How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism by Eric Hobsbawm: review

Humans have always been fascinated by endings: the end of life as we know it, the end of our present prosperity or misery, the end of civilisation, the end of the world. Terminal events have long been anticipated by human societies, either in fear of apocalyptic disaster or in hope of the utopia waiting at the end of history. Perhaps our minds think in lineal terms, preferring denouement to the meandering paths of the past. Reaching termination, or some definitive historical turning point, is psychologically satisfying; it imposes order on disorder, narrative onto chaos.

Karl Marx offered such a hope. Capitalism would generate the seeds of its own destruction, paving the way for a utopian future. Marxism spoke powerfully to the dissatisfied of his time and beyond, revitalising millennial speculation in a secular age.

Near the end of this fascinating study of Marxism, Eric Hobsbawm charts the recession of Marxist thought. A theory that had offered certainty and hope was beset by doubt. The abysmal record of communist states and their eventual fall, the collapse of organised labour movements, the decline of radicalism, the success of capitalism in fulfilling human needs and many other factors placed Marxism in eclipse.

For Hobsbawm the financial crisis changed everything. “A systematic alternative system may not be on the horizon,” he argues, “but the possibility of disintegration, even collapse, of the existing system is no longer to be ruled out. Neither side knows what would happen in that case.”

We are living, then, at the end or at least the beginning of the end. The market, as Hobsbawm writes, creates many problems in its pursuit of limitless growth. “Once again the time has come to take Marx seriously.” Hobsbawm has little time for those on the Left who treat Marx as a prophet whose word is law. “What could be learnt from Marx was his method of facing the tasks of analysis and action rather than ready-made lessons to be derived from classic texts.”

Marx remains a powerful figure and at some point we have been touched by Marxist thinking even if we were not aware of it. Indeed, Hobsbawm, a man firmly on the Left, is one of our greatest living historians. He is certainly one of the most popular: his series of books on global history are widely read classics.

While Marxism has retreated as a political and economic movement, Marxist history has remained a commercial success. Its continued hold on humanities departments is not in doubt. We have lost our fear of what Hobsbawm calls capitalism’s “memento mori”, which haunted it until the Nineties. Hobsbawm, who will be 94 this year, is, as he admits, a cosy establishment figure. He has never lost faith in communism and he has been accused of neglecting or downplaying some of its worst excesses in the 20th century.

What Hobsbawm has to say about Marx is bound to be interesting. There is plenty with which to argue and engage in this stimulating book. It is certainly an insider’s account. Hobsbawm treats Karl Marx as a friend who needs defending. He tries to exonerate him from identification with the brutality of communist regimes. Hobsbawm does not grapple in any depth with the possibility that Marx’s thinking was incompatible with liberty or that he must share responsibility for violence committed in his name.

This book is not, however, a complete history of Marxism or even a reassessment of Marx in light of the financial crisis, as I was hoping, but a collection of essays written by Hobsbawm between 1957 and 2010. Many have been published previously, a few are translated into English for the first time and some are new. They knit together well to cover the historical ground. Some of the chapters are very good introductions to Marxism for the general reader, but someone who wants to learn about it for the first time is likely to be frustrated. Many of the essays are aimed at, and will only be enjoyed by, readers who already have a good grounding in Marx.

Those who want to learn how to change the world will be equally frustrated. This is a book of serious ideas, not of politics. I was not convinced from this book that Marxism, for all the present discontents with capitalism, will make a comeback. It would be an interesting argument to hear from our leading Marxist historian, but it is not developed far enough and is therefore impossible to refute.

* Ben Wilson is the author of What Price Liberty? (Faber)

How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism

A blog post written by Stefanie Sun

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

11

As I await the release of Number 11 with abated breath, I start to wonder how much of the past will come and smack me in the face.
The promotion schedule's been lined up, some really exciting plans are in the works, Wonderful Music have warned me of tough days ahead.
Tough. Days.
Ha.

Will it perhaps require me standing in minus four degrees in a singlet with
pelting ice? Or living in a glass box with cameras switched on 24/7 ala Truman
show? Explain to the world the monstrosity of a much publicised event? Or would
it require the most painful fear of facing your acne in the mirror?

I recollect my past with some amusement. And a little twitch. But most of all I
feel so freaking grateful.

What a difference they have made. These testy events, these hard to swallow
pills. In the words of Alanis Morisette (yea not a good choice, the album marked
the end of her career),

"Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence."



