> ^^^^
> CB: Yes, Engels even put his life on the frontline of the revolutionary
> war
> for progress to German bourgeois nationalist democracy in 1848. His notion
> of progress was not just like anybody's, but like Fredrick Douglass' idea
> of
> progress when he said there is no progress without struggle, moral or
> physical , but struggle. Without a notion of progress, Marx and Engels
> wouldn't have known which side to support in the U.S. Civil War. Their
> concept of progress through the bourgeois mode of production was not
> uncritical, but they did adopt an optimistic approach that the progressive
> aspects of capitalism would prevail over the backward aspects, the actual
> is
> rational , and all that , Hegelian evolutionism. Sure they knew socialism
> is
> not actually inevitable, just a tendency and possibility, but it would be
> impossible without humans being enthusiastically optimistic about
> achieving
> socialism. Marxian optimism is a critical component of effective practical
> critical activity. Progress must be cheered to happen, and declaring that
> it "shall be" is a way to raise the revolutionary élan without which it
> will
> _not_ happen. Hey just say that this is Marx and Engels demonstrating
> "will
> to power" for the working class.
>
> Arise Ye Children of Starvation,
> Arise Ye Wretched of the Earth,
> For Justice thunders condemnation ( slave moralizing!)
> There's a better world in birth ( progress !)
I'm not sure why I am responding to this, but one can conceptualize a better world without a concept of progress. One can find this in peasant movements. Also a condemnation of one's injured position is actually the opposite of the reveling in injury that N. is describing. Overall, I am sympathetic of Wendy Brown's argument that we should try to justify our political projects on their own potential rather than justifying them in the language of morality. (Actually my favorite response to progress is Negri's who argues that once we abandon the notion that the revolution is inevitable, the revolution becomes inevitable... (maybe its just a childish love of tautology though))
> Bourgeois progress has turned out to be one step forward, two steps
> backward. But what was the position of the German Social Democratic Labor
> Party or the International at the time N. opposed German nationalism ?
> Maybe
> I'm wrong. Maybe N. opposed German nationalism for progressive, uhh,
> excuse
> me, philosophically royal reasons.
Actually, N. does something similar to Marx in returning to greek thought to show the possibility of a radically different mode of thought and organization of society. I don't think you can call N. a royalist because of his condemnation of the state form.
> Misanthropy, melancholy, permeate Carrol's comment and Nietzsche's spirit.
> Marx and Engels choose "nothing human is alien to me", knowing full well
> the
> dangerous potential of the human future in competition with it's really
> human potential.
Carrol can take his own position on this question, but there is nothing melancholic about Nietzsche. You might not like his conceptualization of Joy or the way he conceptualizes the potential of humanity, but they are neither melancholic nor are they misanthropic.
robert wood