Here we get back to the issue of agnosticism vs. materialism, or as Engels termed agnosticism , it "shamefaced materialism" and importantly in philosophy Kantian dualism/agnostocism. Liberalist attitude toward God is neo- or continuing Kantianism. By it, liberals chastise Marxists for their certainty. Today's secularists on the left reveal their liberalism and neo-Kantianism, as opposed to materialism in their shyness about being certain that there is no God. Lenin focuses Engels' arguments against shamefaced materialism in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_..
On Thaxis , this argument took the form of accusing Engels of "_a priorism_ " and metaphysics. Andrew Austin and I debated it at length. I'll find the threads. I realized that it is important to point out that Engels and Marxists' posture is that atheism and dialectics are _a posteriori_ presumptions ( to use the legal concept of presumptions) , not claims of absolute truth. Lenin reiterates Engels arguments against the idea that we have absolute truth, but rather we _do_ have relative truths, in the dialectic of absolute and relative truth , again in _Materialism_. I have argued often that there is a need for a significant degree of certainty in the truth of our beliefs or else there is not the will for decisive action as required to effectively struggle for revolutionary change. The level of belief and certainty that "maybe" capitalism must go and socialism come is insufficient to get through the trials and tribulations of serious revolutionary struggle. As Aronson implies, you can't get people to go to the barricades without a high level of certainty about their beliefs that the system must be changed to socialism. This non-liberal, higer level of certainty in beliefs that Marxists (classical followers of Marx, Engels and Lenin's theories) hold is slandered as "religious" , "dogmatic" , "authoritarian", "rigid", "Stalinist", "totalitarian", "uncritical thinking", "anti-intellectual", "bureaucratic", "outdated", "old fashion" and many other terms in many arguments by liberal intelligentsia and academics, including most self-declared "leftists" and many "Marxists". The slander in this way of Marxism as religious dogma is the central mainstay of "left" anti-Communism. Whereas, right anti-Communism attacks Communism's atheism, certainty of atheism greater than agnosticism. Charles Charles ARONSON: So now here we are after the turn of the next century and the world doesn't seem to have gotten better. In many respects it has gotten worse, and people's optimism about the future seems to have gone away. Part of the reason for that optimism for many sophisticated, educated, politically hip people was that religion was ending. But religion didn't end, the world didn't get better. And people like me, I think we became timid. Plus the religious right, starting with Reagan, spawned this sense of feverish certainty on the part of religious people. I just happened to be listening to a right-wing talk radio station yesterday, and they were talking about lesbian parents and their sinfulness, and there was this amazing sense of we are right. I don't know anybody from the center on over to the left who believes with that kind of certainty anymore. I believe in science. I believe in history. I believe in logic. I believe in human beings, through discourse, getting to what's true. But I can't thunder down and pound my fists and say, "You guys are wrong." I just don't do that. -clip- MT: You mentioned earlier the certainty of believers compared to what you see as timidity on the part of nonbelievers. On one side there is this authoritarian mind-set — these are our rules and everybody's going to follow them. Whereas liberals, in the broad sense of the word, have this attitude of live and let live. ARONSON: So, are you going to go to the barricades with that outlook? That's our political issue. Actually, I talk about that in the last chapter of this book, and that stays with me, I think, into my next book. The question for us is, how do we have as much passion and strength of conviction and willingness to struggle? In terms of writing the book, I was convinced that a religious worldview does not give you any more powerful convictions than a secular one. It's just that, if we're secular, we're not supposed to be sure, and we agree with live and let live — but we're not supposed to feel as strongly and we're also supposed to be taken in a little by someone like Camus, who says that we're on our own as individuals, and that the world is absurd and we can't really make sense of it. Part of why I wrote the book was to say that's wrong. We don't have to believe in God to see the world as meaningful and coherent. We can be as committed, and our lives can be as powerfully directed, as anyone who has the most powerful belief in God. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
