William Ash - Philosophical Revisionism

7/27/2019 William Ash - Philosophical Revisionism

1/5


2/5

21 6 MARXISM TODAY, JULY 1963The very fact that in different social contextsthe doctrine of the sovereign individual wil l canresul t in such different at t i tudes toward l i fe pract ical ly amounts to a refutat ion of any idea thatthe individual "is the independent creator of hisown des t iny" . The class character of existent ialis m is fur ther demons t ra ted by the n a t u re of

those to w h o m it appealscerta in ly not thetoi l ing masses of Ven ezu e l a or Vi e t n am orF r a n c e itself. It is an earnes t of Marxism' s promise of a classless society that it speaks a language s imple enough to be grasped immediate lyby the exploi ted mil l ions who are the agentsthrough s t ruggle of social change and yet sophist i ca ted enough to convince, if so far only partially, as urbane, though good-hear ted , a b o u r geois intellectual as Sar t re .The Individual and SocietyA n d yet it is not logically possible to co m b i n e

such disparate elements as existentialism andM arx i s m in one synthet ic phi losophy. The basicexistent ial is t content ion that "existence is pr iorto essence" has entirely different consequ encesfrom the Marxist thesis that "the social existenceof men determines their consciousness". Th eabstract principle of the priori ty of existence overessence simply means, as developed by Sar t re ,that the individual in isolat ion determines his ownbeing by the free exercise of choice . In so far ashis being involves relat ions with others , he createsthose very relat ionships by the way he choosesto act from an or ig inal vo luntar i sm. This , ofcourse , is merely a social applicat ion of solipsism,the philosophical cul-de-sac in which bourgeoisidealism always finally fetches up.What looks l ike a concession on Sar t re ' s par tin adm it t ing that only Ma rxism can acco u n t forthe dynamics of a society in m o v em en t p ro v esto be meaningless as long as he mainta ins as thestart ing point of his phi losophy the "free indiv idual" . Not only is " f r eed o m " an empty termin respect to an individual conceived to beginwith as completely detached from social influences, but also no multipl icat ion of suchabstract individuals would ever add up to a concrete socie ty . F rom his existent ial is t accountof the ind iv idual there is no logical way forSartre to ad v an ce to the realm of those actualsocial events of which he is p rep a red to accepta Marxist analysis .

Marxism, however , which does not philosophiseab o u t man in the abs t ract but deals with specificm en as they have developed in this or that ac tualform of socia l organisat ion , is equipped to d rawscient ific conclusions about society and also toprovide a reasonable account of individuals

whose very at t i tudes are social products . Professor Schaff believes that Marxists, while possessedof the necessary dialect ic for explaining then a t u re of man-in-society, have paid insufficientat tent ion to individual hopes and fears and h av ethus al lowed various forms of rel igion to winassent for their absolut is t answers to cer ta inhuman quest ions. Existent ial ism itself, even whenprofessing to be atheist ic, is just such a rel igion.Ins tead of pos tu la t ing a god who has given manfreedom of choice in order to co n d em n him forhis act ion in a world he is not respons ib le for,Sar t re makes man himself his own judge inrespect to the use of his freedom of choice in asi tuat ion he does not cont ro l . Hence the self-loath ing and despair which is not unlike the pessimism found in the writ ings of m o n k s .But al though existent ial ism cannot solve thequest ions it raises. Professor Schaff argues thatthe quest ions themselves must be cons idered"ques t ions of personal responsibi l i ty for one ' sact ions, including poli t ical act ion in si tuat ions involving confl icts between opposing moral s tandards; quest ions also of the individual ' s place androle in the world , which may be expressedloosely as the m ean i n g of l i fe." Considering suchp ro b l em s in a Marxis t way involves derivingfrom the general principles of historical materialism such proposi t ions of social is t humanism, as:

"the specific understanding of the individual asa social productas a product of the totalityof social relations; the specific understanding ofthe relation of the individual to society on thebasis of a materialist conception of social de-development; and the recognition that ideals canbe realised only under given social conditions,without which recognition they degenerate intoUtopias. . . . The socialist humanist is persuadedthat he can find personal happiness only throughthe happiness of society."Social i s t HumanismBut this social is t humanism must be clearlydist inguished by its concrete and mil i tan t naturefrom moral i s t i c humanism:

"Socialist humanism is concerned with therealisation of humanist aims under the concreteconditions of modern society divided by classstruggles. It hence demands not only love forthe people, but hatred of their enemies. . . . Inreal life we are confronted, not with man ingeneral, but with people who defend definiteinterests and are correspondingly motivated andorganised. In real life the exploiters and oppressors are bound to oppose with all their strengththe realisation of the humanist ideal, and to tryto put an end to the ideology which advocatesit. . . . To be a humanist does not mean to love


3/5

MARXISM TODAY, JULY 1963 217people in general, to advocate abstract pacifism,to reject all physical struggle. To be a humanisttoday, when the realisation of humanist idealsis no longer a Utopia, is to be a fighter. And hewho fights well must hate well."

