Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea în lectura postbelică din România

Author(s): Cristian Preda / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 3/2002

Les lectures de l’oeuvre du marxiste roumain C. Dobrogeanu-Gherea ont été plus critiques dans sa propre famille idéologique que sous toute autre perspective. L’article décrit les différentes visions de cette oeuvre très riche produites après 1945; la contestation idéologique et la contestation scientifique sont suivies par une tentative de récupérer les textes de Gherea, soit dans une perspective sociologique, soit dans une lecture philosophique. C’est ainsi que Gherea devient d’un ennemi de la doctrine officielle, anti-marxiste et anti-prolétaire, le premier sociologue marxiste au monde ou bien le Père fondateur du socialisme international. Lue autrement, ‘histoire des interprétations de Gherea décrit la carte intellectuelle du marxisme roumain d’après 1945.

Polityczność pragnienia w myśli Spinozy: przeciwko antynomicznej interpretacji Leszka Kołakowskiego

Author(s): Antonina Januszkiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2021

The article presents the political nature of Benedict Spinoza’s ontological system using the example of the concept of conatus (desire). The author defends the coherence of the Dutch thinker’s thought, arguing with Leszek Kołakowski’s interpretation, according to which Spinoza’s system is characterised by the insurmountable antinomies of an individual and the infinite. As the article shows, noticing the fundamentally political character of Spinoza’s ontological notions makes it possible to transcend these antinomies towards a coherent and clear interpretation. While focusing on the notion of conatus, the author analyses two of Kołakowski’s antinomies. The first concerns the problem of duration and individuality, and presents the contradiction between the principle of the self-preservation of individuals and the indivisibility of substance. The second touches upon a strictly ethical issue – the alleged incompatibility between striving to preserve oneself in one’s being and striving for the intellectual love of God. The author shows that both antinomies stem from Kołakowski’s failure to recognise the political nature of the notion of conatus and thus the political dimension of ethics.

Saussure’s dichotomies and the shapes of structuralist semiotics

Author(s): John E. Joseph / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The Cours de linguistique générale (1916), which became the master text for structuralist linguistics and semiotics, is characterized by a series of dichotomies. Some of them, e.g. langue and parole, signified and signifier, arbitrary and motivated, are very well known, others less so. This paper looks at Saussure’s semiotics in terms of these dichotomies, and considers how later critiques, such as Voloshinov’s (1929), and reformulations, particularly Hjelmslev’s (1935, 1942) and the concept of enunciation which emerged conjointly in the work of Jakobson, Lacan, Dubois, Benveniste and others, were shaped as responses to the Saussurean dichotomies. Also examined in terms of its contrast with Saussure is Bally’s stylistics. The aim is a fuller understanding of the shapes taken by structuralist semiotics, in view of the heritage on which they were based and the broader intellectual climate, including phenomenology and Marxism, in which they developed.

The Postcommunist Supplement: The Revision of Postcolonial Theory from the East European Quarter

Author(s): Bogdan Ștefănescu / Language(s): English Issue: 38/2022

Postcolonial criticism appears today as the sole champion of the study of colonialism and its aftermath. However, viewed from post-Soviet Europe, it displays a number of flaws and lacunae: an amputated atlas of modern colonialism which ignores the experience of Eastern Europe under Soviet colonial occupation, a binarism that fails to explain the more complicated mechanisms of cultural colonization, and an in-built ideological bent that blinds it to the trans-ideological nature of colonialism whereby mutually incompatible ideologies have functioned as both the hegemonic and the counter-discourses of colonialism. While it has found the general framework of postcolonialism useful, postcommunist cultural studies has worked inside these theoretical interstices to supplement the orthodoxy of postcolonialism with equally sophisticated analytical tools that seem more adapted to deal with trans-colonialism in the global age. This article explains the added value of the cultural critique of (post)communist coloniality: how it has complemented the routine charts of colonialism during and after the Cold War by more accurately mapping the complex colonial relationships between all “Three Worlds”; how it by-passed the simple binary imagination of radical postcolonialism in order to address the political ambivalence and the ethical dilemmas of global (post)coloniality where there are no fixed hero/villain positions; and how it replaced Manichean anti-capitalist discourses with a more flexible and open perspective on the convoluted ideological rapports during the Cold- War and after the collapse of the Soviet empire.

