- 14 May 2011 00:24
#13709056
I think this might be the right place for this. If nothing else, I think it'll keep the libertarians away.
Anyways, this is something I've been thinking about off and on for quite awhile, essentially, was Marx a Marxist or a Hegelian? I have two lines of thought about this question:
1. A friend of mine (who seems to have read everything by or about Marx, Hegel, Kant and Lenin) once told me that Malcolm X probably didn't believe his own rhetoric, that he was trying to get blacks to wake up from the general positions they had been pushed into, so that someone else could come along later and get the now aware racial minorities to work towards equality. So, he probably wouldn't have actually wanted violence to attain racial equality, and most of what he actually said he probably didn't believe. And even if he did actually want violence and did believe what he said, he probably would have been quite happy with the way things went following his death leading up to today (with some wiggle room).
2. A big thing with Hegel (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the whole of human history is a series of different periods, where one necessarily creates the next, the up tightness of the 40s and the 50s created the lose moralled 60s and early 70s, created the re-up-tightedness of the 80s, created the 'eh' of the 90s and so on. And ideas are in a relatively similar situation: one idea (the thesis) necessarily creates it's opposite (the antithesis), and the two eventually compromise (creating the synthesis), creating the next 'one idea' (the new thesis), which could be modified by something new altogether, or be modified by the original Thesis or Antithesis. Now, when Marx started writing about Communism he said the he was going to turn Hegel on his ear, and called Hegel and Idealist (which actually is true, but whatever). And Marx's basic modification was to go "This is sort of true, but all of human history is the history of class struggle, which will necessarily create the next generation: Socialism (and later Communism), and that'll be it".
A Hegelian could come along and say "Haha, this actually proves Hegel right! Capitalism was the Thesis, and it necessarily created Communism, it's Antithesis! And look, you can see a Synthesis in SFR Yugoslavia and Albania (with a Communist leaning), and the Welfare States of Europe (leaning more towards the Thesis). And you can further see the Aufheben in the Right Wing Reforms of Reagan and Thatcher (which was the Synthesis sublating with the Thesis). Haha, this actually proves Hegel's Philosophy of History correct, Muwahaha!"*
Massive oversimplification of Hegelian and Marxist philosophy aside, could Marx have been more of a Hegelian then he claimed, and was aiming to take Marxist Communism and Capitalism to eventually replace both of them with some kind of Left Libertarianism or Democratic Socialism?
Thoughts?
Don't expect me back for a while, sorry if there are any questions)
* I'm tired, I get screwy when tired.
Anyways, this is something I've been thinking about off and on for quite awhile, essentially, was Marx a Marxist or a Hegelian? I have two lines of thought about this question:
1. A friend of mine (who seems to have read everything by or about Marx, Hegel, Kant and Lenin) once told me that Malcolm X probably didn't believe his own rhetoric, that he was trying to get blacks to wake up from the general positions they had been pushed into, so that someone else could come along later and get the now aware racial minorities to work towards equality. So, he probably wouldn't have actually wanted violence to attain racial equality, and most of what he actually said he probably didn't believe. And even if he did actually want violence and did believe what he said, he probably would have been quite happy with the way things went following his death leading up to today (with some wiggle room).
2. A big thing with Hegel (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the whole of human history is a series of different periods, where one necessarily creates the next, the up tightness of the 40s and the 50s created the lose moralled 60s and early 70s, created the re-up-tightedness of the 80s, created the 'eh' of the 90s and so on. And ideas are in a relatively similar situation: one idea (the thesis) necessarily creates it's opposite (the antithesis), and the two eventually compromise (creating the synthesis), creating the next 'one idea' (the new thesis), which could be modified by something new altogether, or be modified by the original Thesis or Antithesis. Now, when Marx started writing about Communism he said the he was going to turn Hegel on his ear, and called Hegel and Idealist (which actually is true, but whatever). And Marx's basic modification was to go "This is sort of true, but all of human history is the history of class struggle, which will necessarily create the next generation: Socialism (and later Communism), and that'll be it".
A Hegelian could come along and say "Haha, this actually proves Hegel right! Capitalism was the Thesis, and it necessarily created Communism, it's Antithesis! And look, you can see a Synthesis in SFR Yugoslavia and Albania (with a Communist leaning), and the Welfare States of Europe (leaning more towards the Thesis). And you can further see the Aufheben in the Right Wing Reforms of Reagan and Thatcher (which was the Synthesis sublating with the Thesis). Haha, this actually proves Hegel's Philosophy of History correct, Muwahaha!"*
Massive oversimplification of Hegelian and Marxist philosophy aside, could Marx have been more of a Hegelian then he claimed, and was aiming to take Marxist Communism and Capitalism to eventually replace both of them with some kind of Left Libertarianism or Democratic Socialism?
Thoughts?
Don't expect me back for a while, sorry if there are any questions)
* I'm tired, I get screwy when tired.