A conversational definition of "revolution" by Marx

[el_chavista]

Do you know whether this is a real quotation from Marx? (translated from Spanish):

The revolution is a material social power that subjugates our intelligence, captures our feelings, and connects our consciousness to our reason. It creates a chain from which one can not be released without breaking one's heart. It is a demon against which man can not win more than submitting to it.

[RedAtheist]

Even if that is a real Marx quote I am free to say I don't like it. I don't want my intelligence "subjugated" or to be forced to "submit" to a "chain". I want a revolution which enables me to break my chains dammit!

[cb9's_unity]

If it is Marx then it is not as bad as it first looks. One has to understand that Marx looked at socialism from both a scientific and revolutionary perspective. Science will always be a more 'intellectual' field than politics.

If it is really Marx then what I think he is getting at is that revolution is a naturally biased and emotional affair. There is less room for error in revolution, and when one is wrong it is much more emotionally traumatizing than if one is wrong about some abstract hypothesis. Basically, you have to look at where Marx was coming from. The problem with the quote is that almost nobody is as intelligent as Marx was (even less have the intellectual standards he did), so most people will actually become more intelligent during the course of a revolution.

Either way, a goal of the revolution is for people to become more intelligent after it than during or before it.

[Revolutionair]

It has 0 results on Google, so I'm guessing it's not a real Marx quote. (else it would have found a link to a site like marxists.org right?)

[cb9's_unity]

It has 0 results on Google, so I'm guessing it's not a real Marx quote. (else it would have found a link to a site like marxists.org right?)

He said he translated it from spanish, so it may exist in slightly altered form in either english or german or whatever language el_chavista originally read it in.

[Revolutionair]

In that case, El Chavista, could you give us the original quote (in Spanish)?

[el_chavista]

The quotation was in someone's post at a local forum here in Venezuela.

The text is highly poetic in Spanish:


La revolución es una fuerza social material que subyuga nuestra inteligencia, atrapa nuestros sentimientos, y une nuestra conciencia a nuestra razón. Crea una cadena de la que uno no se puede liberar sin destrozarse el corazón. Es una demonia contra la cual el hombre no puede triunfar más que sometiéndose a ella.

[ckaihatsu]

The revolution is a material social power that subjugates our intelligence, captures our feelings, and connects our consciousness to our reason. It creates a chain from which one can not be released without breaking one's heart. It is a demon against which man can not win more than submitting to it.


Regardless of who wrote this the content speaks to a number of real material dynamics -- probably the first is that many people want to transcend the circumstances of their own circumscribed lives and be part of something greater than themselves. Considering that revolution happens to be in most people's interests there's a unique compatibility for most with the project of revolution.


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

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