Re: [Marxism] Theocracy

[Greg McDonald <sabocat59@xxxxxxx>]

Haines Brown wrote:

<The thermodynamic concept of entropy has been (perhaps somewhat
adventurously) expanded over the years to explain emergence in
scientific terms. An emergent system is one that gives rise to
novelty, to a state less probable than an initial state. I (also
adventurously) associate the traditional Marxist notion of
contradiction with a thermodynamic engine, which is an explanation of
the conditions for development (novelty, neg-entropy, creativity) to
take place.

The point of this is that human relationships (association) give rise
to social capacities that are greater than the sum of individual
capacities. Through solidarity, we gain a potency to transcend the
circumstances we inherit from the past. Our social being represents a
potential for development, for self-transcendence.

There's nothing here to suggest that the working class has any
particular qualities that make it superior. There is no need to assume
it is any more intelligent, imaginative or more virtuous, But what the
working class does have is a potency, a real possibility, for being
creative that arises from class participation. I happen personally to
feel that most workers are nicer people than the bourgeoisie. My
acquaintances and friends on the whole are working class. But that
bias or personal preference on my part is quite beside the point.

Even if workers on the whole were no better than anyone else, they are
distinguished by their depending primarily on social ties, on
solidarity, for personal development. The bourgeoisie depends for its
development primarily on the private possession of assets of some
kind.>

Right, but I guess the point is how can the working class arrive at  
class participation, being that material circumstances tend to  
reinforce egoism, anomie, isolation, etc. In other words, material  
scarcity tends to pit one working class person against another, and  
to get folks to step outside themselves and join together in specific  
projects seems to be a fundamentally momentous task almost requiring  
some religious-type conversion, allowing people to step outside  
themselves.  Personal development presupposes material comfort, at  
least according to my reading of Erich Fromm.  Your perspective is  
more like that found in Robert Redfield's ethnography, whereas mine  
is more of an Oscar Lewis point of view.  Interesting that they both  
wrote ethnographies based on their experiences in the same mexican  
village.

This is why it seems that regimes such as Chavez' in VZLA are almost  
always necessary to cajole the working class into some form of unity,  
providing the material and institutional support necessary for class  
consciousness to unfold.  In that sense perhaps Lenin was correct.  
The secular version of god becomes the party. But woe to the  
leadership that insists on immediate societal perfectability and  
eliminating those who stand in the way. Therein lies the road to  
perdition, which is why Enlightenment thought can be so dangerous.  
You can see it in Hitchens' and Harris' justification for the purging  
of muslims, to give a contemporary example. In other words, what we  
need is a new testament version of the party as god, and not the old  
testament version.

Greg McD

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