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NEWS & LETTERS, February 2008 - March 2008Youth ReviewPhilosophy and Revolution -- 2008by Brown Douglas Hegel's philosophy seems to take on new urgency in every historical period. For Hegel himself, it was the new world that emerged from the French Revolution. For Marx it was the discovery of a new continent of thought and revolution in a world where "everything seems pregnant with its opposite." For Lenin it was his shock at organized Marxism allowing World War I to happen and an attempt to create new ground for the Russian Revolution. Mentioning Raya Dunayevskaya in the historical series will shock some Marxists. It is surely contentious to draw a line from Hegel to Marx to Lenin to Dunayevskaya, instead of a line to thinkers such as Marcuse, Korsch, or Lukács. Yet, it was Dunayevskaya's development of the philosophy of Marxist-Humanism for over 30 years that re-created the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic on new ground for our age. PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION: FROM HEGEL TO SARTRE, AND FROM MARX TO MAO (P&R) should make it clear that her contribution merits a greater discussion and treatment of her ideas. Dunayevskaya wrote in the Preface that it was difficult not to start writing the book with the practice and theory that came from the freedom movements of the 1960s, what she calls the "new passions and new forces." She advised younger radicals that if they found it easier to start with what seemed more "concrete" to them--referring to the anti-Vietnam War youth, national liberation movements in the Third World, the Women's Liberation Movement, and the Black freedom struggles--that they could start with Chapter 9, which focuses on these movements, and that it wouldn't hurt their understanding of the rest of the book. What struck me in rereading the newest edition was not the urge to start at the end. Pressing issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the urgency of ending global warming made clear Dunayevskaya's point that Hegel "becomes irresistible" because "our hunger for theory arises from the totality of the present global crises." If it is true that these crises engender a digging into a philosophy of liberation, then it is equally true that youth are pulled to this digging by our idealism and our experience of entering a world not made by ourselves. Reading Hegelian language isn't easy, but when dialectics sweep you up, it is hard not to hold on tight and try to navigate the waters. The category that is central to P&R is Absolute Negativity as New Beginning. Far from being an obscurantist theory from academia, Absolute Negativity as New Beginning is Dunayevskaya's way of illuminating the red thread that runs through Hegel that Marx re-created for his time: the dialectic of negativity as the "moving and creating principle." Absolute Negativity as New Beginning is not only a retelling of Hegel's and Marx's philosophies. It is Dunayevskaya's unique contribution to Marxism, which enables her to write a book jamming up a 19th century German philosopher with Third World revolutions and anti-war youth. Negativity is important not only because those of us fighting oppression offer a negative "no" to that oppression, but because negativity, when we don't stop there, can further develop a path forward. While non-Marxist and Marxist scholars alike have recast the dialectic as a formal and irrelevant "triad" of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, Dunayevskaya shows that it is nothing less than "the ceaseless movement of ideas and of history." What made dialectics important to me was that very relationship between ideas and reality. As a youth, it seemed the options were to either be an abstract theorist or an activist participating in social movements. Dialectics makes no such gap between thinking and doing. Bringing ideas to bear on reality is not only acceptable, but integral to changing the world. Absolute Negativity as New Beginning is developed through the book, illuminating Marx's new continent of thought and revolution and Lenin's philosophic ambivalence; the alternatives posed by Trotsky, Mao and Sartre; and the world economy, the African revolutions, state-capitalism and revolt in Eastern Europe. Sartre wrote that there is no going beyond Marx until one has gone beyond the historical moment which Marx expressed. Dunayevskaya knew this and founded a philosophy that is the re-creation of Marxism for our age, Marxist-Humanism. It's up to all who have dedicated ourselves to revolution to move beyond "another world is possible" to grasping a philosophy that can make a new world be. P&R explicitly expresses Marxist-Humanism. It's a vital opportunity for us to journey into this philosophy of liberation and develop it to meet our needs. We invite all of you to join us in this very real and revolutionary adventure. |
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