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The Philosophy Of Karl Marx*****************************By,,,Faisal Abdi

SomaliNet Forum (Archive): General Discusions: Archive (Before Jan. 23, 2001): The Philosophy Of Karl Marx*****************************By,,,Faisal Abdi
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Faisal Abdi

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 11:51 am
This is my second topic of philosophy in which we will try to understand the philosophy of Marx---that is Karl Marx..a great philosopher whose philosophy was misconstrued.
Do you know that two third of all human beings in the world today call themselves followers of Karl Marx and live in countries which are governed by Marxist regimes? Yet, for most of his adult life until his death, Karl Marx was almost unknown, a hardworking, impoverished radical scholar, living as as a refugee in London, and having to be supported , along with his wife and children, by the contributions of freinds.
What is the power of the thought of Karl Marx? Marxism swept through the world and captured the intellect, imagination, and conscience of human beings as only the great religions have done in human history. Is Marxism then in some respect similar to religion? But Karl Marx would have been horrified by the suggestion that his own views had anything in common with the claims of religion. Religious beliefs to Marx meant belief in supernatural god, divine revelation, and a redeeming messiah, and Marx scorned such beliefs as he was an atheist
His unforgettable epigram was"""religion is the opium of the people"""..Such was the great character of a philosopher---a man who ignored god ,,a man who believed that the world was just a mere nature created by nature itself,,,what a tragedy!!!
How then did Marx himself regard his own work, if surely not within the domain of religion? According to him , his main purpose was to make drastic changes in the Hegelian system to bring it down to earthly issues from the lofty plane of abstract metaphysics of German idealism...
In his latter life, though, he claimed to be a scientist, speciffically, a social scientist, and to be no less than the Isaac Newton of the sciences. But no philosopher or social scientist has ever had a worldwide, international, organized following.
We will find ourselves coming back to the question,,,,what is the strange, commanding power that lies within the thought of Karl Marx? How can the global appeal of Marxism be explained?

I assume that my average reader has some basic knowledge with regard to Marxism...no offence meant though...
In a speech Marx gave in London in 1856, he startled his audience by concluding with this story:
"To revenge the misdeeds of the ruling class, there existed in the middle ages, in Germany, a secret tribunal called the" Vehmgericht(secret court),, if a red cross was seen marked in a house, people knew that its owners were doomed by the court""
Hends his speech:
"All the houses of Europe are now marked with the mysterious red cross. History is the judge-its executioner, the proletarian,, the working class.
This is Marx's vision of world history and its failure, and its dark future, a history of such great injustice and inhuman judgement---the sentencing to death of the entire capitalist world.
Let us now examine Marx's conception of history, which is now ussually called Historical Materialism. It is the central theory of Marxism.
Contrary to the philosophy of Rene Descartes and Thomas Hobbes who believed in mechanistic materialism--the view that reality consists of physical (material) particles in motion according to mechanical laws, thus denying that the mind/ consciousness is real. But Marx who knew both ancient Greek materialism and modern European materialism had no use for any of these varieties of philosophical materialism, since the only significance they give to consciousness and human action is as the mere passive results of the motion of the matter. None of these philosophers recognized , as he did, that human consciousness and purposefull human labor are not passive but are creative and productive in transforming the world of nature and, in the process. transforming man's own essence.
Marx believed that his theory was different from other theories in its awareness that the reality of material objects is not independent of human beings, but is acctually a reality which has been transformed by human labor in the course of history.
Marx's historical materialism explains the whole sweep of history by taking man's material production as the basis of history and by viewing mental production, man's intellectual and cultural life as its effect.
What does Marx mean by his view that material production is the real basis of history and that human thought and culture are only its effect?. Exactly like Hegel before him, Marx is trying to find a key which will explain the characteristics of individual human societies and also changes which have taken place in human societies in the course of history.
First, with respect to explaining the characteristics of individual human societies, Hegel found the key in the spirit of the people, which is expressed in the culture as an organic totality of politics, religion, art, philosophy, music, and law.
Marx follows Hegel in his organicism. For Max no less than Hegel, every individual society is an interrelated organic totality, in which no part can be understood in isolation. But for the ideal philosopher,Hegel, the explanation of the organic unity of a particular society lies in the spirit of the people, which embodies the spirit of the Absolute.
In opposition to Hegel's idealism, for Marx's materialism the explanation of the organic unity of a particular society lies in the material economic foundation.
The concept of the economic structure or economic foundation of society is crucial to Marx's view of society and historyt.Marx begins with the fundamental point about the history of human production. Whereas animals satisfy their needs with what nature provides, human beings must themselves produce the food and clothing and shelter which will meet their basic needs. Thus humans must produce the means to change what nature provides into things suitable for human needs. And as soon as man's needs are satisfied he develops new needs, which he is also increasingly able to satisfy by his productive activity. In short, Marx's point is that man is the producer of his own expanding material life.Thus human nature is expressed in his ongoing productive activity and its creative power, by which man continually transforms the material world.
For Marx an ideology may be defined as a system of ideas which is determined by class conflict and which reflects and promotes the interests of the dominant class. Ideologies are thus pportrayed as distorting types of consciousness, ways of perceiving the human world which falsify true reality in order to defend and promote interests of a social group. All the claims to truth which philosophies, religion, legal systems, political theories, moral systems are branded by Marx as ideologies: throughout the historical epochs in which there has been a division of labor and class conflict the dominant cultural beliefs served the dominant class.
Marxian doctrine of ideology soon entered into the mainstream of twentieth-century thought, and produced a new way of looking at any theory by asking the questions What class interests does this theory represent? How is it distorting, twisting, and misrepresenting reality in order to defend, protect,promote the interests of some identifiable social group?
Throughout his life Marx waged a rellentless war against an invisible enemy---Capitalism--Marz calls upon the Proletariat to liberate themselves from the chains and the permanent burden on their lives by wagin a revolution, a mighty revolution, as he had in mind, to do justice to the impoverished masses.
But however powerful are the unspoken, evocative religious and moral currents in Marx's thought, his specific predictions with regard to capitalism we now recognize as seriously mistaken. Contrary to Mar's oredictions, capitalism has not been destroyed.
Nevertheless, the contributions of KarlMarx to intellectual and political culture stand, and must be recognized: his concept of the economic foundations of society, social classes, ideology, capitalism and its cultures, and the influence of social, economic, and historical conditions on human life and thought. Today, Karl Narx is regarded as a major father of political economy, and the father of Modern Sociology and of intellectual history.
His thought has transformed the intellectual culture and the political existence of the Twentieth Century...................
*************************************************MMore other philosophers will be discussed and i hope that if you have any thing to add to this on-going analysis of philosophy to post it.....