The Rise of the Cottagecore Game: The Modernity of Digital Gaming and Content Consumption

Author(s): Seunghyun Shin / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The main aim of this article is to demonstrate that contemporary gamers commit to a political nature of consuming digital game contents to facilitate cultural renewal. In illuminating how the rise of the cottagecore game at the turn of the 2020s has not only been driven by this cultural renewal but also intensified its major trajectories, the study contradicts critical assertions about the inimical relationship between gaming and real life which still remains in mainstream culture. This study aims to continue advancing the practice of game theorists who have shifted academic interest to the relevance of the digital game as a medium by conceptualizing the practice of enjoying a digital game as ‘consumption’ in the fashion defined by K. Marx. Building upon what might be termed an open-world game suggested a contradicting concept of playing a digital game, this study takes Harvest Moon as one of the early examples which inspires the swarming number of cottagecore games in the late 2010s and Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing as representatives of the rise of the cottagecore game, the study will illustrate how the rise of the cottagecore game reveals modernity of contemporary gamers who share a vision of digital game as a uniquely positioned medium for imagining a better world and themselves and, subsequently, facilitating a shift in cultural attitudes in a politically progressive manner.

Теоретичната инверсия на Асен Игнатов – основания и следствия

Author(s): Georgi Belogashev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

The article’s task is to generally clarify the grounds for the theoretical reversal in Asen Ignatov’s concepts by diachronically pointing out the main theoretical changes in them. At the same time, synchronic analysis is related to indicating general attitudes, ideological and political frameworks, and actions during the fixed time period. This would allow us to go beyond the personal reasons for such a transition, and to build a more complete picture of this inversion respectively, both in theoretical and socio-political terms. The article seeks to reveal what the consequences are of perceiving the dogmatic limitation of Marxism in socialist countries, as well as Ignatov’s position on this. In this way, the synergistic action of the various factors studied would expand the possibility of a truer understanding of the events in Ignatov’s creative life after his emigration in 1972.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS TO THE KINGDOM OF BEAUTY AND LOVE. HERBERT MARCUSE’S TRAJECTORY TO SOCIALISM

Author(s): Maroje Višić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

Socialists today can learn from Marcuse. Starting from this premise this paper discusses and elaborates on Herbert Marcuse’s trajectory to socialism. Marcuse successfully eluded the trap of “economism”, and turned to subjectivity in search of a socialist solution. The transition to socialism is possible through the creation of new anthropology expressed through the concept of “new sensibility”. The prototype of a new socialist human is an anti-superman. Peace and beauty are important characteristics of Marcuse’s socialism. “Libertarian socialism”, “feminist socialism”, “integral socialism”, “socialist humanism”, “socialism as the work of art”, and “utopian socialism” are all terms that testify to Marcuse’s open and many-faceted understanding of socialism in all of its complexity of meanings. Some of those meanings can inform debates on future prospects of socialism.

ПОЛИТИКА И ИНТЕЛИГЕНЦИЈА — СТАЉИНИЗАМ И МАОИЗАМ

Author(s): Mirjana Todorović / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 5-6/1985

Classical marxist theory does not pay much attention to the issues of the role of intelligentsia and of its position in society. On the other hand, political ideology and political practice, under the pressure of real social events and developments, including the political needs, settled these issues mainly at the detriment of the realization of the real role of intelligentsia in society. Stalinism and maoism in China at the time of the cultural revolution are but two examples of an extreme expression of the might of political peak against the intelligentsia, and more particularly toward the creative intelligentsia. Persecution of intellectuals up to their physical annihilation in Stalinism and destructive wave of cultural revolution which destroyed intellectual life in China, are obvious proofs of the rule of the »myth of politics« and of »political myths«. Although emerging in different conditions and of different scope, they do have similarities expressed in serious threat which endangers the system of values of the communist movement in the world, as well as provoke the need for facing up this experience.

