>I'm convinced that Ted is wrong in some ways -- but he sure as hell is
>not wrong in ways that can be thrown off this simply.
>
>Carrol
The problem with Whitehead (and Leibniz) and Harvey's appropriation of both
thinkers is that there is no concept of contradiction, struggle,
and--ultimately--revolution. Dialectics in Harvey's view amounts to
systems analysis and this is not what Marx was about. In Leibniz there is
little doubt about the self-regulating character of his cosmos, which
amounts to a clock that the deity created and then walked away from.
Whitehead belongs to another tradition, but it still amounts to the same
thing. For example, when Whitehead writes, "Nature is always about the
perpetual exploration of novelty," you lose the other side of the equation
which is about crisis and destruction. History moves forward, but not in
the linear fashion envisioned by thinkers such as Leibniz and Whitehead.
This kind of dialectics owes more to Hegel than it does to Marx. Marx had
to struggle not only with Hegel, but the entire philosophical tradition he
is based on.
History involves war and class oppression, which can often produce terrible
upheavals that can throw mankind backwards, as Marx indicated in the
Communist Manifesto. When I wrote my article on Harvey and Leibniz for
O'Connor, I was forced to leave out a lot of my material on Whitehead. I
don't think its worth discussing at any length but Whitehead is basically a
theist. He may not believe that God split the Red Sea, but his attempt to
wed science, metaphysics and religion is probably more dangerous when you
get down to it.
With Whitehead and Bergson, to a lesser extent, you get the last gasp of
Western Philosophy trying to develop a metaphysical worldview. To
Whitehead's credit, he largely stayed aloof from the great clashes of the
20th century even though logically he would have seemed logically to end up
on the opposite side of the barricades from Marxism. From a class
standpoint, he belongs to the grand tradition of Victorian progressives who
sought a more civilized version of England than the one that existed. It is
the world of the Bloomsbury group and Fabian socialism.
In any case, if there is any confusion about what Marx stood for and what
Whitehead stood for, I urge people to read Whitehead and not rely on dribs
and drabs. He is a generally lucid writer and thinker and nowhere near as
bad as somebody like Unamuno or other post-Nietzshean reactionaries.
Louis Proyect
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