AN Whitehadian Marxism intersection

 hi lights

AN Whitehead's organic realism connection to Marxism/Materialist realism: 

a new idea of ideas and so whiteheads

contribution I think to a group of

Marxist one of his contributions would

be to amend the easy conflation of

realism and materialism and to reduce

human consciousness nearly to its social

and material conditions sorry merely to

its historical and material conditions

is to neglect the extent to which

consciousness is also an agent of

novelty and it's not that white had

denies the embodiment of consciousness

and its social relationships and its

historical embeddedness it's that he

reminds us that matter is one of the

most abstract ideas that we have

actually and that materialism is really

the worst kind of idealism because it's

an unconscious idealism and that we need

a more concrete ontology in that

organism is more concrete than

materialism or idealism but again

whiteheads a realist he says you know he

was a rugby player right and he wants to

say to the idealist you know a rugby

player knows what's real because he's

been knocked over and tackled and that

that that's the real and for white had

that sort of energetic impulse is

their reality occurs it's not just a a

set of relationships between ideas that

constitutes the really real for

whitehead

it's the flood of emotion it's the the

buzzing world of Ko evolving organisms

that is real and I think you know this

this doesn't undermine Marx's critique

of capitalism but it allows us to see

how there is something natural about

Conclusion

capitalism and while it's clear that

whatever capitalism is it's degrading

the life systems of the planet it's also

clear that the first mass extinction was

was caused by anaerobic bacteria

releasing oxygen pollution as a waste

product a metabolic waste product and

that that almost ended this whole

experiment on this planet right we're

not the first organism to initiate a

mass extinction which it was it which

isn't to justify you know what's

happening anthropogenic climate change

anthropogenic mass extinction

it's suicide for us but it's also doing

Introduction

0:00

so the world ecology research network is

0:03

having their fifth annual conference at

0:05

the end of the month the end of May here

0:08

in San Francisco and I've been trying to

0:13

prepare a paper to present I've been

0:18

talking a lot about Marx lately one of

0:21

the reasons is of course the Peter ship

0:23

the Petersons jiseok event but I've also

0:27

been preparing for this conference and

0:31

you know the world of ecology Network is

0:34

sort of was sort of born out of so the

0:38

research that Jason Moore did on what he

0:42

called he calls a world ecological

0:46

method perhaps a way of inquiring into

The metabolic rift theorists

0:51

capitalism its relationship with the

0:55

ecology of the earth and to humanity and

1:01

Morris trying to combat Cartesian

1:06

dualism as he calls it and he's looking

1:09

for a more relational way of theorizing

1:16

capitalism and the relationship between

1:18

society and nature within the capitalist

1:21

world order he's critical of some other

1:26

ecological Marxists let's call them

1:29

namely the metabolic rift theorists and

1:33

John Bellamy Foster is probably the one

1:37

of the more important names there he

1:38

co-wrote this book the ecological rift

1:40

with Brett Clarke and Richard New York

1:44

and more is critical of what he thinks

1:46

is still a residual dualism here and so

1:50

you know an example of what you would

1:51

point to it would be like comments like

1:54

what they're claiming to be doing is an

1:57

analysis of the coevolution of nature

2:00

and society its nature and society trope

2:05

the and there Moore is really zeroing in

2:09

on that and saying that you know for

2:11

example to say the capitalism is

2:12

war with the earth this is to reify the

2:16

divide between society on the one hand

2:20

namely the social order known as

2:24

capitalism is divided from the earth as

2:29

though there could be a rift and indeed

2:35

the whole rift theory is that the

2:39

metabolism of a capitalist order is out

2:44

of step with the metabolism of the

2:47

planet the the energetic material

2:51

chemical atmospheric a neurological you

2:58

know hydrological like that the

3:00

capitalist world order is out of step

3:02

with the biosphere and the geosphere the

3:05

life systems of the planet and that

3:08

there's an inherent contradiction

3:09

between the capitalists logic and the

3:16

laws of nature let's call them and so

Moores book

3:20

capitalism will inherently destroy a

3:22

planet unless it has stopped and so you

3:25

know the metabolic rift theorists are

3:28

really calling for revolution not just

3:31

as Marx did because of the the way that

3:33

workers are being exploited but because

3:36

of the way that nature is being

3:39

appropriated and destroyed and sucked

3:42

dry of its energetic capacity to support

3:47

the existence of life now I enjoyed

3:53

Moore's book I learned a lot from it it

3:58

got me thinking I'm working my way

4:00

through foster at all ecological rift

4:03

texts here and I'm enjoying this as well

4:06

and I think what I want to focus on I

4:09

mean the whole point of my paper I

4:11

should say if you haven't already

4:13

guessed is to bring Whitehead in to this

