2nd Paper Guidlines

Radical Political Thought
Guidelines for 2nd paper: “What is the problem with humanism?”


For the purposes of this paper, humanism:

1. is a political ideology (a “world‐view”), which 
2. maintains that humanity is the basis or origin of politics, and 
3. maintains that politics, therefore, ought to serve the development of humanity.

Some classic statements of humanism:


Sartre: “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.” (“Existentialism is a Humanism,” 1946)

Fromm: “Man's potential, for Marx, is a given potential; man is, as it were, the human raw material which, as such, cannot be changed, just as the brain structure has remained the same since the dawn of history. Yet, man does change in the course of history; he develops himself; he transforms himself, he is the product of history; since he makes his history, he is his own product.” (Marx’s Concept of Man, 1961)


Marx: “The whole of what is called world history is nothing but the creation of man by human labour, and the emergence of nature for man; he therefore has the evident and irrefutable proof of his self‐creation, of his own origins.” (“Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts,” 1844)


In order to write this paper, you must:

1. Take a position on humanism (regardless of what that position is – e.g., you might answer the question by saying, “There is NO problem with humanism!”)
2. Defend your thesis, taking into account what Fanon, Althusser, and MacKinnon have to say about this question. This requires:
3. Figuring out how they would answer the question.
4. Figuring out where your own answer agrees and disagrees with their answers.
5. Defending your interpretation of these authors – that is, giving reasons for thinking a) that they do indeed answer the question in the way you say they do, and b) that they would indeed agree/disagree with you on the points and for the reasons you say they do.

Other “mechanical” guidelines:

1. Papers should be 1200‐1500 words in length.
2. Papers should have a line spacing of 1½ or 2, printed double‐sided if possible, and without cover‐sheets, portfolios, or other bells and whistles.
3. Papers should cite course texts whenever appropriate, but nothing else.
4. Papers are due at the beginning of class on 2 (extended) 9 November, 2010.
5. Late papers will be marked down 1/3 a letter grade for every day (1‐24 hours) they are late.

Lenin, day 3 (21 September, 2010)

The defense of Lenin continues:

1.      Lenin is not opposed to the spontaneous organization of the workers, but to allowing this spontaneous organization to fall prey to the imposition of bourgeois ideology.

2.      Hence, he does think the workers must be led by Marxist intellectuals, but only in the sense that committed socialist theoreticians must communicate Marxist theory, and the ideology of socialism, to workers through comprehensive political indictments (agit-prop).

3.      We must now consider whether this makes Lenin anti-democratic.

In one sense, this just seems obviously false.  Lenin is at pains to point out that a Social Democratic politics necessarily encompasses democratic political demands.  The political leadership of the Marxist intellectual consists, he says, in taking advantage “of every event, however small, in order to set forth his socialist convictions and his democratic demands” (17, III.E).  Again: “he is no Social Democrat who forgets in practice that ‘the communists support every revolutionary movement,’ that we are obliged for that reason to expound and emphasize general democratic tasks before the whole people” (ibid.).

Lenin, Day 2 (16 September, 2010)

The accusations against Lenin: 

1. Opposes the workers’ spontaneous organization,
2. Thinks that workers must be led by Marxist intellectuals (“professional revolutionaries”), and
3. Is anti-democratic.

The first count bases itself in texts like the following: “the task of Social Democracy is to struggle with spontaneity, to cause the workers’ movement to stray from this spontaneous striving of trade unionism to come under the leadership of the bourgeoisie” (p. 9).


In order to address the accusation, we must answer 3 questions:

1. What is spontaneity? 
2. Why does the workers’ movement have a spontaneous tendency towards trade unionism and bourgeois leadership? 
3. How does Social Democracy struggle with spontaneity?

Lenin, Day 1 (14 September, 2010)

Luxemburg brought to our attention the central problematic of revolutionary Marxism in its pre-WW I iteration: the problem of organization.  Capitalism produces the conditions of its overcoming – its own gravediggers, in Marx’s words – but it doesn’t overthrow itself.  If the revolution is necessary and inevitable, it is because those gravediggers must and will start digging.

This problem of organization can be schematized as follows: [Sorry -- no diagram]

Luxemburg, Day 2 (9 September, 2010)

Last class, one of you raised the issue of whether Luxemburg’s opposition to the path of social reform implied a socialist strategy of making things worse in order to hasten the revolution.  I waved my hands a bit, mentioned that this strategy has a technical name – heightening or accelerating the contradictions – and pointed to her discussion of unionism.  I’d like to tackle this in greater depth today. 

I want to start by looking at the case of technical innovation. 

Screening: The Weather Underground

The Weather Underground, a documentary examining the rise and fall of the 1970s radical group, will be shown next Tuesday as part of Cinema Politica.

Tuesday September 21, 2010 | Screening begins 18h30 | Venue: Leacock Buidling room 26 on McGill campus

Relevant Talk: James C Scott at Concordia

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture at Concordia University announces:
Professor JAMES C. SCOTT: "The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia."
A lecture on Monday, September 20, 2010, at 7pm; Hall Building (corner of Bishop and de Maisonneuve), room 763.
Professor Scott is th author of : 

• The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (2009) 
• Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1998) 
• Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1990) 
• Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985) 
• The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1979)