The Gaze of the Believer III.

April 22nd, 2009 by Nagypál Tamás

Marx and the Belief of the Idiot


To see an other confrontation with subjects of belief, let’s look at an early text by Marx and Engels, The Holy Family. The book, mostly written by Marx, is one of his many overlong pamphlets in which he wages war against his theoretical enemies (liberals, social democrats, anarchists) for not being radical enough to swallow the necessity of the proletariat taking over. This time he shoots his salvos on a group of Young Hegelians (liberal Hegelians) who tend to elevate their critical project to a new theoretical religion, supposedly undermining the current state and social relations while not even trying to hide their mistrust towards the masses, whom they want to have cleaned and educated, ready for the detached stand against the essentialist remainders of the ancien regime. Marx and Engels attack their comfortable idealism from a dialectical materialist point of view, arguing that the only true change can come through the masses. Here is how the first chapter starts:

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The Gaze of the Believer II.

April 8th, 2009 by Nagypál Tamás

Nietzsche and the Belief of the Slave


Let’s start with Nietzsche. In part one of his Thoughts out of Season[1] he fights a fierce and relentless battle against the unfortunate popular writer, voice of the people David Friedrich Strauss. Much like in the game show setting there are three agents interacting and one observing. The subject supposed to know, the figure of authority is played by various classic authors and artists from Goethe to Beethoven, to whom Strauss, the humble and ignorant contestant pays homage overanxiously in front of his audience. Accordingly, he proposes a program to follow the footsteps of the classics by copying their moves, perfecting their techniques, correcting their mistakes, thus eventually a skilled epigone can become, as Strauss likes to think, just as great if not greater than the old masters. The counterargument by Nietzsche points out the blasphemous nature of the whole idea, stressing the importance of creativity, originality and also of a certain hardship and suffering that comes with the creative process which cannot be streamlined.

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