"The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the l

[bailey_187]

In the 18th Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte, Marx said:

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue."

Marx gives the good examples of Luther and Paul, French Revolution and Roman Republic and 1848 and 1789. But can anyone think of any examples of present movements (reactionary or progressive) that "conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history " ?

[New Tet]

In the 18th Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte, Marx said:

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue."

Marx gives the good examples of Luther and Paul, French Revolution and Roman Republic and 1848 and 1789. But can anyone think of any examples of present movements (reactionary or progressive) that "conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history " ?

The Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy each invoked a romantic version of their own real or imaginary imperial past, respectively.

In the U.S. the reactionary liberals invoke FDR and JFK, though that's not as far back from now as, say, the Roman Republic was from 1789.

Maybe the ruling classes of our times have run out of glorious pasts to invoke at a moment of crisis because they weigh too heavily upon their brains--excuse me Karl--like a fucking nightmare.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

The way modern revolutionary groups always have to invoke the glorious memory of 1848/1917/36/68 (delete as applicable)? Islamism's a pretty clear example of this as well, I would've thought.

[ls]

The way modern revolutionary groups always have to invoke the glorious memory of 1848/1917/36/68 (delete as applicable)? Islamism's a pretty clear example of this as well, I would've thought.

What? Elaborate?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

What? Elaborate?
The original Marx quote talked about how, f'r instance, the first Protestants justified their actions by reference to Biblical characters like Paul and the 1848 revolution in France claimed legitimacy from the 1793-5 revolutionary tradition. In the same way, modern Leninists tend to justify themselves by reference to, well, Lenin, as well as various other historical figures, and we automatically reach for the Ukraine and Spain as proof that anarchism can work. I'd see that as being an example of what Marx called "conjur[uing] up the spirits of the past... borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes."
With Islamism, it's even clearer; I'd say the basic material root of Islamism is the need of (some factions of) the Arab and Muslim bourgeoisie to try and gain a degree of independence from Western imperialism to assert their own power, but obviously they're never going to attract many people willing to martyr themselves for the cause if you put it like that, fighting against the crusaders in the name of Allah and Muhammed (or whatever) sounds much more appealing. Again, thoroughly modern interests appealing to the past for legitimacy.

[BobKKKindle$]

A specific example is Humanism during the Renaissance. The thinkers who are associated with this current - for example, Machiavelli - consciously looked back on Ancient Greece and Rome as periods of artistic development and political virtue, and, in many cases, their political writings incorporated elements of classical Republicanism, such as Machiavelli's support for a civil religion as an alternative to what he regards as the corrupting and depoliticizing influence of Christianity, his belief that a mixed government would avoid the development of a tyranny, and that the middle class can serve as repository of political virtue in republican polities, which remind us of Aristotle's concept of the golden mean. You could also make the same point about quite a few Enlightenment historians and political theorists - in Gibbon's memoirs, for example, we find him continuously styling himself as a senator (he was also an MP in Britain at the time) and most famous portrait of Catharine Macaulay, another famous British historian, has her dressed in republican garb. I think these examples would be particularly impressive as they're all historians, and people you're likely to come across when you study history, especially if you do an option on historiography.

[Hit The North]

Chavez and the whole Bolivarian thing is the most obvious current example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Revolution

[Lyev]

The Zapatistas (EZLN) are a good one. Obviously their name is borrowed from Zapata and the Liberation Army of the South. Oh and another is François-Noël 'Gracchus' Babeuf, an early French anarchist and socialist theorist. His name is borrowed from the ancient Roman Gracchi brothers who were executed for trying to bring out land reform in the 2nd c. BC.