And "just as the demand for absolute love isa mockery in condit ions of s truggle, so is thedemand for absolu te f reedom. As long as thereare enemies of freedom, as long as they can fighteffectively, so long will it be necessary to striveto l imit their freedom." Because, as ProfessorSchaff explains: "the freedom of one class isrestricted or even destroyed by the freedom ofano ther, and so they have different conce ptionsof freedom." As has already been noted, bourgeois phi losophy in general takes as i ts point ofdeparture the freedom of the individual , layinggreat s t ress on i ts l iberal ideal of the "free man".But in pract ice this ideal proves to be the defence, as l ibertarian, of al l social measures whichinsure the continuing rule of the bourgeoisie andthe suppression, as at tacks on l iberty, of anymeasures which would establ ish the freedom ofa c lass opposed to that ru le . Argum ents aboutfreedom in class-divided societies are thus bedevil led by the fact that the term actual ly has anentirely different content , depending on whichside is using it. In one case it means freedom toexploi t : in the other, freedom from exploi tat ion.

AlienationWhile i t is usual ly a s imple matter for Marxiststo point out the class interest barely concealed bythe l iberal phraseo logy em ployed by spoke smenof the bourgeoisie in the period when they werest i l l confident , the ideological s i tuat ion is moreconfusing today. On the one hand, the challenge to capi ta l i sm has broug ht ab out a bourgeois crisis of faith in its own right and capacityto rule which is reflected in an ever shriller insis tence that nothing has changed and businesswil l go on as usual . On the other, the demorahsa-t ion of bourgeois society has resul ted in a disench antm ent w i th " l iberal i sm" by cer ta in phi l osophers who have noth ing cons t ruct ive to put ini ts place. Alienated from the society in which theyfind themselves, these philosophers can only takeal ienat ion i tself as the human condit ion. Loneliness and despair are man's port ion and there isnoth ing much he can do about i t . The f reedomof the individual , which for those who continueto su ppor t the capital is t system is a l icence toenjoy privi leges at the expense of others , hasbecome for those who no longer bel ieve in capital ism, but bel ieve in nothing else ei ther, ther ight to be miserable on thei r ownbut miserablein relat ive comfort of course. In both cases syste

matic thought is vi t iated by extreme philosophicalegoism wh ich is simply a reflection of the pr ac tical selfishness characterising life in the atomisedcondit ions of bourgeois society.Ah enatio n is the point of contact betw een thesephilosophers whom disi l lusionment with capitalism has given a negat ive outlook and Marxists ascritics of capitalist society. In his earher writingsMarx himself developed at some length the philosophical implicat ions of al ienat ion; but in hismo re ma ture w ork, as Professor Schaff rem indsus , he made l i t t le use of the term. The reasonfor this is that in bourgeois society all men aremore or less al ienatedthe proletariat in theirwork and the bourgeois intel lectuals in theirthought; and therefore the concept of al ienat iontends to blur the issue of class conflict. Theappropriat ion of surplus value, which makesquite clear who exploi ts whom, is the vi tal factabo ut bourg eois society; and al l the secon daryeffects of a social system based on exchange relat ionships can be considered under the generaldescript ive term "commodity fet ishism". Thismore concrete analysis enables Marx not only toexplain the socia l phenomenon of ahenat ion butto show precisely how it can be eliminated, bythe successful struggle of the proletariat to endexploitation which involves the end of class dist inct ion. It is not surpris ing that bourgeois sociologists are prepared to find the writings of theyoung Marx st imulat ing and useful while rejecting most of his later work.

