“The Destruction of Reason” by Georg Lukács, 1962
Given the present needs of capitalism and fascism for irrationalism, individualism, idealism and post-modernism, this book is relevant. It is a bit dated in that it covers older philosophers like Schelling, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Jaspers and Spengler. It also looks at the American pragmatist William James and the sociologist Max Weber, two more 'heroes.' Lukács goal is to describe the roots of modern fascism, and indirectly, capitalist apologetics. He claims this is not a Marxist history of reactionary bourgeois philosophy but it certainly seems like the beginnings of one!
Lukács tracks how the founding of irrationalism had counter-revolutionary origins. It was a reaction to the French Revolution of 1789, the 1848 revolutions, the 1870 Paris Commune and continued against the 1917 Russian Revolution. It grew along with the development of capitalist imperialism, which led it to social-Darwinism, racist theories, eugenics and the Nazi and Black Shirt movements. Lukács brings materialism - philosophic, historical and dialectical - to bear on these reactionary thinkers, especially the Germans, some of whom were the inspiration for National Socialist ideology. For a radical philosophy student the book contains excellent rebuttals – that is if universities teach actual philosophy anymore instead of math.
I'm going to look at just a few chapters, as this is an 850+ page book – his introduction, his discussion of Nietzsche who is having a moment, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, both 'pessimists,' along with bits on James and Weber. This is a great book for those who are interested in revolutionary philosophy and I recommend reading the whole thing if you have the time.
INTRODUCTION
In his intro, Lukács clearly says that while Nazi 'philosophy' was crude and looked-down upon, it is a mark of the degeneration of capital that it's philosophical thinking slowly degrades. It is replaced by myths, aristocratic hierarchies, mysticism, anti-scientific, anti-rational ideologies and pragmatism. He considers the praise of thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger by the bourgeoisie as a substitute for National Socialist thought to be a “strategic retreat” - yet still holding the reactionary essence. All of reactionary thinking is a response to the class struggle according to Lukács. We see current versions of this among post-modernist thinkers and their pedestrian representatives - power-saturated thugs, religious dictators and congenital political hypocrites and liars.
EARLY IRRATIONALISM
Lukács looks at early 'irrationalism' – which, oddly, is a legitimate philosophic category. One of the main propositions of reactionary thinking is that something 'cannot be known,' even to the point of nihilism. Or it retreats into the past, going into religious despair over a world of science without God or myth. It involves, as did Schelling, the upholding of the psychological and the intuitive, of what we might call 'emotional truth' over investigation and science. In reaction to the grounded materialist ideas coming out of the French Revolution, Schelling became the founder of the oxymoron 'objective idealism' and linked up with Romanticism. In his reaction to materialism he, as Marx joked, proclaimed: “I, the union of philosophy and theology.” Atheism became the materialist's ultimate crime. Lukács calls their proclamations “mythico-mystificatory,” which seems to be the point.
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| Wealthy and Loved the System |
Schopenhauer predated Schelling, but Lukács asserts that he was the complete version of bourgeois irrationalism. He gained prominence after the defeat of the 1848 revolutions and higher developments in German and European capitalism. Schopenhauer was well-off, without needing to work - a rarity among intellectuals who usually had to teach or write. His will included money for soldiers injured defending the German state in 1848, which is a measure of his real attitude. Lukács thinks Schopenhauer was the first to completely privatize individualism in the service of bourgeois self-sufficiency. He saw egotism as a cosmic attribute of debased 'man' in general and suggested rising above it by a higher-end aesthetic and intellectual egoism. I.E. like the Nazi that plays Beethoven in his office...
Lukács says Schopenhauer engaged in 'indirect apologetics' for capitalism. The bad side of capital was admitted, but then explained as a natural failing of humanity and human existence. This pessimism was translated into the social sense too, meaning all political activity was absurd, especially after momentous events that supposedly changed nothing. On the question of religion, while he opposed the Church formally, he accepted the Christian doctrine of 'original sin' and became a subjective idealist, as actual reality was supposedly completely unknowable. These ideas are familiar class-based ones and still provide intellectual comfort to the ruling class and capital.
MODERN IRRATIONALISM
Kierkegaard , a Dane, achieved influence between WWI and WWII and was inspired by Schopenhaur. He attempted a 'qualitative dialectic' to divert from the materialist one. He did this by banning 'quantity into quality' as a feature of dialectics and motion as a logical process. In effect, a snow-slide that sometimes becomes an avalanche does not happen. He substituted a religico-moral 'leap' instead. He banned other aspects of dialectics, like the connections between opposites or the presence of internal contradictions. Lukács calls this a 'pseudo-dialectic' that ignored advances in dialectics since the Greeks.
