Radicalism And Humanism
Nildo Viana
Humans are capable of the most beautiful acts and speeches and at the same time, concepts and more ignoble attitudes. They can act with extreme grandeur and generosity on the one hand, and extreme smallness and meanness on the other. This process is of particular importance in the field of revolutionary militancy in which extremism is often confused with radicalism and when this occurs there is a confusion between being revolutionary and be bloody. Therefore it is important to discuss the relationship between humanism and radicalism, as a revolutionary individual must unite the two into one, which does not always happen and thinking about it may clarify and help overcome this dichotomy in some individual cases .
The goal of a revolutionary is obviously the revolution. Undoubtedly, you can not fall into the mistake of believing that everyone who is said to be the only revolutionary for having said such a thing. Not analyzing an individual by the consciousness that he has of himself, as Marx said (1983a). Not least because what is meant by "revolution" and "revolutionary" varies according to the people. A revolutionary in the sense used here which obviously excludes many cases is that individuals who aims at revolution and understand this as a process of human emancipation via emancipation of the workers, or more precisely, of the proletariat. So accordingly excludes those who think that a revolution is a seizure of state power, replacing a government, among other ways of thinking only in the sense of a "political revolution" because human emancipation can only occur through a revolution social, ie the radical transformation of all social relations. If the goal of the revolutionary is the revolution that liberates humanity as a whole, then there is a humanist basis that goal. There is therefore dichotomy between the radicalism of a revolutionary who wants a radical transformation of social relations to free human beings from exploitation, domination, oppression, and humanism. However, precisely this dichotomy often appears and that's what we have to reflect.
The word humanity can also be seen in various forms. It is not up here a conceptual discussion and not address all its manifestations, just expose the two basic forms of existing humanism. One is the romantic humanism, or "abstract", which, as Rousseau (1989), believes that man is "good by nature" and attributes this quality to all human beings without distinction, based on this principle. The human being here is a core value and this is positive, although problematic. To understand its problematic character it needs to move to the radical humanism, which is a concrete humanism.
As opposed to the abstract (in the metaphysical sense), concrete is "a result of their multiple determinations" (Marx, 1983a). In this conception, the human being is neither good nor bad by nature. What characterizes the human essence is work and sociability, as Marx already pointed (Marx, 1983b; Marx, 1988; Marx and Engels, 1991). The human being is active. He, unlike the other animals, acts on the world, transforms nature and humanizes her and himself. It does this in association or cooperation with other human beings, also being a social being. Thus, the conscious teleological work, praxis, and the association with other human beings are human needs, are part of its essence. However, with the emergence of class society, this essence is denied. Work and sociability are perverted, distorted. Work becomes alienated, directed by others, founding the exploitation and domination and sociability becomes, because of this conflict. In capitalism, more specifically, the operation at work and domination occurs through the extraction of surplus value and sociability shall be controlled, in addition to the conflict classes by competition. In this sense, class societies deny human nature and capitalist society leads to such extreme denial.
In these societies, and more broadly in capitalism, the human essence is denied and distorted. Monstrosities emerge from those practiced by individuals to the collective, as can illustrate the case of a psychopath, in the first case and Nazism in the second. So the romantic humanism is illusory. The radical humanism is one that does not ignore the history and the denial of human nature under capitalism, source of psychic imbalances, but also has no illusions with the world of appearance falling into anti-humanism, thinking that human beings are "selfish" by nature, understanding the broader social process based on class struggle. However, the radical humanism also does not confuse existence with essentially no illusions with "empirical" and knows that behind the psychic destruction of human beings and all other problems such as deformed values, reified consciousness, etc., the essence exists, stifled and repressed, but it's there. Everyone has psychic need for association with other human beings and fulfill their potential and if this does not materialize, there are effects, including the revolutionaries are products that. Revolutionaries are the individuals for expressing the desire of human emancipation, of others and of themselves, although many also know that may not live to see it. No doubt this is different from revolt or rebel. The first only dreams of outright destruction in the background do not want to change anything, just want to destroy what he identified as the cause of their ailments. The rebel is one who only asks what it achieves and instead of radically transforming social relations or, in the background, change its position within that society, so it is easily co-opted and corrupted.
Thus, the radical humanism maintains the unity between humanism and radicalism. As it was for Marx, "to be radical is to go to the root, and the root for man is man himself" (1977). Radicalism without direction there is pseudorradicalismo. It can not generate human liberation becoming inhuman. Humanism without radicalism is romanticism and the "radicalism" without humanism is inconsequential extremism. The romantic humanism generates reformism or sentimentality and extremism generates authoritarianism, morality, nihilism. For revolutionary praxis or abstract humanism or extremism are appropriate. Only the radical humanism is corresponding to such a practice. The radical humanism prevents naive actions derived from romantic humanism, such as thinking that a popular demonstration during radicalized social struggles can appeal to the kindness and non-violence of the repressive state apparatus (police, army). Likewise, also avoids the practice of the Jacobean terror. As Rosa Luxemburg put,
"The proletarian revolution does not need terror to achieve its goals, it hates and abhors the murder. It does not need these means of struggle because it does not combat individuals but institutions, because it does not enter the arena full of naive illusions that lost, would lead to a bloody revenge. It is not the desperate attempt of a minority to mold the world forcibly according to its ideal, but share the great mass of the millions of men of the people, called to fulfill its historic mission and to make the historical need a reality "( LUXEMBOURG, 1991, p. 103).
Accordingly, it can not fall into the romantic humanism misconceptions and derivatives (sentimentality, pacifism, reformism) nor the reckless extremism (authoritarianism, morality, nihilism, aggression or unnecessary violence), both in revolutionary moments as in periods of retreat the labor movement, these two types of action only hinder the advancement of the struggle for radical transformation of society. It is for this reason that both the romantic humanism as extremism must be overcome by radical humanism.
References
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