Marxist historiography must repeatedly acknowledge its European philosophical origins

Evidence

As Chakrabarty has rightly stated, “Marx thought that the logic of capital could be best deciphered only in a society where ‘the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice’” (2, 263). The first lesson of ideology is that a “popular prejudice” mistakes itself for “human nature,” the original mother tongue of history. Marxist historiography can be caught within the mother tongue of history and a culture that had graduated to bourgeois individualism. … As groups such as the Subaltern Studies collective attempt to open up the texts of Marx beyond his European provenance, beyond a homogeneous internationalism, to the persistent recognition of heterogeneity, the very goal of “forget[ting] his original lor ‘rooted’—die ihm angestammte Sprache] language while using the new one” must be reinscribed. A repeated acknowledgment of the complicity of the new and the “original” is now on the agenda. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1788

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘complicity acknowledgment’ here resonates with the reader’s research question on whether strategic essentialism can be sustained without collapse. — connects to: Marxism is a Western construction rooted in European historical experience; European Marxists mistook their localized structures for universal historical truths — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 114; Marxist theory’s Eurocentrism is structural, not incidental to Marx’s biography — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 241 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Marxism’s entire epistemological foundation is a Western European construction #corroborates (0.95)
• Marxism is a Western construction rooted in European historical experience #corroborates (0.92)
• Marxist theory’s core model is Eurocentric, not just Marx personally #corroborates (0.92)
• Marxist theory’s Eurocentrism is structural, not incidental to Marx’s biography #corroborates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 241
• Classical Marxism illegitimately generalizes European developmental forms to other societies #expands (0.90) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 37
• European Marxists mistook their localized structures for universal historical truths #expands (0.88) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 114
• Postcolonial thinkers had to deconstruct Eurocentric prejudices within Marxism itself #expands (0.87)
• European Marxism was embedded in Eurocentric socialism from its birth #corroborates (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 278
• Marxism’s Eurocentric pattern originated in the earlier socialist tradition #complicates (0.72)