Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 18:22:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: M-TH: YOUNG SIDNEY HOOK


There is a very interesting article by Christopher Phelps, "Towards the
Understanding of Sidney Hook: The Recovery of Marxism", in the current issue
of AGAINST THE CURRENT (vol. XII, no. 2 [new series], May/June 1997, pp.
25-31), adapted from a section of Phelps' forthcoming book (Cornell
University Press, Fall 1997).  I have my misgivings about any Marxist
collaboration in the rehabilitation of pragmatism, but I do have some urgent
historical questions about the impact of young Sid.

I had always dismissed Hook as a Cold War mediocrity.  So I was surprised to
find his second book on Marxism, FROM HEGEL TO MARX, so good.  It is a
valuable guide through the Young Hegelians, information about which was
mighty scarce in the anglophone world in the 1930s.  I was also informed by
our dear comrade Justin, who regrettably thinks there is much commonality
between Marxism and pragmatism, which I categorically deny, that Hook's
first Marxist tome, TOWARDS THE UNDERSTANDING OF KARL MARX (1933), is good
stuff, but rare because Hook would never allow it to be reprinted, which
Phelps confirms.

Phelps traces the main ideas of Hook's work and their reception and
rejection by the Communist Party.  Hook sought to uncover the real Marx from
underneath the rubble of Second International orthodoxy and their selective
appropriation of Engels.  Phelps describes Hook's approach, which from the
article's skeletal description appears much more subtle than some of the
western Marxist cliches we are used to by now.  (Phelps in a footnote
criticizes Paul Buhle for distorting the historical record.)  Also, Hook had
studied much of the relevant literature in German, including the work of Lukacs.

Hook's emphasis on Marxism as a philosophy of social action was combined
with Dewey's pragmatism, and here is where the controversies began.  Hook
received much praise for his efforts, which were pathbreaking in the
American context, but he was also roundly criticized, even by some of the
same people who praised him.  Phelps treats in detail the negotiations
between Hook and the leaders of the American Communist Party.  Ultimately,
the party intellectuals attacked Hook, but their savage attacks were so
crude and ad hominem that other anti-Hook party intellectuals could not
abide them.  

This is where Phelps leaves us, until his book comes out.  Phelps seems
favorably disposed not only towards giving young Sidney a fair hearing at
last, but towards pragmatism as a respectable bed-mate for Marxism.  Here is
where I am wary.  Well, we shall see what he is on about.

However, this little tease gives me the opportunity to ask some historical
questions.  What was the ultimate intellectual impact of Hook's book  Who
read it and was influenced by it and how?  This is an especially important
question because nobody in the English-speaking world who didn't read German
had exposure to the young Marx, the Young Hegelians, Korsch, Lukacs, any of
the Young Frankfurters, nor any route to their ideas, as far as I know.
Hook was just about the first to give the public something.  So it is
historically important for us to learn, if we can, who read him and when,
and to what end?  What was the ultimate impact of his first two Marxist
books, before his brain went sour? In the immortal words of Phil Donahue,
help me out here.



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