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Is Human Nature Compatiblewith Socialism?Eftichios BitsakisPublished online: 13 May 2009.
To cite this article: Eftichios Bitsakis (2005) Is Human Nature Compatiblewith Socialism?, Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, 33:1, 157-186, DOI:10.1080/03017600509469491
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Is Human Nature Compatible with Socialism?
Eftichios Bitsalds
The collapse of the so-called 'existing socialism' marked a crucial moment inhuman history. However if we do not accept the 'theories' of the end of history,it is necessary, before attempting to detect the latent potentialities of our world,to put the following question: is human nature incompatible with socialism? Inother words: is there an anthropological obstacle which will make futile anyattempt to construct a socialist society?
Evidently, 1989 was not necessary for us to become aware of the dominantfeatures of human history. As Marx puts it, human history is the history of classstruggles. Contrary to tenets of speculative anthropology, this aphorismemphasizes the barbarous and tragic aspect of human endeavour.
How can we explain this fact? Is there an immutable human nature? Areegoistic, aggressive, barbarous and paranoiac practices the result of biologicalelements inscribed in our brain? Before assenting to this proposition we shouldnote that exploitation, wars and class struggles are not the sole features ofhistory. Inseparable from them are intelligence, creativity, art, science,sensibility, emotion, affection, love and altruism. Human nature appears as afield of contradictory attributes and potentialities. This fact was recognized byAristotle: "For as man is the best of the animals when perfected, so he is theworst of all when sundered from law and justice." 1 This raises the question ofwhether or not it is permissible to conceive human nature as something withoutinternal contradictions and as an invariable factor of history.
Many writers consider contemporary social relations as an expression ofimmutable laws. If this were so, socialism would be objectively impossible.Worse than that, via a naive reductionism many authors attribute the barbarousfeatures of human history to some paranoiac elements inscribed in our genetic
Aristotle. (1967) Politics. Harvard University Press: Loeb Classical Library; 1253a, p31-36.
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code. On the basis of this biological reductionism, barbarity is considered to bethe fate of the human species.
Is it possible to find a way out of this biological reductionism, from pragmatismand from moralizing metaphysics?
1. THE HUMAN BEING AS A NATURAL AND SOCIAL BEING
It is impossible to explain human relations solely on the basis of the biologicalcharacteristics of the human species. According to Marx (and Aristotle) thehuman being is in the strict sense a zoon politikon (a political animal). Not onlya social animal but an animal which can become an individual only in society.
Let us then try to bring to light the dialectic between the biological and thesocial. How do the hidden potentialities of the social exist in our biologicalnature? How has social life modified human nature? How have the alienatingsocial relations of class societies actualized the most negative potentialities ofhuman beings, and how have they simultaneously evacuated most positiveelements of human essence?
The sciences of life proved the ancient philosophical thesis that humans are the`product' of the evolution of living matter. In fact, as F. Jacob notes, timerepresents an intrinsic parameter in biology. The origin of life has been a unique,or an exceptional, event on earth. Since then, every living organism stems fromanother living being. However, continuity does not exclude instability andevolution. The reproduction of the identical does not exclude the emergence ofthe different. Contingency, finally, as essential factor of the evolution of species,makes futile any attempt at teleological explanation of the phenomenon of life.2
Science proved in particular the philosophical premise of ancient and modemmaterialism, namely, that the human being is a natural being. This is not a trivialtruth. As a scientific datum it is accepted at least by scientists, and it standsopposed to a dominant idealistic conception of human being, the origin of whichis to be found in Pythagorean, Platonic and Cartesian dualism. In fact, we knowtoday that the emergence of the human species was the result of the longbiological process of phylogenesis. We also know that anthropogenesis and
2 Jacob, F. (1970) La Logique du Vivant. Paris: Gallimard; p146.
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noogenesis presupposed the potentialities of the primates. At the same time theymarked the emergence of new realities and new qualities of social character notreducible to the biological level.
In fact, the structure of the human body is similar to that of the higher animals.The same holds, in particular, for man's essential organs. The physiology, themetabolism, the chains of the chemical reactions ensuring the phenomenon ofhuman life, are essentially identical with those of the higher animals.Consequently, there is no dichotomy, on the biological level, between the humanbeing and the rest of the animal kingdom. This is a scientific datum. As aconsequence, actual biological knowledge has a crucial ontological impact: itfounds a modern monist conception of the nature of the human being against thedualist-idealistic conceptions prevailing in history. The human being as anatural-biological being, is characterized by the stability of the structure of thegenetic code, of the biochemical processes, of the metabolism with nature, bythe stability of the structure of the brain and the nervous system, etc.
These invariable elements, however, are the product of biological evolution. Ourcortex, in particular, is a relatively recent 'product' and its structure and functionare related to social life as well. More than that, the historically constitutedinvariants are expressed differently in different milieux, as for example is thecase between genotype and phenotype. Invariance and differentiation are twoimmanently related attributes of the human biological nature.
