Critical Theory: Gains for the Ark of Emancipation

From compassion to Nazism. After five years now, the publication of a new volume of the “Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism” (HKWM) can be announced. It includes 60 keywords, 77 articles, discussed by 70 authors. Remarkable: 21 percent are women, more than a third are not from Germany. In addition to the fifth volume, this ninth half-volume is probably the most extensive, which is probably due to the above-average length of the contributions. The number of keywords for the entire edition has now exceeded 1,000, and the number of authors and employees involved in the project has reached the 800 mark.

Each volume naturally also provides information about its relevance to the time. As the practical problems in the world have changed over the years, perspectives on the relevant keywords have also changed. It is also about “historicizing” the “historical-critical,” which may sound paradoxical, but means that the criteria for developing the content of the keywords in the history that is happening need to be sharpened. Although the thinking that refers to Karl Marx explores the past, it “cannot take its point of view from the past,” emphasizes editor Wolfgang Fritz Haug. Even less is the entire project an “end in itself,” rather it serves “the emancipatory treatment of fundamental human problems.” In this respect, the HKWM is recommended less as a reference work, but rather – according to the writer Volker Braun – as a “suggestion work” to go on “explorations” where “knowledge of the past” meets the present in that the texts “shed light on the current “Crisis constellations”.

It is not just a matter of proving that terms are philologically correct in their use in Marxist-influenced discourse and beyond. Rather, the development of their understanding, its changes and differentiating cognitive value should emerge. This distinguishes this edition from many other encyclopedic publications. One should remember the “Philosophical Dictionary” once published by the GDR philosophers Manfred Buhr and Georg Klaus, in which the terms were essentially presented as developed ones and were often accompanied by the point that their “real dialectics could only be established on the basis of dialectical materialism.” could be developed. Their own historical character disappeared into a static, textbook-like view. The fact that most terms were not only contested in the past, but are also in the present, and their content is concretized in historical events, remained unnoticed. For example, look at the keyword “nation” in the “Philosophical Dictionary” published in the GDR and the multitude of entries on this complex in the “Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism”, which also includes terms such as national Bolshevism or national minorities and a multitude current disputes are addressed.

This can already be seen in the first lemma “compassion”. With dual authorship, different perspectives are included. Compassion as a category for criticizing social and political contexts and promoting solidarity is one thing, but its instrumentalization through political moralizing is another. The ambivalence is illustrated by the example of the now enormously increased influence of imaging media, which, with its immediate effect that often hides the context, is able to deceive, overwhelm or dull a feeling of compassion. The nuances of “empathy” and “compassion” as well as power differences are also revealed in the #MeToo debate: Why did this only have an impact when “wealthy and often white cis women in Hollywood” took the lead, while the problem of… Sexual abuse has long been a concern of feminist activists.

Another entry with four authors discusses the term “possibility”. Covered here are not only Karl Marx’s discussions on the realization of the possibilities of a modern workers’ movement and its real conditions, as they emerge in the critique of political economy. In addition, the broad field of philosophy and history from antiquity to classical German philosophy is shown, in order to then introduce the specific use by Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch and in critical theory. A further perspective is also opened up with the natural-historical reconstruction of human social nature through critical psychology.

An essential characteristic of the entire edition, a leitmotif in the treatment of all keywords, is the problem of the ability to act, that is, to behave consciously when faced with options for action. So emancipation according to Marx’s “categorical imperative” that those oppressed by the rule and the prevailing conditions are put in a position to “overturn all conditions in which man is a degraded, an enslaved, an abandoned, a contemptible being.”

In addition to the two focal points “nation” and “nature”, volume 9/II analyzes a variety of terms that arise from constellations of the crisis-ridden and contradictory developments of our present. The entries on the Middle East conflict by Norman Peach and Werner Ruf and Nazism by Jan Rehmann are extremely topical. Other terms that are rarely found in traditional dictionaries are multitude (promoted especially by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt for the diversity, quantity of subjects and singularities), muralism (wall painting) and neighborhood movement as well as, as an addendum to Volume 9/I, » Mestizaje” (nationalist term for “racial mixing” in Latin America). The increased need and need for global reception is reflected here.

Each volume of this edition is an addition to the “Arch of Marxism,” as it has already been called. It can provide “impulses for the future”. Work on Volume 10/I has begun. The internationalization of the project is not only progressing through the proportion of foreign authors. There are first translations. A Chinese edition of the dictionary has been in the works since 2017, the third volume of which was published last year. At the same time, English and Spanish-language selection volumes are being created. And there is also a “Historical-Critical Dictionary of Feminism” that collects articles that present the history of feminism and the “fights and controversies waged there” in the HKWM; Three volumes of this are already available.

A project that has now existed for 30 years must constantly find new authors, especially since several experienced contributors are no longer available. Only recently did the long-time co-editor and author, the East German historian Wolfgang Küttler, die, leaving a huge void. And in an interview in this newspaper (“nd” from June 1st/2nd), the editor of the edition, Wolfgang F. Haug, said that from now on he and his wife could only concentrate on working on the dictionary. In addition to the personnel problem, there is the institutional and associated financial security of the project. In this respect, we wish each volume of the “Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism” great attention and many new, committed authors and sponsors. By the way, individual keywords can be purchased online for a comparatively low price: http://www.neu.inkrit.de/index.php/de/hkwm/shop. A possibility of financial support for the project can be found under the link http://betterplace.org/p138521.

Historical-critical dictionary of Marxism. Vol. 9/II. Compassion to Nazism. Ed. Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Frigga Haug and others Argument-Verlag, 704 pages, hardcover, €165.