Stephen Hicks, Professor of Philosophy (USA) and John Anderson, former Deputy Prime Minister (Australia) discuss Democracy, the do-it-yourself politics that presupposes agency — in contrast to Marxism’s environmental determinism that overrides agency.
Excerpted from this full-hour interview. Related:
Hello,
I saw your two-minute clip with John Anderson, but I am not sure exactly what your argument is. (I have a long background in academic philosophy, but I have never studied Marx.)
So according that short video, you seem to say that Marxists do not adhere to the concept of volition, or human agency. Instead, they are determinists. This supposedly means that they believe (or at least they present their theory in that way) that human agency has no impact on the sequence of events that play out in the real world. So everything is predetermined, and therefore the citizens are not contributing causally to the events that are happening, in the sense that they have free will, or a chance to choose their actions. So, in a sense, the citizens are seen in a sort of behaviorist psychological way, more or less as a bunch of pre-programmed robots that have no control of their own destiny or way of life.
What’s interesting here is that you use the phrase “environmental determinism”. So it’s not just determinism, but you qualify it as an environmental one. How come? Is that part of Marx and Engel’s philosophy? Or is that just the way that Marx’s philosophy can be used in our contemporary world, where environmentalism is a big thing?
I also took a short look at your other video below, the one called “Marxists are…Determinists”, and I really liked what I saw. I think your style of presentation is excellent. Not only is it a great idea to both being able to see the lecturer and the text at the same time, but you have also highlighted the important pieces of the text, to make it easier to follow. On top of that, the sound quality is really nice as well. So I’ll definitely be back to learn more!
Thank you for a nice experience!
Chris Bocay