4:16

skirmish among the environmental

The left eating itself

4:21

sociologists and the

4:24

let's say ecological Marxist scholars to

4:31

bring Whitehead into this skirmish and

4:33

try to help sort things out I mean it's

4:36

funny and there's there's a it's almost

4:39

a joke or maybe it's even cliche at this

4:44

point to talk about the left eating

4:45

itself but it's strange to me that

4:48

there's such a polemic underway among

4:51

the you know the the so-called the

4:55

Marxist the so-called left within the

4:57

so-called left such a diatribe and it's

5:02

like why are we picking a fight with

5:04

each other when clearly we share this

5:08

common enemy this common threat that we

5:15

both that all sides agree needs to be

5:17

resisted and that alternatives need to

5:20

be imagined why are we busying ourselves

5:22

with that task instead of fighting with

5:24

each other not that the issues that are

5:27

being discussed aren't important but I

5:29

you know set on Twitter it feels to me a

5:32

bit like an example of the narcissism of

5:35

small differences like and so I'm hoping

5:39

that I can play diplomat here with

5:43

Whitehead as my kind of interpretive key

5:46

and one of the issues that I want to dig

5:48

into actually and so for example you

5:52

know there's there's a chapter in Foster

5:58

Clark and York's book the ecological

6:00

rift called the sociology of ecology and

6:03

it goes into this debate in the 20th

The sociology of ecology

6:08

century which continues to rage today

6:11

between the realists or the materialists

6:15

and they kind of equate realism and

6:16

materialism on the one hand and on the

6:19

other hand the social constructionist

6:21

s-- which are more like the idealist the

6:24

almost postmodern you could say the the

6:29

social constructionist SAR critical of

6:31

realism in science because it tends to

6:34

naturalize the social constructionist

6:36

swery

6:37

it tends to naturalize certain social

6:40

conditions you know like the way the

6:45

jordan peterson does when he talks about

6:46

human social hierarchies as just a

6:49

expression of the same sort of

6:53

instinctual biological behavior that

6:57

lobsters exhibit instead you know this

7:00

is what a social construction is post

7:02

modernist once you deconstruct and

7:07

question and the realists on the other

7:10

hand are saying that human beings are a

7:13

species of animal and we evolved and the

7:18

same processes that condition and

7:21

pressure and shape the evolution of all

7:23

the rest of the life on this planet is

7:25

is going to continue to be effective

7:29

within human society this is the

7:34

standard opposition right and you know

7:38

they will say they're gonna try to argue

7:41

for realism and materialism but of

7:43

Atkins constructionist sort so they're

7:46

breaking this easy division between

7:49

materialism or realism and

7:54

constructionism and say no we can have a

7:58

realism and a materialism that's also

8:01

constructionist and isn't just

8:04

essentialist because that's what the

8:09

social constructionist are worried about

8:11

and I'm throwing all these big

8:13

abstractions around but what I want to

Nature is already social

8:17

say and enter sort of interpolate into

8:20

this way of framing things is that you

8:25

know when foster that all says that

8:27

they're seeking an analysis of the

8:29

coevolution of nature and society for

8:33

Whitehead nature is already social so to

8:40

say nature and society I kind of see

8:42

what more means here how there is a sort

8:44

of residual dualism of work there and

8:46

more doesn't work with or think with

8:48

Whitehead but

8:50

if we do think with Whitehead nature

8:53

nature is a social affair from the

8:55

beginning and if we're worried about if

8:59

we're realists and white it is a realist

9:01

he's an organic realist rather than a

9:05

material materialist realist but if

9:09

we're worried about human exceptionalism

9:12

or human exemption ilysm where we say

9:15

that the laws of nature don't apply to

9:16

the human because the human is free the

9:18

human is conscious the human you know is

Two tactics

9:23

in souls if we're worried about that

9:28

that's sort of anthropocentrism then

9:33

there are two tactics we can take in

9:36

response one is to say that human beings

9:40

are just part of a map of a merely

9:41

material nature and that material forces

9:44

shape our cultural expressions and our

9:47

psychological moods and capacities or we

9:52

could say that what we think what we

9:56

thought was special about human beings

9:57

is in fact pervasive we're not

10:00

exceptional we're we're an expression of

10:04

something more generic and universal

10:08

even namely you know the capacity for

The capacity for value

10:14

value the capacity for relationship is

10:22

is pervasive in the universe it drives

10:25

cosmic and biological evolution so

10:29

rather than being a materialist or an

10:32

idealist whiteheads an organic realist

10:35

and organization is social whether

10:39

that's the way that hydrogen atoms

10:41

organize into a star or stars organize

10:43

into a galaxy or the way that molecules

10:46

organized into a cell ourselves

10:48

organized into an animal these are all

10:51