Maurice Godelier: МАРКСИЗАМ И АНТРОПОЛОГИЈА, Загреб, Школска књига, 1982., стр. 402

Author(s): Zorica Mršević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 6/1983

Ekolojist Eleştiri Karşısında Ekolojik Marksizm: Olanaklar ve Ana Temalar Üzerine Tartışmalar

Author(s): Açalya TEMEL KAYMAK / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 2/2023

Ecologism has started to show itself as a strong social movement since the 1970s. In this period, different socialist and Marxist circles and movements, which were increasingly interested in ecological problems, also turned to ecological socialism. The new ecological socialist wave that emerged in this period criticizes the negative environmental effects of economic development not only in capitalist countries, but also in the Soviet Union& Eastern Bloc, and started to question the traditional understanding of Marxism on which this experience is based, in the face of the ecological problems created by the socialist experience. In these debates, it can be said that besides those who reject Marxism directly, two main tendencies have emerged who believe that the theoretical framework of Marxism provides a suitable ground for building an ecological Marxism. The first of these is the line represented by Ted Benton, who thinks that Marxism should be revised along an ecological line, based on Marx's early philosophical writings. The second is the line that tries to create an ecological Marxist theoretical framework based on the economic writings of Marx, pioneered by John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett. This debate, which was sparked by Benton's article published in New Left Review in 1989, contributed to the emergence of a large literature on Marxism and Nature with the contribution of different authors, and in these discussions, a series of problems on the relationship between Marxism and ecology were discussed, based on ecological criticism. In this study, the main arguments of the two lines mentioned over the four main headings that constitute the main axis in these discussions have been tried to be evaluated with a critical perspective. These are the concept of alienation/metabolic rift, the critique of anthropocentrism, the debate on the labor process and the problem of value, and the critique of Prometheanism.

Radical Atheism Towards The Orthodox Church In Montenegro, 1945–1960

Author(s): Aleksandar Stamatović,Budimir Aleksić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The roots of radical atheism in Montenegro can be found at the beginning of the existence of the Yugoslav state in the interwar period. The Podgorica Assembly, which had the goal of formalising the unification of Montenegro with Serbia and other Yugoslav provinces, was held in November 1918. The Assembly proclaimed the decision to merge Montenegro with Serbia. Three members of parliament (MPs) came forward with radical atheistic requests at the Assembly, demanding that all the church’s property should be confiscated and handed over to the state. Some churches and monasteries were to be turned into public chapels for burials, and the others into schools and cultural institutions. During the interwar period, the Communist Party existed mostly illegally in Montenegro, and did not show any greater intent to impose radical atheism. During the Second World War, a strong revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party developed in Montenegro, as did also a counterrevolution. At that time the Communist Party and the partisan movement showed a strong degree of radical atheism, with elements of militant atheism, especially in the killing of a large number of church clergy (monks, priests and graduate theologians) during the war. However, the Communist Party did not implement radical atheism in the fields of ideology and the economy. It would do that only after the Second World War, when it assumed power over all spheres of social and public life. At that time, within the process of nationalisation and agrarian reform, significant material goods (buildings, land, forests and movable property) were taken away from the Orthodox Church in Montenegro. The same was done to the Catholic Church and the Islamic religious community. The process of radical atheism in an ideological sense took place parallel with this process. The intention of the Communist Party was to completely remove the church from social life, and implement atheism among the people, and practically turn them into believers of the new Marxist-Leninist ideology.

