Ted W: "Superstition" and "prejudice" were characteristic of the "individuality" dominant in the context in which the "revolution" took place.
Marx's claim is that such an "individuality" "causes" "a more or less centralised despotism". "Despotism" "fetters" the development of "enlightenment"; it doesn't facilitate it. ^^^^^ CB: However, _in fact_ in the case of the SU, superstition and prejudice were substantially eradicated, i.e. "enlightenment was in fact facilitated. Are you claiming that the Stalinist repressions and forced collectivizations were not only not "despotic", they were aspects of "socialist" relations in Marx's sense, i.e. aspects of non-despotic relations from which all barriers to full individual "enlightenment" had been removed so that, say, they facilitated the development of an "individuality" in the USSR for which the "superstition" and "prejudice" characteristic of the Russian church no longer had any appeal? ^^^^ CB: I'm claiming that despite the Stalinist repressions and forced collectivizations, ( and also in part because of some of the Stalinist policies that were based in Marxism) the masses of peasants were embued with and educated in an atheist, scientific and and internationalist worldview, that was extremely anti-superstitious and unprejudiced. The evidence is overwhelming that the Soviet population in the 20's through the 80's was highly educated in science, mathematics,multiple languages and world culture. There was tremendous ethnic and racial integration through out the Union compared with the old Russian empire. Not even the bourgeois propagandists deny most of this. All of that is the complete anti-thesis of "superstition" and "prejudice". There was a giant step forward in "Enlightenment" of the Russians and Peoples of the old Russian Empire. Are you denying this ? This is inconsistent with Marx's claims. "Socialist" relations in his sense could only have been created in 1917 if the "masses" of Russian peasants had been sufficiently free of "superstition" and "prejudice" to be able to create them. ^^^^ CB: Well, there may be an element of the chicken-egg problem, but whatever Marx claimed ( and he seemed to also say famously the exact opposite with respect to specifically the Russian peasnatry , as you quoted earlier) and whatever the initial situation in 1917, the Soviet Union was extraordinarily successful, in fact, during its history at eradicating "superstition" and "prejudice" among the masses of Russians and other Soviet peoples. How do you explain the social relations that issued from the break down of the USSR? Were these the creation of a fully "enlightened" "individuality" only prevented by the international context from implementing "the true realm of freedom"? Is Russian "individuality" now fully liberated from "superstition" and "prejudice" so that, for example, the Russian orthodox church has no appeal? ^^^^ CB: I don't know if they are fully enlightened, but they seem to be enormously enlightened and possibly more enlightened than the individuality in the US , which is substantially marred by superstition and prejudice. It would seem that the social relations and consciousneses of individuals in Russia are sufficiently enlightened such that large sections of the population are able to conduct adequate production and distribution without any "wages", as was often reported during the years after the fall of the SU. This suggests that the individuals who are a product of Soviet Russia are , indeed, approaching the borders of the "true realm of freedom" in which there is a free association of free producers. ^^^^^ The connection to Kant of Marx's claims about the relation of "superstition" and "prejudice" to "enlightenment" and "despotism" and of the "universal standpoint" required for "enlightenment" to "real connections" is found in Kant's discussion, in the Critique of Judgement, of "superstition" and "prejudice” and of "enlightenment" and its relation to what he calls the "sensus communis". ^^^^ CB: Well, there' despotism and there's despotism. When the despot enforces a Marxist worldview, even if a tad vulgar, on the masses, the result is quite different than when a despot enforces some kind of superstitious/ religious and prejudice historically derived . And as we see with the US, democratic rule does not guarantee lack of superstitious/ religious and prejudice worldview in the mass population. ^^^^^^ In particular, Kant claims that “emancipation from superstition is called enlightenment” and that "the condition of blindness into which superstition [which 'deserves pre-eminently (in sensu eminenti) to be called a prejudice'] puts one, which is as much as demands from one as an obligation, makes the need of being led by others, and consequently the passive state of the reason, pre-eminently conspicuous." ^^^ CB: However, "others" can lead you out of superstition and prejudice if they are Marxists. ^^^^^ "by the name sensus communis is to be understood the idea of a public