Czy

4. Lenin and Trotsky, as men who had to deal with the upheaval of social revolution, and as men who had grasped the wheel of history in an attempt to steer it, tend to emphasise Engels' more militant and mobile attitude to morality and ethics - emphasising its role in class struggle. Lenin wrote, "morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, a communist society." (Lenin, 1920 Speech at 3rd Komsomol Congress)

I'll let you decide which of these positions you can live with as a moral nihilist and which you think are incompatible.

3. Kautsky, in his Origins of Christianity, posits a naturalist explanation for morals, emerging from an inherent 'social instinct'. He argues that this social instinct becomes compromised and distorted with the outgrowth of class societies, most typically as religious systems. Because socialism pays honour to man's instinct for socialibility, and once again places men on an equal footing with each other, it is the best chance of recovering the collective ethic of classless association.

I'm not an expert on ethics, but here's what I know about prominent Marxist approaches.

1. Marx's early writings take a position not dissimilar to your own, viewing morality as a form of social control, placing constraints on individual behaviour, and he foresees that the future communist society will do away with morality altogether, as one its preconditions is the emancipation of individuals from social constraint of all kinds, both material and ideological.

2. Engels later begins to argue that morality is based in the material relations of production and has a necessary class bias, but that the morality of the proletariat is destined to become the universal morality as the proletariat are the universal class of humanity and its class rule will universalise all human relations. There is reason to suppose, but less clear evidence, that as Marx engaged with the new anthropological literature emerging in the 1970s, that his view swung closely in agreement with Engels.

/cont...

Hey, there. Interesting debate. I might reply further when I get more time. In the meantime, I think Kautsky does a good job of applying historical materialism in his Origins of Christianity. This chapter is apposite.

your posts actually have content.

you actually seem smart. which is hard to find on revleft

Cool Serge avatar.

Serge got around a lot- from Bonnot to Lenin, no less!

Heh. Well, thanks for the request, but you'll probably be disappointed to see that my posts are mainly incoherent ramblings.

Why the friend request?