This has always been the greatest problem with philosophy in every form: does it have a practical application, or is it just a form of mental masturbation. Anyone who has read me on a regular basis knows that I believe philosophy has a practical use: a means of self-examination and self-improvement to create a better life and a better world for all of humanity. Your philosophy to me can be religious or secular, as long as: your philosophy is tolerant of other belief systems; you don't attempt to force it on others; it does not call for harming others as one of its tenets; you limit your disagreements to verbal debates; you do not use covert terrorism or overt violence as part of your belief system. If you meet these criteria, then in my mind, you are welcome to practice your philosophy.
All philosophers need to understand that their system of rationality is based, in whole or in part, on belief, whether it is a leap of Christian Faith, or the assumptions inherent in Marxist Dialectic Materialism. All philosophy is based on axioms and hypotheses. Marx's observations about the inherent exploitation and corruption that exists under laissez-faire capitalism have shown themselves to be uncannily prescient. Jesus' belief in the need to take care of the least among us, the healing power of forgiveness, and the difficulty of a wealthy individual to be a moral one as well--or to quote one the few observations of V.I. Lenin that I fully agree with, "Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps;" (Letters from Afar, chapter 4, 1917)--have also proven to be true.
The wise philosopher knows that sometimes you must look outside of philosophy for the answers that he seeks. For example, Sigmund Freud noted that part of Shakespeare's genius was his deep understanding of the human psyche, and his ability to translate that knowledge into his characters on the stage. From the depression of Hamlet, to the megalomania of Richard III, to the narcissism of Macbeth and his wife, Shakespeare created characters of unequaled depth in the history of the theater.
I found the beginning of my answer to the question of materialism in a quote from the Roman playwright Terrence (Publius Terentius Afer), from his play Heauton Timorumenos, (The Self-Avenger, Act 1, Scene 1), "I am a human being: I consider nothing that pertains to human beings to be alien to myself.;" (Homo Sum: Humani nil alienum a me puto.)
It is in recognizing the humanity of all human beings, and placing them ahead of material things that I believe we will find our answer. For millennia, property has been valued more highly than human beings in our customs and our laws. Victor Hugo's magnum opus Les Misà ©rables has as its underlying theme the debasement and unrelenting pursuit of a human being (Jean Valjean) over the theft of a perishable and inexpensive "thing," a loaf of bread. Over the many years of pursuit by the law, the thief Valjean becomes ennobled by the suffering of those around him, through his interactions with his fellow human beings during their struggles. It is his pursuer, the policeman Javert, who has become dehumanized by his slavish devotion to his "duty," and his obsessive adherence to "the law." Javert in the end has become a "thing" in his pursuit of the condemned galley slave Valjean, losing his humanity. Finally, recognizing Valjean's humanity and his own lack thereof, Javert dies by throwing himself in the Seine and drowning. This is Javert's only alternative to arresting Valjean, and Javert's only means of seeing some degree of justice done, to the reformed and penitent Valjean.
It was another French writer, Simone Weil--former Marxist turned Christian mystic--who pointed out some of the innate contradictions in Marx's dialectic materialism; contradictions that go against his noble ideal of an economic system that permitted everyone to develop their maximum potential as an individual human being. In a posthumous collection of her essays Oppression and Liberty (1955, U.S. Edition 1973), Ms. Weil makes the following observations:
"We can only understand how Marx and his disciples could still believe in the possibility of real democracy based on our present civilization if we take into account their theory of the development of productive forces"Every social system, every dominant class has the 'task,' the 'historic mission,' of carrying the productive forces to an ever higher level, until the day when all further progress is arrested by the social cadres; at that moment the productive forces rebel, break up these cadres, and a new class takes over power"The essential task of revolution consists not in the emancipation of men, but of productive forces. As a matter of fact, it is clear that, as soon as these [productive forces] have reached a level of development high enough for production to be carried out at the cost of little effort, the two tasks [the emancipation of man from the oppression of work and the state] coincide; and Marx assumed that such was the case in our time. It was this assumption that enabled him to establish a harmony, indispensable to his moral tranquility, between his idealistic aspirations and his materialistic conception of history." (Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty; "Critique of Marxism," 1934; University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1973; pp.42-3)
""Before even examining the Marxist perception of productive forces, one is struck by the mythological character it presents in all socialist literature, where it is assumed as a postulate. [In much the same way capitalists assume Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand' is a real thing, and not a metaphor--RJG.] Marx never explains why productive forces should tend to increase; by accepting without proof this mysterious tendency, he allies himself nor with Darwin, as he liked to think, but with [French naturalist Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de] Lamarck, who in similar fashion founded his biological system on an inexplicable tendency of living creatures to adapt themselves. In the same way, why is it that, when social institutions are in opposition to the development of productive forces, victory should necessarily belong beforehand to the later rather than the former! Marx evidently does not assume that men consciously transform their social conditions in order to improve their economic conditions; he knows perfectly well that up to the present social transformations have never been accompanied by any clear realization of their real long-term consequences; he therefore implicitly assumes that productive forces possess a secret virtue enabling them to overcome obstacles. Finally, why does he assert without demonstration, and as a self-evident truth, that the productive forces are capable of unlimited development." (Weil, op. cit. pp. 43-4.)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
