File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9802, message 203


Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 23:52:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Essentialism, Morality & Communism



There's a myth that Marx has no concept of human nature. Geras has
demolished this pretty thoroughly in his little book, Marx and Human
Nature, but it has more currency than it ought to. The problem is twofold:

(a) Conservatives argue that human nature precludes social change. They
say that, for example, we are always and everywhere selfish and
competitive and cannot be otherwise. It's human nature. So radicals tend
to respond by saying, there is no such thing as human nature. In fact
thery should say that what human nature is depends on the circumstances.
In capitalist circumstances, it's human anture to be selfish and
competitive, In communist circumstances, it's not. Human nature, like the
nature of anything, is a capacity to manifest a behavior in certain
circumstances. It is not a capacity that is alwys manifest the same way no
matter what the circumstances.

It will probably not surprise you that I have written a paper on this, not
yet published, though, called Human Nature, Feminism, and Social Change.

(b) Marx's 6th thesis on Feuerbach is sometimes taken as a rejection of
human nature because he says there that HN is a matter of social
relations, not an asocial thing that all humans have. Now on the face of
it this cannot be taken as a rejection f HN, because Marx tells us that
there is a HN and what it is, as well as what it is not. In fact what he
says it is is more or less what I said it is, namely, a set of capacities
that can be manifested in different ways in different circumstances.

There is also the fact that Marx's notion of alienation depends on there
being something we are alienated from. What this is is clearly a sort of
HN, in particular, Marx thinks it's HN that we will be miserable and
unhappy if we work under conditions of domination and exploitation. This
is not just in his early writings. In Capital, in the passage on real
freedom as freedom from necessary labor, Marx talks about people arranging
that labor in accord with ihrer menschliche Natur, their human nature.
This is a reference to the sort of ethical ideal Rob is on about. 

I don't think we should be ashamed to talk about HN. We just have to be
careful to use the concept correctly. 

If Hugh thinks there is anything simple and transparent about any three
words of the Grundrisse, he's either a lot smarter than me or a lot more
careless in his reading.

--jks  

On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Rob Schaap wrote:

> 
> >Point b) brings in "human nature" quite unnecessarily. It might just as
> >easily read "what's hiding us from us", and ditch the invitation to
> >metaphysics
> 
> I agree 'human nature' is potentially a rod for all backs, and certainly

> As to that last formulation, I do tend to think Marx implicitly relies on
> an empirically unsubstantiated (by which I do not, and dare not, mean
> 'untenable') human essence here (it's certainly in his language too).
> 
> amenable to our desires.  And this only makes sense if those desires can be
> established to have their roots somewhere other than in the hegemony of
> capitalism.  As Marx writes in the GI, any given order produces desires
> specific to it.  These then are desires we cannot trust - indeed, if I take
> the big fella right, they are desires that will fade away when capitalism
> is no longer there.
> 
> What then is the status of those desires that demand social transformation?
> Me, I reckon they're to do with an essentially human demand for recognition
> and a sense of agency - indeed, for subjecthood.  It can't just be a
> yearning for material comfort, because the discomfort suffered by the
> 
> >Once again, I'd refer to the utter simplicity and economy of the opening
> >section of The Grundrisse on the universal conditions of human production
> >and distribution. Not a word about human nature there.
> >experience we find it hard to even imagine today.
> >
> >And not the slightest need for any "human nature" to understand any of it.





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