Postmodernism’s pessimism was a local European crisis wrongly universalized

Evidence

However, it is still fair to say that at base, that is at its epistemological substratum, Marxism is a Western construction—a conceptualization of human affairs and historical development that is emergent from the historical experiences of European peoples mediated, in turn, through their civilization, their social orders, and their cultures. Certainly its philosophical origins are indisputably Western. But the same must be said of its analytical presumptions, its historical perspectives, its points of view. This most natural consequence though has assumed a rather ominous significance since European Marxists have presumed more frequently than not that their project is identical with world-historical development. Confounded it would seem by the cultural zeal that accompanies ascendant civilizations, they have mistaken for universal verities the structures and social dynamics retrieved from their own distant and more immediate pasts. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 114 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: European Marxists mistook their localized structures for universal historical truths — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 114; Belief in a ‘postmodern condition’ is American historical amnesia.; Postmodernism may be the same epoch as modernism, not a radical break. (+6 more)

Related

• European Marxists mistook their localized structures for universal historical truths (similarity 0.89)
• Marxism’s entire epistemological foundation is a Western European construction (similarity 0.86)
• Marx’s own theory anticipated its eventual negation as historical ideology (similarity 0.85)
• The universal-proletariat claim persisted as non-empirical doctrine in Marxism (similarity 0.84)
• Marxism’s universalism masked its blindness to non-European freedom struggles (similarity 0.83)
• Marxism is a Western construction rooted in European historical experience (similarity 0.82)
• European universalism presumed all societies share Europe’s underlying structure (similarity 0.81)
• European Marxism was embedded in Eurocentric socialism from its birth (similarity 0.81)
• Marxist theory’s core model is Eurocentric, not just Marx personally (similarity 0.81)
• Marx denied that his account of capitalism’s genesis applied universally (similarity 0.80)
• Marxism’s historical materialism reflects only European bourgeois experience, not universal history. (similarity 0.80)
• Marxist historiography must repeatedly acknowledge its European philosophical origins (similarity 0.80)
• In Europe Marxism was an unavoidable philosophical presence, unlike in America (similarity 0.79)
• Marxism’s apparent universalism proved inadequate for Black radicals tied to peasant and colonial bases. (similarity 0.79)
• Marxism failed Black radicals because it misconprehended peasant and colonial liberation struggles (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• European Marxists mistook their localized structures for universal historical truths #corroborates (0.55) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 114
• Belief in a ‘postmodern condition’ is American historical amnesia. #corroborates (0.50)