The StateSociahsm is not bui l t in a day nor do at t i tudesand ways of thinking condit ioned by centuries ofclass division disappear the moment the economicbasis of class has been altered. In the early stagesof laying the foundation of socialist society thereare temporary periods of confusion resul t ingfrom false s tarts and wrong turnings which maysuperficially resemble the confusion of a bourgeois society in a state of decayjust as a mancUmbing a s lope and one sl i thering down i t wil lat one point have the same view of the surrounding country-side. It is this superficial resemblancewhich has enabled the corrupted ideology of theWest to make i ts appeal to certain intel lectuals

in Poland. The remedy for this tendency of someart is ts and intel lectuals to look over their shouldersto the West for inspiration does not lie in theimposi t ion of a rigid censorship but in the cont inued development of social is t relat ionships and,part icularly, the aboli t ion of the ant i thesis between mental and manual l abour in which suchdeviat ions f rom Marxism are rooted .But at the same t ime, of course, as Professor


4/5

218 MARXISM TODAY, JULY 1963Schaff uncompromisingly states , there can be noquest ion of permit t ing people to exploi t thesetemporary difficul t ies by advocat ing any poli t icalretreat from Marxist-Leninist principles. "Thosewho demanded ' ins t i tu t ional guarantees ' forsocial ism in our country, betraying thereby theirdesire for the parl iamentary system to be introduced, were deeply mistaken." Such people, heargues, convenient ly forget the role of the stateand its institutions in the conflict between classesover different conceptions of freedom. "The stateis always a class instrument. Its function is toguard and serve those conceptions of freedomwhich fol low from the interest of the dominantclass ." This is proved by the way "the bourgeoisie sweeps parl iament itself, together with allthe inst i tut ional guarantees, off the map, even incountries of old parl iamentary t radi t ion, as soonas i t appears that this form of rule no longerensures i ts domination." What revisionists ei therconsciously or unconsciously choose to ignorein quest ions of freedom is "the dialect ical relat ionship of democracy and dictatorship as theexpression of the conflicts latent in our socialstructure. Marxism holds that ful l democracycan be at tained only by means of a dictatorshipexercised against the enemies of democracy, andregards the dictatorship of the proletariat as ahigher form of democracy in comparison withbourge ois dem ocr acy ." Professor Schaff just ifiesthe continued use of a name emphasising thedictatorial and not the democrat ic s ide of a newsocial is t s tate on historical grounds. "The Communis t movement wanted sharp ly to d i s t inguishi ts own from the bourgeois-l iberal and social-democrat ic conceptions of the state. The terminology came into use in controversies concerningthe nature of the class s truggle under capi tal ismand of the social is t revolut ion."

Of course once a social is t revolut ion has beenconsohdated , i t i s importan t that ever broadermasses of people should be drawn into directpart icipat ion in deciding public quest ions; andProfessor Schaff is critical of over-caution in thismatter by those in leading posi t ions. "It must be

remembered that i f too much l iberal ism is a mistake for which we may pay dearly, the price ofchecking the progress of democrat isat ion ofsocial life is equally heavy."Philosophical revisionism is always the ideological reflection of class-compromise or, even,class-collaboration. It is the result of defeatismon the part of those who are overawed by theapparent s trength of the class enemy and arethus led to play down the necessity of classstruggle.But overestimating the strength of the classenemy real ly means underest imating the power ofthe peoplethe combined force of the mil l ionswho suffer from class depredat ion. As ProfessorSchaft ' concludes his book:

"One may object to socialism in its entirety,one may stubbornly deny its humanism; but thehungry and exploited will sooner or later cometo understand that hunger will finally cease mthis world of potential abundance only whenthe system of exploitation is abolished. . . .What enthuses fighters against enslavement arethe real perspectives of liberation and theattractiveness of its examples. For the peoplesof Asia, Africa and Latin America the teachersand models will continue to be the Soviet Unionand People's China, and certainly not Portugal,Belgium, Great Britain or the United States ofAmerica."It is in the "real perspect ives of l iberat ion" andthe prospect of t rue freedom for the great massof people when imper iahsm has been smashedthat Professor Schaff sho ws up the dishone st pretensions of bourgeois philosophy with all its talkabo ut the l iberty of the individual . As a M arxisthe subjects the ideas of bourgeois apologists tothe test of concreteness to discover the classinterests behind their abstract ions and the ideasof revisionists to the test of mihtancy to provethe insincerity of their professed desire for socialchange. Concreteness in thought and mil i tancy inthe act ion of class s truggle are shown throughoutthis l i t t le book to be the touchstones of t rueMarxism-Lenin i sm.


