Deconstructing Marxism Part 3: The Messy Metaphysics of Marxism
“You can deny metaphysics all you want, but everyone’s got a metaphysical view,...
and everything else flows from that.” (Bishop Robert Barron, 2021)
Sociological Speculation
Michel Foucault (pronounced ‘foo-ko’) was a prominent ‘philosopher’ of recent times, and is still quite prominent among modern Marxist circles. One of his contributions was the concept of ‘epistemes’ (Cuff, Sharrock & Francis, 2006, p. 226), which broadly refers to unconscious systems of thought and knowledge that tend to shape ideas and values (especially scientific knowledge, or for that matter, even what counts as scientific knowledge), their production and boundaries, within a given culture and era (though not necessarily all of the ideas and values). This feels almost like an echo of Althusser’s all-pervasive ideology and Bourdieu’s super-basic preconscious ‘doxa’. Really makes you wonder what was going on with the French in the 20th century. In any case, this section is an effort to uncover some of the epistemes (and I hope I’m applying the concept correctly here) underlying Marxism, in order to trace the source of its inherent contradictions and tensions.1
As I’ve already mentioned, religions have been the most widespread attempts at bridging the is–ought gap. Whether or not they have done so coherently and successfully at the theoretical level (which could fill up another extensive essay or even form a field of study by itself), they have certainly been the most hegemonically successful in dictating or prescribing norms—concerning pretty much every aspect of life. This has often also been linked to descriptive claims (whether true or false) about the nature of reality, or of human beings, or supernatural entities, etc. Considering all this, my first guess for an episteme is atheism, since Marx’s starting point, to some degree, was Ludwig Feuerbach’s ‘anthropological atheism’ (which I personally consider the second weakest kind of atheism, right after the ‘New Atheism’), and he did criticize religion, especially institutionalized religion. Even today, Marxists do continue to critique religious beliefs or practices, and at the same time, the lack of mention of the divine or the supernatural could serve as partial evidence. My second guess is secularism, since the decline of religious traditions and authority and the rise of societies with members of multiple cultures and religions have created the need for ‘secular’ social norms, i.e. norms not directly connected to one specific religion.
Consider the recently-released movie The Great Indian Kitchen (Baby, 2021) which has been acclaimed as ‘debunking patriarchy’ and ‘smashing the patriarchy’ etc. [spoiler alert] In the latter part of the movie, we see that the wife is subjected to certain restrictions like being isolated in a room and not being allowed to cook or touch anyone else, etc., because of the religiously-grounded belief (at least, that’s how it’s portrayed) of her husband and father-in-law, that menstruation counts as some kind of impurity and they don’t want to be ‘polluted’. Due to this and several other frustrations, towards the end of the movie, the wife quits the entire situation and presumably also gets a divorce (since we see the husband with another wife later). This lends a little credence to my two guesses. A rejection of the religion-entailed beliefs could be reasonably interpreted as a rejection of the religion and maybe even a rejection of the specific god of that religion, or the supernatural in general, hence my guess of atheism has some support. On the other hand, the wife becomes extremely frustrated with the ‘patriarchal norms’ enforced on her because she herself has grown up without them, in the more secular and ‘progressive’ society of Bahrain, hence my guess of secularism has some support. Note, however, that no substantial description is offered either as to why the ‘patriarchal norms’ are incorrect or ought to be eliminated, or how the ‘patriarchal norms’ are by themselves sufficiently justified and ought to be enforced (except with reference to a certain ‘Lord Ayyappa’). This is how ‘good’ ideology functions, in this case whether for patriarchy or against: simply enforce the rules or let the message be conveyed subtly/implicitly, rather than with actual rational justification. To be fair, however, that was a film, which is supposed to be a form of creative expression rather than a medium for syllogistic justifications of various values and beliefs. I would gladly welcome any articles/books/links sent to me regarding the latter.