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yasmiin

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 01:04 pm
Faisal Abdi

I will really appreciate if ppl were a cool guy like u,,the way u analyze and simplify the whole concept of philosophy,,really..i do,,and would like to personally contact u.....i have your e-mail, then from the other paper,,Empiricism,,,,
keep it up. after all you are the one with real sense of purpose

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fadumo

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 02:49 pm
FAISAL
Tell me please out of respect ....There is this guy in the unniversity i attend and he is somalian, well, to be frank we see each other on the compus,,his name is faisal, studying law...I met him a couple of times and feels too shy.. perhaps you are the one,,please if u are the one ..out of respect for the sister whom you have met the other day and introduced herself as Faduma,tell me if you are that guy,,please waiting for u answer..

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Guuleed

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 05:13 pm
Faisal Abdi,

well done, though i hated the man when i was a student in Soviet Union late 80`s .

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Anonymous

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 09:08 pm
Snce we are discussing Marx's philosophy, i think
we should consider his classical works as distingshed from present marxist writings for
every days use. These works clearly state that the
law of exploitation has the capacity of natural law in human relations and that every man will exploit another as long as he can - that is until he is stoped by force. Here there no room for the conscience's inner voice,tolerance, natural humanism and the like.Exploitation he holds will exist in every being. It depends neither on the will of people nor on their moral or similar subjective qualities(education,character,opinion,
and so on),nor on their mutual relations. When marx offers in das kapital the example of a child,s exploitation by Hungry mother,it is obvious he is drawing our attention to the effect of the law of exploitation in human society. However is not strange some marxist today try to establish so - called ethics by referring to man and astract humanity.It is worth noting Marx always stressed that references to man's humanism,consciousness, and the like constituted idealsim a long with religion. one may agree with marx on that. However present marxis cannot agree with him for obvious reasons. From the lbrary, mark could say morality does exist, but people who try to realise his ideas by building societies upone them, cannot declare the same. Because the fact remains that to estblish a society and to maitain it, they(marxist) have to ask the people for more idealism and self sacrifice than any prophet ever asked in the name of religion. This is why they sometimes have to forget some very clear materialistic postulates.Therefore, the real question is not whether an atheist(materialist) may preach morality or humanity; the point is whether he can do that and remain what he claimes to be - that is, within the limits of mateialism.

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Anonymous

Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 09:14 pm
Snce we are discussing Marx's philosophy, i think
we should consider his classical works as distingshed from present marxist writings for
every days use. These works clearly state that the
law of exploitation has the capacity of natural law in human relations and that every man will exploit another as long as he can - that is until he is stoped by force. Here there no room for the conscience's inner voice,tolerance, natural humanism and the like.Exploitation he holds will exist in every being. It depends neither on the will of people nor on their moral or similar subjective qualities(education,character,opinion,
and so on),nor on their mutual relations. When marx offers in das kapital the example of a child,s exploitation by Hungry mother,it is obvious he is drawing our attention to the effect of the law of exploitation in human society. However is not strange some marxist today try to establish so - called ethics by referring to man and astract humanity.It is worth noting Marx always stressed that references to man's humanism,consciousness, and the like constituted idealsim a long with religion. one may agree with marx on that. However present marxis cannot agree with him for obvious reasons. From the lbrary, mark could say morality does not exist, but people who try to realise his ideas by building societies upone them, cannot declare the same. Because the fact remains that to estblish a society and to maitain it, they(marxist) have to ask the people for more idealism and self sacrifice than any prophet ever asked in the name of religion. This is why they sometimes have to forget some very clear materialistic postulates.Therefore, the real question is not whether an atheist(materialist) may preach morality or humanity; the point is whether he can do that and remain what he claimes to be - that is, within the limits of mateialism.

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faisal Abdi

Monday, January 08, 2001 - 09:06 pm
While modern Marxist have deviated from the early Marxist, there appears a common bond which is stronger than the earlier one...
As u have said we have to look deeper into the writings of Marx....
The Capital...
It was in Capital, and earlier draft of it, the foundations(Grundrisse)of the Critique of Political Economy(1857-58)ussually called the Grundrisse, that Marx developed and fleshed out the economic concepts which the German Ideology and the Communist Manifesto had already outlined.
Here in Capital-the book--is the most complete statement of mature Marxism, of the scenario of world history and specifically the scenario of the present historical moment as a class struggle produced by the division of labor, and propelled by the iron laws of economic dialectics..
Capital provides a detailed, systematic analysis of the famous concepts of the labour theory of value, surplus value, the theory of exploitation, and the polarization of classes..
Capitalism:::
what is it?
Marx defined it as being a mode of production in which few humans own and control the major forces or means of production as their private property and they employ as workers those who have nothing to sell but their own labor power....
Labour Theory of Value::
Here Marx argues that the commodities that workers produce have a value equivalent to the amount of labor needed to produce them...as u noyice, Marx is borrowing from the British economists Adam Smith and David Recardo their labour theory of value and their principle that the value of anything is determined by the amount of labour required to produce it...
The theory of labour has been strenuously objected by recent economists claiming that it is not the amount of labour that dtermines but rather the supply and deman of the commodity and the degree of skill of the labor...
Surplus Value:::
Directly related to Marx;s labour theory is his crucial concept of surplus value...This is the concept which explains both profit of the capitalist and the exploitation of the worker.....
Theory of Exploitation::
And here we have the key argument in Marx's theory of exploitation. The working class is forced into a position of selling on the market its labor power for the going rate of wages:Marx argues that the capitalist exploits the worker by selling the goods the worker produces for more money than he pays to the worker in wages...Capitalism is a system of exploitation, Marx argues, in which capitalists profiteer by paying the workers only the existing rate of wages in place of the full market value of the products the workers produce...
What happens afterwards is what Marx called""Capitalist Competition and Crisis of Overproduction within the capitalists themselves...which leads to Revolution
Polarizing of Classes::
Marx demonstrates here the theory of polarization of society which he devides into two economic classes Shrinking Capitalist Class and an expanding proletariat class...conflicting....thus revolution..
I am sorrry if i have taken a lot of space,,lol,,i guess we all need people to understand the underlying principles,,,in order to get more input from the people..
w/salaam

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zainab

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 02:58 am
What about the philosophy of Rene Descartes..
Please write something about that guy, his philosophy has been a nightmare to me,

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MAD MAC

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 04:52 am
Faisal Abdi
This is interesting reading, esspecially coming from a Muslim. I think the real problem with Marxists is they:

a. believe in Utopia.
b. believe that we can manage things we can't
c. believe that governments can be trusted

I am reminded of something I read a while ago. A reporter goes and visits his old university and sits in on a government class. One young man says he doesn't think its fair that presidents of large corporations make lots of money while ordinary workers don't make any. Doubtless this is unfair. But corporations have boards of directors, shareholders, workers and customers who are free to hire or fire, sell shares, strike and boycot the product if they don't like the corporate paty structure. From whom will these individual freedoms be taken away and to whom will ther power of deciding what's fair be given? He wasn't sure. "But it's unfair" he said.

