Marx in “Who Shall Survive?” 05 – The birth of sociometry.

The next discussion involving Marx is in the section The Historic Role  Sociometry on page 8.  The section opens:

During the first quarter of the twentieth century there were several main directions of thought in development, each apparently unrelated and uncoordinated to the other.

These are the five Moreno refers to: Continue reading “Marx in “Who Shall Survive?” 05 – The birth of sociometry.”

Marx in “Who Shall Survive?” 07 – Social Science

The section, Sociometry, Sociology and Scientific Socialism opens (page 12):

In the last hundred and fifty years three main currents of social thought developed, sociology, scientific socialism and sociometry, each related to a different geographic and cultural area: sociology to France, socialism to Germany-Russia, and sociometry to the USA.

Moreno is honouring Marxism by referring to “scientific socialism”. Moreno sees himself in this tradition of developing a third science, one that relates to humans.

Moreno continues (Page 12) with a references to revolutions:

The first part of the hypothesis, that is, that sociology owes its origin to France is probably most easy to accept, as it is primarily to the French revolution between 1789 and 1795, and French writers like Claude Saint Simon, Auguste Comte, Pierre Proud- hon and Emile Durkheim that sociology owes its name and existence. The productivity of the French revolution consisted of the emancipation of the bourgeois class–that is how far it went or was able to go; it spent itself in doing it–and inspired the emergence and consolidation of sociology as a scientific system . The total configuration of social forces during the nineteenth century in France–and also in England–did not permit the victory of a proletarian revolution to cluster although it was the battleground of at least two major efforts. As already said, its revolutionary energy had spent itself in the emancipation of the bourgeois and its theoretical energy in the development of sociology .

When Moreno refers to the emancipation of the bourgeois class, he adopts a distinctly Marxist framework. Rather than framing the French Revolution as a fight for abstract ideals like liberty, equality, and fraternity, he views it as a class struggle—a fight for the interests of a specific class: the bourgeoisie. He also acknowledges the potential for proletarian revolution.

Moreno continues. (page 13)…

The second part of the hypothesis, that scientific socialism owes its origin to the German-Russian combine, is also plausible . No one denies that many seeds of thought which entered into the doctrine of Karl Marx came from French and English writers, but on the other hand, no one can deny that it is in Germany and Russia where its most feverish theories developed and that it is there where the most violent proletarian revolutions culminated in victory. Scientific socialism became, in the hands of Marx, Engels and Lenin as rigorous a system of revolutionary social science and interpretation of history as sociology in the hands of Comte and Durkheim.

Linking the developments to geography seems to push some credibility, especially Marxism as being German and Russian), however it leads well into the next passage (Page 13):

The first consequence [of the geographical delineations] would then be to consider Marx exclusively as the founder of scientific socialism and not to claim him, as it is often the case, along with Comte and Proudhon as one of the founders of sociology, an honor which he would most likely have refused. This also gives proper consideration to the deep cleavage and divergence which exists between sociology and revolutionary socialism. By classifying Marx as a “sociologist” one dilutes and sentimentalizes the theoretical and practical clash between the two historical movements. This hypothesis makes more understandable the tight resistance against sociology in Soviet Russia and in the countries dominated by its influence and, in turn, the tight resistance against revolutionary socialism in the western democracies . One may assume that this sharp demarcation of boundaries is not only due to political reasons but to genuine differences of thoughtways which hinder the infiltration of sociology and western cultural concepts into the Soviet world .

I think Moreno shows insight here into the world of difference between between sociology and revolutionary (scientific) socialism.

The work in Soviet Russia in this field suffered from Stalinist orthodoxy.  This may require some careful exploration of Moreno’s  criticism of orthodox (Stalinist) Marxism.

To give an overview of where we are in “Who Shall Survive?” – we have traversed the Preludes, and are now well into the Introduction.

 

INTRODUCTION

SOCIAL AND ORGANIC UNITY OF MANKIND       3

The Problem of Natural Selection Within the Framework of Sociometry.       6

THE HISTORIC ROLE OF SOCIOMETRY           8

SOCIOMETRY, SOCIOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM        12

EMERGENCE OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD        21

EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL REVOLUTION        31

By the time we come to the end of the Introduction there are 21 mentions of Marx we have covered about 14.

This post is part of a series. 

See Intro  Marx and Moreno Monograph

Tag: Monograph

Marx in “Who Shall Survive?” 04 – Unity of Humankind

The next mention of Marx is in the section called Social and  Organic Unity of Mankind. I’m taking the thesis implied in this title as the first point for discussion. Then I address the section where Moreno references Marx about Christianity. The section opens with the famous lines:

A truly therapeutic procedure cannot have less an objective
than the whole of mankind. But no adequate therapy can be
prescribed as long as mankind is not a unity in some fashion and as long as its organization remains unknown.

Continue reading “Marx in “Who Shall Survive?” 04 – Unity of Humankind”

Marx in Who Shall Survive? 02 – Human agency

… spontaneity-creativity [is the] propelling force in human progress, beyond and independent from … socio-economic motives…

(Moreno, 1978; xiv, xv)

This is from the same paragraph in Who Shall Survive? I used as the basis for my last post. The passage asks question: What is the propelling force in human progress?

Marx and Moreno differ. Moreno is adamant it is  spontaneity-creativity.  He implies that for Marx it is socio-economic motives. Continue reading “Marx in Who Shall Survive? 02 – Human agency”

The First Mention of Marxism in “Who Shall Survive?”

The first time Moreno mentions Marx in Who Shall Survive?, is in the Preludes of the Sociometric Movement (1978; xiv, xv)

The advent of sociometry cannot be understood without appraising my presociometric background and the historic-ideological setting in the Western world, during and after the First World War. Marxism and psychoanalysis, the two opposites, each had spent their theoretic bolt, the one with Nikolai Lenin’s “State and Revolution” (1917), the other with Sigmund Freud’s “Civilization and Its Discontents” (1929). The two opposites had one thing in common: they both rejected religion, they both disavowed he idea of a community which is based on spontaneous love, un-selfishness and sainthood, on positive goodness and naive cooperativeness. I took a position contradictory to both, the side of positive religion.

To summarise: Moreno makes it clear he is not creating his work in a vacuum. Freud and Marx are the ideological setting in the Western world, during and after the First World War. Moreno says “The two opposites had one thing in common: they both rejected religion”. Moreno took the side of positive religion. Continue reading “The First Mention of Marxism in “Who Shall Survive?””

Post to remember

I just found this post: There is no such thing as a person

It’s one I  still appreciate having written.  Strangely, it takes away something of so-called autonomy of the individual. Well, of course, it takes way individualism. Terry Real calls it toxic individualism, but any individualism is toxic. It’s a radical statement: there is no such thing as a person.

It is the exact opposite what Margaret Thatcher said, isn’t it?  That there’s no such thing as society.

Google NotebookLM Podcast (interesting but tiresome already)  People Myth.wav