Marx: the Burden of What Has Been | Logan Lancing

When Mark says human beings are creative, he means we see something in the world, like a stick, and we've got a vision in our head of what we want to turn that stick into. We've got a vision in our head of what we want the world to look like.

So maybe I want to make a spear. I grab a sharp rock, and I start cutting away at the stick. I whittle away; I slowly match what's in my head to the physical reality of my world. That's what Marx meant by humans have a creative nature.

In that, the deeper meaning of that is that when we look into the world, we see ourselves reflecting back at us. We see our creativity, our subjective thoughts, the vision of my spear objectified in the real world. What he said is we look out into the world, we're humanizing with our creativity, and it reflects back our human nature.

We see ourselves as gods, essentially, is what it comes down to. Uh, Mark said our species being is also social; that's our spiritual species property, to use his own terms. What he means by that is we're not born in the world alone; we're not born in a vacuum.

Uh, he said the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living, meaning we're born into a world that's already been humanized. We're born into a world where other people have used their creative potential to transform the world into their vision.

So, in a sense, our conscience is the burden of what has been. Right, yes, exactly, and do a little hand gesture and uh, right, and a cackle—an evil cackle that curls your spine, right—and what freezes the blood of small children.

What Mark said is because we've got this creative potential to transform our world into our own vision and we're a social creature, uh, what those things differentiate us from the animals. Because we can do those things, we make history.

Meaning when I'm born, I'm born into a world others have worked on; they've already transformed nature. If I'm born in a primitive tribe, I'm not going to be going and creating a spacefaring civilization.

So the history of the people that have come before me preloads my consciousness, and that makes history. Then, the people in my present, my present tribe, whatever you want—your city—those of us attempting to send rockets to Mars, we then socialize the next generation into the world.

Marx's whole theology is the idea that we can arrest this process of history; we can direct it. It's not something that just has to happen, and it's incumbent on those who are oppressed to arrest it. Because the group in power, who's created the society—uh, with capitalism, it would be the bourgeois, and their private property and the laws, rules, and regulations that have been built up to solidify their social status and their domination—are not going to overthrow history and direct history in the direction we want it.

Because they're pretty set; they're enjoying their lives, they're happy. So it's incumbent on the oppressed to become conscious of this fact that we can arrest history and we can direct it, and that's Marx's program: the arresting of history through conflict to drive it to an ultimate endpoint.

One where we look out in the world, and it reflects our humanity back onto us. Marx said when we look into the world and we're one with nature, and nature is one with us, uh, I think his precise words to describe it in almost biblical terms was he said that when man looks out, he revolves around himself as his own true sun.

I mean, it doesn't get any more theological than that. So I think that's the heart of it, and everything derives from that. It doesn't make sense that it's an economic theory; it never has. That's why over 100 million people died starving to death in the dark.

That's why it doesn't work, because he mapped his economics on top of a theology to sell it, is my opinion. Okay, okay, so let's delve into the theological side for a moment, and then we'll return to the postmodern element.

Okay, so there's two things you laid out as far as I'm understanding what you're saying. The first is, well, some support for your argument that this is a theological movement, is that, well, it is a post-religious movement, and it's also something that Nietzsche predicted when he discussed the death of God.

He said in the Will to Power that the human race would run an experiment in the 20th century that would likely doom millions of people to investigate the validity of a resentment-predicated communism, and that if we learned the proper lesson from that, then perhaps the sacrifice of lives would have proved valuable and necessary.

Now, you know, that's a hell of a harsh thing to say, but it's also quite the remarkable prediction. And of course, Dostoevsky saw the same things coming, especially in his book Demons, which is as accurate a prologue to the Gulag Archipelago as you could possibly hope for.

Okay, so let's look at this theologically, because I think it is a theology; it's a post-Christian theology. No, it's an anti-Christian theology, and so part of the reason it's anti-Christian is because Marx's fundamental presupposition is that the god of power does and should rule.

Right? So that's quite a claim, and I think actually you can understand the attractiveness of that claim, especially on the economic side, because the idea that there is a small minority of people who hold comparative power in any human social hierarchy is true in some manner.

It's particularly true if the society is corrupt, and it is also the case that even the most benevolent of social organizations are corrupted to some degree by power. Power is a major league—go, you might say—and it's very attractive intellectually, especially if you're a rather rigid reductionist and you don't like to think in a sophisticated manner.

It's to reduce everything to power, as Foucault did; power and sexuality, in Foucault's case. And you can make a credible case for that. You can make a credible case that your relationship with yourself is one of power, and your relationship with your wife, and your relationship with your children, and your so-called friends, and every economic relationship; it all boils down to power.

Only the naive think differently. So the world's a war of power, and that's not only an anti-Christian doctrine in the most fundamental way; it's almost literally a satanic doctrine. Because in the gospels, for example, Christ is literally tempted by the Satan who offers him power as an alternative to the proper principle of sovereignty.

Okay, so that's the first thing: Marxism is a theology of power. All right, the next thing is that you pointed out was that, um, it's a dialectic of oppressed versus oppressor. And so that's also interesting theologically, because the story of Cain and Abel is an oppressor versus oppressed theology.

The spirit of Cain is the spirit of the resentful oppressed who rebels against the—what would you say—the upward-striving individual who makes the proper sacrifices, destroys him, and rebels against God pridefully and deceitfully, right?

So that's another theological element. Now, the Marxists would say, well, religion, Christianity, is the opiate of the masses. And perhaps Cain, under the sway of Lucifer, who's regarded as an admirable rebel by the Marxists, including Marx, is the upholder of the proper revolutionary spirit.

But it's certainly the case that the notion that existence itself, history itself, all relationships are a battleground of power between the oppressor and the oppressed is central to Marxism, as far as I'm concerned. It's not a Marxist idea in and of itself, but it's central to Marxism.

And it’s also a pretty damn salable idea, especially if your culture is corrupted by power and you have your self-serving reasons for regarding yourself as victimized and oppressed. You know that was what Nietzsche objected to with regards to the philosophy of resentment, and Marx's Marxism is the philosophy of resentment writ large.

The problem with that is that there's a lot of things in life to be resentful about, right? So it's easy to sell; it’s a doctrine that suits the pathologically immature. And so, okay, so is there anything in my characterization of Marxism as a theology that's at odds with the manner in which you're construing it?