Since I live in Germany I have had this basic discussion countless times. All my elitist German friends think that big government making lots of laws and controlling the economy is the way to go.They don't seem to have learned anything from their past. Revolutions usually do more damage than good. Communist revolutions always do. Capitalism is no panacea - that's because there is no panacea. Life is unfair. Some people are born into poverty and never get out. And no economic system in the world can change that.

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Kaamil

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 12:35 pm
serious brothers ....i never new there are this kind of discussions in somalinet,,,i am happy ,,,,,keep up guys..

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Xoogsade

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 03:10 pm
Faisal:

two thirds? Where did you get that statistic? Communism is a disgrace to humanity and Karl Marx should have been hanged by his eyelids, the fat jew bastard!!

Moral people of the world unite and throttle a communist and if you can't find one kill a liberal or a socialist. The world will become a livalble place then.

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Durgal

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 06:00 pm
Faisal,what is this 3001 Political Thought?

Here my feed back to you and the topic in general.

A. Good transmission, you didn't take sides, may be that was your strategy.
B. In your last paragraph you said Marx is regarded as the father of modern sociology. Do you mean European sociology? Beacuse there is general tendency among social scientist to use modern and European interchangeably.
C.Is Marxism dead as theory since it offered
no relief from the sufferings of Capitalism?
D. The true test of any thought is basically how that theory stands against reality. How does Marxism fare agianst reality?
E. Marx's world was indeed Western,thus he did see the world as continuous entity that needed careful thought.

It amazes most how Western intellectuals, including Marx attempt to capture what reality is,and then exclude other civilizations. There is one reality and that is that man cannot
change anything in the way lives. With all the technological Western thought, they could not change their way of live, they are driven by invisible predetermination, and they are too stupid to recognize it.

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Anonymous

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 07:56 pm
The classical form of the working class,the class
of oppressed factory of proletarians which would according to marx,exist "untill that class cancels itself" seems to have been temporary form.
These result is not because the class decided to cancel itself,but machines are taking over the manual work while man's the activity have some what been greatly reduced. hence man has became more and more the control and management of large automatic systems. The development of secience and technology,"the development of the productive means" as theorized did not result in the power
of working class but in its abolition as such. development did not only abolish the working class it shifted rather decisively the point of producation and social importance as well, to the technical intelligence.In my view last traces of idealsim and revolutionary romanticism as advocated by marx his communist friends disappeared. technocracy, the rational and heartless power, the typical product consistent with a civilization whose religous influence have deminished is arriving on scene.

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MAD MAC

Tuesday, January 09, 2001 - 11:13 pm
Xoogsade
You never cease to amaze me. For you everything is black and white. You hate commies, liberals, socialists, Jews and everyone in general from "the west." Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that if you had your way, the global population would be cut by 95%?

Durgal
Good post, but remember we all tend to suffer from it. You look at the world through your prism as well. Though I'll admit the West has a special hubris born of economic and military success. Of course all good things must come to an end. I imagine one day a new philosophy will emerge - I know you're hoping it's Islamic. I personally think it will be looking outwrd - away from the Earth.

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Durgal

Wednesday, January 10, 2001 - 04:51 pm
Mad Mac

I like that" We all tend to suffer from it" No one can say it better than its soldier. This why I like to debate with someone who knows exactly what he is saying. On the contrary, people who posted this topic seem to be expereincing intellectual crisis.For instance why would a muslim person post Marxist ideology? It beats me. There is a difference between being familiar with something, and actaully posting it as though you admire it. Besides,all marx did was to document how firm's cost minimization effects its environment whether it is politics,social,or adminstration. Basically, he made it easier for people to see the interactions between various groups by observing how Irland become a periphery. He also offered some wild prescriptions and as result his theory is dead. Enough with Marx, what about capitalism?

The more someone observes Capitalism and the West the more he realizes how sound his faith is, and certainly I am no exception to that. This intellectaul maturation not only solidified my faith in Islam but It gives me new and unique perspective of the world, something which people like Marx and the most of Western Intellectuals tradition lacked. For instance, I was amazed by the similarities between Islamic colleges in the thirteenth century, and the twenty first century Western universities both in terms of function and orientation. Both of these institutions were used in maintaining social order. Ruling elites particularly understood the significance of shaping the moral reasoning of the future graduates. Thus it was their interest to screen what type education one gets. How this is true at my university? Imagine Orientalist teaching Islamic art. So as capitalism trains the new graduates in certian way so did Islam. But there is a tremendous difference between the two. Of course there were particular emphasis on predetermination since it benefited particular ruler who wanted people to see him as a legitimate. A college professor at Nishbur in 12th and 13th century, could not voice his veiws about whether the political realities on the ground were consistent with Islamic teachings. He would find another job, if not another life. But In general, muslims teachers maintained a uniform loyalty to islamic teachings. How about the West, are things different? In subtle way you will notice how students are burried under tons of literature where ultimately the theory that comes on the top accidently happens to be the one the professor wanted, or the system wanted. If someone like Marx comes along and documents this kind of interaction in the western universities and then attributes it to capitalistic influence on institutions of education would he be accurately documenting reality or would he simply giving his version of reality? It is true that ruling elites in the West are constrained by capitalism, but if similar behaivor can be found in any form of economy then Marx's emphasis on environment, especially one type of market would not help us, particularly, since we have seen how ruling the elites bahaved in medieval Islam, and similarly how communist China is behaving now.