5/5

219

S a t i r e T h e N e w R e v o l t ?Mike Down

H ISTORIANS wi l l look back to our t imesand record the Cuba cr i s i s , the Indian-Chinese border dispute, and the finalco l lapse of the Common Market negot ia t ions . Yetsome may al so note the spontaneous and of tenamusing react ions of young, middle c lass peoplein Bri tain to the poli t ical uncertaint ies of theirt imes. One react ion has shown i tself in the remarkable increase in both the qual i ty and quant i tyof pol i t ical sat i re over the past twelve months.The outburs t of cont roversy aroused over thecontent , presentat ion, and poli t ical effect iveness of"N e w ' Sat i re" has s imply add ed to i ts gen erali m p ac t .The for tn ight ly l ampoon. Private Eye, fo rexample , s tar ted the year as a dupl icated ragavai lab le in one or two s tudent haunts in London.Today a larger, glossier, printed Private Eye canbe seen on the counte rs of pract ical ly everynewsagent in Bri tain. I ts circulat ion now runs intohundreds of thousandsdespi te a boycot t by someof our biggest distributors . The greatest circulat i o n j u m p cam e i n M arch , wh en R an d o l p hChurchi l l took the magazine to cour t for a fu l lpage at tack on his father. Private Eye settled outof court , with a 1,500 apology in the LondonEvening Standard. I t mus t have been worth everypenny in publ ic i ty .Other sa t i r i ca l magazines were to fo l low, and"sat i re co lumns" began to appear in severaln a t i o n a l n ews p ap er s . Th e Observer set the t rend,with i ts special page on sat i re which at one t imeincluded features f rom Private Eye, but now l imitsi tself to a Michael Frayn art icle and some cartoons . Sat i r i ca l books , too , have appearedincluding Private Eye on London which sold outtwo pr in t ings a t Chr i s tmas .

Satire in V ogu eTelevis ion was quick to t ake up the chal lenge.Sat i re meant good bus iness , and ITV' s On theBraden Beat soon came in to compet i t ion wi thBBC's That Was The Week That Was. T h e p r o gramme i s now in summer recess , bu t by the endof i t s run TWTW was c locking up a s teady twelvemi l l ion v iewers every Saturda y n ightfour t imesthe usual figure. I ts short pol i t ical sketches oftenfel l f lat . The sexy Mil l icent Mart in jazz numberssomet imes fa i l ed to come off . Occas ional "ser ious"comments f requent ly s tuck out l ike sore thumbs .Too many of the jokes , cont r ibutors and a t t i tudes

came d i rect f rom Private Eye. Yet this type ofpoli t ical cabaret was funnier than most of thematerial served up to us before, and also far moreprogress ive and imaginat ive .Newspaper co lumns , magazines , and te lev i s ionshows could not sat iate the public appet i te forsat i re. Th e mag azin e wri ters and television art is tesmade gramophone records , which so ld in thei rthousands . Records by American sa t i r i s t s l ikeMort Sahl and Lenny Bruce also sold well . Buttheir wholly destruct ive, apoli t ical , "sick" brandof humo ur , whi le provid ing m uch of the ear lyimpetus behind Bri t ish sat i re, never real ly caughton here. Lenny Bruce, despi te free publici ty fromthe Government ban on h i s en ter ing the count ry ,could not real ly compete wi th Private Eye'srecord ing of "dramat ic readings f rom the magazine by the ed i tor ia l board , and in t roducing thesinging sensat ion of 1963the voice itselfHaro l d M acm i l l an " .

N e o - A n a r c h i s m ?Soho ' s Establishment Club, founded two yearsago by Peter Cook and Nicholas Luard , cont inuesto prosper. This club provided sat i re ' s fi rs t realfoothold , and the new type of en ter ta inmentpioneered there quickly spi l led over into theLondon theat resdesperate ly in need of f reshmaterial to shore up their flagging box-officere t u rn s .

Beyond the Fringe, Thre e at Nine a n d Th ePremise al l did very nicely. The Fringe cast is nowtour ing America , bu t a care taker cas t a t theFortune is s t i l l rol l ing them in, despi te competit ion from Looking for Action at the Pr inceCharles, and Spike Mil l igan's bri l l iant Bed SittingRoom at the Duke of York ' s .This sudden and phenomenal vogue for sa t i reis , of course, closely related to the current pol i t i cal s i tuat ion. Sat iris ts may differ in their individualapproaches , bu t they are uni ted in thei r contemptfor the establ ishme nt . They see a t ired and almo stpathet ic Tory adminis t ra t ion reel ing punch drunkin the poli t ical ring, total ly incapable of deal ingwi th heavy unemployment , the cr i ses in educat ionan d h o u s i n g , t h e h u m i l i a t i n g C o m m o n M ark e trebuff, and the double decay of Br i ta in ' s pos i t ionin the world and their own posi t ion in Bri tain.

Our new sat iris ts are react ing to a s i tuat ionwhich should resul t in a s trengthening of working-class uni ty, an increase in the poli t ical awareness

Documents

William Ash - Philosophical Revisionism