Atheism and secularism are somewhat overlapping and carry some explanatory value, but both seem to fall short, since atheism is only a stance concerning what can roughly be labelled ‘the supernatural’ and not other aspects of reality, and secularism is only a socio-political stance. An even more fundamental episteme, which is my third guess, is naturalism. Naturalism seems to be appropriate as the underlying episteme since it’s a position concerning reality, i.e. it’s a metaphysical claim, and we can probably learn about it, following Derrida, by looking at related terms. Naturalism is one half of the naturalism–supernaturalism dichotomy, and the latter is roughly used to describe the position of religious and similar belief systems. The way I think of it, and the way I’d like to explain it, is this: one of the greatest philosophical questions is, ‘What is reality, ultimately?’ or ‘What is ultimate reality?’ The possible candidates, as far as I’ve researched, are ‘ideas’, ‘things’ and ‘persons’. Of course, one could argue that persons and ideas are also kinds of things, but by ‘things’ or ‘stuff’ I’m referring to non-living things (if the distinction is a real one), and yes, even ideas, though being abstract, could probably be clubbed with them. Naturalism answers the question by saying, ‘Reality is ultimately (made of) stuff!’ (albeit stuff acting according to uniform laws and all that), while the answers given by religious or similar belief systems tend towards ‘minds’ or the ‘persons’ answer. Materialism is more or less a kind of naturalism, obviously, and this was the main base of Marx’s philosophy, but naturalism preceded Marx by a lot; in fact, it had its heyday in the 18th and 19th centuries with the likes of Hume and others, and has been fairly popular since then, and can be found lingering even in modern Marxism and several other systems of thought.
When the contrast between the positions of naturalism and supernaturalism on ‘one of the ultimate questions’ is noted, it makes sense that naturalism grew in popularity during the Enlightenment, at a time when religious authority was being questioned and challenged, and science was being hailed as the new authority instead of religion. It’s not the case that people didn’t believe in nature or natural laws before the 17th century, but that they understood the terms a little differently. Before the Enlightenment, natural as well as supernatural forces were believed to exist, and the natural world was seen to be somehow dependent on the supernatural, or in some way subordinate to it. In their efforts to hail science as the new champion and do away with religion, it seems that the Enlightenment thinkers sharpened the natural–supernatural distinction, to mean something slightly different than before: that nature is a closed self-sufficient system, independent of the supernatural, and the supernatural is therefore unnecessary—neither as explanations, since science can now discover those, nor as the content of beliefs, since what cannot be (empirically) verified and is simply held on ‘faith’ is mere superstition.
In typical ideological fashion, the Enlightenment thinkers also made sure to spread propaganda about the ideas they were at war with, notably about the conflict between science and religion/faith, which is still influential today, one of its most easily recognizable crystallizations being the period of the ‘Dark Ages’ where superstition was prevalent and people thought the Earth flat and/or the center of the universe, etc. A literal textbook example of this is by Cohen and Swerdlik (2018), in a psychometrics textbook, which contains a section on the timeline of psychological testing and assessment. For the year 200 (upto the year 1550, or maybe 1484), the description given is “The so-called Dark Ages begin and society forces science to take a (temporary) backseat to faith and superstition” (p. T-1). It was regarding such unverified beliefs about the science–religion conflict that Numbers (2006), an acclaimed historian of science, lamented “…after years, decades, of research by historians in the history of science and religion…the same old myths that we have corrected time and time again, continue to have a life of their own and to be widely known among the public.” A pet peeve of mine is that the word ‘metaphysical’ is considered synonymous with ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ or ‘supernatural’, because metaphysics is actually a branch of philosophy and maybe even the fundamental branch of philosophy (because it deals with the fundamental questions concerning reality), in and of which I consider myself an amateur.2 This annoying association is probably attributable to the Enlightenment since the area of study of metaphysics is often considered to overlap with what would be called ‘religious concerns’ (the most fundamental questions about reality, meaning, time, non-physical entities, etc.), and it was perhaps the primary field of study up till that era, but drastically fell from prominence thereafter, and I doubt it was a coincidence. The Marxist disparagement of sound philosophy is an echo of the naturalists’ disparagement of sound metaphysics.
