Marxist and I am not reactionary. I am curious and not afraid of questioning anything - and I'm not afraid to admit I only do this within the confines of an Ivory Tower (that is, I am just using my brain for the heck of it). I never meant to have myself identified with those who would call Marxism an eschatology as a slur, it was simply the result of a synthesis of ideas.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


Marx didn't have to say 'history ends at communism' - it is implied, and I am arguing for that.

And we are disputing this.

Unless you can find somewhere in Marx's work that confirms what you allege, you will need either to withdraw this opinion (derived from notorious reactionaries) or qualify it in some way.


In simple and obvious and probably 'vulgar' terms - if the history of human societies is the history of class struggle, and if that class struggle is the mechanism that drives human society through its phases, then communism - being a classless state - will not evolve, via the mechanism of class struggle, through to another stage. Thus, the history of human societies, if it is the history of class struggle, ends at communism.

This is a summary of past history. Nowhere does Marx pass an opinion of the future long-term development of humanity. In fact, there are things that Engels said that indicate he thought that things could go backwards in the long distant future (for example, when the Sun begins to cool).


I am curious and not afraid of questioning anything - and I'm not afraid to admit I only do this within the confines of an Ivory Tower (that is, I am just using my brain for the heck of it). I never meant to have myself identified with those who would call Marxism an eschatology as a slur, it was simply the result of a synthesis of ideas.

By all means question things, but then, if you are going to question Marx, you will need to get your facts right.


If you seriously can't operate without quotes, then I give up!

I did not say I could not 'operate without quotes', what I said was this:


By the way, please use the quote button, since it is not always easy to decide what in your posts is a quote and what are your own views.

Seems you have difficulty reading and understanding what I say, and not just Marx.

[Vincent]

Unless you can find somewhere in Marx's work that confirms what you allege, you will need either to withdraw this opinion (derived from notorious reactionaries) or qualify it in some way.

Well, okay, I'll say this - it's not my opinion. It's a thought experiment, if anything. Something I did to practice historical analysis through an interesting and entertaining lens - namely, eschatological belief. If it's been used by reactionaries as a slur against Marxism, then I certainly will not actively endorse it, and will stop at saying 'it was just an essay'.


This is a summary of past history. Nowhere does Marx pass an opinion of the future long-term development of humanity. In fact, there are things that Engels said that indicate he thought that things could go backwards in the long distant future (for example, when the Sun begins to cool).

Good, this is useful. Another post noted this as well - that Marx was referring to prehistory. My assumption was that Marx was primarily concerned with the workings of this prehistory. So, then the conclusion of my first post probably should have read 'the prehistory of human society ends here'. Okay, so THAT history ends at communism.


By all means question things, but then, if you are going to question Marx, you will need to get your facts right.

I don't necessarily think the problem here is the facts, I think the problem is the interpretation of Marx and Engels.



Seems you have difficulty reading and understanding what I say, and not just Marx.

I wasn't referring to you're comment about the quote button - that's fine. I was simply saying that I don't think its always necessary to quote others. This is referring to what seems to be your general opinion that I need to produce a text of Marx which says what I'm saying. This is not necessary, especially when I'm talking about an interpretation. I interpreted pieces of text, people disagreed, that's that.

And, your personal attack was unwarranted and unnecessary.

[ZeroNowhere]

ZeroNowhere:



In fact, he did when he was young --, but in his defence, he had unwisely appropriated the ideas of one of his teachers, a Hegel 'scholar' called Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus who confused Kant and Fichte's system with Hegel's, Here is what I have posted on this in Philosophy:



http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

There is no evidence in his mature work that Marx still accepted this schema, and later Marxists (such as Plekhanov and Lenin) rejected it as far too crude.

However, even in his early work, Marx referred to this a 'wooden trichotomy'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis,_antithesis,_synthesis
Hm, I do know that he used the words, but I don't remember him using the exact formula. When he attributed it to Hegel, he was probably echoing Feuerbach's criticism of Hegel's focus on the affirmation, negation, and negation of the negation. He was criticizing Hegel for reducing things to logical categories in that section, I believe. Either way, he doesn't really seem to be advocating it (rather the opposite), and it doesn't form a major part of his main works or criticism of Hegel, so I don't really see why the hell people find it worth making threads about it every month or so.
Of course, Engels didn't go through the process of criticism of Hegel, which is presumably where the diamat crap comes from.


He took the hunch and spread into a deadly, abstract machinery.
...And I was complaining about the threads on it. :lol:

[Hyacinth]

Good, this is useful. Another post noted this as well - that Marx was referring to prehistory. My assumption was that Marx was primarily concerned with the workings of this prehistory. So, then the conclusion of my first post probably should have read 'the prehistory of human society ends here'. Okay, so THAT history ends at communism.
Except that if it is only "[t]he history of all hitherto existing society [that] is the history of class struggle" the end of class struggle is not the end of history, and, as such, not eschatological, insofar as eschatology is concerned with 'the final events in the history of the world'. The end of a certain phase of history is hardly analogous to the end of history, except for superficially so insofar as they are both the end of something. But if you use 'eschatology' in this extended sense to refer to the end of whatever, then the analogy that you've drawn is uninteresting; any end could be construed as eschatological on such a reading.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


I don't necessarily think the problem here is the facts, I think the problem is the interpretation of Marx and Engels.

Well, it is about the facts, since it is a fact that Marx never said what you alleged of him in your first post.


