Marxism’s dialectic predicts its own corruption into dogma and certainty

Evidence

Since its inception, Marxism has meant to some a critical scientific system, a way of understanding, comprehending, and affecting history. The way in which Trotsky expressed his own excitement about Marxism underscores this point: “The important thing … is to see clearly. One can say of communism, above all, that it gives more clarity. We must liberate man from all that prevents his seeing.” The history of Marxist thought and Marxist organizations, however, has been more ambiguous. Concomitant with this presumed clarity, this way of seeing, was the emergence of its corrosives, its oppositions. The nature of change argued in Marxism, the dialectic, would lead one to anticipate just such oppositions to occur in Marxism. Specifically with the appearances of political dogma, historical certainty, and epistemological variations on empiricism, the history of Marxist thinkers has confirmed this expectation. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 978

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: The claim that Marxism generates its own oppositions internal to itself is central to Robinson’s larger argument about why Black radicalism had to diverge from orthodoxy.

Related

• Marxism’s own dialectic guarantees that dogma and opposition emerge within it (similarity 0.96)
• Marx applied his own dialectic to his theory, rendering it provisional (similarity 0.84)
• Marx’s own theory anticipated its eventual negation as historical ideology (similarity 0.84)
• Notes on Dialectics rescued Marxism when Lenin’s legacy threatened its relevance (similarity 0.83)
• Marxist dogmatism emerges from organizational needs, not objective truth (similarity 0.83)
• Unexpected ideology intrudes to derail Marxism’s predicted historical inevitability (similarity 0.83)
• Marx’s own theory is historically conditioned and will be negated (similarity 0.82)
• Marxism’s explanatory power made it irresistible to Black radical intellectuals (similarity 0.82)
• Marxist dogma arises from organizational demands, not theoretical limitations (similarity 0.81)
• Marxism is deeply indebted to Western civilization. (similarity 0.81)
• Marxism is an internal critique that cannot ground Black liberation by itself (similarity 0.81)
• Black radicalism and Marxism may be incommensurable historical programs. (similarity 0.80)
• Black historical being exceeds what historical materialism can capture (similarity 0.80)
• Black radicalism’s unconsciousness of itself as tradition has costs (similarity 0.80)
• Black radicalism constitutes an autonomous tradition, not reducible to opposition to capitalism. (similarity 0.80)