Is something else driving this? If we cannot see improvement in human moral education from early history of man to the present then we can conclude that we have no control over our destination. Ironically though man's environment has improved dramatically. In Islam the fiath alone answers this, in the west there is inherent denial of its existence. In short, we have seen the tremendous importance of seeing human history as one in order to make sense of our existence. On the contrary,if human history is divided into an unrelated,and diametrically opposed civilizations for a purpose I mentioned earlier, then the world would become unintelligable universe, and only few would understand what the Truth is and mainly through faith. The highest institution in human history had been the institution of prophecy, because of its uniform, consistency, and its supremacy over humman corruption. If someone denies the masseges of this institution why would he listen his university, ruling elites, or ingroups. It is buzzle me. In Islam it has answers, God gives guidence those he likes.

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laascaanoodi

Wednesday, January 10, 2001 - 05:43 pm
Xoogsade:
PESSIMIST: one who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both...... xoogsade=pessimist

The first theorist who may properly be called socialist, propounded the doctrine of class war later seen in MARXISM. Utopian Socialists such as Charles Fourier, Robert Owen and the Comte de Saint-Simon rejected the notion of class struggle. Louis Blanc and P.J Proudhon were among other leading socialists. The cmmunist Manifesto (1848), by Karl MARX and Friedrich ENGELES, argued the inevitability of a proletarian-led international revolution. Fredinand Lassalle founded (1863) the first workers' party in Germany, and by the 1870s there were socialist parties in most European Countries. Doctrine disputes between Gradualists and revolutionists culminated in the split of Russian Socialism into BOLSHEVISM and MENSHEVISM. After the 1917 RUSSIAN Revolution international socialism and Communism split irrevocably. Present-day Socialist parties, play an important role in Western Eoropean electoral politics. They Usually call them Democratic Socialist parties.

i will Discuss the THIRD WORLD NEXT TIME

MADMAC its always good to read your western ideas

i am delighted and disappointed to see that you are still here.

i assume you enjoy the Somali Factor

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laascaanoodi

Thursday, January 11, 2001 - 11:38 am
let us Discuss the Third World.

In the Third World, Socialist programs have stressed land reform and centralized economic planning, often through a one party state, but since the 1980s contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved..... by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science.......

motion and matter are everything..........

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karim

Thursday, January 11, 2001 - 09:19 pm
People there is nothing wrog with this discussion. In fact we muslims must be willing to agressivelly debate this Issue.Because Marxis is consistant in theory but not in practice. They claime that man is a product of his environment as such one's opinion and beleifs refelect one's social position, that historical events result not from ideas or man's intentional acts but from objective facts independent of man, that history is subject to merciless historical determinism. This means indonisia and malaysia converted to Islam not out moral reasons but out of other wordly reasons. This view also hold that Slavery was not abolished not because moral reason but economic need.this indeed is abursd because Indonisiya and malasyia, had other trading partners in world and they were not defeated in war, it was out moral reasoning that they accepted Islam. As for slavery there were alot of plantation, that would have loved Slavery to continue. However moral reasons carried the day. Islam infact rewards that morals reasoning and it did so hundreds year. of before the world the abolished slavery. The incoherence of the materialistic interperation of historical events can be easily proved by analyzing any period of history. Nevertheless there is a historical irony
in the fact that even the appearance of Communist movements is an evident rebuttal of materialistic
theory. For where ever they made progress if any it was because subjective conditions were present
but not objective conditions.No wander Engels admited in his latter dated may 8 1890 to Conrad
smith that if marxist theory of economics is literally applied sometimes incredible nonsense occurs. Those of you who think marx is philospher cosider the following marx's in DAS KAPITAL as well as ("the work day":O exploitation is clearly portrayed in terms of good and evil. The exploiter is personified evil while exploited personifies good.It is my view that if one condemmes an evil deed, one must recognized it is the result of man's free choice. remember what we earlier said Marx's views were events were neither result nor the intentional acts of man. then in DAS KAPITAL the exploiters are blamed what a contridiction?.

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MAD MAC

Thursday, January 11, 2001 - 10:00 pm
Durgal
Although I agree with the broad principal that the universities are used to shape general ideas, in American universities (in fact the entire American education system) is focussed much more on shaping its graduates to produce economically. Political ideas are definately subordinate. Hence we have history, poly sci, theology - and then massive amounts of education in the macro and micro economic fields, computers, science, techonnology, engineering, medicine, business, etc. etc. etc. Also, some cultures abhored free thought. Hence the old Soviet Union did not allow for the exploration of ideas that conflicted with communist ideology. Western Universities do maintain a fringe element and these elements are allowed to explore any ideaas they please. This is a fairly new (a few hunddred years old) development which in Jeffersonian America has really taken hold - not in the sticks though. In the sticks conservativism rules.

Laascanoodi
Yeah, I'm a damn stubborn Kufaar. The SNA couldn't get rid of me in 93 and you guys can't get rid of me now. I know from a Somali perspective it must seem like there are more and more of these damn things (Gaal) running around every year. Anyway, you know I love you guys.

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laascaanoodi

Friday, January 12, 2001 - 12:13 pm
MADMAC

Dont you agree that Motion is the mode of existence of matter?

Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be bit if the question is raised: what thought and consciousness really are, and where they come from; it becomes apparent that they are products of human brain and that man himself is a product of Nature, which has developed in and along with its environment; hence it is self-evident that the products of the human brain, being in the last analysis also products of Nature, do not contradict the rest of Nature's interconnections but are in correspondence with them......

Hegel was an idealist, that is to say the thoughts within his mind were to him not the more or less abstract images., made real, of the idea existing somewhere or other before the world existed.

The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is the relation of thinking and being spirit to Nature which is the primary, spirit or Nature. The answer which the philosophers gave to this question split them into Two great camps. Those who asserted the primary of spirit to Nature and , therefore, in the last instance, assumed worl creation in some form or other, Comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded Nature as primary, belonged to the various schools of materialism.

any other use of the concepts of Philosophical idealism and materialism leads only to confusion.

Madmac "Yeah, I'm a damn stubborn Kufaar"

i dont consider you Stubborn, Self-assured fits you, keep it up and you shall see the light at the end of the -------?
finish the rest for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best regards,
Somali Nationalist

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Troublegirl

Friday, January 12, 2001 - 11:08 pm
Faisal
Have I ever mentioned that I would actually marry a guy merely for his brains? Well now ya know

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Sagittarius

Saturday, January 13, 2001 - 02:52 pm
Faisal,

Extremely interesting read..