Aha, but I have another list to add:


Thank YOU.
And him.
And her.
And good cleanser.
And courage,.... there's also airconditioning, story books, love, N, katy perry, posturpedic beds, Jonah's questions, fertiliser, Barney Stinson, Kenn C, kind
words, Miso, daily affirmation with Jessica, , parents, Edward Sharpe and the
Magnetic Zeros, Christian the Lion, Fiona Apple, fire trucks, Aomori Gymnasts blah blah blah blah ...


See it doesn't just end at silence. There are so many many many other things.

:)

Posted by Abel at 11:59

How to Do a Close Reading

The process of writing an essay usually begins with the close reading of a text. Of course, the writer's personal experience may occasionally come into the essay, and all essays depend on the writer's own observations and knowledge. But most essays, especially academic essays, begin with a close reading of some kind of text—a painting, a movie, an event—and usually with that of a written text. When you close read, you observe facts and details about the text. You may focus on a particular passage, or on the text as a whole. Your aim may be to notice all striking features of the text, including rhetorical features, structural elements, cultural references; or, your aim may be to notice only selected features of the text—for instance, oppositions and correspondences, or particular historical references. Either way, making these observations constitutes the first step in the process of close reading.

The second step is interpreting your observations. What we're basically talking about here is inductive reasoning: moving from the observation of particular facts and details to a conclusion, or interpretation, based on those observations. And, as with inductive reasoning, close reading requires careful gathering of data (your observations) and careful thinking about what these data add up to.


How to Begin:


1. Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text.

"Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases—anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions—as well as making notes in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence—the first step in moving from reader to writer.
Here's a sample passage by anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley. It's from his essay called "The Hidden Teacher."

. . . I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider. It happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. I had come up a long gulch looking for fossils, and there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellow-and-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears of buffalo grass at the edge of the arroyo. It was her universe, and her senses did not extend beyond the lines and spokes of the great wheel she inhabited. Her extended claws could feel every vibration throughout that delicate structure. She knew the tug of wind, the fall of a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth's wing. Down one spoke of the web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to investigate her prey.Curious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the web. Immediately there was a response. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas; its universe was spider universe. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider. As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of spider I did not exist.

2. Look for patterns in the things you've noticed about the text—repetitions, contradictions, similarities.

What do we notice in the previous passage? First, Eiseley tells us that the orb spider taught him a lesson, thus inviting us to consider what that lesson might be. But we'll let that larger question go for now and focus on particulars—we're working inductively. In Eiseley's next sentence, we find that this encounter "happened far away on a rainy morning in the West." This opening locates us in another time, another place, and has echoes of the traditional fairy tale opening: "Once upon a time . . .". What does this mean? Why would Eiseley want to remind us of tales and myth? We don't know yet, but it's curious. We make a note of it.

Details of language convince us of our location "in the West"—gulch, arroyo, and buffalo grass. Beyond that, though, Eiseley calls the spider's web "her universe" and "the great wheel she inhabited," as in the great wheel of the heavens, the galaxies. By metaphor, then, the web becomes the universe, "spider universe." And the spider, "she," whose "senses did not extend beyond" her universe, knows "the flutter of a trapped moth's wing" and hurries "to investigate her prey." Eiseley says he could see her "fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle." These details of language, and others, characterize the "owner" of the web as thinking, feeling, striving—a creature much like ourselves. But so what?


3. Ask questions about the patterns you've noticed—especially how and why.

To answer some of our own questions, we have to look back at the text and see what else is going on. For instance, when Eiseley touches the web with his pencil point—an event "for which no precedent existed"—the spider, naturally, can make no sense of the pencil phenomenon: "Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas." Of course, spiders don't have ideas, but we do. And if we start seeing this passage in human terms, seeing the spider's situation in "her universe" as analogous to our situation in our universe (which we think of as the universe), then we may decide that Eiseley is suggesting that our universe (theuniverse) is also finite, that our ideas are circumscribed, and that beyond the limits of our universe there might be phenomena as fully beyond our ken as Eiseley himself—that "vast impossible shadow"—was beyond the understanding of the spider.

But why vast and impossible, why a shadow? Does Eiseley mean God, extra-terrestrials? Or something else, something we cannot name or even imagine? Is this the lesson? Now we see that the sense of tale telling or myth at the start of the passage, plus this reference to something vast and unseen, weighs against a simple E.T. sort of interpretation. And though the spider can't explain, or even apprehend, Eiseley's pencil point, that pencil point is explainable—rational after all. So maybe not God. We need more evidence, so we go back to the text—the whole essay now, not just this one passage—and look for additional clues. And as we proceed in this way, paying close attention to the evidence, asking questions, formulating interpretations, we engage in a process that is central to essay writing and to the whole academic enterprise: in other words, we reason toward our own ideas.


Copyright 1998, Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University