To what extent is "revision" acceptable

[A.R.Amistad]

Where would one draw the line on acceptable revisionism and opportunist revisionism? For example, I'm coming to have a few minor disagreements with materialism determining our consciousness, but maybe I'm mistaken on this concept as well.

[Buffalo Souljah]

I don't think Marx would argue that our consciousness (whatever that is) is ultimately and finally determined by our environment. True, there is a certain level of "false consciousness" in each individual in society, being that it (society) imposes demands upon him/her that were not "there" to begin with. However, this is where it gets tricky: certain of these tendencies manifest themselves as towing the party line and upholding the status quo and generally "pleasing one's superiors", while others are just natural outgrowths of human relations. The question you raise is where to draw the line between the two. I think that's a very interesting topic. Marx himself was no psychologist, and spoke very little of the individual's struggle: his focus was the broad strokes of vocabulary, social constructs and tendencies that drove the substructure: he wasn't very much a "superstructure" kind of guy.

Now, when you get into the Frankfurt School, people like Marcuse and Benjamin, these guys will say things like "the predominant mode of thought ie, vocabulary, social constructs and tendencies eclipses an individual's ability to find the "good road" and things of the like, but that's really a different strain of Marxism, to boot.

I think some salient points in regards to your question are 1) how far does/has revisionary activity advance(d) individuals' rights; 2) to what extent is revisionism opportunism; 3) do certain strains of reactionary/conservative thought benefit from revisionist tendencies? There are other issues, I know, but I'll just throw those out there for now.

I think you raise a very interesting point, but I think you are mistaken about Marxism's idea of consciousness. I'll look around for some material that might help you with this, and post it here later today.

[blackwave]

Simply ask yourself what's more important, orthodoxy or truth? Then you will have your answer.

[A.R.Amistad]

I don't think Marx would argue that our consciousness (whatever that is) is ultimately and finally determined by our environment. True, there is a certain level of "false consciousness" in each individual in society, being that it (society) imposes demands upon him/her that were not "there" to begin with. However, this is where it gets tricky: certain of these tendencies manifest themselves as towing the party line and upholding the status quo and generally "pleasing one's superiors", while others are just natural outgrowths of human relations. The question you raise is where to draw the line between the two. I think that's a very interesting topic. Marx himself was no psychologist, and spoke very little of the individual's struggle: his focus was the broad strokes of vocabulary, social constructs and tendencies that drove the substructure: he wasn't very much a "superstructure" kind of guy.

Now, when you get into the Frankfurt School, people like Marcuse and Benjamin, these guys will say things like "the predominant mode of thought ie, vocabulary, social constructs and tendencies eclipses an individual's ability to find the "good road" and things of the like, but that's really a different strain of Marxism, to boot.

I think some salient points in regards to your question are 1) how far does/has revisionary activity advance(d) individuals' rights; 2) to what extent is revisionism opportunism; 3) do certain strains of reactionary/conservative thought benefit from revisionist tendencies? There are other issues, I know, but I'll just throw those out there for now.

I think you raise a very interesting point, but I think you are mistaken about Marxism's idea of consciousness. I'll look around for some material that might help you with this, and post it here later today.

I certainly hope that I am wrong. I have been doing some intense research into Historical Materialism, and it seems that every serious Marxist rejects the idea that it is "economic determinism." It seems that "economic determinism" is pretty much a slander used to try to discredit Marxism. From my Marxist and Existentialist point of view, I seem to see dialectical and historical materialism as ideas that correctly explain the objective world. In and of themselves they don't seem to say that individual essence is determined by anything other than their own choices, and I don't quite understand Novak's and Lukacs' hostility to existentialism.

I've also been looking deeper into Lenin's works on philosophy, namely Emperio-Criticism and his 1914 notes on Hegelian Dialectics. Lenin says something that seems to me to be quite compatible with the foudation that existence precedes essence, and that we ourselves determine meaning through our choices.


"Man’s Cognition not only reflects the objective world, but creates it."-Lenin

So tell me if this interpretation seems logical. Lenin shows that there is an external reality outside of ourselves and rejects the idea of extreme empiricism. Makes sense to me, without that science would be in a much darker place and I don't think we existentialists ever rejected external reality (leave that to the phenomenologists) we only deny that external reality, nature has any predetermined meaning. There is no great plan. Lenin stresses that the key to realizing one's existence is by grasping a correct understanding of objective reality. To me, this seems to work with Marxist-Existentialism as well because it sounds parallel to grasping facticity. I personally put a lot more emphasis, I think, on the role of acknowledging facticity and I think its key to being an existential-Marxist. I think Kierkegaard would have labeled people like Bogdanov as living in the despair of necessity. Its a form of denialism, trying to deny the truth, which won't help one attain authenticity. Lenin's notes on Hegel seem to also be compatible with the idea of the existential relation of Being and Nothingness, and he does seem to agree that people are capable of becoming.