In any case, even today, naturalism can be said to be popular and even ‘normal’ to a degree, on the grounds that science and technology are of great importance, and the scientific method assumes a methodological naturalism, at the very least. Additionally, people are much less prone to refer to ‘supernatural’ causes for various experiences or events. Marxism is a great example of naturalism, because Marx himself worked according to his dialectical and historical materialism, and Marxists today will not really appeal to supernatural causes to explain how oppression operates or how social movements develop, but will appeal to some facts about society, or nature, etc. Now all this is very good and everything, until the actual implications of naturalism are unraveled, which might betray a misstep, or an inconsistency, on the part of the naturalists. The Enlightenment philosophers, whether intentionally or unintentionally, rejected the millennia of philosophers preceding them (“Enlightenment”, apparently), who worked on the most fundamental philosophical questions, including the issue of grounding moral claims as described in so much of this essay. Evidently (or, complete-lack-of-evidence-tly, if you will), no part of natural or observable reality gives us the norms or values regarding what we ought to do or how we ought to treat other people. The natural–supernatural distinction, in the sense of ‘two independent/separate spheres’ seems to have been a false dichotomy, because if value claims are not based in nature, then they fall under super-nature; yet, they pervade just about every aspect of our everyday lives and form the crux and core of many of the largest systems of thought, Marxism included. Jettisoning the supernatural (from popular belief), which was previously used as a base for value claims, seems to have left a void, or rather, a gap—the is–ought gap—that thinkers have since attempted, and struggled, to bridge. All the same, if naturalism is indeed true, and nature is all that exists, and reality is ultimately stuff, then the gap cannot be bridged, and it leads to the very eerie and usually disconcerting conclusion of nihilism.
There are many kinds of nihilism, and they’re all generally terrifying one way or another, but I will specifically describe only two kinds here. Existential nihilism (the type that is usually referred to with the term ‘nihilism’) is the belief/position that life is ultimately meaningless, and that everything is pretty much worthless, including this essay, and the time spent writing and reading it, and the persons writing and reading it. It is usually justified by referring to features of the world like the non-existence of the supernatural or any deity, the daily experiences of pain and suffering of millions of organisms, and of course, the big one: death. Death is the final frontier and the great equalizer that renders everything and everyone of absolutely equal value—zero value.3 Very simply, no lives matter. Existential nihilism, if it is true, poses a particularly big issue to Marxism (or to everything, really) by rendering it completely meaningless through and through. Suppose, for example, that Marxism suddenly takes off tomorrow and spreads across all marginalized groups, and all of the subaltern/proletariat somehow actually unite to subvert and overthrow the oppressors and undo the causes of oppression, and next week marks the beginning of a society with complete freedom from all oppression. The question that arises then is that you have all the freedom you’ve ever wanted…for what? Even if Marxists managed to somehow prove or instill all of their value claims in every individual, they would still be meaningless, because according to existential nihilism (and obvious observation), life is ultimately meaningless since everyone and everything will end in death anyway.
Moral nihilism can either be considered separately from existential nihilism, or as a part of it. Separately, it is the position that value claims are meaningless and that there is no base for objective moral/value claims. As part of existential nihilism, it doesn’t seem reasonable to think that there can be meaningful value/moral claims in an ultimately meaningless universe, and it therefore makes sense that all value claims would themselves be worthless or…value-less. Even taking what seems to be the only route out of the gripping existential despair of existential nihilism is optimistic nihilism (which is similar to, or the same as, Albert Camus’ absurdism), but all this really says is ‘Oh well, life is absurd and meaningless, but feel free to make your own meaning or do whatever makes you happy.’ There is still a lack of any objective value claims or moral standards, and that means moral nihilism is still on the table. Whether moral nihilism is considered along with existential nihilism or separately, in response to the demand for an ‘ought’, or as I previously stated that in order to get around the is–ought gap one can perhaps try to ‘prove the ought’, the moral nihilist would simply say, ‘There is no ‘ought’ and there are no objective morals or values and that’s that. Hard luck, but you can’t jump the is–ought gap.’
Moral nihilists can be quite annoying…and reductionist too.
Clearly, if moral nihilism is true, the value claims on which the entirety of Marxism is built dissolve into nihil,4 as does Marxism itself. One could, of course, in line with absurdism and consonant with some schools of existentialist thought, say, ‘I never really seriously believed in objective morals anyway. Life is meaningless, but you can make your own values. It’s up to you to make your own meaning.’
