Non-Hegelian Marxism

[sibyloftherhine]

I was reading Mind and Tissue and found a really intriguing point about what Ray calls "non-Hegelian marxists":

One pole of perception and world-view is represented by surrealists, non-Hegelian marxists (this is an important distinction, since academic marxists in the U.S. are hard to distinguish from Hegelians) and phenomenologists, and another pole by structuralists, mechanists, and idealists of a Cartesian or Platonic sort.

This was the first time I ever heard of "non-Hegelian marxists" existing. Personally, I've always been averse to Marxism because Hegelian dialectics do not make sense to me. And while I do know that Marx was averse to Hegel's idealism, he based his writings largely on Hegel's dialectics. With this in mind, do "non-Hegelian marxists" really exist? What exactly is a "non-Hegelian marxist", and who could I read to understand what this really means?

 

[haidut]

I was reading Mind and Tissue and found a really intriguing point about what Ray calls "non-Hegelian marxists":

This was the first time I ever heard of "non-Hegelian marxists" existing. Personally, I've always been averse to Marxism because Hegelian dialectics do not make sense to me. And while I do know that Marx was averse to Hegel's idealism, he based his writings largely on Hegel's dialectics. With this in mind, do "non-Hegelian marxists" really exist? What exactly is a "non-Hegelian marxist", and who could I read to understand what this really means?

Hegel was an idealist, who despite recognizing the continuous interaction and unity of contraries into ONE "reality", still believed in the primary status of ideas vs. objective/perceived reality - i.e. "reality" was the outcome of the clash of idealistic contraries. I think a non-Hegelian Marxist is simply one who holds the reverse views - objective reality rules supreme and our experience/perception of it is primary source of knowledge/ideas. Phenomenologists take this view to the extreme as in their philosophical practice they try to suspend any judgment/knowledge/ideas of reality and focus exclusively on the experience of how it flows through one's consciousness. I think to them, "knowledge" is simply the change in the physical structure of human consciousness as it (continuously) interacts with reality. I, personally, agree with that approach to life.

 

[sibyloftherhine]

I think a non-Hegelian Marxist is simply one who holds the reverse views - objective reality rules supreme and our experience/perception of it is primary source of knowledge/ideas.

This is interesting and sounds very Aristotelian to me. Thanks for the input.

 

[Rafe]

I agree with @haidut explanation but I’d say it differently.

I see this quote as another way of referring to the empiricism vs rationalism views of reality. Hegel’s idealism is another name for rationalism just like Plato’s. Karl Marx’s nonHegelian Marxism (b/c you have to say that now, Peat was right about that) saves the dialectic as a method of truth-seeking, not fighting to death. That’s why Blake’s negation is interesting b/c it is the dialectic view.
Today, especially in academic settings—noted—the idea that there is an empirical truth and we can know that & agree on it has been hacked to death. When he wrote Mind & Tissue, & studying in many different disciplines as he did, I wonder if Peat was bringing attention to the gap between faculty saying, “knowledge should start with empiricism!” and few faculty actually learning or teaching that way or how to do that.

It is often conservatives & their pragmatic approaches to reality that are more empirical than any academic quantification studies that are called empirical but are coding reality into a rationalist project. The social sciences that haven’t stood by their older, historical approaches are the worst. So there is a real basis for a non-Hegelian Marxist & a conservative to find common cause in insisting that empiricism is the only good starting place for understanding ourselves in our environment.

I’m committed to an empiricist approach. But Peat’s work clarified for me how to do that exactly & how much money, time, & energy is spent culturally preventing people from doing that.

Keeping to that takes a lot of careful attention and. . .energy. But it’s worth it b/c it surprises me how easily the ideologies fall away when you strip the narratives down to who has access to physical resources.

Today you can find non-Hegelian Marxists are easiest to determine, once you find one, in the over 60 yo crowd, tend to use an economic analysis of political power, & more or less push back against what is now called cultural Marxism, including feminism. They aren’t against equality. I’m thinking especially Chris Hedges, Cornel West, Chomsky—who Peat criticized for reasons other than his economic views of political power.

 

[sibyloftherhine]

It is often conservatives & their pragmatic approaches to reality that are more empirical than any academic quantification studies that are called empirical but are coding reality into a rationalist project. The social sciences that haven’t stood by their older, historical approaches are the worst. So there is a real basis for a non-Hegelian Marxist & a conservative to find common cause in insisting that empiricism is the only good starting place for understanding ourselves in our environment.

It's really interesting to think about how non-Hegelian Marxists might have more in common with conservatives versus cultural Marxists. Personally, I consider myself a generally anti-authoritarian conservative. Prior to discovering Peat, I lumped all Marxists together and didn't think they had anything valuable to offer. Reading Mind and Tissue, I was surprised to find out that I agree with many of the ideas, and now I think that some Marxist ideas might be worth looking into (though I still have no interest in Marx himself and especially Hegel haha). However, how exactly do conservatives and non-Hegelian Marxists differ in their epistemology?

 

[Rafe]

In a normal sense—I don’t know analytical philosophy & I’m still puzzling out things for myself—I doubt there is much difference in how they think you really get everyday knowledge. Communicating that you are both perceiving the same things initially is probably enough to get started thinking about how to solve problems or do work together.
They might differ in whether they think that without responsible, experienced guidance (authority that isn’t authoritarian or oppressive like just giving good advice but not required to take it) & self discipline that we tend to become more organized or less organized socially. In the lefty view you are in society just b/c you want to be, in the conservative view you are in society b/c without it you are missing something necessary to being everything you can be, like a moral home. But I’m not sure there is any real difference in practice.

Same here. I don’t disagree with anything basic I have read by anarchists that are described as right libertarian. I haven’t read that much yet. That makes me think the -ism labels are junk & just keep people from seeing how much they agree with each other as long as everything is voluntary.