There's one tacit agreement among economists, naturally except the Monetarists of Milton Friedman, that the greatest contribution of Karl Marx was to resuscitate in the similars of Lord John Maynard Keynes to justify that government intervention was essential for full employment and economic equilibrium rather than the Laissez-Faire theory which dominated the economic thought for so long.

Keynes, eventhough he later wrote that he was not the least bit affected by the Marxian ideals of totalitarianism, was later criticized that if there was no Marx on the other end of the spectrum calling for the complete government ownership of means of production, he wouldn't have found a middle ground to call for the reversal of a Laissez-Faire system that was so predominat at the time.

Apparently, Marx inadvertently contributed to the salvation of Capitalism through the hands of the saviour of Capitalism John Maynard Keynes who theorically and practically(mathematicaly) proved that if the economy was left alone to correct itself it wouldn't necessarily result in full employment of the factors of production in a society and equilibrium point.

Sagittarius

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Mercutio-

Saturday, January 13, 2001 - 05:10 pm
COME ON LADS GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST, CONFESS EVERYTHING.

THIS IS SO INTRESTING BUT I DON'T HAVE THE PATIENCE TO READ IT ALL RIGHT NOW!!

I PROMISE AM GONNA READ EVERY POSTING!! THIS MIGHT BE THE MOST INTRESTING TOPIC OF CONVERSTION I'VE EVER SEEN!!

KEEP IT UP!! FAYSAL, DURGAL Etc!!!

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MAD MAC

Monday, January 15, 2001 - 01:22 am
Saggitarius
Well, I agree that Keynes' influence (his theories really were shaped from observation of existing economic developments) did much to shape the modern economoy and the extent to which government intervention in economy is considered desirable. Having watched the Germany economy in action I have concluded that they allow too much government intervention which causes stagnation. On a global scale I've also become convinced about two things. Third world nations like Korea were able to move to the first world economically becuase of two factors:

a. Belief that education is Gods gift and therefore the pursuit for an educated populace is a very high priority placed by society as a whole.
b. Belief in organized, secure states. The Asian states that placed a premium on political stability are the ones that prospered most.

If you have a location with an educated population, stable political situation and fialry low costs (as they tend to be in emergin thrid world nations) it's the perfect environment to lure big business. I am convinced that education and stability are the keys to Somalias economic future.

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Poisonous

Monday, January 15, 2001 - 08:03 am
<<education and stability are the keys to Somalia´s economic future>>

Spot on Mad Mac.

Muchos Gracias from Spain.

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Anonymous

Monday, January 15, 2001 - 10:02 am
mAD mAC

Education will be a major transition to a New prosperous Somalia,but i hardly think it will happen.I am a Pro Education supporter,but without stability,Education can never grow its foundation.Somalia's problems was mainly contributed by lack of Education and enlightment.If say,there was a stable government built in Somalia now,i hardly think it will last long,mainly because of the existing Tribalial folk dance.Why?Because unless Somalia,becomes a complete democratic government,with complete free press and freedon of private sectors,restriction or limitation of power on the designated leaders,there will be no Somalia-TRUST ME.

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Miskiin-Macruuf-Waryaa

Monday, January 15, 2001 - 11:11 am
Salama...

Faysal Cabdi:

You are so interested Filsafy, may I ask you if you that read the famous Muslim filosafies:

Cali Xuseen C/laahi Ibn-Sina {for West, Avicenna}

C/wali Max'ed Ibn-Rushad {better known in West as Averroes}

If you are interested about this Filasafy ideas, then you must read those author's books, or even their biographies. Since you are a Muslim, and so are they, too. Great Muslims, indeed, were they.
__________________

Mac-Salaama!!

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Sagittarius

Wednesday, January 17, 2001 - 03:21 pm
MAD-MAC,

I 100% concur with you that education and stability are the key factors to prosperous societies. However, the assertion that too much government intervention causes stagnation, which is a worse economic situation than recession, I quite disagree. On the grounds that big government and small government are political terms rather than economic terms.

Moreover, highly capitalistic societies such as Germany and the US may usually put the blame on too much intervention where the government tries to regulate monopolistic aspects. Also, the environmental regulations are viewed as encroachment from the government to restrain and kill the business entrepneurship spirit, and furthermore increase production and innovation costs.
But, in the long run if the environment is not protected from these crusaders who won't stop at anything but to fulfill their profits regardless of who's going to bear the cost, there won't be a sound economic system standing as it was the case in the depression era in the US where stagnation was the result and finally economists found the voice to condemn unfettered capitalism and the mandate for government to play the umpire.
Additionaly, the call for government intervention is more critical in the developing nations, where it can play a decisive role for long-term development and strategic investment, but the counter-argument that the bigger the government gets the more it's susceptible to corruption and mismanagement is also true. Hence, government intervention has to be regressive rather than progressive, well established and laid away long-term strategic investment plans have to be put into place that would finally end up privatized for the sake of better management and profit maximazation which are the wheels of capitalism.

Sagittarius

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MAD MAC

Thursday, January 18, 2001 - 02:54 am
Sagitarius
Well, here are the two rubs I have with government intervention:

a. Even with the most responsive, well intentioned government, it's just not very efficient at respond to market demands. Now let's use Germany for an example. Here the State intervenes contantly, over-regulates in order to stnadardize and taxes at a very high rate to support social welfre programs. The effect of this is a higher gold flow (overseas investment) than should be the case. This overseas investment tendancy results in a loss of jobs, which impacts on the unemployment rate, which neccessitates more taxes and so on. Germanys unemployment rate is now hovering close to 10%. In an industrialized country that's pretty high. US tax rates, regulations and so forth vary from state to state but in general are much lower than here.

b. Oftentimes you don't have a well-intentioned government responsive to either the market or its constituency. When that's the case, the government over-regulates to profit itself and sustain iteslf. Developing a healthy economy is secondary. This is almost the rule in non-developing countries (I don't know why we call them developing countries, they never are). Some of the Asian economies were able to prosper (Korea, Japan, Taiwan) with direct intervention but many were also the victims of enormous amounts of corruption (Thailand, Malaysia, the Phillipines).

Overall I think the Market, when not simply allowed to run wild, will function more efficiently with less government intervention. However some level of intervention is must - in order to do things like run schools, maintain police, protect the environment, etc. The question is how much government is good.