Relativism, as I’ve already shown, is its own can of worms and I will describe the twists and tangles of moral relativism for the last time here. If it is really up to each individual to devise his/her own value system, then the first issue is that they will obviously clash with each other and you are left with the same kind of society as at present (or even worse): with ideologies and conflict and oppressors and oppressed, etc. The second issue is that of equivalence, which also I’ve described before: each person’s value system is of the same worth—no worth—as everyone else’s, and there is no reason to prefer one to another’s. A kind of moral/cultural relativism or moral subjectivism seems to already be part of modern cultures, and even a part of Marxism, of course. Rawls was aware of this and his whole effort could be interpreted as an effort to form a stable society even as several divergent beliefs were held by its members. He held a kind of amazing optimism in ‘public reason’ and “reasonable citizens” who would justify their actions and beliefs to other citizens only on the basis of what is commonly held and non-controversial and would not infringe on others’ rights (Wenar, 2021). Fraser (1998), too, mentioned the “modern conditions of value pluralism” and claimed/hoped that her theory of justice somehow holds weight even under these conditions, ‘provided people limit themselves to secure others’ liberties’. But the whole point of value pluralism is different people/groups valuing different things: someone else might not value ‘justice’ or your rights or liberties, but quite plausibly only their own luxuries. In the scenario that all value claims are truly equivalent (and equally meaningless), as far as I can see, there is no reason to not oppress or dominate or manipulate others, but simultaneously, there is also no reason to do any of those things: you can, if it takes your fancy.
Apparently, “the Communist revolution…involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas” (Marx & Engels, 1848/1888/2010, p. 26). I disagree. Of course, Marx had some original insights at least, and his style and activities were clearly significant enough to be influential until now, but ‘the communist revolution’, or at least its foundational ideas, and Marxism in general, weren’t and aren’t radically different or noteworthy (at least, to the degree claimed). If my speculations have any accuracy, Marxism is just one of the philosophies that are part of the movement of naturalism which was the real radical rupture with previous ideas. G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and another” (The Society of GK Chesterton, 2021). The naturalists declared that ‘science’ has brought about freedom from religion, but they did not say what that freedom is for. Marxism declares freedom from oppression (or fights for this ‘freedom’, rather) but Marxists cannot tell you what that freedom is for. The fundamental tensions, or fundamental contradictions at the heart of Marxism, can really be described as an incredible optimism that life is somehow worth living, that freedom is a good thing and that suffering is a terrible thing that ought to be eradicated. Optimism is well and good, but is it well-grounded or unfounded? That’s what this essay has attempted to shed light on.
I suppose Bourdieu was really onto something when describing doxa as the most fundamental assumptions of a person. The doxa of Marxism seems to be the incredible optimism I have just described. I wonder how things might have turned out if Schopenhauer gained more prominence, especially in Marxist circles. Anyway, you’d think that Bourdieu’s whole notion of reflexivity and examining one’s own beliefs and biases (Calhoun, 2003, p. 299–301) would be influential enough to be a cause for really examining all the assumptions and beliefs latent within the field of critical theory. I guess not. Let me attempt to answer the question posed at the very end of the Deconstruction section in Part 2. This is a line from an article written by I know not whom, and when, or where, but is an exemplary expression of the most obtuse and flawed sort of reasoning (if it can be called ‘reasoning’): “Thus, whatever else philosophy may say, sociologically we know that knowledge is influenced by and used in the politics surrounding class position” (“Patricia Hill Collins: Intersecting Oppressions,” n.d.). Nevermind the fact that most of the previous part of the essay describes the uncertainty of knowledge and some of the primary questions in the field of epistemology. Never mind the fact that epistemology has been considered a primary branch of philosophy for the longest time. Never mind the fact that sociology grew out of philosophy, as did most or all other fields of study, or that sociology routinely borrows from philosophy, or that philosophers routinely contribute to sociology. Never mind all of these facts, because sociologically, we know how knowledge is formed and how people use it. This fundamental, almost dogmatic belief about power and inequality—and ultimately, value—is so deep-rooted, that—I kid you not—there is even such a field called ‘feminist metaphysics’, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page of which I happened to stumble upon some time ago. Within feminist metaphysics, various theories and ideas in the field metaphysics are examined along with their social effects and ‘which group is privileged and which is oppressed’, but one’s own assumptions about privilege and value and power and human nature are left safe and untouched.