UP TO A POINT, THE DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM IS DIALECTICAL IDEALISM, IN HEGEL’S MEANING; BUT THEN IT IS MORE

Author(s): Ana Bazac / Language(s): English Issue: 51/2023

The paper investigates the common and different features of Hegel’s and Marx’s philosophy, thus not the historical and personal aspects of authors are important but the internal articulation of their philosophical methodologies. These features are both the dialectical approach of the knowledge of the world and, somehow deriving from the dialectical method, the understanding of objectivity. The beauty and limits of the dialectical pattern of Hegel is shown in his treatment of the finites. The analysis is rather a dialogue between the dialectical idealism and the dialectical materialism. The conclusion is not a synthesis seen dogmatically - as a final state, apotheosis of philosophy - but as an inherent development of thought, therefore even as its division into the never-completed dialectical materialist methodology and the eternally necessary convergence of philosophical interrogations and science.

CZYŻBY JEDNAK ZROZUMIENIE KONIECZNOŚCI...?

Author(s): Dorota Chabrajska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2022

A reader who was given an education in the period of the so-called Poland Ludowa, must have come across at some stage of his education an astonishing definition of freedom, described as Marxist, stating that freedom is nothing else like understanding necessity. The definition stressed above all necessity historical: a transformation of economic and social reality determined by the objective course of history, the principles of which were thoroughly captured in a materialistic dialectical concept of historical materialism, thus conceiving the modus the operandi of the mechanism that allows humanity to climb the ladder development towards an ideal system.

The Rhetoric of Indoctrination: Cultural Marxist Propaganda in American Schools

Author(s): Curtis L. Hancock / Language(s): English Issue: 31/2/2021

The author of this article argues that the last few generations in American universities have been subjected to a not-so-silent form of cultural Marxism. This practice was in line with Antonio Gramsci's early twentieth century call to undertake a "long march through institutions." Rather than encouraging outright, violent revolution (á la the Bolshevik uprising of 1917), he proposed a gradual takeover of political, cultural, and economic institutions. The university, because of its power to educate and influence future professionals, is a key tool for this transformation of society, a transformation that first seeks to change the civil society, customs, traditions, and habits of people who are historically unregulated by government. This generally sets the pattern by which much of the education in the classroom follows. First, the professor encourages students to doubt the values they have received from their parents and the rest of civil society, and second, the professor deconstructs Western Civilization. The author shows what role propaganda plays in these actions.

Ekofeminizm ve Ekososyalizm Yaklaşımlarıyla Çevre Sorunları ve Ekoloji

Author(s): Elif Ekinci Özyardimci / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 1/2023

As ecological problems reach a global dimension and threaten all living things, these problems have been on the world agenda especially in the last period of the 20th century and the attention of feminists has turned to ecology movements. This process brought a new dimension to women's studies in the western societies of the 1980s: Ecofeminism. Global ecological problems, which started to make itself felt in the 1970s and enveloping the world, started to be of interest in ideologies as well as in many areas of social life. At this point, ecosocialism came to the fore with the ecology discussions within the Marxist framework, and it started with the determination that the capitalist mode of production in Marxist thought exploits both labor and nature. In the first part of the study, the concept of ecofeminism, environmental ecofeminist approaches from the perspective of ecofeminism, and criticisms of ecofeminism will take place. In the second part, the ecosocialism approach will be discussed; The concepts of ecocentrism and technocentrism will be explained. Marxist approaches to nature and environment will be discussed. In the conclusion part, a general evaluation will be made about these two approaches.

ČESKÁ HISTORIOGRAFIE V LETECH 1948–1963 POHLEDEM POLSKÉHO DĚJEPISCE

Author(s): Jiří Křesťan / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2020

Review of: Górny, Maciej: Mezi Marxem a Palackým. Historiografie v komunistickém Československu. Volvox Globator, Praha 2018, 320 s.

