Bush administration as Neo-Marxists?

Bush administration as Neo-Matrixist?

This is mostly an uneducated comment. I haven't read the articles you are commenting upon, though I'm up to the challenge of reading them and amending the comment if it makes a difference. I'm not a Marx scholar either, so I don't pretend to speak for Marx... I'm just a bit leery about the analogy as I found it a bit superficial and in fact misled.

First, there's the straightforward caution which applies to any analogy and taking out of its context a sentence such as the 11th Feuerbach's thesis: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." This is a criticism of philosophers, right. Actually, a quite trendy one in progressist circles (just a label, I'm not referring to anything in particular) since the 19th century (add your favorite qualifications here). So, goes the lore, as far as I'm given to understand. This is a criticsm of professional and conservative -- let's say institutional -- philosophers in the first place. Surely, the Bush administration doesn't fall in the category. They're not looking upon themselves as philosophers at any rate. I guess you'd have to look at philosophers such as Gramsci to elicit the practical meaning of Marx's point. I'm not competent for the exegesis though.

The second point is also related to putting the Marx or a marxist doctrine into context, I hope it is a bit more substantial. It seems to me that the Marxist doctrine is not so much to act for the sake of acting, which could also be construed as a mere expression of free will and crap like that. (Some sort of Nietzschean heroism maybe?) Well, that would be a simplification as well, I guess.

With respect to Marx, at least and at any rate, it seems to me that the sense of action is not to come as the expression of an unconstrained and arbitrary power to create reality. To some extent the sense of Marx-advocated and post-Marx revolutionary movements (Marxist-Leninist at any rate) were to bring about what was an inescapable stage that history would reach eventually (maybe the viewpoints differed as to the possible or reauirred pace and means). There is a sense in which things are tied up (Marx came after Hegel after all, esp. true for the F's theses) and not merely the product of an arbitrary actions brought about by arbitrary (or free and delibarate if you prefer) will. There is a sense in Marx in which history and therefore reality shapes its own developments. On that count alone, I would argue that if falling anywhere here, Marx and the Marxists would fall into the reality based camp.

In addition, Marx is still a noted example as far as methodology goes for say sociology and poltical economics. He produced genuine pieces of socio-political analysis. They were indiscutably things which would fall under the reality based analysis. Marx was looking at reality, trying to understand how it went and also how it went bad. Maybe I'm not making sense here as what I said earlier would seem to constraint marxism to a determinism, but I think that would be missing another point (I guess now we'd need entering into exegesis). The other point is that it is on the ground of scientific observation and analysis of reality that are based the motivations for action. (Observing social injustice and so on.) So it seems highly non marxist to me to claim to play the social god creating reality for the masses while not caring for the matters of fact. This is something that Marx or a marxist would have diagnosed and criticized as some sort of bastardy.

What do you think of my crappy wordplays? It seems to me that the cocky comment is more an expression of infatuated neo-matrixism than anything like neo-marxism.
ff.

I've always understood Thesis XI to be, and to have been understood as, a significant metaphysical point, rather than some observation about philosophers/scientists, i.e., it's a point about the nature of reality and the fact that reality is shaped by human activity, the point against Feuerbach being to argue that contrary to what the idealists believed, it is not (just) thought that "creates" the world , it is the action that creates or at least forms it. I'm not sure how radical this is in terms of the malleability of the world that we create through action but there is certainly a metaphysics here that is not realist.

I'm not entirely sure how this is resolved this with the inexorability of worldwide socialism; as you say this suggests something very different from a world waiting to be created/formed. And, I don't deny that there's a healthy dose of empiricism involved in Marx's analysis of the world and the necessity of responding to it. But, I do think that what Bush's aide is talking about suggests a very similar metaphysical view as that evidenced in Thesis XI even if that's inconsistent with later marxist thought.
vf.

You might be right on your understanding of the Feu.ch Theses, but then you don't want to isolate the 11th from the rest of the rant. The rest of the rant seems to me to be about human nature and its distinctive prerogative and characteristics. It claims that human nature is not something abstract but something which is given through the embedding of humans in social reality. Therefore, in order to understand human nature you look at reality. In order to change things, you make people move. I think we agree on this (interpretation).

That's what makes a poopooing of reality based analysis non marxist. So first, the B's aide criticism of reality oriented analysis is just not in line.

Nevertheless, it seems that in a way what the B's aide says is not inconsistent with this as he claims to be creating reality. But what's more than weird then and what makes it more matrix than marxist is the illusion taht you can change reality in a snap of fingers. That is you can change the meaning of things (because that's what he is hinting at when he claims that people can study reality and just end up with an obsolete picture -- changing the adequacy of analysis when confronted to an updated reality) without any care nor knowledge of what the reality you started from is -- or was, for that matter. This seems completely off base to me, completely disconnected from reality.

If you still want to see anything marxist here because there is a recognition that in order to change things you have to change reality and not only pray or make a wish, then I guess the risk is merely that this becomes rather trivial.

What I claim makes your analogy unwarranted is taht, first, there is this impression of power which in the end ends up being a claim that what has been conceived in an office can be realized in reality (you can twist that into an idealistic view, in fact); second, that this office created reality is independent of reality as it stands; third, that this will have the power of rendering obsolete any analysis of reality.

Now I might concede that only the first point addresses the 11th thesis, but this is in such a way that in the end the activity is the mere expression of an idea, not the real deal itself. I wouldn't hold the other point as disconnected from the thesis, though, as the third, in particular, is more than a reminder of the fact that the thesis doesn't discard philosophical analysis but qualifies its alleged significance.
ff.

That may be a fair point, i.e., Marx in ToF, and elsewhere, doesn't disparage the study of reality as the basis of active response, he disparages the study of reality without further action. I suppose this would be in keeping with an idealist/materialist synthesis. The Bush aide, let's just call him Karl, appears to be more in the Reaganesque tradition of believing that "facts are stupid things" and advocating simply acting without any consideration of the facts. I must admit that I'm in over my head here already in terms of defending or analyzing Marixst thought and I also admit that the suggestion of the existence of any kind of carefully thought out metaphysical foundation for Bush administration policy, Marxist or otherwise, is itself a claim that should be met with great skepticism.

hey, I think the B aide's claim suggests merely a penchant for wishful thinking: we can ignore reality, because it will conform to what we want. This isn't even close to the metaphysical point (which for all I know you are parsing correctly) of the 11th Thesis.

But you could say (I think you mean, in any case) that another case of wishful thinking can be seen in the "reality-based" liberal's expectation that, when all the facts are taken in and properly weighed, the "correct" policy decision will be made (or: if people only knew all that I know, they would agree with me).

I would say that the B aide's point is actually close to the caricature "conservatives" have painted of people like Derrida. The caricature is usually that because "reality" is just another constructed "text," it's foolish to expect an unvarnished truth to emerge from dispassionate inquiry -- it's just a myth. Except, of course, even in caricature Derrida is not as stupid as to suggest that only empires "construct reality" or such.

But actually, isn't the caricature above closer to Quine's thought than to Derrida's? (Do you think I'm dissing Quine by this very comparison? Lately I have taken a strong dislike to VWOQ.)