In this post I continue the juxtaposition of the Baha'i Faith and Marxism which has interested me for some time.
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THE CRITIQUE GOES ON
A 'critical theory' of society emerged in June 1844 with the Economical and Philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx. Marx had been working on his Manuscripts in the months before and after the Bab's declaration to Mulla Husayn in May 1844. Critical theory lay dormant after 1848 until 1917. The term 'critical theory' was not coined, though, until 1930 by Max Horkheimer. The first systematic philosophy of history or social theory, the precursor to Marx's critical theory, was Hegel's. Put another way, "the methodological basis of the critical theory of society" is to be found in "the dialectical logic of George F. Hegel."1 Hegel's first major works in philosophy were composed after Shaykh Ahmad had arrived in Iran to continue his work as a precursor of the Bab. Hegel died in 1831, five years after Shaykh Ahmad's passing.
The entire history of critical theory, one of modern sociology's major theoretical orientations, has, for me, an interesting comparison and contrast, an interesting juxtaposition, with the history of the Babi and Baha'i religions and their precursors -Ron Price with thanks to 1R. George Kirkpatrick, George N. Katsiaficas, Mary Lou Emery, "Critical Theory and the Limits of Sociological Positivism," Transforming Sociology Series, Red Feather Institute, 1978, pp.1-21.
You1 got a new lease on life in the late teens,
say 1917 to 1921, when George Lukacs' work
"History and Class Consciousness," was published
and promulgated, when the Frankfurt School was
born with its centre at Columbia by 1934.
We, too, were articulating our architectural ediface,
our institutional framework in these years up to the mid-'30s,
not on a Marxian foundation as it was with you,
with your critique, but on an ediface of some 75 years
of infallible, authoritative, guidance. Yes, our world
collapsed in the trenches. Liberalism had proved useless
and socialism's death knell would be wrung.2 When all hope
seemed lost in that decade of disillusionment,3 critical theory
was born anew. And we had found our institutional form, then.
In time, you had your Habermas4 and we had our House of Justice
to provide the context for the search, the adequacy of perspective,
the blending and harmonizing of salutary truths, the generation
of spiritual nerves and sinews, tapping as they do the roots
of motivation and the meaning of this Revelation.
1 Critical Theory
2 many sociologists have pointed out the end of socialism and liberalism, some say by the end of WWI, others by the end of WW2 and still others at various stages in the post-WWII period. Of course, there are many who still find hope in these 'isms. Perhaps what I say here is said in the booklet Baha'u'llah(p.1) a little differently: "a succession of ideological upheavals.....have exhausted themselves."
3 1930s
4 leading writer in 'critical theory.'
Ron Price
18 October 2001