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amartinez · Joined: 31 Mar 2014 Posts: 16

"Question : Do you think that writers like Marx, Darwin and Turner were influenced directly by Hegel’s dialectic or that Hegel put words to a process that already existed? Thus, were the three writers’ discoveries and theories bound to exist even without Hegel?"

I think that I noticed particularly in Turner's writings that much of what he discussed was a product of the times - particularly his definition of what made a good American. There were a lot of holes in his arguments that didn't account for minority groups (which were later pointed out) which further makes me think that Turner was writing from a highly biased point. So I think that he was probably separate from the influence of Hegel, perhaps given the fact that his history was pointedly by and for Americans. However, I think that I noticed a lot of similarities in Marx's history that showed how directly influenced he was by Hegel, yet he chose to "mix and match" certain elements. For instance, he said that the people were defined by a larger structure - their society, which defies Hegel's self-creation - but this society was developed by the economic habits of its prior citizens...in a sense, people were connected by their tails, which fits into Hegel's idea that a history is made by its people and can serve to define them. Finally, I think that Darwin's ideas of natural selection in particular weren't really influenced directly by Hegel; the way he analyzed evidence seemed to me quite impartial, so really he wasn't influenced by much of anything except questions that he had set out to answer (and even this didn't really bias his results). However, I think that Darwin perhaps was lucky to live at a time in which Hegelian ideas were accepted...he talked about previous naturalists later accepting his idea because they felt they could form a new understanding of it. (For instance, the divine writer that said to him evolution could be a new understanding of God, which to me was quite interesting because it meant that evolution and creationism could coexist even though in conflict - much like the dialectic and its product of synthesis).

amartinez · Joined: 31 Mar 2014 Posts: 16

Do you think that these authors of history would have been as widely accepted had they not posed an opinion in their writings? Even if this opinion was built off of empirical evidence, do you think that, say, Marx would have been as popular had he not lived the experience himself? The same could be said for Turner, although I think our reading touches a little bit on that at the end of his chapter. How much of their writings of history can be accepted, if they are biased? I'm tempted to say that it's all rubbish, but I think looking at the movement of peoples based on their economic situation is as valid a starting point as, say, the movement of organisms based on their adaptation - and importantly, the opinion is only a starting point. (The economic situation that Marx, as a upper-working-class-citizens, focuses on is not the whole of Marx's theories, they are his foundation). Like Darwin's distinction between species and variety, I'm also curious if you all think that the interpretations of a theory are separate from the original theory itself, or if they should be gathered in one large category?

hcooper2015 · Joined: 31 Mar 2014 Posts: 10

This is so late to post but I just got home from a passover seder where we talked Marx and his writings!

Most of what people said were what we discussed in class today as being the incorrect interpretation that Marx talked about learning from our past to predict the future.
I am keeping this post short because it is so late but i suppose my question is : Why do you think people interpret Marxism and Darwinism ( into social darwinism) incorrectly?

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