Chapter 5, "The Emergence of Plastic People: Nietzsche, Marx, and Darwin" brings the substantive portion of Part 2 of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self to a close. Carl Trueman's reading of Nietzsche is very good but, as he observes, his work with Darwin remains close to the surface. After all, the details of Darwin's theory of natural selection have long since been replaced with the science of genetics and forms of Neo-Darwinism generally. I appreciated his nuanced treatment of Karl Marx, which is a much better presentation than the cardboard cutout version one usually sees. I will limit my observations here to Marx because, as the grandfather of critical theory, the effects of his writings are more germane to my field of law.
Trueman correctly observes that "Marx was aware of how industrial production and the capitalism it represented were overturning traditional social structures and remaking society." (179). Trueman is certainly correct when he summarizes Marx to the effect that "this transformation had profound significance for the way human beings related to each other and understood themselves." Even if the net result of these profound changes is positive, it remains the case that most market-oriented conservatives have burrowed their heads in the sand when it comes to discussing the negative effects ("externalities" in economist lingo) of the 19th century market-industrial revolution. (See my posts on this topic here and here.) Trueman quickly observes, however, where Marx went wrong was when he claimed that "human nature and all that depends on such a notion [is] a function of the economic structure of society." Systems of economic relations are important, to be sure, but Marx's tunnel vision has continued to plague social analysis to this day.
Marx coupled his claim that the economic structure of a society was all-important with the contention that everything is political; the power to frame economic life is all-encompassing and oppressive. Neither art nor religion stands apart from economic relations; in fact, both are merely epiphenomenal superstructures existing to perpetuate the oppression of a system of economic production. Such a reductionism is absurd, which is why various neo-Marxisms have left it behind. (For an excellent analysis of the lesser-known development of neo-Marxism in the UK see Dennis Dworkin, Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain (Duke University Press 1997)). And neo-Marxisms share the point of view that the power to oppress is the central category in all social analysis.
But this immanent reframing of history, tradition, culture, human sciences, religion, the arts, and the law is not the sole repository of neo-Marxists. "It is now a basic part of the social imaginary, and the deep cynicism about tradition and traditional authorities that pervades our culture in general points to demotic expressions of much the same attitude." (190-191) Neo-classical economics--the fetish of many on the contemporary Right--has grown in the same soil. In other words, even those who not identify oppression as the fulcrum for social analysis fall into the materialist matrix. Thus, Trueman provides a needed supplement when he observes that
As industrial capitalism tore apart and remade society in terms of its own revolutionizing of the means of production through technology, so human beings found themselves--and their very identities--caught up on the frenetic changes that industry, particularly its technological innovations relative to production, involved. (183)
And as he later concludes,
Technology has assumed a key role in the more radical context of making plausible the separation of biological sex and the concept of gender. This separation is now basic to much of the modern social imaginary and that clearly rests on the psychologized notion of self that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and now dominates our contemporary world. (184)
For my earlier observations on The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self go here, here, here, here, and here.
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