My Hero Karl Marx?
Let me start by confessing that I am unquestionably a member of the bourgeoisie. This fact combined with the fact that I am male and white should undercut much of what I have to say, at least from a Marxist perspective. Despite these handicaps, or perhaps as a result of them, I have to admit that Karl Marx is my philosophical hero. This is not because I agree with him in some important way. I’m actually not sympathetic with much of what he has to say, especially in his later writing. What I admire about Marx, however, is that he was able to accomplish what so many other philosophers have only dreamed of.
What I find most unappealing about Marxism is its thoroughgoing reductionism. This reductionism is clearly manifested in Marxist literary theory where every text gets interpreted as an expression of class struggle. Moreover, such expression is conceived only in the narrowest terms as the voice of the capitalist or the proletariat. While this may be an interesting way to look at certain texts, it becomes objectionable when critics insist that this is the preferred, or the only, way to read. We are left asking “Why must we read books as expressions of class conflict, and why do we have to understand this conflict in the terms that Marx spells out? Rather than answering such questions, they are reinterpreted by Marxist critics within the schema of class conflict and dismissed.
Given this criticism of Marxist theory, it certainly seems odd that I would claim Karl Marx as a hero. Despite his many flaws, however, Marx is the first and only philosopher to directly influence the course of human events in a significant way. From the beginning, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle sought, not simply to theorize about the just state, but to bring it into existence. That this surprises us attests to the abject failure of such efforts. By contrast, Marx was ultimately successful in rallying others to his ideas and as a consequence he transformed the world dramatically. In short, he is the only philosopher to truly unite theory and practice. How we judge this union over a century later, however, gives us pause to reflect on the relation between thought and action.
October 4th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Ed- There are a few points I’d like to address in your post. Firstly, while I agree that a Marxist lens does not apply to every text, and definitely agree that class struggle is not always the basis for conflict, I disagree that Marxist Literary theory is only concerned with issues of class consciousness. I find so many levels to Marxist thought that are transferrable to literature- the vocabulary of the dialectic- thesis, antithesis, synthesis; the concept of internal contradictions; the relationship between economy, politics, and class; themes of greed and materialism. I find that Marxist lit theory, like Feminist theory, is more about what themes one chooses to highlight in a text, rather than pure Marxist explication of the text conflict in terms of oppression by the bourgeoisie. As an ELA teacher, I would certainly reject any theory that expected to turn every novel into a condemnation of capitalism. However, if you are reading Les Mis or Raisin in the Sun, you probably do your students a disservice to ignore the obvious issues of class and class struggle.
Second, I totally see how one could admire Marx for the fact that he was a philosopher who actually affected chage and altered history. However, one must remember that lots of his work was published posthumously. the Bolshevik Revolution occurred 30+ years after his death, so it wasn’t really HIS rallying that converted so many. By the sheer nature of the wide adoption of “Marxist” ideals, his works have a vast disparity in their interpretation. Lenin and Mao rallyed millions, and i’m not sure how much credit you could give Marx for that. or how much he’d want, considering the ways in which they failed to actually HELP workers.
October 4th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Ed-
I admire your ability to find value and worth in a theory (and the person behind the theory) that you don’t necessarily agree with. I also, like Mandy, feel that with certain texts we do our students a great “disservice to ignore the obvious issues of class and class struggle.” I find this true with most texts we will teach in the secondary English classroom: how can you teach The Awakening without at least discussing feminist literary theory. Is it possible to teach Heart of Darkness without looking through a Structuralist lens? So I ask you, Ed, in light of the importance of teaching students to read from various perspectives, how might you teach Marxist theory to a group of students? Are there any books that you would be willing and excited to teach Marxist theory with?
October 5th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I think that I get what you’re saying about Marx affecting change in the world. I think so too, but I think that Marx’s motivations in writing down his ideas were were more closely related to the Industrial Revolution than the Bolshevik Revolution. Marx wrote when the Industrial Revolution was coming to a critical mass, when huge amounts of people were forced to move to industrial centers and shift their efforts from agricultural to industrial work, with no real choice in the matter. In Europe and America, entire families, including very young children, had to work in factories, and the industrial captains had no accountability to anyone as to wages and working conditions. Marx directed his thinking towards the implications of these changes, just as thinking people today should be thinking about the implications of things like the information/digital revolution and globalization. Marx is a hero of mine too, not so much for his theory as a whole, but for his detachment from the dominant ideologies that sometimes have the power to sweep up nearly entire populations–minds and all–toward some supposedly higher stage for humanity. As to how it relates to literature, I’d like to think it’s a useful tool, a lens, just one perspective out of many, that can come into play when an individual’s ideas come into conflict with ideology, what Marx called superstructure.