Kierkegaard opposed materialist dialectics because it posited approximate knowledge. His position against approximate knowledge is nihilistic, as it implies that nothing then can really be known about the world because it is partial. His 'dialectic' opposed a human, historical view of social developments because that got rid of God - even though God at this point was a dubious prospect. Kierkegaard split history into God's absolute reality and a limited, human one. He promoted an individual, isolated 'ethical' distance from involvement in history as a result. This 'gap' led him to existential despair, into a solipsistic & ascetic isolationism, in a world of Christianity without Christians. (This Lukács calls 'religious atheism' – a phrase that is more confusing than anything else. )
Lukács thinks his views served "the bourgeois intelligentsia's spiritual needs” in a somewhat similar way to the present 'ethical' and educated but quiescent liberal. Kierkegaard oddly gives it away by letting slip, at one point, “My whole work is a defense of the established order.”
SUPERMAN?
Nietzsche is seen by Lukács as the first clear philosopher of colonialism and imperialism, astride the world like a colossus, intuiting its triumph in the future. He was the apotheosis of irrationalism in the 1800s. In my eyes, he banned God and Christ to put a human dictator in charge. He was cited by the Nazis as a forerunner.
Nietszsche, as a good Prussian, wanted to join the German army to invade France and crush the Paris Commune. He praised Greek slavery, and insisted that slavery should be part of any just, aristocratic society. He opposed Christian meekness because he believed in the will-to-power, of Dionysian and rapacious instinct over reason or wimpy kindness. Nietzsche criticized Bismarck from the right, opposing his concessions to democratic parliamentarism. In the 3 phases of his career, Lukács thinks that socialism was his consistent target.
Nietzsche promoted the egoistic spirit of the bourgeois entrepreneur as the central feature of human life, while, as Lukács puts it, capital “was mobilizing all mankind's barbaric instincts in its desperate struggles with its gravediggers, the proletariat...” Nietzsche provided intellectual ammunition for this struggle. He endorsed the criminal type; a return to 'the jungle,' the breeding of a higher Aryan "blonde beast," biologic vitalism and the possible annihilation of humanity. As he said later, “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”
WEBER & JAMES
A more prosaic and measured version of these pro-capitalist ravings is found in the work of the German sociologist Max Weber. Lukács explains that Weber, writing before WWI, divorced sociology, religion and ethics from economics, holding they had a complete life of their own. Through broad analogies, he sought to refute historical materialism by asserting that religion created economies, not the other way around. Weber appreciated democracy more than most. Yet he wrote an endorsement of enlightened colonialism: “Only a politically mature people is a master race” … Only master races are called upon to intervene in the course of human developments.” Perhaps reading too much Nietzsche?
Lukács explains that Weber attempted to remove obvious irrationalism from his theories and method, but gave them a subtler platform by limiting what sociology concentrated on and by placing an individual's choices at the center of social life. Given earlier readings of Weber in “Understanding Class” by Erik Olin Wright, Weber thought workers or slaves were not exploited. He insisted that capitalist managers, not workers, should always fully control production. These apologetics are somewhat more direct.
William James is the propagator of American pragmatism, the idea that all social activity is gauged by whether it is 'practical' or not. Practical to whom, you might ask... Lukács asserts that James theory was aimed at the 'man on the street' who wanted to combine utility and his individual self. Lukács writes that James thought that: “reality, in everyday business life, must be scrupulously observed – on pain of bankruptcy...” As James himself said: “The practical world of business is, for its own part, highly rational to the politician, the soldier, the man ruled by the commercial spirit … but it is irrational to the moral and artistic temperament.” No better explanation of Babbittism need be given, nor its limitation. This philosophy is meant to give the American businessman comfort and truth. It also reveals a shabbiness and shallowness of philosophy, which James praised, as he believed understanding much else was useless.
Lukács focus in this book is how bourgeois and German irrationalist theory led to German fascism. His post-war epilogue is of much lesser value. In the U.S. and other countries where fascist ideas and forces are growing, the battle is not just in the streets or courts, but in the realm of ideas. This book is a weapon in that fight.
P.S. - There is a review of this whole book in Monthly Review. Read it if you have time. MR: Destruction of Reason Review
Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year “Pearls Before Swine” archive, using these terms: “History and Class Consciousness” (Lukács); “History of a Life – Georg Lukács,” “religion,” “post-modernism,” “Lukács,” “Nietzsche,” “Weber” or “Understanding Class” (Olin Wright) or "Anti-Fascist Series."
And I got it at a College Library!
Red Frog
February 20, 2023
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