Promises of 1968: Crisis, Illusion and Utopia

Post-Marxist Mentality and the Intellectual Challenge to Ideology after 1968

Tereza-Brînduşa Palade Post-Marxist Mentality and the Intellectual Challenge to Ideology after 1968 Was marxist ideology seriously challenged after the disenchantment with marxism in 1968? or instead, did the latter yield only an antiideology and new versions of the Left that still convey the forma mentis of marxism?1 in trying to provide an answer, i shall first try to clarify what i mean by a marxist mentality. for this purpose i will explore the idealistic and utopian roots of marxist ideology and attempt to examine the structure of radicalism that is intrinsic to them. Then i shall briefly recall Aron’s liberal critique of marxist radicalism (“fanaticism ”) and Kołakowski’s moderate attempt to come to terms with utopia , while dismissing at the same time an ideological forma mentis. How is it possible to move towards a de-radicalized post-ideological mentality and to create a post-marxist forma mentis? in the final part of the paper, i shall deal with this question by considering both the marxist and the anti-marxist radical mentality. Philosophical ideas and ideology in his Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909), Lenin argued that every philosophical theory serves the interests of a certain class, regardless of the awareness of the philosophers themselves as to which interests they are actually sustaining. so, according to Lenin, all philosophical ideas have an immediate ideological significance. Lenin’s argument relies on the principle of “partisanship” (partiinost), which means that 1 i am grateful to Jeffrey Herf and Charles King for their thoughtful comments and helpful suggestions to an earlier version of this paper. i4 Promises.indb 197 2010.10.18. 14:31 198 Promises of 1968 every philosophical question is only an instance of the “basic question ” of philosophy, i.e. the materialistic or idealistic tendency of every theoretical view, and that there is no philosophical neutrality with respect to the class struggle.2 The same thesis of the impossibility of a classless knowledge was also maintained by an orthodox marxist like Kautsky. The consequence is that no disinterested pursuit of truth would be possible. every philosopher or theorist is either politically involved, as an ideologist of the party, or else is an insincere idealist or a fideist. in all fairness, the marxist original view did not develop, to the same extent, such a doctrine of “partisanship.” marx believed that socially committed philosophers who interpret the world by articulating the consciousness of the proletariat transform at once their interpretation into political action; so there is, roughly speaking, a tendency of theorists to support the interests of a certain class. Yet, historical materialism was developed by following Hegelian lines, which meant that even a bourgeois philosopher like Hegel may have some valid insights that can result in the development of a materialist philosophy which serves the interests of the working class. And marx’s debt to the Hegelian idealistic philosophy was, as i shall argue later on, even more important than a mere structural influence which has been transmitted to his own philosophy of history. so one may conclude so far that according to a marxist view of politics and philosophy, philosophers who do not want to become hypocritical idealists or fideists must join a sound political group and become its ideologists. But, as i shall argue, the statement that only such an a priori epistemological commitment can allow a philosopher to grasp “reality” is instead based on idealistic premises. Hegel’s philosophical self wished to reproduce in each individual, at a rational level, a perfect visionary intelligence. This intelligence was able to create a coherent dialectic of history that was entirely abstract and purely logical. With this a priori vision over history, the philosopher could have met reality, but only in order that the latter would confirm precisely that vision of history. 2 Materialism and Empiriocriticism vol. 5, in V.i. Lenin, Collected Works, 45 vols., Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1960–1970, vol. 14, 286. i4 Promises.indb 198 2010.10.18. 14:31 199 Post-Marxist Mentality and the Intellectual Challenge to Ideology so Hegel did not have any interest at all for reality, but only for the way in which this reality can be subjected to his abstract concepts. The knowledge of reality was thus entirely dependent on the a priori ideas about it; moreover, at the end of the day, even the existence of real things and the occurrence of real events...