Christian-Marxist dialogue-dialectic, recent and deeper probings
Hugh Williams
Dear Listers,
In a very recent exchange on an ‘academia discussion’
See link at https://www.academia.edu/s/e52262643f which as I understand it was motivated as a reflection upon Leo XIV’s encyclical on AI and the recent Vatican sponsored conference on the topic where certain leading insiders from the AI technology development field actually were heard ‘appealing’ for ‘external controls’ on their ‘work’ …
In my exchange with the good author of this thoughtful reflection, I found the relevance of Christian-Marxist dialogue-dialectic and its AIRR(2023) platform became somewhat heightened and very much updated …
In a draft of my recent paper attempting a constructively critical reviewing of the AIRR(2023) text and that I believe I attached to an earlier email to the list-serve, I wrote –
“What might be agreed upon today between these ‘dialogue partners’, is that we now are facing a complex problematic that has been termed a ‘polycrisis’, along with a desperate and frustrating effort in certain quarters to identify and clarify some primary cause to which other causal factors can be subordinated.[1] In the face of this situation, Lonergan and his adherents from the Christian side, in my view, basically have made a simplifying turn to the human subject with a special focus on the cognitional and psychic aspects of human consciousness. However, for those Christians who have become sympathetically engaged with the Marxist side of this dialogue-dialectic, we have a significant though complicating emphasis and focus on the system of capitalism and the need for radical and even revolutionary structural changes, and thus any analysis from which this focus is absent, i.e., most of mainstream Christianity, remains seriously suspect.”
This observation on the general stances of the Christian and Marxist dialogue-dialectic partners is proving to be supported with the experience of, and evidence from, additional engagements. For example, in this recent academia exchange we have this extensive account of a section of exchange where I find myself moving much more to the Marxist position or perspective, while my dialogue partner seems to be taking a position much closer to the one I’d associate with the dominant reading of Lonergan in much of North America (and perhaps under the influence of Habermas …). Nevertheless, certain important observations and insights are articulated which take the discussion deeper and further than anything I could have anticipated, drawing out, at least on my side, certain important insights now relevant for us, where ever we stand in this troubled world of ours …
If interested read on and see for yourself …
Hugh
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Istvan
Bajzak
wrote:
2 days ago
Dear Hugh, thank you for your careful and serious response. I think your point touches something genuinely important: attention never operates in an empty or innocent way. There are always prior languages, theories, ideological habits, institutional experiences, and historical commitments shaping what we notice and what remains unseen. On this point, I fully agree with you. For precisely that reason, I would like to take this insight one step further. If it is true that attention is always theoretically and ideologically formed, then this cannot apply only to technocratic, liberal, capitalist, or individualist frameworks. It must also apply to our own preferred critical vocabulary. The concepts of capitalism, socialism, the state, the market, the people, social control, planning, and political economy cannot stand outside this hermeneutical circle. This is decisive for me. Not because I deny the political-economic dimension of AI. On the contrary: ownership, infrastructure, labor, data, energy, institutional control, and the concentration of power are indispensable questions. But for me, these also cannot appear as final explanatory objects. They should rather be examined as historically formed patterns for organizing attention, decision, and responsibility. This is why I remain cautious about any field of discussion that too quickly returns us to large inherited totalities: capitalism, socialism, China, the United States, the market, or the state. These may be important analytical terms, but I would not want them to become unquestioned ontological containers. For me, part of the task is precisely to make visible how these concepts themselves operate. The condition of genuine dialogue, as I understand it, is not that one of us convinces the other from within an already secured description of the world. Dialogue begins where both sides are willing to make even their deepest vocabulary provisional, examinable, and exposed to risk. So my question is not whether the problem of AI belongs to the “inner world” or to “political economy.” That opposition would be too simple. My question is rather: through what operations does something become visible as a problem, what distinctions make it visible, what institutional and economic pressures stabilize it, and what responsibility do we bear for the way the other human being appears within this constructed world? If we can continue the conversation at this level, then I would find the dialogue valuable. But if the discussion slips back into allowing one inherited political-economic totality to become the final explanatory frame, then I fear we would not be doing the same critical work. I therefore take your point seriously. But I would ask for the same self-critical discipline toward the concepts of capitalism, socialism, the state, the market, and social control that you rightly bring to the ideological formation of attention itself. With respect, Istvan
Like1
Hugh
Williams
responded:
2 hrs ago
On the Philosophical and Political-Economic Dimensions of the Problem/Question
Istvan,
I’m reading you as saying that the concepts of capitalism and socialism cannot stand outside the hermeneutical circle we’ve also spoken of above … nor can they appear as final explanatory objects. Instead, they should be examined as historically formed patterns for organizing attention, decision, and responsibility. You remain cautious about too quickly turning to large inherited totalities such as ‘American capitalism’ and ‘Chinese socialism’ that I’ve introduced. You do not see either of these ‘names’ as ontological ‘containers’. And for our ‘dialogue’ to work, it cannot be about each of us trying to convince the other of the correctness of our respective positions. Each of us has to be prepared to make our thinking and position provisional. You again present your fundamental question or object of concern as – ‘through what human intelligence operations does something become visible (perceived and understood) as a problem?’ For me this is becoming a rich and involved exchange, which in terms of my own work and articulation efforts, I’m characterizing as Christian-Marxist (admittedly these ‘identities’ gradually become quite porous and flexible in real dialogue …) where I’m finding that I’m being moved more towards a Marxist position/perspective. You have challenged me on moving towards a too simple dichotomy of two ‘inherited totalities’ – what I’d call, again, “American capitalism” and “Chinese socialism”. You are cautious, even reluctant, to grant these two ‘identities’ ontological standing, or an ontological standing that actually would be helpful in addressing your fundamental question for the purposes of this ‘academia discussion’ that I’m further interpreting as – “Through what human operations does something become known as a real problem that ‘calls upon our human moral agency and conscience?” Now there are two ways my own reception of your argument and question could go – 1) the philosophical way which would take me deeper into what I’d call a ‘Hegelian atmosphere’ and that I’d prefer to avoid. However, I’d remark on how much your important question reminds me of the Canadian theologian-sociologist Gregory Baum’s important paper “Science and Commitment: Historical Truth According to Ernst Troeltsch” in his “The Social Imperative” (1979). Admittedly the challenges and opportunities surrounding AI change the context considerably but there are very real similarities in my own view. 2) There is the political-economic way, which I’d like to spend a little more time with, if I may be permitted, because I believe this to be the most pressing ‘fact’ of our present global/planetary circumstances. This certainly has impacted earlier historical efforts at Christian-Marxist dialogue-dialectic where various ‘efforts’ became distorted and even corrupted by the ‘Cold War’. In my view, there has to be some significant awareness of this because the fact that we are now entering, or indeed have entered, into the beginnings of another Cold War with China is something we all should try our best to resist both in theory (epistemologically) and in practice. And on this highly concerning matter, I’d share another link to an extremely relevant research paper for your own and others consideration – https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-new-cold-war-on-china/
My argument, without getting bogged down in the epistemological issues of what actually constitutes real (in this instance, real historical) knowledge and the associated deep philosophical questions of social ontology, is that our analyses today, in my own considered view, do have to have some grasp of what is called the ‘imperialist world system’, in which for me now, both ‘American capitalism’ and ‘Chinese socialism’ certainly do have to be treated as more than nominalist terms. They do refer to ontological realities of considerable consequence. The imperialist world system that I refer to has clearly been led by U.S. capitalist interests which are now threatened by the strength of China’s emergence and resolute pursuit of its own distinctive sovereign project. There are tremendously powerful forces within the U.S. capitalism system and its imperialist reach urging for a ‘New Cold War on China’. This seems to be an almost inescapable reaction to China’s economic and technological ascendence and the gradual ending of U.S. unipolar dominance in the world. Was it not the U.S. that declared a Cold War against the Soviet Union and China in the 1940s and 1950s, in order to secure its economic and military dominance after WWII? Today, it is largely seen to be declaring a New Cold War on China in the interest of maintaining this same imperial dominance. A fundamental norm governing international relations has been mutual respect for one’s sovereignty. It is a fundamental principle for the UN and its institutions. A nation’s internal affairs are not to be interfered with, including a nation’s right to independently choose their social system and development pathway. Geo-politically, China has taken an anti-imperialist position that has been integral to its own internal development trajectory. There has been tremendous growth in the Chinese economy since the 1970s and there has been the elimination of absolute poverty in the society. It is a profound error to attribute this development only as a consequence of China’s integration into the world economy, for there is also the significant nature of that development and the regulation applied to the capitalist tendencies of such global integration. There are four structural arrangements that have been resolutely socialist in nature and that have given the Chinese system its distinctive nature: 1) There is the social ownership of land in which the rural economy remains managed in part collectively or communally. 2) There is State or public governance of money and finance. 3) There is State or public ownership of key sectors of industry including banks which allows for public control over investment and high rates of investment in priority areas as circumstances require. 4) There is a public planning system that complements the market economy and that is overseen by the Chinese Communist Party’s five-year planning system. Also, one cannot underestimate the social and cultural emphasis and adaption of the extensive and varied tradition of Marxist historical and dialectical materialism under the CPC’s leadership. This has meant forging what is understood to be a democratic socialist revolutionary theory and practice, which is what is generally meant by ‘socialist development with Chinese characteristics’. This Chinese character has meant the very careful and deliberate attention to the interests of both capital and labor in development, with a strong long-term commitment to have capital serve the interests of human labor and the people in a socialist society. This in my view would be the Chinese secular version of JP II’s earlier encyclical’s Christian social teaching on ‘the priority of labor’. The Chinese analysis of a modern geo-political transition in hegemonic domination attends carefully and rigorously to the internal dynamics of the world capitalist system, where the imperialism of the few core nations has been directed towards the many periphery nations, with periodic wars being required to establish and reinforce this imperial hegemony. This is widely viewed as capitalism’s only reaction to the recurring and mounting challenges in maintaining a ‘world order’ and the ‘effective’ exercise of geo-political power. Clearly, according to this analysis, a New Cold War focused on China will place the world and its people in an era of extreme danger – another nuclear arms race heightening the risk of thermo-nuclear war and of the grave ecological, economic, and social consequences. It has been pointed out quite bluntly that though the world survived the first Cold War, it is a real question of equally existential proportions whether it can survive a second one. Is this not a proper context for any consideration of AI and your important question - “Through what human operations does something become known as a real problem that ‘calls upon our human moral agency and conscience?” apologies for the length of this reply but for better or worse this 'dialogue' has stimulated much thought... thanks again for your patience and attention ... Hugh
Doug Mounce
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