Examining the Globalist and Marxian Groundworks on Human Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 21st Century: Insights from Nigeria and South Africa

Author(s): Olawale Olufemi Akinrinde,Kayode Wakili OLAWOYIN / Language(s): English Issue: 04/2023

This study probes into the globalist and Marxian perspectives on human insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Nigeria and South Africa. By employing a case-study methodology and data from relevant secondary and archival sources, the study seeks to understand the effects of globalization, globalist ideologies, and Marxist ideologies on human insecurity in the region. While previous studies have primarily attributed human insecurity in Africa to internal factors, such as corruption, self-destructive public policies, poverty, environmental degradation, militancy, and insurgency, the globalist and Marxist contexts of the insecurity have received limited scholarly attention. While findings partly confirm that most human insecurities in the region are largely influenced by internal factors, the global environment, encompassing job insecurity, global warming, deadly viruses and pandemics, transnational crimes, drugs, and interstate conflict, also plays a significant role. The study further uncovers the exploitative, oppressive, and conflict-ridden interactions between the bourgeoisie and proletariats in Sub-Saharan Africa, thereby contributing to unfairness, deprivation, and conflicts that usually morph into human insecurity. To mitigate human insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, the study proposes a collaborative global approach and a more equitable distribution of resources within the state. Understanding the globalist and Marxian foundations of human insecurity can provide valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders in devising comprehensive strategies to address this pressing issue in the region.

Phenomenological structuralism: a structurationist theory of human action

Author(s): Paul C. Mocombe / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Building on Structurationist sociology, this work explores Paul C. Mocombe’ssynthesis of phenomenology and structural Marxism, phenomenological structuralism,as an essay in Structurationist theory and the phenomenological ontology of EdmundHusserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau–Ponty, and Jean–Paul Sartre in order toresolve the structure/agency problematic of the social sciences.

Notă despre marxismul românesc astăzi

Author(s): Andrei State / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 49/2022

Prezenţa marxismului în spaţiul public şi intelectual românesc a urmat după 1989 un traseu cât se poate de previzibil. Într un prim moment, în calitate de ideologie a unui regim răsturnat de o revoluţie populară, marxismul a fost socotit, din toate punctele de vedere, compromis: învăţământul politico ideologic a fost desfiinţat, bibliotecile au fost curăţate de operele marxiste nocive, iar editurile şi revistele au început să tipărească imediat o cu totul altă literatură; mai mult, a apărut peste noapte un reflex de respingere a oricărei explicaţii sociale şi istorice în termeni materiali sau structurali, reflex pe care îl întâlnim, într o bună măsură, şi în prezent. Ulterior, mai ales după integrarea ţării în Uniunea Europeană, sub influenţa ştiinţelor sociale (şi socioumane) vestice, la care cercetarea locală a încercat cu mai mult sau mai puţin succes să se racordeze, marxismul a fost parţial recuperat, de obicei ca neo sau postmarxism. Acesta din urmă este un construct teoretic fără contur precis, în care sunt topite idei de provenienţă diversă, majo ritatea de factură progresistă, ce şi propune completarea marxismului cu ceea ce se presupune că i lipseşte, sau corectarea lui acolo unde se crede că nu mai răspunde exi genţelor, uneori şi sensibilităţilor actuale2 . Şi dacă motivele respingerii marxismului în România contemporană sunt uşor de sesizat, redescoperirea lui merită, poate, câteva scurte consideraţii.

Filozofsko uporište teorije socrealizma

Author(s): Josip Periša / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/171/2023

The paper aims to present the philosophical background and justification of the theory of social realism. Social realism is a representative example of a literary period in which the autonomy of literature in terms of, for example, the aesthetic value of a literary work, was brought to a negligible level given the radical demands of regime poetics of writing in accordance with politics and ideology. Socialist-realism, poetics in which party writing and educating people in the form of socialist progress and without any concern about literary creation are paramount, finds its postulates in theories of the Union of Russian Proletarian Writers (RAPP) and proletarian cultural and educational organization (Proletkult). Theorists of socialist realism poetics claim that their postulates find philosophical justification in Marx’s and Engels’ texts about art. The primary subject of analysis in the article will, therefore, be the connection between the theory of social realism and the classical Marxist conception of art. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the theory of social realism is justified by classical Marxist aesthetics regarding historical materialism which determines art, but not in the sense of denying the autonomy of the art.