[FRA:] What is Orthodox Marxism? by Georg Lukacs

[rdumain at autodidactproject.org]

  What is Orthodox Marxism? by Georg Lukacs

 This essay starts off with the famous quote that Marxist orthdoxy is based solely on method, on the notion of the totality. But here are my favorite quotes. 

 "Fatalism and voluntarism are only mutually contradictory to an undialectical and unhistorical mind. In the dialectical view of history they prove to be necessarily complementary opposites, intellectual reflexes clearly expressing the antagonisms of capitalist society and the intractability of its problems when conceived in its own terms."

 Footnote 6: " It is of the first importance to realise that the method is limited here to the realms of history and society. The misunderstandings that arise from Engels’ account of dialectics can in the main be put down to the fact that Engels – following Hegel’s mistaken lead – extended the method to apply also to nature. However, the crucial determinants of dialectics – the interaction of subject and object, the unity of theory and practice, the historical changes in the reality underlying the categories as the root cause of changes in thought, etc. – are absent from our knowledge of nature."

 "When the ideal of scientific knowledge is applied to nature it simply furthers the progress of science. But when it is applied to society it turns out to be an ideological weapon of the bourgeoisie."

 Lukacs expands on these notions, of course; I'm quoting minimally the essential ideas involved. More to come.