Historical materialism needs hidden theology to win its game

Evidence

A puppet in Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table… . Actually, a little hunchback who was an expert chess player sat inside and guided the puppet’s hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet called “historical materialism” is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 601

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The puppet parable is dense with layers: theology as hunchback operator, the wizened-and-hidden status of religious thought in a secular age, and the strategic alliance Benjamin stages between Marxism and theology.
• SEED: An essay contrasting Benjamin’s hidden-theology parable with contemporary secular-materialist claims that Marxism needs no external operator.
• SHARE: Send to a friend interested in Benjamin or in the Marxist-theology debate.
• XREF: connects to: Theological predestination is the first form of historical totality thinking; An ideology claims the key to history or universal hidden laws — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 432; The universalized theology of progress makes historians unconsciously reproduce imperial hierarchies — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 209 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Theological predestination is the first form of historical totality thinking #expands (0.72)
• The universalized theology of progress makes historians unconsciously reproduce imperial hierarchies #expands (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 209
• An ideology claims the key to history or universal hidden laws #expands (0.70) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 432