I wasn't referring to you're comment about the quote button - that's fine. I was simply saying that I don't think its always necessary to quote others. This is referring to what seems to be your general opinion that I need to produce a text of Marx which says what I'm saying. This is not necessary, especially when I'm talking about an interpretation. I interpreted pieces of text, people disagreed, that's that.

And why is it so hard to use the quote button when you are quoting others?


And, your personal attack was unwarranted and unnecessary.

Apologies, but you did sort of ask for it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ZeroNowhere:

In fact he uses it several times in The Poverty of Philosophy, for example, here:


If we had M. Proudhon's intrepidity in the matter of Hegelianism we should say: it is distinguished in itself from itself. What does this mean? Impersonal reason, having outside itself neither a base on which it can pose itself, nor an object to which it can oppose itself, nor a subject with which it can compose itself, is forced to turn head over heels, in posing itself, opposing itself and composing itself – position, opposition, composition. Or, to speak Greek – we have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. For those who do not know the Hegelian formula: affirmation, negation and negation of the negation. That is what language means. It is certainly not Hebrew (with due apologies M. Proudhon); but it is the language of this pure reason, separate from the individual. Instead of the ordinary individual with his ordinary manner of speaking and thinking we have nothing but this ordinary manner in itself – without the individual....

So what is this absolute method? The abstraction of movement. What is the abstraction of movement? Movement in abstract condition. What is movement in abstract condition? The purely logical formula of movement or the movement of pure reason. Wherein does the movement of pure reason consist? In posing itself, opposing itself, composing itself; in formulating itself as thesis, antithesis, synthesis; or, yet, in affirming itself, negating itself, and negating its negation....

But once it has managed to pose itself as a thesis, this thesis, this thought, opposed to itself, splits up into two contradictory thoughts – the positive and the negative, the yes and no. The struggle between these two antagonistic elements comprised in the antithesis constitutes the dialectical movement. The yes becoming no, the no becoming yes, the yes becoming both yes and no, the no becoming both no and yes, the contraries balance, neutralize, paralyze each other. The fusion of these two contradictory thoughts constitutes a new thought, which is the synthesis of them. This thought splits up once again into two contradictory thoughts, which in turn fuse into a new synthesis. Of this travail is born a group of thoughts. This group of thoughts follows the same dialectic movement as the simple category, and has a contradictory group as antithesis. Of these two groups of thoughts is born a new group of thoughts, which is the antithesis of them....

Apply this method to the categories of political economy and you have the logic and metaphysics of political economy, or, in other words, you have the economic categories that everybody knows, translated into a little-known language which makes them look as if they had never blossomed forth in an intellect of pure reason; so much do these categories seem to engender one another, to be linked up and intertwined with one another by the very working of the dialectic movement. The reader must not get alarmed at these metaphysics with all their scaffolding of categories, groups, series, and systems. M. Proudhon, in spite of all the trouble he has taken to scale the heights of the system of contradictions, has never been able to raise himself above the first two rungs of simple thesis and antithesis; and even these he has mounted only twice, and on one of these two occasions he fell over backwards.

Up to now we have expounded only the dialectics of Hegel. We shall see later how M. Proudhon has succeeded in reducing it to the meanest proportions. Thus, for Hegel, all that has happened and is still happening is only just what is happening in his own mind. Thus the philosophy of history is nothing but the history of philosophy, of his own philosophy. There is no longer a “history according to the order in time,” there is only “the sequence of ideas in the understanding.” He thinks he is constructing the world by the movement of thought, whereas he is merely reconstructing systematically and classifying by the absolute method of thoughts which are in the minds of all.


Quoted from here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm), bold added.

It is plain from this that Marx thought that this traid was Hegel's, or that it expressed Hegel's method, and he was wrong.

Small wonder then that he adandoned it in his later work.

[ZeroNowhere]

ZeroNowhere:

In fact he uses it several times in The Poverty of Philosophy, for example, here:



Quoted from here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm), bold added.

It is plain from this that Marx thought that this traid was Hegel's, or that it expressed Hegel's method, and he was wrong.

Small wonder then that he adandoned it in his later work.
Yes, but he didn't seem to be endorsing it so much as criticizing it. I was actually referring to that passage in my last post.

[Vincent]

In the afterward to the second German edition of Capital I, Marx seems to explain himself well:


My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, ie, the process of thinking, which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea'. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world relfected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.So yes, Marx criticised Hegel's 'mystified dialectic', but did not completly reject the basic dialectic formula, it seems (from the same as above):


The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion ... The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.Now, I don't take these passages to be conclusive, but certainly indicative of a general sympathy for some kind of dialectic - certainly opposed to Hegel's. Though, Marx does account for his use of Hegelian jargon in Capital: '...here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, [I] coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him (Hegel).'

But, that said, I totally agree that some Kantian-cross-Fichte spin on Hegelianism kicked started Marx. Here, in a letter to his father, Marx says:


From the idealism which, by the way, I had compared with the idealism of Kant and Fichte, I arrived at the point of seeking the idea in reality itself. If previously the gods had dwelt above the earth, now the became its centre ... I had read fragments of Hegel's philosophy, the grotesque craggy melody of which did not appeal to me. Once more I wanted to dive into the sea, but with the definite intention of establishing that the nature of the mind is just as necessary, concrete and firmly bases as the nature of the body.The problem is, I think, that when speaking of or criticising Hegel, Marx is generally concerned with the idealism, and not its 'application' to a basic dialectic formula.

I don't know. Is this helpful?