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Civilization, Barbarism and the Marxist view of History
Written by Alan
Woods Wednesday, 17 July 2002
This article by Alan Woods deals with barbarism and the development of human
society. In post-modern writing, history appears as an essentially meaningless
and inexplicable series of random events or accidents. It is governed
by no laws that we can comprehend. A variation on this theme is the idea, now
very popular in some academic circles that there is no such thing as higher and
lower forms of social development and culture. This denial of progress in
history is characteristic of the psychology of the bourgeoisie in the phase of
capitalist decline.
Henry Ford is reported to have said "history is bunk". For those of you who
are not familiar with the intricacies of American slang, the word bunk signifies
nonsense - and non-sense signifies something which has no meaning. This not very
elegant phrase adequately expresses an opinion that has gathered strength in
recent years. The illustrious founder of the Ford motor company further refined
his definition of history when he described it as "just one damn thing after
another", which is one way of looking at it.
The same idea is expressed rather more elegantly (but no less erroneously) by the supporters of the post-modernist craze that some people seem to regard as valid philosophy. Actually, this idea is not new. It was expressed long ago by the great English historian Edward Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the celebrated phrase of Edward Gibbon, history is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." (Gibbon, vol. 1, p. 69)
History appears here as an essentially meaningless and inexplicable series of random events or accidents. It is governed by no laws that we can comprehend. To try to understand it would therefore be a pointless exercise. A variation on this theme is the idea, now very popular in some academic circles that there is no such thing as higher and lower forms of social development and culture. They claim that there is no such thing as "progress" which they consider to be an old fashioned idea left over from the 19th century, when it was popularised by Victorian Liberals, Fabian socialists and - Karl Marx.
This denial of progress in history is characteristic of the psychology of the bourgeoisie in the phase of capitalist decline. It is a faithful reflection of the fact that, under capitalism progress has indeed reached its limits and threatens to go into reverse. The bourgeoisie and its intellectual representatives are, quite naturally, unwilling to accept this fact. Moreover, they are organically incapable of recognising it. Lenin once observed that a man on the edge of a cliff does not reason. However, they are dimly aware of the real situation, and try to find some kind of a justification for the impasse of their system by denying the possibility of progress altogether!
So far has this idea sunk into consciousness that it has even been carried into the realm of non-human evolution. Even such a brilliant thinker as Stephen Jay Gould, whose dialectical theory of punctuated equilibria transformed the way that evolution is perceived, argued that it is wrong to speak of progress from lower to higher in evolution, so that microbes must be placed on the same level as human beings. In one sense it is correct that all living things are related (the human genome has conclusively proved this). Man is not a special creation of the Almighty, but the product of evolution. Nor is it correct to see evolution as a kind of grand design, the aim of which was to create beings like ourselves (teleology - from the Greek telos, meaning an end). However, in rejecting an incorrect idea, it is not necessary to go to the other extreme, leading to new errors.
It is not a question of accepting some kind of preordained plan either related to Divine intervention or some kind of teleology but it is clear that the laws of evolution inherent in nature do in fact determine the development from simple forms of life to more complex forms. The earliest forms of life already contain within them the embryo of all future developments. It is possible to explain the development of eyes, legs and other organs without recourse to any preordained plan. At a certain stage we get the development of a central nervous system and a brain. Finally with homo sapiens, we arrive at human consciousness. Matter becomes conscious of itself. There has been no more important revolution since the development of organic matter (life) from inorganic matter.
To please our critics, we should perhaps add the phrase from our point of view. Doubtless the microbes, if they were able to have a point of view, would probably raise serious objections. But we are human beings and must necessarily see things through human eyes. And we do assert that evolution does in fact represent a development of simple life forms to more complex and versatile ones - in other words progress from lower to higher forms of life. To object to such a formulation seems to be somewhat pointless, not scientific but merely scholastic. In saying this, of course, no offence is intended to the microbes, who after all have been around for a lot longer than us, and if the capitalist system is not overthrown, may yet have the last laugh.
The same idea is expressed rather more elegantly (but no less erroneously) by the supporters of the post-modernist craze that some people seem to regard as valid philosophy. Actually, this idea is not new. It was expressed long ago by the great English historian Edward Gibbon, the author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the celebrated phrase of Edward Gibbon, history is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." (Gibbon, vol. 1, p. 69)
History appears here as an essentially meaningless and inexplicable series of random events or accidents. It is governed by no laws that we can comprehend. To try to understand it would therefore be a pointless exercise. A variation on this theme is the idea, now very popular in some academic circles that there is no such thing as higher and lower forms of social development and culture. They claim that there is no such thing as "progress" which they consider to be an old fashioned idea left over from the 19th century, when it was popularised by Victorian Liberals, Fabian socialists and - Karl Marx.
This denial of progress in history is characteristic of the psychology of the bourgeoisie in the phase of capitalist decline. It is a faithful reflection of the fact that, under capitalism progress has indeed reached its limits and threatens to go into reverse. The bourgeoisie and its intellectual representatives are, quite naturally, unwilling to accept this fact. Moreover, they are organically incapable of recognising it. Lenin once observed that a man on the edge of a cliff does not reason. However, they are dimly aware of the real situation, and try to find some kind of a justification for the impasse of their system by denying the possibility of progress altogether!
So far has this idea sunk into consciousness that it has even been carried into the realm of non-human evolution. Even such a brilliant thinker as Stephen Jay Gould, whose dialectical theory of punctuated equilibria transformed the way that evolution is perceived, argued that it is wrong to speak of progress from lower to higher in evolution, so that microbes must be placed on the same level as human beings. In one sense it is correct that all living things are related (the human genome has conclusively proved this). Man is not a special creation of the Almighty, but the product of evolution. Nor is it correct to see evolution as a kind of grand design, the aim of which was to create beings like ourselves (teleology - from the Greek telos, meaning an end). However, in rejecting an incorrect idea, it is not necessary to go to the other extreme, leading to new errors.
It is not a question of accepting some kind of preordained plan either related to Divine intervention or some kind of teleology but it is clear that the laws of evolution inherent in nature do in fact determine the development from simple forms of life to more complex forms. The earliest forms of life already contain within them the embryo of all future developments. It is possible to explain the development of eyes, legs and other organs without recourse to any preordained plan. At a certain stage we get the development of a central nervous system and a brain. Finally with homo sapiens, we arrive at human consciousness. Matter becomes conscious of itself. There has been no more important revolution since the development of organic matter (life) from inorganic matter.
To please our critics, we should perhaps add the phrase from our point of view. Doubtless the microbes, if they were able to have a point of view, would probably raise serious objections. But we are human beings and must necessarily see things through human eyes. And we do assert that evolution does in fact represent a development of simple life forms to more complex and versatile ones - in other words progress from lower to higher forms of life. To object to such a formulation seems to be somewhat pointless, not scientific but merely scholastic. In saying this, of course, no offence is intended to the microbes, who after all have been around for a lot longer than us, and if the capitalist system is not overthrown, may yet have the last laugh.
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