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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Negative dialectics between theory and practice
28 Jun 2002
Format:Paperback
Perry Anderson is a leading editor of New Left review and a prominent Marxist historian. His two part work, ¡®Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism¡¯ and ¡®Lineage of the Absolutist State¡¯ (see my reviews on those books for detail), is now counted as classic. In this short booklet, he poses two perplexing questions: ¡®why have Western Marxists been written so difficult to read?¡¯; ¡®why has there been no significant research on politics and economy among Western Marxists circle? Marxism is initially oriented towards practice. So its theory should be easy to be read by layperson and for its major premise is to transform the political economy, Marxist theory should tackle the very target of the transformation. But leading figures of Western Marxism, such as Lukacs, members of Frankfurt school like Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Wlater Benjamin, and Fromm, paid little, if any, attention to economics or politics, but to methodology, philosophy or aesthetics. Besides, their writing styles are not behind Hegel or Heidegger in its difficulty to decipher.
Perry Anderson argues that it¡¯s because the lack of prospect of revolution after the end of World War I. Marxist theorists were isolated from working class that was supposed to be the agent of revolution to end capitalism. Without such a vision, Marxist theorists were obsessed with pessimism. They could not have the vision of revolution. So philosophy and aesthetics were the escape from reality. For example, most works of Frankfurt school take a cynical stance against the reality under capitalism. They need a sanctuary protected from polluted reality. But that kind of place could not be found in the real world. Philosophy and aesthetics provide the spot to look down on the muddy secular world.
One writes to be read by others. But interwar Marxists did not imagine of any reader in working class. Therefore their works should be directed to colleague scholars in ivory tower.
In Adorno¡¯s word, such a stance should be called as ¡®Negative Dialectics¡¯. Adorno said ¡®Negative dialectics is a phrase flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation: the thought figure of a ¡®negation of negation¡¯¡¦Negative dialectics seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits.¡¯ It¡¯s negation for negation. There is nothing to be achieved (revolution). Dialectics, thus, cannot but float over reality towards unrealized, maybe unattainable, reality.
Perry Anderson argues that it¡¯s because the lack of prospect of revolution after the end of World War I. Marxist theorists were isolated from working class that was supposed to be the agent of revolution to end capitalism. Without such a vision, Marxist theorists were obsessed with pessimism. They could not have the vision of revolution. So philosophy and aesthetics were the escape from reality. For example, most works of Frankfurt school take a cynical stance against the reality under capitalism. They need a sanctuary protected from polluted reality. But that kind of place could not be found in the real world. Philosophy and aesthetics provide the spot to look down on the muddy secular world.
One writes to be read by others. But interwar Marxists did not imagine of any reader in working class. Therefore their works should be directed to colleague scholars in ivory tower.
In Adorno¡¯s word, such a stance should be called as ¡®Negative Dialectics¡¯. Adorno said ¡®Negative dialectics is a phrase flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation: the thought figure of a ¡®negation of negation¡¯¡¦Negative dialectics seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits.¡¯ It¡¯s negation for negation. There is nothing to be achieved (revolution). Dialectics, thus, cannot but float over reality towards unrealized, maybe unattainable, reality.
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25 Feb 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm not an expert in this field but I love reading this book,knowing a lot about maxists after WWI. IN the last chapter,however, the author is too optimistic about the strikes in western countries. After the backlash of conservatives in the eighties, union strikes seem powerless. Revolutionary way of realizing socialism is not so promising as predicted.
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