In a mailing list set up for discussion the book Marxist Ecology in November last year, John Bellamy Foster wrote the following that relates to the discussion so far. I think the discussion might be archived in the progressive sociologist network website (about 138 messages)
>
>I think Paul [Burkett]is right that Second International Marxism, while carrying
>forward some ecological conceptions, also sometimes included a "potentially
>anti-ecological" technological optimism. This is a complicated story, and
>the Epilogue to the book, which deals with socialist ecological
>contributions in the period after Marx's (and Darwin's) death only begins
>the process of opening these issues up.
>
>I am very impressed by what Paul [Burkett ]has to say about the fact that Marx
>exhibits no dualism between humans and animals or antagonism toward the
>latter. Among the heresies long considered to arise from Epicureanism was
>its general evolutionary orientation, which explicitly denied any absolute
>distinction between human beings and animals, seeing human beings as having
>developed from feral origins. Lucretius was considered to be the leading
>defender of animals within antiquity. Montaigne quotes him constantly in
>this regard-in his APOLOGY FOR RAYMOND SEBOND. Henry Salt, who was the
>greatest animal rights activist/writer in the nineteenth century, and a
>friend of both Eleanor Marx and William Morris, translated large parts of
>Lucretius, including passages in sympathy of animals. Darwin, of course,
>operating out of a materialist perspective, broke down all distinctions
>between human beings and animals, even carrying this into the realm of
>thought/expression in his EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN AND ANIMALS. It
>was always the materialist tradition that was at the forefront in this area.
>
>I particularly like Paul's critique of "magic key" approaches to Marx and
>ecology. It has been said countless times that Marx had brilliant
>ecological insights that were, however, divorced from his system. But to
>say this is to deny the dialectical, systemic nature of Marx's thought. The
>reason that ecological insights arise again and again in his work is that
>they are as deep as his materialism and as intertwined with the rest of his
>thought as the dialectic itself. It is not Marx so much as the interpretive
>tradition that has been carried down to us that is at fault here. Rosa
>Luxemburg once said that Marx's science went beyond the movement, and that
>as new historical problems arise for the working class portions of Marx's
>thought which had been previously ignored (because they had transcended the
>immediate needs of the movement) would come into play. I think this is
>what is happening in the domain of ecology and it is a testament to the
>power of Marx's method (which we are forced to rediscover at the same time).
>Paul's MARX AND NATURE is a major, systematic inquiry into Marx's ecology,
>particularly as it relates to his critique of political economy. I wrote a
>review of it, under the title "Marx's Ecological Value Analysis," for the
>September 2000 issue of MONTHLY REVIEW.
>
>Louis' discussion of dialectical materialism, based on Jean-Guy
>Vaillancourt's pioneering essay, is remarkable and shows some of the
>convergence between different thinkers in this areas. I particularly liked
>his quotation of the follow-up paragraph to the one usually quoted from
>Engels' famous essay ("The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape
>to Man"). Engels' references to "oneness with nature" and the lack of any
>absolute distinction between "humanity and nature" are quite appropriate,
>given the discussions in this seminar so far. I also liked how Louis,
>following Vaillancourt, connected all of this back to the roots of Marx's
>materialism in Democritus and Epicurus. (I had passed over reading
>Vaillancourt's article at first and only became aware of it as I finished
>writing MARX'S ECOLOGY-in time to footnote his piece as a pioneering essay
>in the same direction). What I particularly like about what Louis's
>discussion is that he doesn't stop with the academic/intellectual argument
>on the dialectics of nature but goes right ahead to show the contemporary
>significance of this type of ecological materialism-in relation to current
>crises.
>
>I very much appreciate George thoughtful remarks. I think he is perfectly
>right "that the concept of materialism is not absolutely clear in Marxism."
>Indeed, I agree with Timpanaro in ON MATERIALISM that much of the Marxist
>tradition has abandoned materialism. Part of the problem, as Bhaskar
>argues, is that there are different elements to materialism: (1) ontological
>materialism, (2) epistemological materialism, and (3) practical materialism.
>Many Marxists adhere only to the last of these, rejecting the first two.
>This is the problem that I think that George is raising. It is because of
>this that the introduction of the book was written, introducing the larger
>theoretical issue of materialism from the start. (I realize that this is
>the most difficult chapter in the book and may bring some readers up short.)
>This then sets the stage for the introduction of the idea of the materialist
>conception of nature-an idea unfamiliar to most Marxists-in Chapter One. I
>think George is right that this all needs to be scrutinized. One thing that
>struck me in doing this research, by the way, is that Marx's most important
>discussion of the history materialism-his treatment of the history of French
>materialism in THE HOLY FAMILY is seldom read by Marxists today-even though
>it tells a great deal about the evolution of Marx's own thinking.
>
>I also admire George's insistence that we talk about the boundaries between
>natural and social materialism, between Darwin and Marx. When I did the
>research on MARX'S ECOLOGY one of the things that startled me the most was
>to discover that Marx and Darwin, despite their difference in age and in the
>direction of their studies, were both struggling over some of the same
>philosophical issues of materialism and teleology in the very same years.
>For example, both referred favorably in the early 1840s to Bacon's "barren
>virgins" statement attacking final causes/teleology. Marx was entranced by
>Darwin's ORIGIN when it came out, but it is clear that he was mainly
>concerned with the clues that it offered into human evolution (which Darwin
>did not discuss directly in the ORIGIN).
>
>Charles Brown made the important point that MARX'S ECOLOGY focuses on
>evolution, not as a teleological conception, but as materialist and hence
>anti-teleological, and that this was connected to the secrecy under which
>Darwin felt compelled to develop his ideas. Rejection of teleology is
>therefore not the same as rejection of evolution-but is rather a
>presupposition of Darwinian evolutionary theory itself.
>
>These are all significant issues and I hope the discussion in the seminar
>will continue to explore and debate them, and to widen the range of issues
>still further, while retaining the book as the focus of discussion. I have
>learned a lot from what has been said so far.
-- Bill Barowy, Associate Professor Lesley University 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790 Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169 http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html _______________________ "One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful." [Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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