I remember having this discussion with a local green here. He maintained that a lot of centralized government control is neccessary to protect the environment because left to their own devices people won't do it. I pointed out that Communist Eastern Europe was very centrally controlled but their environmental record was terrible. He said that was because they were only interested in economic development, not protecting the environment. To which I responded "And they did that so well." I am inclined to think the US model is the most efficient overall, but it is a dog eat dog model. If you want to be a half-stepper in America expect to be living under a rail-road bridge when you're 60.

If Somalia, with its nefarious history in this area, moves to anything resembling a state with tight government control, I guarantee you massive corruption and an impoverished state where all the profits aren't reinvested, but packed away in Swiss bank accounts.

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Faisal Abdi

Thursday, January 18, 2001 - 10:42 pm
Marxism and art
An Introduction to Trotsky’s Writings on Art,
"The realm of freedom actually only begins where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases." (Marx)

Art is important to people. It has always been so from the earliest human societies, when it was indissolubly linked to magic -that is, to the first primitive attempts of men and women to understand and gain control over the world in which they live. And although it would appear that art in modern society plays a less central role, in reality this is not the case.

“man does not live by bread alone”. Although the importance of art does not occur to most people, it will instantly become evident if we try to imagine a world without art, that is, a world without colour, without music, without fantasy and imagination. Such a world would be utterly unbearable, because it would be an inhuman world. The present alienated world of capitalism is inhuman enough. The conditions in which we live and work are already sufficiently unbearable. Yet millions find solace in music and dance, and become emotionally involved in the world of cinema, film stars and drama series on television. All this is an expression of art. Whether it is good or bad art is another matter. But that it says something to people, that it strikes a chord that vibrates in their hearts and souls, that it is important to our lives, is beyond all question.

To a colourless world, art brings an element of colour. To lives without meaning it gives a ray of hope. Art in all its forms makes us lift up our eyes, if only for a fleeting moment, above the dreary everyday existence, and makes us feel that there is something more to life than this, that we can be better than we are, that the relations between people can be human, that the world could be a better place than it is. Art is thus the collective dream of humanity, the expression of a deep-seated feeling that our lives are not what they ought to be, and a passionate if unconscious striving for something different.

From its earliest beginnings art was clearly not individual but social in character. The beautiful cave paintings of France and Spain were created in the deepest and most inaccessible parts of caves. These were therefore not intended as mere decoration, but as part of a ritual aimed at very practical ends - namely, to gain control over the bison, deer and wild horses which were hunted for food. Similar practical social purposes were present in the origins of song and dance.

With the development of the division of labour, the productive base of society takes a great leap forward, but at the same time, humanity’s gain is its loss. The separation of the different aspects of production, culminating in the division of mental and manual labour, is the prior condition for the separation of mankind into classes, with all that this implies for humanity. For the past ten millennia, the price of the most staggering social and economic progress has been the forcible alienation of the majority of the human race from the fruits of its labour, and at the same time the forcible exclusion of the majority of men and women from the world of culture.

Engels explains that in any society where art, science and government are the monopoly of a few, that minority will use and abuse its position in its own interests. This is the real basis of all class society. And this will always be the case, as long as the majority are compelled to work long hours to obtain the basic necessities of life. Aristotle long ago explained that man begins to philosophise when the needs of life are provided. The creation of a leisure class through slavery was the real material basis upon which art, science and technology has been developed. But these achievements serve to conceal the dark side of human history: namely, the exclusion of millions of men and women from the benefits of culture. An immense potential has been systematically aborted and destroyed. It is the task of socialism to put an end to this terrible crime against humanity and to open the door to a new and glorious page in human development.

Historical materialism

It is not possible to understand the development of art purely from a biological, psychological or genetic standpoint. One of the most fundamental differences between humans and other species is precisely the importance of culture, which is not inherited, but learned, mainly through the vehicle of language. It is language that makes us what we are. But, as Engels explains in his masterpiece The Role of Labour in the Transition of Ape to Man, it was the hand that created the brain, not the other way round. Humankind developed through labour and the production of tools, and this is social, not individual, activity. The development of culture, in turn, is clearly dependent on the development of what Marxists call the productive forces. It is not a biological but a social phenomenon.

It does not require a great deal of intelligence to understand that people's ideas, views and conceptions (i.e., consciousness) change with every change in the material conditions of life. It is said that humans are distinguished from other animals by religion. Equally it can be said that humans differ from other animals by possessing art, literature, science or philosophy. However, what is clear is that men and women began to develop these differences only when they began to produce tools and thus began to free themselves from complete dependence on the forces of nature. This much is clear, and is the basis of historical materialism, the Marxist method of interpreting history. Marxism explains that the viability of any socio-economic system depends in the last analysis on the development of the productive forces. But Marx and Engels never maintained that all of human development could be reduced to economics. The relationship between the economic “base” and the ideological “superstructure” is not simple and direct but dialectical and contradictory.

In a letter to Paul Ernst dated 5th June 1899, Engels reiterated his warning against a dogmatic interpretation of historical materialism: "As far as your attempt to treat the matter materialistically is concerned, I must say in the first place that the materialist method turns into its opposite if it is not taken as one's guiding principle in historical investigation but as a ready-made pattern according to which one shapes the facts of history to suit ones self."

Just as the laws that govern social development must be derived from a painstaking study of the facts, so it is with art. Any attempt to shed light on the development of art, literature and music must come as the result of an objective study of the subject matter itself. Such a study, however, falls outside the scope of the present article, since it would require many volumes. Suffice it to say that the Marxist analysis of the relation between culture and economic development has nothing in common with vulgar economic determination, as the following extract from the correspondence of Marx and Engels makes clear:

"As to the realms of ideology which soar still higher in the air, religion, philosophy, etc., these have a prehistoric stock, found already in existence and taken over in the historic period, of which we should today call bunk. These various false conceptions of nature, of man's own being, of spirits, magic forces, etc., have for the most part only a negative economic basis; but the low economic development of the prehistoric period is supplemented and also partially conditioned and even caused by the false conceptions of nature. And even though economic necessity was the main driving force of the progressive knowledge of nature and becomes ever more so, it would surely be pedantic to try and find economic causes for all this primitive nonsense. The history of science is the history of the gradual clearing away of this nonsense or of its replacement by fresh but already less absurd nonsense. The people who deal with this belong in their turn to special spheres in the division of labour and appear to themselves to be working in an independent field. And insofar as they form an independent group within the social division of labour, in so far do their productions, including their errors, react back as an influence upon the whole development of society, even on economic development. But all the same they themselves remain under the dominating influence of economic development." (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, pp. 482-3.)

