Quote of the Week: Immanuel Kant

"Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

—Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, 1788.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

A (Somewhat Brief) Critique of Historical Materialism

If one surveys the political landscape of the Anglosphere (United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand) one thing become apparent: all these governments operate from some form of capitalist, and indeed fiscally conservative, ideology. Even the Obama Administration in the United States is just capitalism-lite (or naïvely labeled socialism by far-right decriers) in contrast to its Republican critics. Nevertheless, any interventionist economic policy during the remaining years of Obama’s Presidency have been hampered by the Republican Party gaining control of the legislature in the 2014 mid-term elections. This turn in history could not surely be put down to mere coincidence? Despite what Karl Marx argued, capitalism seems destined to stay for the foreseeable future. Regardless of a brief Keynesian respite between the 1930s and 1960s, capitalism has become cemented as our mode of political economy. Even centrist labour parties have conformed to capitalism such as Britain under Tony Blair by adopting the acquiescent Third Way. So was Marx wrong about emergence of socialism and in turn communism? To answer this it is pertinent to understand historical materialism, Marx’s theoretical exposition of how we came to be in our present circumstances.

Marx developed his materialist conception of history not in a single work but gradually over several works, which makes it difficult to understand, and it can seemingly appear to be lacking coherence.[1] To find Marx’s roots for historical materialism we need to consider one of his forebears, Georg Hegel. In the Phenomenology of Spirit (as well as other works) Hegel developed a speculative logical system that served as the basis for his metaphysical and political thinking.[2] Hegel’s thinking was based on a dialectical methodology whereby successive categories are implicitly self-contradictory and give rise to a hierarchical evolution of categories: an initial thesis is contrary to its antithesis, and the two are united in a synthesis by the positive outcomes of each by avoiding both their self-contradictions.[3] Marx uses Hegel’s dialectical methodology but uses it within the circumstances of material conditions, not as an agent for history, but as a story of class struggle as defined by those material conditions. Marx’s history is therefore regarded as “materialist” in contrast to Hegel’s “idealist” history guided by the human spirit (Geist) that is directed towards freedom. In The German Ideology Marx elucidates how stages of material and productive development give rise to certain social arrangements related to division of labour and ownership of the means of production.[4] Certain antagonisms between modes of production have brought us from hunter-gatherer societies to primitive communal ownership, to feudal societies, and finally to capitalism. Capitalism however, has simplified class antagonism into two simple camps: the owners of production, the bourgeoisie, and those who must sell their labour to subsist, the proletariat.[5] When class is reduced to this definition it clarifies any grey areas that might suggest a fluidity between classes that is often the cornerstone of liberalism. This antagonism is still axiomatic in the same sense that aristocratic privilege was the defining feature of pre-revolutionary France. The repulsive aspects of capitalism’s contradictions would eventually create its collapse and give birth by way of revolution to a socialist society where the proletariat retain common ownership of the means of production.[6]

Class conflict because of material circumstances is inevitable; one class will always attempt to dominate the other whatever the historical circumstances.[7] Marx recognises this, however, the desire to overcome this relationship is tentative, especially in a world dominated by capital's hegemony. Marx's interpretation of class conflict suggests to the casual reader it is aimed at a specific end point: communism, or, a classless society. While idealistic, there is nothing to suggest that one system will triumph over another, and history will be drawn to an ideological terminus. Ideas will always arise from present material circumstances. But understanding Marx is more about the possible rather than the inevitable. Historical materialism is often misinterpreted or misappropriated as a historiographical methodology, as pointed out by Terry Eagleton, to explain the unfolding of history, especially in terms of class conflict.[8] What should be taken from Marx is a general theory of social change. Marx is not suggesting an internal determinist mechanism for history’s unfolding as well as its future, but putting forward an economic and well as technological argument for historical development of social formations. Humans are conditioned to execute a development in their productive relationships.[9]

The picture Marx paints however is not exempt from criticism: while Marx's explanation of the transition from primitive societies, to feudalism, and then to capitalism is plausible and well understood, his theory seems hollow when contrasted with the history of the twentieth century. The establishment of the Soviet Union after the 1917 Russian Revolution failed to follow the development of socialism according to historical materialism because it was a largely feudal society (in the loosest sense, especially in contrast to the industrialised capitalist economies of Germany, Britain, and the United States). The Soviet Union only heavily industrialised after transition to socialism, undermining Marx's logical development of communism. The collectivisation of agriculture and the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin cost millions of lives and failed to produce the means to create a classless society. Even China’s ruling communist party is gradually reforming its economy to what appears to be more capitalistic. This has led some commentators such as Francis Fukuyama, to suggest the inevitability of liberal democracy (and implicitly capitalism). Fukuyama has suggested the collapse of the Soviet Union has proved capitalism as the natural condition of human affairs and therefore the end of history.[10] Fukuyama is very much influenced in this regard by Hegel in an explanation for the unfolding of History. Marx also could not have foreseen to ideological power of the fusion of capital and technology to exacerbate what Fredrich Engles described as a false consciousness in the proletariat.[11] The ability of media corporations to distract and disseminate ideas that work in favour of capital is incredibly powerful.

