Why Socialist Fight is launching a series on Marxist philosophy
Leave a comment20/11/2021 by socialistfight
I will be commenting on the following extract from Jack Conrade in the Weekly Worker of 18-11-21 with which I strongly disagree.
Philosophy
Undoubtedly the most sophisticated exponent of far-right greenism was the philosopher, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). He is still widely celebrated as a precursor of modern ecological thinking. On the basis of his rejection of the cult of technology as an index of progress and denial of anthropocentric humanism, deep greens put Heidegger onto the pantheon of the giants.
A jaundiced critic of the Enlightenment, Heidegger preached the virtues of ‘authentic being’. His critique of humanism, his call to “let things be”, his notion that humanity is engaged in a “play” or “dance” with earth, sky and gods, his contemplative thoughts on the authentic modes of dwelling, his protest against industrial degradation of the planet, his stress on the importance of the local and the “homeland”, his call for humanity to protect and preserve nature, instead of dominating it – all these aspects of Heidegger’s thought have been used to support the claim that he is a foundational deep green.29
That despite the fact that in 1933 he became a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party! This was no calculated ruse designed to further an academic career. Tom Rockmore cuttingly points out that Heidegger stands absolutely alone “amongst the major thinkers of the 20th century” in being a “voluntary adherent of Nazism”.30 Damningly, he insists that Heidegger’s philosophy and his Nazism were “inseparable”.31 Surely an overstatement … given the intellectual inspiration he provided for decidedly anti-fascist thinkers, such as Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre and Herbert Marcuse.
https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1372/on-the-dark-side/
Heraclitus outside the consensus of Greek philosophers by Michelangelo
Why Socialist Fight is launching a series on Marxist philosophy
By Gerry Downing
Lenin (1879-1924) considered that there were three sources and three component parts of Marxism, namely German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism. Socialist Fight has neglected the first of these and so will dedicate a page in each future issue to this question.
Serious Marxists are familiar with the thesis that Marx stood Hegel on his head, philosophically, and replaced the Absolute Idea (God) with nature. Marx (1818-83) didn’t reject Hegel. This in 1873:
“The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion…(Those) who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly…
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