Marxism
as an ideological alterative, once dominating the world stage, especially
before the fall of Berlin Wall, has today disappeared from the praxis. Some of
the world powers, such as, China and Russia, are merely keeping the mask
upfront, behind its veil, the state owned capitalist 'mode of production' is
prevalent. Karl Marx, one of the greatest social scientists at the same time utopians, was the product of German rational tradition which has
credit to cultivate some of the greatest thinkers of all time, including,
Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Frederich Nietzsche, and Jurgen Habermas. It is ‘Copernican Revolution’, brought by Immanuel Kant in epistemology, which helped in innovating the human agency into the action through ‘mediated knowledge’.
In that sense, objectivity was conceived by Kant not as an isolated island, but it is intuition that shapes the vision of objective truth. Hegel, on the
other hand, qualifies all the subjective notions of good and evil by ‘historical
consciousness’, in a way, subjectivity takes the hue and saturation of
historicity. To move in an alternative paradigm, one of the masters of suspicion, Nietzsche discovers about the culture, which is as per him, a medium to establish all the dominant moral principles,
which define and limit the very of good and evils. For him, it is master morality which is
subjugated by 'herd' one. The last man and the sick man do establish the
empire of grace and virtue which effectively alter the enriched lives of master
men. However, to the contrary, Karl Marx progresses with his diagnosis of ‘historical materialism’ in a fashion which rejects the cultural analysis in place of economic one.
He writes in The Communist Manifesto:
“All
fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable
prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated
before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is
frofaned, and men at last are forced to face the real conditions of their lives
and their relations with their fellow men” (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848).
The
materialistic imagination of Marx with dialectical rigour produces one of the
profane works of all time. Marxian praxis is later revolutionized by several Neo-Marxist
thinkers, for example, Antonio Gramsci. His Prison Notebooks laid down the ultimate foundation of subaltern
study; an alternative reading of historical traces, which brings forth ‘Orientalism’, a paradigmatic
sift in historicity, in the leadership of Edvard Said, Talal Asad, Ashis Nandi,
Gaytri Chakravrati Spivak, Ranjit Guha, and many more. Neo-Marxist tradition
moves ahead from the idea of ‘Commodity Fetishism’ to the consciousness of ‘Reification’.
Frankfurt School in Germany, in the able leadership of Max Horkheimer and Adorno do discover a hazardous industry in form of 'culture', which has precariously affected the human mind in quest of commodity and entertainment. Violence and vulgarity do
become the attractive commodity to buy and sell. The culture of no culture, in
form of 'multi-culturalism' has transcending effects, which does create the structures and categories
of robotic homo sapiens, who cannot
challenge, either pre-established means or end, but the masses are willing to work with ease and smoothness under ready-made cultural mentality. The hyper-real world has exposed and condemned a real one
to its ugliness and contempt. For no subaltern study is capable to create a
conscious citizenry environment unless cybernetics governance, in form of mass
deception is rejected. For a manifesto of dissent, in Gandhian way could be
vital, in bringing back the autonomous human agency, through social
collectives, in form of idyllic village community. Marxian building block for
future is seen with suspicion by many thinkers, including Nehru and Gandhi. In
words of Karl Popper:
“That
the Utopian method, which chooses an ideal state of society as the aim which
all our political actions should serve, is likely to produce violence can be
shown thus. Since we cannot determine the ultimate ends of political actions
scientifically, or by purely rational methods, differences of opinion
concerning what the ideal state should be like cannot always be smoothed out by
the method of argument. They will at least partly have the character of
religious differences. And there can be no tolerance between these different
Utopian religions. Utopian aims are designed to serve as a basis for rational
political action and discussion, and such action appears to be possible only if
the aim is definitely decided upon. Thus the Utopianist must win over, or else
crush, his Utopianist competitors who do not share his own Utopian aims, and
who do not profess his own Utopianist religion. But he has to do more. He has
to be very thorough in eliminating and stamping out all heretical competing
views. For the way to the Utopian goal is long. Thus the rationality of his
political action demands constancy of aim for a long time ahead; and this can
only be achieved if he not merely crushes competing Utopian religions, but as
far as possible stamps out all memory of them. The use of violent methods for
the suppression of competing aims becomes even more urgent if we consider that
the period of Utopian construction is liable to be one of social change. In
such a time ideas are liable to change also. Thus what may have appeared to
many as desirable at the time when the Utopian blueprint was decided upon may
appear less desirable at a later date. If this is so, the whole approach is in
danger of breaking down. For if we change our ultimate political aims while
attempting to move towards them we may soon discover that we are moving in
circles. The whole method of first establishing an ultimate political aim and
then preparing to move towards it must be futile if the aim may be changed
during the process of its realization. It may easily turn out that the steps so
far taken lead in fact away from the new aim. And if we then change direction
in accordance with our new aim we expose ourselves to the same risk. In spite
of all the sacrifices which we may have made in order to make sure that we are
acting rationally, we may get exactly nowhere” (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations).
In
the end, I am of the opinion that Gandhian ideals of suraj (self-governance),
appears to be a constructive method, to protect the sanctity of life goals as
well as the means in achieving it. Gandhian vision of life is a challenging one
which rewrites the principles of governance as per the governance of Being and Self. Only
ethical transformation could alleviate all the human sufferings. The poverty of
dialectical imaginations have been producing many an impoverished world
citizens. The cosmopolitan vision of life in sense of Kant and Gandhi has
something to offer to counter against ‘alienated life’ (Marx, Philosophical Manuscript).
Published by: Mritunjay Kumar (Assistant Professor, Law Centre-II, University of Delhi).
