Reply #3: Marxist materialism

[tama]

First, totalitarianism (understood as universalistic homogenizing) seems to be sickness inherent in all imperialistic civilizations that need to constantly grow to survive as systems (after fouling up their own nests). Biological analogy is cancer tumor.

Marxism is revolutionary product of Europe of revolutionary Christianity and revolutionary capitalism, thus naturally there is interest in the Christian revolution and euro-centric myopia. I doubt that Maoists share the same interest with Christianity, interesting question is relation of Maoism with Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.

Marxist (historical and dialectical) materialism is not to be confused with naive realism, but derives from Greek atomist's (Democritus etc.) philosophical materialism, which was the subject of Marx' doctoral thesis.

Marxist historical materialism is not ontological metaphysics (ie. "just another idealism" or 'ought from is' -fallacy) but an ethical philosophy in dialectic relation with Hegel's idealistic dialectics (uppity academics in Ivory Tower), stressing that the purpose of philosophy is not to describe the world but to change it. It shares the Christian ethos of criticism of Mammon, worshiping money instead of acting with compassion.

As descriptive theory Marxist historical materialistic analysis of capitalism is a theory of cultural evolution, closely related to Darwinism, and with excellent predictive power, remaining still basically unfalsified. "Spiritual" aspect of historical materialism is attempt to raise the consciousness of proletariat to brake their chains of slavery to capitalists and form a classless society.

Of course, the anarchist criticism of Marxism remains as valid as ever; which does not exclude the possibility of synthesis - such as zapatista synthesis of anarchism, marxism and indigenous way of life, based on method of respectful and attentive listening (which, surprise surprise, raises the consciousness and collective intelligence of participants far far better that any dogmatic preaching).