Conclusion
This essay has been, I hope, an example of this blog’s tagline. I have hoped to question everything, including the people who claim to question everything, and the very foundations by which one can question. A few clarifications are necessary, I feel, before I truly conclude, and an expression of apology and gratitude are necessary even before those few clarifications. I apologize for the length of this essay and the difficult drudgery you have gone through to reach here. I also feel gratitude for the same reason: thank you, dear reader, for putting yourself through this drudgery and trying to process this very lengthy essay of mine. If my writing style annoys you, kindly forgive me, and if it amuses you, I’m glad.
It is quite likely that there are some gaps and flaws in the views that I’ve expressed here, and yet, I still think I have a valid point somewhere in there, so please overlook the irrelevant mistakes (but all the same, I would be glad to recognize them and admit them). As long as I’ve managed to convey that valid point, my work is done. Very importantly, though, please don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that injustice isn’t widespread, operating at various levels at every moment of every day. I’m also not saying that unnecessary suffering isn’t a grave evil and that we mustn’t continue the struggle to end it, or reduce it as much as possible. For the sake of this essay, though, I’m also not affirming any of these claims. Whether I have argued for a religious or supernaturalistic worldview is up to you to decide, but I have certainly tried to argue for a logically and ontologically sound worldview. I have had no intention of supporting the caste system or endorsing patriarchy or making a case for moral nihilism, or any kind of nihilism. I simply used them as points or examples, in order to make it clear that anyone making value claims (or their negatives) must have a coherent and valid theory of value, i.e. a robust moral ontology (and moral epistemology, too, if one feels so inspired).
Additionally, I don’t mean to express that all that Marxist-critical theory has yielded is utterly useless, nor am I saying that Marxists are stupid or evil. After all, I have derided Derrida as well as applied his method of deconstruction in this very essay. I have learned a great deal both by accepting several Marxist ideas (with which I often find myself aligned in certain social issues) as well as by refuting or rejecting many of them, and for this, I am truly indebted to Marxism as well as the Marxists in my life. Nonetheless, in my experience, neither have the truly fundamental questions been posed, nor have the first principles been properly established, and you’d think that a century and a half, or at least the past half century, would suffice. I would recommend that any Marxist reading this need not necessarily worry with the likes of nihilism and whatnot, but rather work to refute moral nihilism and ground the value claims of Marxism by delving into the fields of ethics and metaethics, and even metaphysics.5 Geras (1984) concluded his article on “The Controversy about Marx and Justice” by mentioning that Marx indeed did much more for real social justice than many moral philosophers have ever done, and I would certainly agree with him, to an extent, in saying that Marxists have brought many socio-political issues to the light and truly sensitized many to the lived experiences of ordinary persons in marginalized groups, and the need and urgency of social reform. All the same, he also said, shortly before the end of his article, that
Marxists should no longer continue to propagate the aboriginal self-contradiction and confusion in this area, but must openly take responsibility for their own ethical positions, spell them out, defend and refine them. A properly elaborated Marxist conception of justice — to take only the example that is most relevant to this debate — would not be at all premature.
Marxism, we see then, has claimed to ask ‘uncomfortable questions,’ but in reality, it only packages relatively comfortable questions and sells them as uncomfortable ones. Marx started off by making the objective truth claim that there can be no objectively true claims, and asserted that communism would create a society that would be ‘better’ or ‘less oppressive’ for the proletariat while dismissing claims about what is objectively good or just as mere figments of imagination (or functions of the economic system). Marxists today continue in Marx’s tradition of overlooking the is–ought problem, and are happy to commit the fallacy of Bulverism and ‘deconstruct’ the implicit beliefs and biases of ‘oppressive’ groups, while not examining their own, and they will continue to fight for oppression and injustice and subjugation to end, while maintaining relativism and dismissing any objective truth claims or value claims about what actually constitutes ‘justice’ or ‘equality’. Althusser, it seems, expressed that the question posed at the outset (the ‘problematic’) is what fundamentally shapes the investigation that follows. Marxists start off with ‘Who’s oppressing whom?’ or ‘Why is there injustice?’, and fail to reflect on ‘What is injustice?’ and ‘What is oppression?’