Postmodern interpretations of history are dismissive of grand historical narratives whether they be materialist or otherwise.[12] However, the scepticism expressed by postmodernism towards any form of teleological inevitability need not undermine the theoretical basis for socialism or even the impetus to make all human lives better. A critique of Marx's historical materialism does not necessarily mean an outright rejection of all Marxist theory or socialism as a viable economic alternative to capitalism, but this also does not mean embracing Fukuyama's End of History thesis, which is teleological in itself being a derivative of Hegel.[13] There is nothing to suggest the present ideological epoch will not be undermined by some catastrophic event—say, anthropogenic climate change, or a dramatic financial collapse worse than the Great Depression, or a nuclear war—that will cause some regressive state of affairs to arise: one of the many flavours of anarchism or potentially a totalitarian government that derives its power from control of what little post-apocalyptic resources exist. So that leaves us with the question: if the historical march to communism is not inevitable, how does society overcome the vicissitudinous nature of capitalism? One can either wallow in the nihilism that Marx was wrong and we are all doomed to capitalism’s negativities, or we can use Marx as a theoretical impetus to critique capitalism without being locked into the dogmatism of inevitability. To quote Marx himself, "philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it".[14]

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[1]  Terrence Ball, "History: Critique and irony," in The Cambridge Companion to Marx, ed. Terrell Carver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

[2] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and J. N. Findlay, Phenomenology of spirit, trans. Arnold V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Allen Wood, "Hegel and Marxism," in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick  C. Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

[3] Hegel and Findlay, Phenomenology of Spirit; Michael Forster, "Hegel's dialectical method," in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick  C. Beiser (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 131-3.

[4]  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, ed. C. J. Arthur (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1970).

[5] Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London: Penguin Books, 2002).

[6] ibid.

[7] ibid.

[8] Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011).

[9] Marx and Engles, The German Ideology, 47.

[10] Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

[11]  Fredrich Engles, "Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1893," accessed March 27, 2015, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm.

[12]  Jean-François Lyotard et al., The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984).

[13] Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man.

[14] Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," in Early Writings. Introduced by Lucio Colletti. trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregor Benton, ed. Lucio Colletti. translated by Gregor Benton and Rodney L. Livingstone (Harmondsworth: Penguin, in association with New Left Review, 1975), 423.

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

Quote of the Week: Oscar Wilde

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion."

—Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism,  1891.

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"... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.

Terrorism, Free speech, and the Hypocrisy of Western Media

I can't think of a more epitomic institution of free speech than a university. They are are not called the conscience of society for nothing. Anybody who has spent a decent length of time amongst academia knows that pretty much anything can be said, and it’s more often than not elucidated in such a way that it makes Patrick Gower’s opinion pieces sound like school boy name calling. As I look through my social media feeds on what is possibly the most fervent of Christian feast days I see next to nothing regarding a terrorist attack at a university in Garissa, Kenya that has at the time of writing this claimed 147 lives (including 4 assailants). There are a few token headlines at the usual corporate media institutions, but alas, there is very little semblance of condemnation, sympathy, solidarity, criticism, or even the typical anti-Muslim sentiment (The New Zealand Herald's top story is a championing of some wealthy narcissist putting the neo-colonial boot into local Māori because her profit trumps the exploitation of their land, while the Kenyan story falls faster than an anchor in water)[1]. To Western media, and the hegemony of European political consciousness, this is just as usual for Africa as flatulence in the wind. For an attack on such a prominent institution of free speech, there seems to be deafening lack of it. There is, and never will be a "Mimi ni Garissa"[2] for the 143 pinko student nobodies in some far flung corner of that homogeneous continent called Africa.

Cast your mind back to January 7th of this year—it may seem like a distant memory but it was a mere 3 months ago—to the horrific attack on the journalists at the forgettable excuse of a satirical tabloid (it does not deserve a prestigious description) Charlie Hebdo by al Qaeda in Yemen, not anti-Muslim flavour-of-the-month the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant.[3] Anyone is who is not within the manifold of fundamentalist Islamic organisations can agree the attack was horrific and should be condemned. However, as pointed out by a myriad of commentators, this should come with the caveat that any act of violence regardless of religion, race, state, or non-state actor, should be equally condemned. What followed was the fire stoking of Eurocentrism, nationalism, fascism, and racism all under the excusal banner of free speech. Marches with millions of people attracted leaders from across the world all to condemn terrorism and advocate free speech.[4] Social media had a wet dream, both left and right of the political spectrum, shouting loudly "Je suis Charlie".[5] I was one of the very few who refused to get caught up in the emotionally tinged implicit cultural superiority of the campaign. I'm not a fan of religious extremism or religion in general, but the vitriol Charlie Hebdo publishes was the crass vacuous rubbish that appeals to red-neck racists who champion democracy (despite not knowing or understanding what it is), but are open to spreading that "democracy" by bloody prolonged wars in far flung corners of the world they know nothing about. Terrorism is a very complex phenomenon that requires a difficult conversation with the Muslim world rather than just pointing fingers, putting up walls, and bombing.