social forms of social organization to

10:56

be organized as to be social to be

10:57

social needs to be organized and so

11:03

why that isn't an idealist in the sense

11:05

that he thinks the physical world of our

11:11

sensory embodied experience is an

11:14

illusion and what's really real are some

11:16

eternal forms hiding behind or existing

11:20

above and beyond there are ideas and

11:25

they are efficacious in whiteheads

11:28

universe but they're deficient in

11:32

actuality and they can only participate

11:36

in existence if the physical world the

11:41

evolving cosmos and the biological order

11:48

allows for them to participate and it's

11:51

always in the experience of some

11:53

organism that an idea becomes realized

11:57

outside of the experience of some

11:59

organism ideas are nothing and what why

12:05

dad's pointing out to us to materialists

12:08

say he would he would say you have a

12:12

very anthropocentric idea of an idea

12:15

ideas are not just inside of human heads

12:17

the idea of the good is at much at work

12:22

in producing the light and warmth of the

12:26

Sun as is the nuclear reactions and the

12:32

electromagnetic radiation described by

12:34

physicists Whitehead would say that what

12:38

physics is describing from one side is

12:41

from another side the working out of

12:44

ideas beauty is as much present in roses

12:50

and in butterflies and in peacocks as it

12:57

is in the Mona Lisa beauty is not a

13:00

human contrivance beauty beauty is an

13:03

ideal that is luring the evolutionary

13:06

process into deeper richer more intense

13:10

forms of complexity and

A new idea

13:16

human is one expression of that

13:22

evolutionary process lured by beauty and

13:24

other ideas and so once we break out of

13:31

the anthropocentric enclosure not only

13:35

do we have a new idea of society we have

13:39

a new idea of ideas and so whiteheads

13:44

contribution I think to a group of

13:47

Marxist one of his contributions would

13:49

be to amend the easy conflation of

13:53

realism and materialism and to reduce

13:58

human consciousness nearly to its social

14:01

and material conditions sorry merely to

14:05

its historical and material conditions

14:07

is to neglect the extent to which

14:10

consciousness is also an agent of

14:13

novelty and it's not that white had

14:17

denies the embodiment of consciousness

14:20

and its social relationships and its

14:22

historical embeddedness it's that he

14:26

reminds us that matter is one of the

14:31

most abstract ideas that we have

14:36

actually and that materialism is really

14:40

the worst kind of idealism because it's

14:42

an unconscious idealism and that we need

14:47

a more concrete ontology in that

14:50

organism is more concrete than

14:52

materialism or idealism but again

14:58

whiteheads a realist he says you know he

15:03

was a rugby player right and he wants to

15:06

say to the idealist you know a rugby

15:10

player knows what's real because he's

15:13

been knocked over and tackled and that

15:18

that that's the real and for white had

15:24

that sort of energetic impulse is

15:29

their reality occurs it's not just a a

15:41

set of relationships between ideas that

15:45

constitutes the really real for

15:46

whitehead

15:49

it's the flood of emotion it's the the

15:55

buzzing world of Ko evolving organisms

16:04

that is real and I think you know this

16:09

this doesn't undermine Marx's critique

16:11

of capitalism but it allows us to see

16:15

how there is something natural about

Conclusion

16:22

capitalism and while it's clear that

16:28

whatever capitalism is it's degrading

16:32

the life systems of the planet it's also

16:37

clear that the first mass extinction was

16:41

was caused by anaerobic bacteria

16:43

releasing oxygen pollution as a waste

16:47

product a metabolic waste product and

16:48

that that almost ended this whole

16:53

experiment on this planet right we're

16:55

not the first organism to initiate a

16:59

mass extinction which it was it which

17:03

isn't to justify you know what's

17:07

happening anthropogenic climate change

17:12

anthropogenic mass extinction

17:18

it's suicide for us but it's also doing

17:26

violence to you the values which are

17:30

intrinsic to and that work within the

17:33

law human world and this is where I

17:35

think quite a goes further than Marx and

17:37

allowing us to fully eCollege eyes our

17:42

critique of capitalism such as that

17:45

capitalism is killing us it's not just

17:48

that capitalism is undermining the human

17:50

species ability to produce value it's

17:54

that it's this arrangement of human

17:57

society is treating the rest of the

18:00

world as a mere stockpile of raw

18:03

materials or as a mere trash bin to

18:10

expel our waste into you

18:12

I know ecological Marxists are critical

18:15

of that understanding of the earth but

18:17

unless we're able to do more than just

18:19

you know if we're stuck with materialism

18:23

as our ontology how are we to attribute

18:25

value to the nonhuman world other than

18:30

in terms of human values so anyways

18:36

those are just some of the thoughts I'm

18:37

working with and I'd appreciate feedback

18:40

for many Marxists or Whitehead Ian's or

18:43

whatever isms you find interesting

18:47

thanks for listening