Critical theory has often spoken of ideological subjugation and how people are lulled away from contemplating important issues, but it has itself distracted us from the most fundamental problem(s). This, then, is the messy metaphysics of Marxism: the multitudes of its modern manifestations make monumental moral claims, whilst maligning and misrepresenting morality itself. Get out of the rabbit hole, dear reader, and maybe get started with your own moral ontology by asking yourself these questions (and try to avoid answers like ‘Because I said so,’ or ‘That’s just how it is,’ or even worse, ‘I know so-and-so sociologically’): What is oppression? What is suffering? What makes suffering and oppression bad/evil? What makes anything good or bad at all? What is evil? What is goodness?
Endnotes
Yes, that is indeed a reference to the dialectics of Hegel and Marx.
That’s not a grammatical error. I mean ‘amateur of’ in the French sense of the word, i.e. someone who has a passion for something, along with the common English sense of ‘rookie’, of course.
Death is not the only substantial ground for existential nihilism, and you can have nihilism with immortality too. Think of living forever, until you run out of things to do or people to help, etc.: an endless, aimless life. This theme has apparently been explored in some books, but I’ve not read them so I can’t name any.
The Latin word for ‘zero’ or ‘nothing’, from which the term ‘nihilism’ is derived.
I highly recommend C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, for starters, and his Mere Christianity after that. He brings up more or less the same issues that I have brought up, but with more depth and clarity than me, along with potential solutions.
References
Baby, J. (Director). (2021). മഹത്തായ ഭാരതീയ അടുക്കള [The great Indian kitchen] [Film]. Mankind Cinemas; Symmetry Cinemas; Cinema Cooks. https://www.primevideo.com/detail/0LPM9D6PWOSCEAUBEXO10YKQBB/
Bishop Robert Barron. (2021, June 15). Bishop Barron presents Sohrab Ahmari: Conversations at the crossroads [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/t5iH47eB5fI
Calhoun, C. (2003). Pierre Bourdieu. In G. Ritzer (Ed.), The Blackwell companion to major contemporary social theorists (pp. 274–309). Blackwell Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470999912.ch12
Cohen, R. J., & Swerdlik, M. E. (2018). Psychological testing and measurement: An introduction to tests and measurement (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/psychological-testing-assessment-cohen/M9781259870507.html
Cuff, E. C., Sharrock, W. W., & Francis, D. W. (2006). Perspectives in sociology (5th ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203965276
Fraser, N. (1998). Social justice in the age of identity politics: Redistribution, recognition, participation [Working paper]. Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Forschungsschwerpunkt Arbeitsmarkt und Beschäftigung, Abteilung Organisation und Beschäftigung, Discussion Paper 98–108. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-126247
Geras, N. (1984). The controversy about Marx and justice. Philosophica, 33, 33–86. https://www.philosophica.ugent.be/wp-content/uploads/fulltexts/33-3.pdf
Marx, K. H., & Engels, F. (2010). Manifesto of the communist party (S. Moore, Trans.). Marxists Internet Archive. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf (Original work published 1888/1848)
Numbers, R. L. (2006). Myths and truths in science and religion: A historical perspective [Lecture recording]. The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/resources/multimedia/myths-and-truths-in-science-and-religion-a-historical-perspective/
Patricia Hill Collins: Intersecting oppressions. (n.d.). SAGE. https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/13299_Chapter_16_Web_Byte_Patricia_Hill_Collins.pdf
The Society of GK Chesterton [@chestertonsociety]. (2021, May 19). What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of [Image]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/CPDOaqkLj3F
Wenar, L. (2021). John Rawls. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2021 ed.). Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/rawls/
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