Western Marxism and Death
Author: Roland BÖER, Research Professor, University of Newcastle, Australia
Abstract:
This paper makes a beginning in developing a systematic Marxist reflection on the theme of death. The effort faces some stiff opposition: some of the leading Marxist figures alive today aver that they are interested in life, not death. In order to find some substantial reflections on death in the Marxist tradition, it is necessary to go back to Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno and Ernst Bloch.
The paper deals, first, with the differences and overlaps between Horkheimer and Adorno. From there the author moves on to explore Bloch’s various and uneven efforts at making death a central feature of Marxist philosophy. While finding Bloch’s championing of the kernel or soul in Traces problematic, the author is more enamoured with his argument against dogmatisms on the matter of death (neither dogmatic religious belief nor dogmatic materialist denial of the possibility of something after death), with his distinction between physical death and the ontological status of death, and with ten metaphors of gate and door, journey and unknown destination. Perhaps the most pointed treatment of all appears in a discussion between Bloch and Adorno called “Something’s Missing”. While Bloch reiterates his better earlier arguments, Adorno suggests that the resistance to the possibility of overcoming death is the resistance to utopia/socialism itself, for it is an attachment to the status quo. Indeed, utopia cannot be imagined without the elimination of death.
Keywords:
Western Marxism; death; Max Horkheimer; Theodor Adorno;Ernst Bloch
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