Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 10:35:11 -0800
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: Re: Preparing to read "Capital"


I appreciate Santiago's and Scott's thoughts on Lukacs' diatribe against
Nietzsche.  As Santiago quoted a long passage about the idea of eternal
recurrence, he may be interested to know that Lukacs subjects this idea to
special criticism near the end of the relevant chapter.  

As for N's style, this is discussed as well.  Also, Marx's dramatic success
in integrating the classic literature of Europe does not prove that he
would have taken to Nietzsche's style of (anti-)philosophic discourse.  

I agree with Scott that the book reads as quite dogmatic overall , though
there are rather brilliant chapters (especially one about how
Schopenhauer's philosophy *indirectly* served reaction).  I also think that
the book is sometimes dismissed only because Lukacs brought into the
discussion the class position of the philosopher as well as the historical
context of the nature of the class struggle.  For example, Lukacs attempts
to understand Nietzsche in terms of the destruction of the Paris Commune.  


I have also read somewhere that Adorno was not too impressed with this
work, which is clearly a very different book than Lukacs' History and Class
Consciousness.  Some would argue that it was left to Alfred Sohn-Rethel to
develop Marxian theory as Lukacs debased himself in the Stalinist regime.

Perhaps, but are the chapters on Max Weber, Martin Heidegger, social
darwinism, Spengler etc. really that worthless?  Are the class-specific
reasons Lukacs gives for the bourgeois destruction and circumscription of
reason all that wrong?  I have never read a sustained, convincing criticism
of all this, and I have come across a very well-argued extension of Lukacs'
general argument--Frank Furedi's Mythical Past, Mythical Future (Pluto,
1993)   

Now, Santiago, I am aware that you have been well-trained in these debates,
and Scott, your reputation as a CLR James scholar precedes you.  So tell me
how it is...   

Rakesh






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