Why are we leftists obsessed about theory?

[The Borg]

Quite straightforward question. To me the most revolutionary aspect of Marxist materialism is presicely the fact that this form of materialism is not some theoretical dogma, but the rejection of overly dogmatic theories in favour of concrete and practical revolutionary action. Marx was particularly pissed off at the inability of capitalists to see the reality of their system and what it does to people on the one hand, and the capability of utopian socialists to find excuses for their inaction on the other. This he saw as the weakness of philosophy, and it is this point that he wanted to make with his famous quote: "philosophy just tries to understand the world, when the point is to change it."

The way I see it, Marxist philosophy is more of an anti-philosophy. Not in the way that it rejects all theory and philosophy, but in a way that wants to give theory a secondary support role in relation to action.

I also claim, that the people most obsessed about theoretical correctness, are the biggest sectarian nutjobs in the movement.

Instead of deciding your action based on theory, make your theories merely parts of your action.

Right?

[Marxaveli]

Very interesting question comrade.

The thing with theory is, it isn't just that is attempted to be put into material practice, but it also results from it. I would say that Marxist materialism (and Marxism in general) is a science though more than it is a philosophy, and the famous quote you noted is representative of that. To me, Marx did for history what Darwin did for biological science and evolution. But unlike the hard sciences, such as Newtonian physics, the science of Marxism cannot be tested as it is a social and historical science. The context of history has the problem that it is subject to interpretation, and thus theory can easily get in the way, even for something as materially concrete as Marxism. This is true for both us leftists and non-leftists. Unfortunately we cannot go back in a time machine and change history or experiment with another model of Socialism to see the results. Marxism in a sense is self-correcting though just like the hard sciences, if we look at the historical facts of a particular revolution and analyzed what went wrong, we can use that as a model for what not to do in the future, but again, historical facts unlike the hard sciences, are open to interpretation. So I agree that we need to solve the crisis of theory, but how we go about doing this, I do not know. Plenty of comrades in here will probably know more than I do though.

[Drosophila]

Theory should certainly not be subordinated to action. Instead, the two should go hand-in-hand. Without theory, action is useless. Without action, theory is useless.

We see this far too often in the current situation of the left. People are so concerned with direct action that they forget what they really stand for. Theory in this way fuels constructive action.

[Mr. Natural]

Theory and practice constitute a dialectical unity: praxis. Marx was making this point with the quotation offered (the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach): "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

Marx also wrote that the philosophy of his time was to the real world as masturbation was to sexual love, but in this he was again opposing passive, solely contemplative theory and philosophy.

Marx: "Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses." (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction)

Revolutionaries must not avoid theory, but develop it. That's us. Our job is to develop a viable revolutionary organizing theory and bring it to life and praxis.

I believe Marx and Engels would approve this message. My red-green best.

[Comrades Unite!]

Drosophilia has the correct interpretation on the matter.

Exactly where do you expect to get without theory? Action and Theory should seamlessly flow through each other achieving maximum results.

'Civilize the mind and make savage the body'

[Jimmie Higgins]

Of course theory doesn't matter to revolutionaries if it is not connected to action - this is true for revolutionaries as it is for scientists who want to use theory to create new technologies.

Marx wrote about how revolutionary classes (and this is true of the bourgeois and why there was an explosion of scientific discovery and application as this class began to grow and challenge the dominant ideas and ruling classes of their day) need this unity of theory and action that any establishment doesn't necessarily need. So this is most reflected in social sciences and history where in capitalist societies a mass clear understanding of how society works would be as dangerous and a challenge to the myths they base their hegemony on as scientific laws were to Church doctrine where the stars were as set and fixed in the heavens as the position of kings and serfs were in society.

So in modern academia there is a need to actually make things abstract and separate social theory from social action and practice. Theories are neither here nor there in the "soft scientists" and one person's academic Marxist theory sits beside another's feminist theory, all just different ways of looking at the world as if changing the lenses of your glasses. Or then there's just Post-modernism which sometimes just theorizes on the uselessness of trying to understand things through theory.

This isn't true of "hard sciences" though because theory is still useful for finding new technologies and understanding the natural world better to turn it into profits! The most devout Christian who is an Airline CEO probably won't go with the engineer who says they reject the theory of gravity and theories of aerodynamics in favor of a Creationist "God Wills Flight with Invisible Angel Wings" theory... well not to design his planes anyway, maybe to run a charter school in a poor neighborhood.

But for the Left, while some of this general atmosphere in society probably does have an impact, I think the real reason for a tendency of some to become dogmatic with their theory is not necessarily for these reasons. IMO it's basically the lack of both class and revolutionary struggle over the last generation. So on the one hand we have a bunch of different ideas and theories of how our class might liberate itself, but no access to actual praxis in a meaningful or large-scale sense. It would be like if the engineers in my previous example had a bunch of theories about aerodynamics or gravity but were locked in a cell with no windows. Maybe they could examine some small tests of their theories using paper airplanes, but they woudn't be able to see all the variables of real flight or know for sure that under real conditions rather than in a small test with fewer variables (or different variables) their theories would actually ... ahem... fly.

[The Borg]

There are many good points, but I want to correct one misconseption. I am not suggesting that we abandon theory. I am merely saying that it should be in close relation with action.

For example, the Greek communist party were very pessimistic about the occupy movement because it failed to conform into some abstract theoretical dogma. This is what I would like to avoid, and instead suggest that all theory is subject to action. If occupy movement is deemed a useful political tool, it should be used and theories adjusted accordingly. Not the other way around, so that we keep the old theories and try to adjust our societies accordingly.

[blake 3:17]

There are many good points, but I want to correct one misconseption. I am not suggesting that we abandon theory. I am merely saying that it should be in close relation with action.

I agree with the spirit of what you're saying. Endless hairsplitting on esoteric topics can be paralyzing. I would advise against forcing all intellectual pursuits into guides for immediate practical action.


For example, the Greek communist party were very pessimistic about the occupy movement because it failed to conform into some abstract theoretical dogma. This is what I would like to avoid, and instead suggest that all theory is subject to action. If occupy movement is deemed a useful political tool, it should be used and theories adjusted accordingly. Not the other way around, so that we keep the old theories and try to adjust our societies accordingly.


The Greek CP doesn't have a monopoly on this. It's pretty common amongst most of the Marxist Left. A weird kind of panic can set in when movements don't conform to some master plan. Genuine movements are messy and complicated and exciting.

[l'Enfermé]

Lenin wrote in WITBD that "without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement". Engels, in 1870s, that the German worker's movement came to be the vanguard of the international worker's movement specifically because it was the first one to conduct it's struggles on three sides - the political, the "practical-economic" and the theoretical. Clearly he placed the theoretical struggle on par with the other two - and therein lies the superiority of Marxism over other revolutionary trends, like Anarchism, which disregards politics and theory.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I would like to add that we might be careful not to do it wrong (no stalinist dictatoriat).
Hence so many a theory.

...i think...