It is obvious that you do not have to know much about philosophy to participate in a demonstration, a strike or a revolutionary uprising. And a good job too. If we had to wait for large numbers of working people to read Marx and Hegel, demonstrations, strikes and, most certainly, revolutions would never happen.
However, the struggle for a better world does not consist only of these moments of direct confrontation. In between and during these “high points” there is a day-to-day battle of ideas, an ideological struggle against the worldview propagated by our rulers, and alongside this there is the day-to-day work of organisation, building and sustaining the union, the campaign or the political party. It is very difficult to sustain much ongoing political work for any length of time without a coherent alternative worldview to the dominant ideology which we encounter every day in the media (and at work, at school, at college, etc). A significant role in an alternative worldview is played by questions of philosophy.*
In the course of discussion with a friend or workmate they retort, “But there’s one thing you’ve forgotten: you can’t change human nature,” or, “But there’s always going to be rich and poor, always has been, always will be!” In a debate in the movement someone says, “The real problem is the Tories; we must all unite to get rid of them and get in Labour. Then things will be better.” On a university sociology course the professor says, “Of course Marx believed that communism was inevitable, but as social scientists we have to reject such dogmatic views,” or, “Marxism reduces everything to economics and class, but sociology nowadays is more complex and sophisticated than that.” All of these statements have an immediate plausibility – they seem to appeal to “common sense”. This is because they rest on a worldview, a philosophy, systemically developed, perfected one might say, by our rulers, the capitalist class and its philosophical ideologists, over centuries and disseminated through innumerable channels to every corner of society. To answer them requires an equally developed and coherent philosophy from our side. Fortunately such a philosophy exists – Marxism.
Beyond the level of day-to-day debate and organisation, there is the question of leadership in the struggle: of participating in producing newspapers, journals, books; of deciding on the calling of demonstrations and strikes; of the tactics and strategy of campaigns and of parties and so on. The more an activist becomes involved in the direction and leadership of a campaign or movement, and especially at key turning points in the struggle, the more the coherence, breadth and depth of that activist’s worldview is put to the test, the more questions of philosophy become important.
Let me give one concrete and very current example of the relevance of philosophy. The most widespread form of philosophy, especially as far as the mass of ordinary people are concerned, is religion. All religions include in their respective doctrines positions on important philosophical questions, such as the nature and meaning of human existence and the character of human nature (“ontology” or “the study of being” in academic philosophical terms), the source of knowledge and the criteria of truth (known as “epistemology”), and morality (“ethics”). Moreover, as a result particularly of the “War on Terror”, the question of religion has moved to the centre of political debate.
The radical activist needs to be able to answer these arguments and respond to these positions and for this s/he needs a certain philosophical grounding. More than that s/he needs to know how to analyse and deal with religions and religious communities as social and political forces. This requires a theoretical understanding of the nature and development of religion. (An account of the Marxist position on religion appears later in this book.)
Another example is the problem faced by anyone or any organisation thinking of calling a demonstration, an occupation or a strike. This is the problem of judging the balance between the objective situation and the role of subjective initiative. Any campaigner or trade unionist who thinks that they can simply call demonstrations, occupations or strikes at will without regard for the circumstances will rapidly fall flat on their face. At the same time there are some people in the movement (especially certain kinds of trade union official) who always argue that the time is not right for struggle. This problem, which exists in embryo in every local campaign, becomes greatly magnified when the issue is a general strike, and can become literally a matter of life and death in a revolution. Learning to deal with this kind of problem is partly a matter of practical experience, but is greatly helped by a grasp of Marxist philosophy which is centrally concerned with how people “make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves” (K Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in D McLellan, ed, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Oxford, 1977, p300).
In short, philosophy and especially Marxist philosophy matters because it has an essential role to play in the struggle to change the world.
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* To attempt an exact definition of philosophy at this point would be a difficult and lengthy distraction. But what I mean by it in this book is, roughly, “general” or “abstract” thinking about human beings and their relations with society and nature.