sense, i.e., a critical faculty which in its reflective act takes account (a priori) of the mode of representation of everyone else, in order, as it were, to weigh its judgement with the collective reason of mankind, and thereby avoid the illusion arising from subjective and personal conditions which could readily be taken for objective, an illusion that would exert a prejudicial influence upon its judgement. This is accomplished by weighing the judgement, not so much with actual, as rather with the merely possible, judgements of others, and by putting ourselves in the position of everyone else, as the result of a mere abstraction from the limitations which contingently affect our own estimate. This, in turn, is effected by so far as possible letting go the element of matter, i.e., sensation, in our general state of representative activity, and confining attention to the formal peculiarities of our representation or general state of representative activity. Now it may seem that this operation of reflection is too artificial to be attributed to the faculty which we call common sense. But this is an appearance due only to its expression in abstract formulae. In itself nothing is more natural than to abstract from charm and emotion where one is looking for a judgement intended to serve as a universal rule. "While the following maxims of common human understanding do not properly come in here as constituent parts of the critique of taste, they may still serve to elucidate its fundamental propositions. They are these: (I) to think for oneself; (2) to think from the standpoint of everyone else; (3) always to think consistently. The first is the maxim of unprejudiced thought, the second that of enlarged thought, the third that of consistent thought. The first is the maxim of a never-passive reason. To be given to such passivity, consequently to heteronomy of reason, is called prejudice; and the greatest of all prejudices is that of fancying nature not to be subject to rules which the understanding by virtue of its own essential laws lays at its basis, i.e., superstition. Emancipation from superstition is called enlightenment*; for although this term applies also to emancipation from prejudices generally, still superstition deserves pre-eminently (in sensu eminenti) to be called a prejudice. For the condition of blindness into which superstition puts one, which is as much as demands from one as an obligation, makes the need of being led by others, and consequently the passive state of the reason, pre-eminently conspicuous. As to the second maxim belonging to our habits of thought, we have quite got into the way of calling a man narrow (narrow, as opposed to being of enlarged mind) whose talents fall short of what is required for employment upon work of any magnitude (especially that involving intensity). But the question here is not one of the faculty of cognition, but of the mental habit of making a final use of it. This, however small the range and degree to which man's natural endowments extend, still indicates a man of enlarged mind: if he detaches himself from the subjective personal conditions of his judgement, which cramp the minds of so many others, and reflects upon his own judgement from a universal standpoint (which he can only determine by shifting his ground to the standpoint of others). The third maxim-that, namely, of consistent thought-is the hardest of attainment, and is only attainable by the union of both the former, and after constant attention to them has made one at home in their observance. We may say: The first of these is the maxim of understanding, the second that of judgement, the third of that reason." <http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/critique-of-judgment.txt> ^^^^^ CB: Well, thank you for that. I'll cogitate on it, critically, thinking for myself ( I wouldn't want to passively just be led by Kant) without prejudice or superstition. Preliminarlily, I'd say that a scientific and atheistic worldview, and substantially suppression of the Russian Orthodox church would significantly move the Russian masses along the path to achieving this standard. However, I'd also note that though the US has for a over two hundred years had a democracy and capitalist relations of production, it is not at all clear that most of its population would meet this Kantian standard. ^^^^^^^ "superstition ... rears in the mind, not reverence for the sublime, but dread and apprehension of the all-powerful Being to whose will terror-stricken man sees himself subjected, yet without according Him due honour. From this nothing can arise but grace-begging and vain adulation, instead of a religion consisting in a good life. "http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/critique-of-judgment.txt Ted ^^^^^ CB: Don't you think the next step is to give up religion altogether ? That Kant is something of a dualist ? What about critiques by Hegel and Feuerbach ? _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
