> Progress is a sort of empty term unless one can identify the forces
> which drive it, and how those froces are to be harnessed to educate a
> dumb public. A recognition of contingency, of the illusory nature of
> systematic progress, and of the necessity of recognizing those
> condtions, when they appear, that make possible the making of our own
> history, while grim, is far more cheerful than this blind trust in
> Progress combined with contempt for people.
The "conditions ... that make possible the making of our own history" are, according to Marx, the conditions that develop the degree of "integral development" including the degree of "the ability to think" that this requires, i.e. the degree required first to raise "socialism" in imagination and then erect it in reality.
Demonstrating that these conditions are the conditions of "capitalism" is, Marx claims, "scientific" as opposed to "utopian" socialism (the former confining itself "to the mere critical analysis of actual facts", the latter "writing recipes ... for the cook-shops of the future" http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm).
"The mere critical analysis of actual facts" is the "business of science" where "science" is understood in terms of Hegel's "higher dialectic of the conception".
How does this approach, which includes the linking of "superstition" and "prejudice" to "despotism" and thus making "socialism" the antithesis of "despotism", involve "blind trust in Progress combined with contempt for people"?
Why is it less realistic and cheerful than an approach in terms of "contingency" and of "socialism" as empty of any content other than what the "masses" (to which such ideas as "superstition" and "prejudice" as opposed to "integral development" and "enlightenment" do not apply) decide to give it, a content that may, therefore, very well include "despotism"?
Ted