Later on we read: "But the philosophy of every epoch, since it is a definite sphere in the division of labour, has as its presupposition certain definite intellectual material handed down to it by its predecessors, from which it takes its start. That is why economically backward countries can still play first fiddle in philosophy." (Ibid., p. 483.)

The same observations hold good in the sphere of art and literature. The roots of these lie in the most remote antiquity. Schools of art constantly change and these great changes reflect in great measure the profound processes of change in society, the ultimate roots of which can be traced back to changes in the mode of production and their corresponding class relations, with all the myriad legal, political, religious, philosophical and aesthetic manifestations. However, the relationship between these elements is far from simple. It is complex and contradictory, involving many different aspects. In Marx's words, it would be pedantic to try to trace the link between art and economics, which, at best, is indirect and convoluted. Art, like religion, has its roots in prehistory. Ideas, styles, schools of art can survive in the minds of men long after the concrete socio-economic context in which they arose has been consigned to oblivion. The human mind, after all, is characterised by its innate conservatism. Ideas which have long since lost their raison d’être, remain stubbornly entrenched in the human psyche and continues to play a role -even a determining role in human development. This is most clear in the field of religion. But it is also present in the realm of art and literature.

Thus, art has its own immanent laws of development which must be studied as a specific field of investigation. Economic and social devilment clearly impinges on the development of art in a most important way. But the one cannot be mechanically reduced to the other. The study of the history of art must proceed empirically, attempting to draw out the immanent laws that determine its development. Only in this way can the real relationship between art and society be brought out into the light of day. In other words, the relation of art to the development of the productive forces is not simple and direct, but dialectical and contradictory.

The development of art, literature and philosophy does not reflect the general line of development of society and the productive forces directly. The rise and fall of the productive forces finds its expression in the minds of men and women in the most contradictory ways. Hegel once wrote: "The owl of Minerva takes its flight at sunset." When a given socio-economic order enters into a phase of decline, this is reflected in a crisis of values, morality and religion. This is most often accompanied by a general tendency towards introversion which, under certain conditions, can give rise to new philosophical and artistic trends. Trotsky refers to this in his brilliant article The Curve of Capitalist Development. It was already mentioned by Marx in one of his earliest works, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, where he writes: "As regards art, it is well known that some of its peaks by no means correspond to the general development of society; nor do they therefore to the material substructure."

Is the artist a free individual?

"Social being determines consciousness." That is the great contribution of Marx and Engels to the understanding of human history. However, the way in which this determination takes place is far from simple. For example, it would be utterly absurd to attempt to derive the laws that govern the development of art and literature directly from the development of the productive forces. Such an attempt would necessarily produce an abortion. As we have seen, the development of art, music and literature must be studied specifically in terms of its internal laws of development. This constitutes a specific branch of investigation, quite separate from economics, politics or sociology. Nevertheless, the latter provides an understanding of the general socio-economic changes which shape and determine the general nature and psychology of the period in which the development of all branches of human culture unfold, the climate of the times that exercises, albeit unconsciously, a powerful conditioning effect on art and literature, along with everything else. The fact that the individual artist or writer is not aware of these influences and hotly denies them, is irrelevant. The artist lives in society and must fall under its influence as much as any other men and women.

The chief weakness of bourgeois aesthetics is that it rejects a priori the social influences that shape the development of art. Thus, the development of art is reduced to an essentially personal, i.e., psychological phenomenon. This subjectivism is entirely characteristic of the approach of the bourgeois in the present period to all branches of the social sciences: philosophy, economics and sociology. In fact, the idea that somehow art can stand outside or above society is a self-evident contradiction. Although art, literature and music have their own laws of development which cannot be reduced to those of economics or sociology, they are also not separated from society by a Chinese Wall. Art is, after all, a form of communication, although a very peculiar one. Despite all the prejudices about the lonely artist communicating with himself, in practice, no artist paints a picture that he does not intend to be seen, and no writer writes a novel or poem just for their personal consumption. And in order for art or literature to act as communication, it must have something to say. Art links the particular to the universal. The characters of a novel must be concrete, they must bear a sufficient resemblance to real men and women to be believable. But this is not sufficient. In order that these characters be interesting to us, they must stand for something more than just themselves.

The idea that the intellectual or the artist is "free" stems from a misunderstanding and a philosophical error. So-called free will has never existed except in idealist philosophy and religion (which basically amounts to the same thing). Leibnitz, the great German philosopher once remarked that if the magnetic needle could think it would be convinced that it pointed north out of its own free choice. Freud long ago demolished the notion that human thought and actions are free. More recent studies of the workings of the brain have finally demolished the myth of free will utterly. All our actions are conditioned, although we are not conscious of it. Intellectual productions are fundamentally conditioned by the social and cultural environment in which they take shape in the minds of men and women.

The origin of a given school of art or literature, its rise and fall, must remain a secret insofar as it is studied in isolation from the prevailing mood and trends that surround the artist and writer and affect his or her way of thinking in a decisive fashion. In turn, it is impossible to understand the general psychology of a given period in isolation from social and historical factors. And at bottom, it will be seen that these trends are affected in a decisive way by the development of the productive forces, the struggle between different classes and groups in society related to this, and the entire body of legal, religious, moral and philosophical trends that flow from this.

Artistic creativity represents a special branch of human consciousness with its own distinctive characteristics and patterns of development. To uncover the inner laws of development of art, literature and music is the task of a particular branch of study, namely aesthetics and the history of art. Nevertheless, this artistic consciousness is by no means a Thing-in-itself, and in the last analysis, must also partake of the general consciousness of society. Indeed, were this not the case, the artist would be unable to communicate with his fellows. The art of a given period resonates in the soul of men and women only because it reflects their innermost feelings, aspirations and frame of mind. The art of one period is so radically different from other periods because it arises out of a different social environment.

Society is divided into antagonistic classes. This inevitably gives rise to conflicting ideologies, reflecting the interests of different classes. The complicated criss-cross of ideas, philosophical, moral, religious and political trends and currents, exercise a powerful effect on the thinking of the epoch. Thus, every epoch has its own inherent cultural and aesthetic ideals, which by no means coincide with those of other epochs. The artistic models of one epoch can never be satisfactorily repeated in another epoch which is under the sway of different classes with a correspondingly different psychology and aesthetic sense. Marx asks: "Is the conception of nature and social relations which underlies Greek imagination and therefore Greek [art] possible when there are self-acting mules, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs?"

