Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 15:58:19 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Marx, Bhaskar and self-consciousness


Dear Sean,

>>You seem to have taken some of my arguments personally. I did not intend
>>this.
>>
>
>Fine: 'dogmatism', 'scientism', 'empiricism', 'in the clutches of the 
>bourgeoisie' - I'd sure hate it if you did get personal!

Doubtless I've been more forthright and less tactful than I should have
been (I usually am). I don't say these things to insult you, however,
but to describe as accurately as I can aspects of what I take to be your
stance. My whole case re Marx, e.g., rests importantly on the
proposition that the interpretation of his work has been hi-jacked by
the bourgeois enlightenment - if this includes your own interpretation,
as I suggest, then you are indeed (pro tem!) 'in the clutches of the
bourgoisie'.

 
>>*You* (just like the bourgeoisie), declare it impossible for people
>>generally to love one another, 

[snip]

>Mervyn, this is not what I said at all. What I said was that 'unconditional 
>love' was not necessary to either construct or sustain communism.

This is what you also said on 5th July:

<Doctors and community workers 
<doubtless care for the welfare of those in their charge. But do they
<love them? And could they do so in any conceivable model of society?

>In 
>neither of my last two posts did I identify love simply with the family or 
>biology. Instead I manifestly identified it with 'close interpersonal 
>relations' as well as 'known others', which of course includes kin, friends, 
>and many personally unacquainted individuals. 

'Family and friends', then. How do you sort out the 'unacquainted' who
are worthy of love from those who are not?

>But in none of my posts have I made any pronouncements about the 'ultimate 
>constituents' of reality.

You've espoused Marx's metaphysical materialism, haven't you?

>Nor do I believe in absolute and infallible 
>knowledge, and have given you no cause in my posts to suggest that I do (are 
>you calling me dogmatic again?).

Of course you don't believe in such, but you sometimes speak as if you
do. What I had in mind on this occasion was:

>> >There is absolutely nothing in Marx's argument which lends any 
>>legitimation
>> >to a religious interpretation.
***

>You have asserted 
>that my 'slogans' are compatible with a religious outlook, but have not 
>substantiated this.

I have repeatedly pointed out in this and other contexts that the
Bhaskarian (Spinozan, etc) God is in the world, not outside it, so that
to appeal to natural processes is (for those who accept this) to appeal
to the ways of God.

>There is scarcely any textual 
>evidence  that indicates that Marx held a religious sensibility. Again, you 
>haven't engaged with this argument.

I agree with James that there is nothing in the later Marx to suggest
that he departed from the view expressed in the *Excerpts from James
Mill*. You attempt to interpret this piece of evidence away, but I find
your argument unconvincing:

>Marx's argument is not that 
>commodity production is alienating because it prevents us from loving one 
>another. Rather his point is that commodity production drives a wedge 
>between individual needs and species needs, because it reduces our sociality 
>to individuated self-interest 

Does not reduction of our sociality to 'individuated self-interest'
prevent us from loving one another? You certainly agree that the
capacity and need to love and be loved is an aspect of our species
being.


>Argument (2) 
>is congruent with Marx's account of human beings as necessarily 
>co-operative, sociable, rational and self-conscious, and has no need to 
>invoke the stronger claim that freedom depends on our capacity to love one 
>another.

As I have pointed out, in the tradition of dialectical enlightenment,
being 'co-operative, sociable, rational and self-consciousness' includes
loving one another.

>Argument (3) does invoke love, but not necessarily or unambiguously 
>as a condition of existence of communism. Instead it is at least plausible 
>that this should be interpreted as the proposition that love will flourish 
>more widely in society as a result of communism.

Even on such an interpretation Marx clearly thinks this would be a
result of the highest value, not just a convenient by-product. But there
are problems with your interpretation:

>This draws upon (2), and 
>adds to this the proposition that transparently socialised production on 
>behalf of the community, in place of privatised production for 
>self-interested ends, allows each individual to recognise her dependence on 
>the production of others as the essential condition of her own free 
>flourishing. This allows the deepening of our solidarity and caring 
>relations with the community.

'Deepening' presupposes something to deepen, and of course Marx thought
'solidarity and caring' crucial to the struggle for communism, so your
notion that love is just an end-product and not an indispensable means
seems a nonsense. I think, BTW, one of the great strengths of the
dialectic of freedom in DPF is that it centrally incoroporates a
dialectic of 'solidarity and caring'.

James calls vision of unalienated labour based on love and mutual
affirmation in the "Excerpts" the 'front door key' to understanding
Marx's values. The 'backdoor key' is Marx's 

'explicit condemnation of the bourgeois Enlightenment in *The German
Ideology*, supporting Hegel's judgment that the "mutual exploitation"
which is Bentham's utilitarianism is "the final result of
enlightenment". Marx there traces to Hobbes and Locke the origin if the
"obviously stupid" merging of all the manifold relationships of people
in one relation of utility. Nothing in Marx's writings is inconsistent
with that statement of negative value. Unfortunately the history of
Marxism is to a large extent the history of attempts to unlock Marx's
thought using "the Enlightenment" as the only key.... I would claim that
Marx's explicit condemnation of "the Enlightenment" comes from the
traditional dialectical perspective which the Anglo-French enlightenment
rejected...' (43-44)

If this is so - if Marx rejected the bourgeios enlightenment and the
tradition of 'deals', 'having' and competing, etc, and is heir rather to
the tradition of dialectical spiritual enlightenment - the tradition of
'ideals', 'being' and loving, etc,  - it does lend some credence to the
notion that he had an essentially religious sensibility.


>Right, so unconditional love (which hitherto has been defined by you as, 
>well, love that is given unconditionally), actually means commodity 
>production has led us to the brink of environmental catastrophe and has 
>alienated us from our sociality.

This is getting silly. 'The hour of unconditional love has struck' means
that to transcend this situation the species will have to inaugurate a
new social order founded on trust and love. Just as Marx (arguably)
thought.

Luv,

Mervyn







Sean Creaven <seancreaven-AT-hotmail.com> writes
>
>
>
>>From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
>>Reply-To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>>To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>>Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Marx, Bhaskar and self-consciousness
>>Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 01:29:51 +0100
>>
>>Dear Sean,
>>
>>Thanks for your comments, both in your reply to Tobin and in the
>>footnotes.
>>
>>You seem to have taken some of my arguments personally. I did not intend
>>this.
>>
>
>Fine: 'dogmatism', 'scientism', 'empiricism', 'in the clutches of the 
>bourgeoisie' - I'd sure hate it if you did get personal!
>
>
>> >I note that in his reply Mervyn does not bother to
>> >engage with my argument at all, instead resorting to rhetorical 
>>foreclosure:
>> >'Sounds as though the bourgeoisie has got you well and truly in their 
>>grasp!
>> >I take it that this is not a sensible or charitable way to debate.
>>
>>*You* (just like the bourgeoisie), declare it impossible for people
>>generally to love one another, and offer 'institutional guarantees'
>>instead, not me. I've argued that the 'free development etc' is
>>inconceivable without this (transcendentally presupposes it). And loving
>>others is of course quite compatible with being tough. ('At all'!?)
>>
>
>Mervyn, this is not what I said at all. What I said was that 'unconditional 
>love' was not necessary to either construct or sustain communism. I also 
>said that commnism would better allow love to flourish and develop, though 
>it would not be like the unconditional love associated often with 
>interpersonal relations. I also pointed out that there is no evidence that 
>Marx held this perspective either. You still haven't addressed this latter 
>point, instead complaining about 'quote mongering' in order to avoid doing 
>so.
>
>>I've spoken of 'love', not 'unconditional love', though I do say that
>>the latter is a pleonasm. So it does seem somewhat perverse of you to
>>keep attributing the concept of 'unconditional love' to me. It is *you*
>>(it transpires from your comments to Tobin) who makes a distinction
>>between 'unconditional love' and 'love', reserving the former, in truly
>>biologistic fashion, for close kin ('family' first!). This was precisely
>>my point about 'mating', a point you misconstrued among others:
>>
>
>On the contrary, since you say that love is not love unless it is 
>unconditional, no misconstrual of your views on my part has occurred. In 
>neither of my last two posts did I identify love simply with the family or 
>biology. Instead I manifestly identified it with 'close interpersonal 
>relations' as well as 'known others', which of course includes kin, friends, 
>and many personally unacquainted individuals. Of course, the origins of love 
>are probably to be found in kinship relations. The first human societies 
>were extended kinship structures.
>
>> >My usage of
>> >the concept of 'love' is, then, the orthodox (bourgeois?) one of close
>> >interpersonal attachment, which I take to be unproblematic for most 
>>people.
>> >Obviously it is not synonymous with or exhausted by the concept of love 
>>as
>> >'mating of one kind or another', as Mervyn mistakenly and rather
>> >eccentrically asserts.
>>
>>I didn't say it was 'synonymous' with mating. I said that the modern
>>(bourgeois) human being can't conceive of it *independently* of mating -
>>a sentiment which you do your bit to confirm.
>>
>> >There is absolutely nothing in Marx's argument which lends any 
>>legitimation
>> >to a religious interpretation.
>>
>>It's obviously a very big deal to you that Marx definitely (absolutely!)
>>did not have a religious sensibility. That for me is a relatively minor
>>issue, and not resolvable by swapping citations (by his own admission,
>>Marx wasn't God). My main point has been that there doesn't seem to be
>>any necessary incompatibility between a scientific and religious outlook
>>- there seems to be no warrant in modern science for crusading atheism.
>>Personal atheism is one thing, but proclaiming to all and sundry that
>>the cosmos is ultimately material and ontological idealism is definitely
>>wrong seems quite another. Many of your own key pronouncements and
>>slogans, which you clearly assume to be 'materialist', are it seems to
>>me quite compatible with a religious outlook:
>>
>
>But in none of my posts have I made any pronouncements about the 'ultimate 
>constituents' of reality. You seem to be confusing this debate with an 
>entirely different one. Nor do I believe in absolute and infallible 
>knowledge, and have given you no cause in my posts to suggest that I do (are 
>you calling me dogmatic again?).You have argued that Marx had a 
>'fundamentally religious sensibility' and have engaged my contrary view 
>energetically. There is more to this than a statement that religion and 
>science are maybe compatible. So clearly this is not a minor matter for you. 
>Nor is this a minor matter for me, because it seems to me that ontological 
>idealism is not only conceptually and logically weak, but is ethically and 
>politically disastrous (I do not have the time to elaborate on this here. 
>Those who are interested may obtain a copy of my paper on 'realist 
>agnosticism' if they contact me on my personal email). You have asserted 
>that my 'slogans' are compatible with a religious outlook, but have not 
>substantiated this.
>
>
>
>> >our socialised nature was forged by mechanisms of natural
>> >selection
>>
>> >this is essential to our
>> >nature (evolutionary emergence)
>>
>> >love in the sense of
>> >compassion and charity as being part and parcel of our socialised nature
>>
>> >our self-consciousness ensures
>>
>> >compatible with our species being.
>>
>> >what we essentially
>> >are
>>
>> >social laws operate necessarily within the parameters of natural 
>>evolution.
>>
>> >a causal world independent of our will.
>>
>> >the logic of capitalist development
>>
>
>None of these require a religious reading. There is scarcely any textual 
>evidence  that indicates that Marx held a religious sensibility. Again, you 
>haven't engaged with this argument.
>>
>>I think you misconstrue the Bhaskarian notion of free will (in a
>>voluntaristic, and of course bourgeois, fashion). IMO it has nothing to
>>do with the absence of constraint or of struggle, or of the end result
>>corresponding to our will - it means rather that (in an open, non-
>>Laplacean world) we have the capacity to initiate, to create, to engage
>>in transformative praxis - everything isn't determined in advance.
>>
>
>So free will simply means will that isn't entirely free. Much better to say 
>that the concept of free will is actually a bit of bourgeois nonsense, 
>because it is connected with subjectivism and individualism. One can talk 
>more effectively about our human capacities and powers (reasons as causes, 
>etc.) by talking about real degrees of freedom-within-constraint.
>
>
>> >>I agree. And I think 'The hour of unconditional love has struck' one of
>> >>the most unoriginal and banal lines ever delivered in philosophy. And
>> >>yet it very probably has struck!
>> >>
>> >
>> >Really? So our emancipation is nigh? Now this *is* a religious 
>>sensibility
>> >to be taken on faith and authority.
>>
>>No, Sean, that's not what it means (and it seems to me that you yourself
>>invoke much on faith and authority). It means that the marketised
>>pursuit of more and more will imminently lead (is leading) to ecological
>>and spiritual catastrophe - Beckett has seen this more clearly than
>>anyone - and that this can only be averted by 'a revolution far more
>>profound than any of us can perhaps imagine'.
>>
>
>Right, so unconditional love (which hitherto has been defined by you as, 
>well, love that is given unconditionally), actually means commodity 
>production has led us to the brink of environmental catastrophe and has 
>alienated us from our sociality. Apologies for the misunderstanding!
>>Love,
>>
>>Mervyn
>>
>Best
>
>Sean
>>


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