But back to materialism as determinism. I honestly have had a hard time grasping the full concept of materialism. In his earlier work, Marx, Engels and Lenin say that consciousness is a reflection of matter, or something along those lines. Is this determinism? I have always considered myself a materialist, and I have even gone so far as to say that existentialism is a fully materialist outlook on the world. I have always thought that all that "exists" in the world is matter, and that everything else is subjective and our own creation (ie, anything from laws of nature to human emotions). I don't think one can say that emotions of "love," "greed" etc. can be said to be determined by matter. I think these are subjective interpretations of matter (objective reality) created by meaning-giving-addicted humans, who give meaning to things by their own freedom.

Forgive me if this is incoherent and if it seems like I'm obsessed with this Marxism-Existentialism thing. I just find that Sartre didn't do it as well as he could have, and I find both philosophies to be compatible, complimentary to each other and inspirational.

[Buffalo Souljah]

Marx equated consciousness with political consciousness, consciousness specifically of one's political and social environment. For him there was no better point of departure for understanding consciousness than real human agency:

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process. (Marx, The German Ideology)
In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness. (ibid)

As far as regards your other concern--that of revisionism/opportunism--I would advise you to read Lenin's State and Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) especially section four (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s4) of the first chapter, which is an attack on Karl Kautsky's (a contemporary of Lenin) "revisionist" Marxism.

I'll address your other comments later-- right now I'm strapped for time.

[AK]

Simply ask yourself what's more important, orthodoxy or truth? Then you will have your answer.
You fucking said it.
<insert "anti-revisionist" flame war here>

[BAM]

To those Marxists who fear straying from "orthodoxy" I always like to quote Marx's favourite motto: "de omnibus dubitandum" ("doubt everything").

As for the question of consciousness, Marx's Theses on Feuerbach remains pivotal, for me:


The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.

So Marx overcomes the old dualism through a new conception of consciousness as human activity. "Materialism" for Marx is not the same as the mechanical materialism of Locke or d'Holbach.


I have been doing some intense research into Historical Materialism, and it seems that every serious Marxist rejects the idea that it is "economic determinism." It seems that "economic determinism" is pretty much a slander used to try to discredit Marxism.

Be aware that most academic Marxism is garbage. Read Marx's original works - critically - and engage with them instead.

[A.R.Amistad]

So my question remains (and maybe I should have made this topic the headline of this thread) is it compatible (in your views) to adhere to existentialist philosophy of the individual and still recognize the importance of dialectical and historical materialism? So fr they seem like compatible ideas to me, if Marxism doesn't advocate the mechanical and determinist materialism of Locke.

[blackwave]

I'm not yet particularly well read in either existentialism or Marxism. But one thing we must remember about Sartre's notion of freedom is that it is always conditioned by what he calls 'facticity', that is the concrete facts about our life, environment and person which condition our choices. In this respect it is not necessarily contradictory to Marx's determinism.
Personally, I don't believe in free will, but I still value the existentialist idea of freedom in certain respects. I am particularly in agreement with Sartre's notion of 'bad faith', that people convince themselves that they are imprisoned by certain things which in fact they could quite easily escape from if only they had the will.

[WhitemageofDOOM]

But back to materialism as determinism. I honestly have had a hard time grasping the full concept of materialism. In his earlier work, Marx, Engels and Lenin say that consciousness is a reflection of matter, or something along those lines. Is this determinism?

That depends what you mean by "Determinism".

Is the future set in stone? No. QM pretty clearly debunks that idea.
But if by "Determinism" you mean "Lacking in magical freewill" than yes, material rejects the notion of concioussness being outside material processes, that human intelligence not a diffrence of kind from any other animals.


I don't think one can say that emotions of "love," "greed" etc. can be said to be determined by matter.

The brain is matter.
The brain creates love, and greed, and all human behavior.

[A.R.Amistad]

That depends what you mean by "Determinism".

Is the future set in stone? No. QM pretty clearly debunks that idea.
But if by "Determinism" you mean "Lacking in magical freewill" than yes, material rejects the notion of concioussness being outside material processes, that human intelligence not a diffrence of kind from any other animals.



The brain is matter.
The brain creates love, and greed, and all human behavior.

Nobody who denies free will denies any of this. Personally, I lean towards compatibilism.

[mlgb]

any degree of revisionism is acceptable, if you can show that you are correct.

[Buffalo Souljah]

But what do you mean by "show"?

"Well, I'm only miserable in the current state of things, but I'll keep going to my 12 hour shift factory job and pretend nothing's wrong with wrapping 50 lbs rolls of heat and oil absorbing industrial textiles with shrink wrap to prepare them for palletization... sigh"

How does this "show" that I am correct?

[Chambered Word]

Does 'revisionism' even have a legitimate meaning at all? It just seems like an epithet used against people who dislike Stalin.