Of course, there is another, more complex side to this. In the history of art, although certain kinds of art die out and disappear, yet they simultaneously leave behind a residue and a tradition which in turn conditions later generations of artists. Art no more starts anew with every generation than does economics, philosophy, science or technology. Every period must stand on the shoulders of earlier generations. The way in which one school of art, music or literature is connected with another can be either positive or negative. Here we have good example of the dialectical law of attraction and repulsion. A new school of art can either repeat or copy older models or, on the contrary, reject them and develop new forms. But even by this act of rejection, the new school is actually conditioned by the old. Moreover, it frequently happens that, in its search for something new, the artist will revert to earlier forms. Styles that were apparently extinct make a reappearance, as when Renaissance Europe rediscovered the art of ancient Greece, or the artists of the French Revolution rediscovered classicism. Nearer our own times, Picasso's early Cubist experiments reflect the influence of African tribal art, while the rhythms of Africa brought to America hundreds of years ago by black slaves forms the basis of modern jazz and "pop" music in all its forms.

Partisanship in literature

"I am by no means opposed to partisanship in poetry as such," wrote Engels. "Both Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, and Aristophanes, the father of comedy, were highly partisan poets, Dante and Cervantes were so no less, and the best thing that can be said about Schiller's Kabale and Liebe is that it represents the first German political problem drama. The modern Russians and Norwegians, who produce excellent novels, all write with a purpose. I think however that the purpose must become manifest from the situation and the action themselves without being expressly pointed out and that the author does not have to serve the reader on a platter the future historical resolution of the social conflicts which he describes." (Marx and Engels, On Art and Literature, p. 88.)

There is such a thing as committed art. In many cases artists and writers feel passionately involved in the subject matter of their art. This applies especially to the greatest art, which is inevitably connected in one way or another to the big questions, the questions of life and death which move the lives and thoughts of millions. What Engels warned against was the debasement of such art to mere empty pamphleteering. A great message can be present in a work of art, but it must not be something imposed from without. It must emerge naturally from the subject matter itself. In Lev Tolstoy's great novel Anna Karenina we have a powerful indictment of the treatment of women in society, as well as a searing criticism of the soulless nature of tsarist bureaucratic and serf society. Yet the message is not imposed from without or tacked on arbitrarily at the end. It emerges with extraordinary force from the narrative itself. Moreover, Tolstoy's characters are not mere ciphers but living men and women who strike us both as real flesh and blood and at the same time typical characters representing specific individual types.

This is committed art. There is also what we might call didactic art, which more clearly sets out to deliver a message and "educate" us. This we see in the worst examples of so-called Socialist Realism. This almost always fails because art is not very suited to this purpose. For that we have politics and philosophy. Finally, there is propaganda. Propaganda is not generally considered to be art at all, or in the best case is seen as a very inferior form of art. Even here there can be exceptions. The best poster art of the period immediately following the Russian revolution can be accepted as an art form that derives from the Russian Constructivist school. In general, however, propaganda is mainly interested in delivering a message that is entirely external to the art-form utilised. Thus the element of artistic expression is secondary. It is a convenient peg upon which the message is hung. From such a medium great art is unlikely to flow.

It is also clearly absurd to judge art from the standpoint of an entirely different intellectual discipline, such as philosophy or politics, in the same way that one would not judge nuclear physics from the standpoint of sociology or psychology. A work of philosophy may be written in a good literary style; it may or may not move us to tears or laughter. But that is not its primary function. Philosophy appeals primarily to the intellect; art and literature appeal fundamentally to our emotions.

Plekhanov, polemicising against Tolstoy, insisted that art does not only appeal to the emotions but also to the mind. In a general sense, that is correct but it misses the point. The question we must ask is: what is essential and what is non-essential in art and literature? It is true that some works of literature, arguably the greatest ones, also appeal to the mind and contain profound philosophical ideas. Shakespearean tragedy is the best example. But one should not judge art from the standpoint of philosophy, or philosophy from the standpoint of art. A good philosopher may have a poor style. But a writer with a bad style is just a bad writer and nothing else, however correct his or her philosophical ideas. And if we are to judge art and literature on the grounds of “political correctness”, we would be left with very slim pickings indeed! No, literature and art must be judged according to their own inherent laws and essence, and not from external considerations which fall outside the scope of art proper.

Does this mean that the artist and writer is therefore relieved of the onerous burden of thinking? Or that they are somehow outside of time and space, deriving their own concepts freely from their independent imaginations? Merely to pose the question is to answer it. Nowhere and at no time have artists and writers stood outside or above society. They are consciously or unconsciously moulded by the general tendencies in society. In class society this means that they fall under the influence of one or another of the contending classes. Of course, the influence is rarely simple or direct. Nor does it follow that an artist or writer who has adopted a conservative or even reactionary standpoint necessarily produces bad art. One of Marx’s favourite writers was the great French realist novelist Balzac. His voluminous Commedie Humaine contains a very precise description of French society in the early years of the 19th century, and in particular a detailed portrait of the rise of a new social type -the French bourgeois. In a political sense, Balzac’s sympathies were with the old French nobles, and in that sense he was a conservative. But so great was his artistic genius, and so truthful was his depiction of these processes, that he was compelled to go beyond his own standpoint. As Engels wrote:

“Balzac was thus compelled to go against his own class sympathies and political prejudices, that he saw the necessity of the downfall of his favourite nobles, and describes them people deserving no better fate.” (Marx and Engels, On Art and Literature, p. 92.)

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Sagittarius

Friday, January 19, 2001 - 11:21 am
MAD-MAC,

Points well taken. However, here is my comment:

"salus populi ex supreme lex" the welfare of the people is supreme law of any land.

Are we better off within the hands of the one claiming that at least they draw their legitimacy of governship from us or the one that claims that their existence is dependant on our pockets? If I had to entrust my happiness and welfare, at least it would have been the hypocrite politician.

Picture this image; If military was a private enterprise in any nation, what would have been the global outlook, I believe chaos and destruction. In the same token, we cannot unrestrainedly trust the private sector to guarantee our happiness and welfare by discarding or shrinking the role of government, eventhough it is not perfect in its endeavor, but perfection is utopian ideal.

sagittarius

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