Rejoinders to Z A Jordan’s “The Origins of Dialectical Materialism”
This is an awful article. First, the writing is far too academic. Second, it offers very little meaningful information.
Let’s look at the facts:
Section 1. Resolves that Anti-Dühring is the basis for all DM to follow.
Section 2. Resolves that Marx and Engels worked together on Anti-Dühring.
Section 3. Resolves that Engels wasn’t quite as smart as Marx.
At this point, we see the first inkling of something meaningful in this work, an actual point: Engels didn’t understand Marx accurately because Marx is a genius, and Engels himself admits that he is not. Thus the author shows the ideal premise of academic elitism: Marxism requires nothing short of genius to understand correctly.
Section 4. Resolves that Marx isn’t really a Materialist, but a Naturalist!
This is the second and last point in this work of fiction. Here, for the first time, Marx becomes a Naturalist, instead of a materialist. Never mind that we can count on one hand the number of works the word “Naturalist” appears in Marx’s writings. Never mind that he never used this label to describe himself, and when he used it to describe Communism, he made the absolutely essential combination of naturalism with humanism, which is totally neglected here.
2005-May-02 7:47am brianbasgen