Now contrast this ostentatious response to the luke-warm response to Anders Behring Breivik's vicious but equally calculated attack on members of the Norwegian Labour Party’s youth wing at an organised retreat on July 22nd 2011 that claimed 77 lives of equal moral worth. Breivik, being from one of those Viking countries, was as white as white could ever get. There was no global public out-cry over Caucasian extremism, or Protestant extremism, Christian extremism, Islamophobic extremism, Zionist extremism, anti-feminist extremism, patriarchal extremism, free-market extremism, or just general far-right extremism. Corporate media white-washed this event so much so, that if you quiz anyone on the street in the Anglo-Saxon nations now, chances are they couldn't recall this equally horrific event that claimed more lives that the Parisian attack (not that the number killed is the important issue under discussion). Why? Because Breivik didn’t fit into the Western narrative of “us versus them”, “Christians versus Muslims”, or “freedom versus hatred”. Conservative American political commentator Glenn Beck even had the atrocious audacity to compare the camp for aspiring progressive lawmakers to the Hitler Youth.[6]  There is something horribly askew in the media when a far-right political commentator implicitly sypathises with Anders Breivek by suggesting a moderate left-wing organisation is like the youth wing of a political party responsible for the Holocaust. Aside from a few well-attended local memorials by Norwegians, there were no global marches of millions, no conglomeration of heads-of-states in solidarity, no overt social media campaigns, and certainly no "Jeg er Arbeiderpartiet".[7]

In recent years Kenya has become more and more susceptible to terrorism, so today’s attack is not unexpected given Kenya’s proximity to the politically unstable Somalia, and in turn Yemen and the Arabian Peninsular. But suggesting some sort of concerted pan-Muslim attempt at expansion of a Sharia governed hegemonic sphere—especially in contrast to the surreptitious and often unwanted American hegemony reaching in all four corners of the globe—is an outlandish and downright naïve. The most recent terrorist attack in Kenya in recent years was the September 21st 2013 attack on a Westfield shopping mall, owned by Israeli interests, in Nairobi, and it is interesting to note to differences and similarities between that attack and today’s in relation to the media coverage. Both attacks were committed by al Qaeda affiliated al Shabaab, and both attacks were similar in their execution. The 2013 attack in contrast had some different, and striking ingredients: the attack was against Westerners, and Western capital. The reactions to the attack were swift and strong, and the Muslim narrative was all too apparent unlike Mr. Breivik’s political and religious affiliation. So today’s attack which appears to not involve Westerners or Western interests, deadlier than the Westfield attack and the Charlie Hebdo attack, has become drowned in a sea of trivial news items. Not one media institution is leaping to its feet to defend Kenyan academics’ or students’ rights for freedom of speech. The apathy expressed by the West will be just another predictably unfortunate aspect of the African continent. The self-righteous and conceited calls for freedom of speech after the Paris attacks have simmered down to a muttered freedom of sheep for the Kenyan students.

This attack falls just outside the narrative so is exempt to the usual fear mongering and scare tactics that accompany an attack on anything remotely European. Kenya’s terrorism and subsequent media reactions to it are a product of neo-colonialism. Kenya is just another helpless victim of Westernisation and expansion of Western markets manifested in shopping malls, and when those shopping malls are attacked, the attack resonates with Westminster and Washington. Never mind the lives of local Kenyans whether they are at a shopping mall or university, the West’s precious capital is under threat. To the West, the attack on Charlie Hebdo was not just an attack on freedom of speech, but an attack on an institution designed to create a particular narrative about the “Other”, and in turn justify a fear-driven war against this invisible Other. I find an attack on a university (regardless of whoever is on the campus, Western or non-Western) just as abhorrent as an attack on a shopping mall, tabloid newspaper, or youth camp, and they should tell the same story: that violence for political purposes is not morally justified. But the glaring differences in narratives portrayed by Western media institutions of the aforementioned terrorist attacks is intentional: Europe, America, freedom, democracy, capitalism, good; Africa, Middle East, Muslims, community, cosmopolitanism, academia, progressivism, bad.

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[1] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11427447

[2] Swahili: I am Garissa [University College].

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/us-france-shooting-aqap-idUSKBN0KN0VO20150114

[4] http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/en-direct-marche-republicaine-la-place-de-la-republique-noire-de-monde-11-01-2015-4437327.php

[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331836/Je-Suis-Charlie-Vigils-held-around-the-world-after-Paris-terror-attack-in-pics.html?frame=3159654

[6] http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/glenn-beck-site-of-norway-massacre-sounds-like-the-hitler-youth/

[7] Norwegian: I am Labour [Party].

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.