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ABSTRACT
In order to develop the Marxist conception of a “classless society,” one where democratic practices and equality among all its members are realized, one must educate the existing society in interpersonal praxis that generates mutual empathy and cooperation. Once such personal skills are normative for the society, then what many Marxists have understood as a “solidarity society,” a synonym for the classless society, has the foundation it requires. Such a praxis, with its interpersonal communication and cooperation, may be taught using the discipline of group dynamics. Individual conflicts based upon individual differences can gradually be bridged through the practice of dialectical dialogue, in which the engaged communicants learn to formulate personal principles which those who seek cooperative praxis can then reflect upon. Raising personal interests to the level of clear principle enables mutual solutions while respecting areas of valued difference. Such dialectical dialogue is an enhancement of group dynamics as now practiced.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on Contributor
Mark Blum is a professor of history in the Department of History at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. His research area is European cultural history, with a special focus on German and Austrian-German culture in the modern era. His publications include: The Austro-Marxists 1890–1918: A Psychobiographical Study (University Press of Kentucky, 1985); Austro-Marxism: The Ideology of Unity, Austro-Marxist Theory and Strategy (Vol. I, eds. M. Blum and W. Smaldone, Brill, 2015); Kafka’s Social Discourse: An Aesthetic Search for Community (Lehigh University Press, 2011); Continuity, Quantum, Continuum, and Dialectic: The Foundational Logics of Western Historical Thinking (Peter Lang, 2006).
Notes
1 Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) was born in Prussia. He became active in the socialist movement by 1909. His theoretical works on the group process were published in the 1930s. Forced to flee Germany because of his Jewish background and his association with Jewish Marxists, Lewin became a US citizen before his death in 1947.
2 Lucien Goldmann (1913–1970) was born in Bucharest, Romania. He studied law at the University of Bucharest and the University of Vienna. During World War II he lived in Paris, and was incarcerated there by the Nazi regime. After being released he went to Switzerland where he studied as an intern with Jean Piaget. For his doctoral dissertation at the University of Zurich in 1945 he made a study of community in the thought of Immanuel Kant, a theme inspired by the Austro-Marxist Max Adler. Returning to Paris, Goldmann taught at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique and the École Pratique des Hautes Études.
3 Max Adler (1873–1937) was born in the Austrian Empire. He became a leader among young Marxists within the Austrian Social Democratic Party in the 1890s. Theoretically as well as pedagogically, his neo-Kantian Marxism provided a model for the interpersonal realization of a “solidarity society,” Adler’s understanding of the Marxist classless society.
4 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, and political activist. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in twentieth-century French philosophy and Marxism.
5 Jacob L. Moreno (1889–1974) was born in Bucharest, Romania. Influenced by Sigmund Freud, he developed the group process of “psychodrama” in the period between World War I and World War II. It brought a depth of understanding among individuals in small groups that address the complexities of Lewin’s skill sets I–III.
6 Jean Piaget (1896–1980), a Swiss clinical psychologist known for his pioneering work in child development. Piaget took further the seminal insights of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the cognitive development of children, which can be seen in his 1762 Emile.
7 F. R. Ankersmit (1945–present) is a professor of intellectual history and historical theory at the University of Groningen.
8 Hayden White (1928–present) is an intellectual historian and significant writer on historical theory, Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His translation of Lucien Goldmann’s The Human Sciences and Philosophy in 1969 reflects his on-going interest in Marxist theory.
9 Jűrgen Habermas (1929–present) is a German sociologist and philosopher. He is known for his theories n communicative rationality and the public sphere. He was associated with the Frankfurt School. His work focuses on the foundations of social theory and epistemology, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy.
10 Max Scheler (1874–1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Scheler developed further the philosophical method of the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl.
11 Saul Friedlander (1932–present) is an Israeli-American historian, a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. His book The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.
12 Raul Hilberg (1926–2007), an Austrian Jew, was born to Polish-Romanian parents in Vienna. He and his parents fled Austria in 1939. His work for the US Government in European archives captured during World War II led to his discovery of part of Hitler’s private library, and started his research into the Holocaust. His 1961 book The Destruction of the European Jews was the first comprehensive study of the topic.
13 Primo Levi (1919–1987) was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books besides his autobiography of his time in Auschwitz. His unique work The Periodic Table (1975), which the Royal Institute of Great Britain named the best science book ever written, linked the qualities of his family to the elements.
14 Elie Wiesel (1928–2016), was a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, a Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald.
15 Otto Dov Kulka (1933–present) was born in Czechoslovakia, and is an Emeritus Professor of History of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of an autobiography dealing with his time at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
16 Simon Wiesenthal (1908–2005) was born in Austria. He was in several concentration camps during World War II, among them Janowska, Buchenwald, and Mauthausen. His career after World War II was largely dedicated to hunting down escaped Nazi war criminals. He was involved in the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. His book The Sunflower reflects his extensive contact with leading thinkers and spiritual figures around the world, to whom he posed his question of the possibilities and limits of forgiving others.
17 “aka” (“also known as”) here signifies another way of saying what has just been said.