[Marxism] Banal Platitudes and Marxism-Clulesslism (wasRe:Diabolical and Histerical Materialism)

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Jurriaan Bendien, you are free to answer in what way calling D&HM a "banal
platitude" contribute to steering the list into the "humanist maturity" and
away from the "petty vendettas and games of one-upmanship" you call for?"

Reply:

I think if you can recognise banal platitudes for what they are, then you
can get beyond them.

Obviously insofar as the pamphlet strings together a bunch of quotes from
Marx, Engels and Lenin, there are many things in it that you can hardly
disagree with, such as the objective existence of an external world which is
knowable, quantitative changes leading to qualitative changes and so on.

Point is, it represents just the articulation of a dogmatic doctrine.
Conceivably some primitive people might still get some benefit out of
reading it, but wouldn't you rather provide them with the most advanced
knowledge available today? Why base your whole life on what somebody said
fifty or a hundred years ago, without accepting corrections since that time?
It seems a false orthodoxy to me.

The best way of teaching about Marx's conception of history is not touting
all sorts of generalities, but by looking at specific historical examples,
where the method is applied. In this sense, Isaac Deutscher mentioned (if
memory serves me) that Marxism aims to tackle "large and specific problems
of history and society".

When for example Marx wrote Das Kapital, he saw himself as providing proof
of the validity of the conception of history he had previously reached. It
was not a question of touting general verities about human history, but of
specifically investigating an epoch of history, and demonstrating the real
relationship between ideas and practices.

Incidentally, Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko mentions in his book "The Time of
Stalin" that Stalin in the later 1920s got an academic to tutor him in
Hegelian dialectics. The academic disappeared afterwards under mysterious
circumstances. Quite possibly Stalin had him liquidated. Obviously it would
hardly do, if people knew that the "Great Father of the Peoples" had to go
to class to learn about dialectics.

I have no evidence that Nikolai Bukkarin was the real author of "Dialectical
and Historical Materialism". Certainly, the lifeless, simplistic and
pedantic style of the pamphlet does not suggest his authorship. What is true
is that Bukharin was Lenin's chief ideologist, and played an important role
in systematising Marxism into a doctrine, often counterposed to Kautsky (the
"pope" of Marxism).

Personally, while I am a socialist appreciative of Marx's insights, I see no
future in "Marxism". In general, I am rather cautious about the use of
"isms". An "ism" is a way of describing a way of thinking, but as soon as
this way of thinking is transformed into a fixed doctrine or dogma, as it
often is, then aspects of the object to which the "ism" refers are ignored
or caricatured or oversimplified. Lenin was on stronger ground when he said
Marxism was a "guide to action". This suggests a much looser relationship
between theory and reality, and a rejection of timeless, universally
applicable truths.

In general, I am in favour of a post-Marxist kind of historical materialism,
which resists doctrinalisation, accepts and integrates modern scientific
evidence, and distinguishes appropriately between scientific truths and
social values. According to this view, the so-called materialist conception
of history must be modified by the findings of the scientific research and
political action it gives rise to.

That would have been perfectly acceptable to Marx, who said he welcomed all
scientific criticism and was not afraid of political debate, but is not
acceptable to Marxists, who prefer to cling to a doctrine, and who thus
evaluate all statements according to whether they are compatible with that
doctrine. Central to this doctrinalism is the concept of a Marxist party,
i.e. a party founded exclusively on Marx's thought. But I believe that is a
recipe for failure, since Marx's thought is not equivalent to the whole
socialist movement.

A doctrine can provide the comfort of a kind of security I suppose, but it
fails as soon as it is overtaken by events. And it is overtaken by events,
precisely because it is a closed system.

Likewise an ideology provides a quick rationalisation of a totality of
phenomena, but precisely because a genuine scientific investigation of those
phenomena is beyond most people's ability. Yet it is easy to fall into the
trap of thinking that the ideology is identical with the objective reality
to which it refers, in which case the real relationship between ideas and
human practices is distorted. In this sense, dialectical thought offers
relativisations which show the mediations between the ideal and the reality.

Once the errors of the past are let go of, there is an open road ahead.
Stubbornly persisting in the errors just means that the same obstacles
reappear again and again.

Jurriaan



_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism