File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-10-22.195, message 96


Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 23:12:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: Carl Davidson <cdavidson-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: A Revolutionary Class


You've got it exactly right, Adam.  Marx counterposed science to ideology,
not "bourgeois ideology" vs "proletarian ideology" or "bourgeois science" vs
"proletarian science."  I think he would find our dogmatists ludicrous.


At 12:57 PM 10/21/96 GMT, Adam Rose wrote:
>
>Rob Schaap writes:
>> 
>> Dr Bedggood's point is well taken.  Let's go back a generation, to Lukacs -
>> for it is in his idealist construal I sense some of Habermas's inspiration.
>>  I'm using Gareth Jones's critique of Lukacs's H&CC here.
>> 
>> For Lukacs, 'all truth is relative to the standpoint of individual classes
>> (and) a universal subjectivity can only be objective'.
>> 
>
>Hmm. Marx claimed to be scientific, not just "from the point of view
>of the proleteriat" , but scientific, period. I think this claim is
>correct, and I think this stems from the peculiliar position of
>the working class under capitalism : it is completely cut off from the
>means of production. At the same time, capitalism, because it continuously
>revolutionises the means of production and therefore the means of mental
>production ( Bob Dylan's "God on their side" is the best expostion
>of this, IMO ! ) , gives workers the opportunity to see through 
>ruling ideology in a way not open to previous revolutionary classes.
>Also, capitalism pushes forward the integration of the means of production
>and therefore by necessity communication ( eg Marx's discussion of railways
>in the Communist Manifesto ). All this makes the view of the world from the
>standpoint of the proletariat also an "objective" one, in the sense
>that it is possible to approach things free of ideology.
>
>
>> Now Jones, a materialist Marxist (I don't know if many on this list would
>> accept that there are 'idealist Marxists'?) worries about this because the
>> generation of meaning by the class subject is Lukacs's historical focus,
>> not the material allocation of social roles imposed by the mode of
>> production.  
>> 
>> Here's where I get confused.  I interpret Adam, Andy and Hugh (sorry if I
>> misrepresent any of you) as agreeing that what's needed is a moment of
>> identity between proletarian as object and as subject.  That's what I
>> reckon too.  That's what I thought Lukacs was saying, wasn't it (on page
>> 142 of the 1971 Merlin edition of H&CC)?  
>
>That's what I thought Luckas was saying when I read H&CC a long time ago.
>
>However, I would argue that it is possible to arrive at a true understanding
>before the day of the socialist revolution. In fact, it bloody well better
>be possible, otherwise how can we prepare in advance for the revolution ?
>And if we don't prepare in advance, the revolution will inevitably be defeated,
>and so, in Luckas' terms, we'll never achieve "a moment of identity between
>proletarian as object and as subject" - so we'll be stuffed for ever.
>
>Hence the importance of the argument that it is possible for a minority
>of workers to become fully class conscious before a revolution, which 
>I outlined above.
>
>But, this truth doesn't drop from the sky, or tablets of stone. Truth
>is a practical concept, tested in practise. This way of understanding
>truth avoids an elitist conception of theory, IMO, since it is exists
>in a dialectical relationship with practise, rather than falling from
>the sky onto the chosen people. Hence the argument of whether the USSR
>was socialist is not simply or even primarily about Russia : the main
>reason why a discussion about Russia is important is that a false view
>of the USSR has led many parties and individuals in the West up the
>garden path in their everyday run of the mill practise.
>
>> Now, Habermas. . .   
>
>I think it's unfair to Luckas to hold him responsible for Habermas.
>Luckas was after all a practical revolutionary, who was struggling
>to find a philosophical way out of the static, vulgar version of
>2nd international Marxism, in order to make a revolution, as did 
>Lenin and Gramsci ( interestingly, Gramsci arrived at Marx not from Hegel
>but from  Croce, about whom I know nothing other than his name and that he
>wrote during the Italian bourgeois revolution, while Hegel wrote during
>the German bourgeois revolution ) at the same time for the same reasons.
>Habermas in contrast used theory as a flight from practise.
>
>Adam.
>
>
>
>Adam Rose
>SWP
>Manchester
>UK
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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>
>
Keep On Keepin' On



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