More generally, physics has founded a modern scientific realism transcendingboth intuitive realism and the poverty of positivism. 'A la limite', physics andcosmology found a materialist conception of nature. 3 However, it is the sciencesof life and the theory of evolution in particular that found a monist-materialistconception of human species, against the dominant dualism of body and soul.The emergence of the human species on earth constituted a novel reality.However, between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom there is not anirreducible antithesis — an ontological leap. Knowledge acquired by thebiological sciences demonstrated the untenable character of conceptions aboutthe alleged immutable human nature, as well as of the ideas considering humans
Bitsakis, E. (1993) 'Scientific Realism'. Science and Society: No 2; pl 60.
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as sinful beings marked forever by the seal of original sin. Liberated frommetaphysics, the Marxist conception of human nature legitimates an optimisticvision of the future of our species. I will try to make this assertion concrete.
Progress in Biology has led to a Copernican revolution in the sciences of life,the social sciences and, also, philosophy. In fact, the theory of evolution and thewhole of the acquisitions of the sciences of life, have a crucial ontologicalimpact: they lay the foundation of a modern materialism which is notspeculative, is not exterior to science, and is elaborated via the philosophicalgeneralization and transcendence of the acquisitions of science. Modernmaterialism is possible because of the intrinsic unity of sciences andphilosophy. 4 Today it is possible to assert, against the dominant dualism, thatsoul is not a substance. It is the totality of the interiorized relations of the humanbeing with the world (nature and society) as well as of the potentialities existingbecause of these relations. Intelligence, reason, 'spirit', are social phenomenahaving a material support. They presuppose social relations. At the same timethey are presuppositions and active factors for social life. Finally, the savageanimal became, through a long and tragic itinerary, Homo faber and Homosapiens.
2. From the sensory-motor activity to conceptual thinking
The human being is the unique terrestrial animal capable of conceptual thinking:humans can think about things in the absence of things. In this way, and at acertain moment of history, concepts became independent of their material andsocial counterpart. They became relatively autonomous. This liberty is anecessary condition for science, as well as for art, ideology, and for the creationof those imaginary creatures, gods, demons, etc, which human beings havecrated via the imagination. In a few words, the liberty of the imagination isnecessary for the creation of the universe of ideology — this active factor ofhistory.
4 Bitsakis, E. (1983) Physique et Materialisme. Paris: Editions Sociales. F. Minazi, L. Lanzi (Eds.)(1987) In La Scienza tra Filosofia et storia in Italia Net Novecento. Roma. (2001) La Nature dans laPensee Dialectique. Paris: L'Harmattan.
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We can now pose the following questions: how did the passage from thesensory-motor activity to conceptual thinking became possible? How is thisevolution related to human nature? Finally, how is it possible to define humannature in the historical period of Homo sapiens?
The Lockean conception of the brain as a tabula rasa is obsolete today.However, "we are born as tabula; rasa on which society writes its message." 5
Yet the 'messages' are not 'stamped' in our memory by simple physico-chemical reactions. Sensory impressions and sensory-motor activity arecomplicated phenomena presupposing the active relations of the subject with theexternal world. The most elementary reaction of the subject is sensory excitationand the sensory-motor reaction which is its result. In a more elevated level,perception is the passage from the sensory excitation to the intuition of anobject. However, this is not a mechanical response to the external stimulus. Thesensory motor intelligence consists in the direct coordination of actions withoutpassing from representation and thinking. 6 Perception is the passage from thesensory excitation to the intuition of the object. Yet, as Wallon puts it,perception is not a crude datum: it is, in a certain way, an experimentaladjustment in agreement with reality. It is not a simple copy of reality, because italways comprises a process of assimilation via pre-existing structures.Perception comprises a geometrical and logical organization.' In its turn, it is inthe origin of representation which implies the constitution of the symbolicfunction, that is, the differentiation between signifier and signified. Theevocation of the signified, the non-present, is now possible.'
The passage from practical to discursive intelligence constitutes, according toWallon, an essential problem. Imitation and emotion prepare this passage. Theyare matrices of future dualities: the self and the other, the subject and the object,the image and the concept. This evolution is impossible without the family and,more generally, the social life. Yet, this passage is dialectical: Wallon speaks
5 Levins, R., Lewontin, R. (1995) The Dialectical Biologist. Harvard: Harvard University Press;p258.
Piaget, J. (1967) Biologie et Connaissance. Paris: Gallimard. p23.Piaget, J. (1967) passimPiaget, J. (1970) Psychologie et Epistemologie. Paris: Gonthier; Wallon, H. (1982) La Vie Mentale.
Paris: Editions Sociales; Zazzo, R. (1975) Psychologie et Marxisme. Paris: Demiel-Gonthier.
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about a pre-categorial period in the development of the intelligence of the child.Piaget accepts the existence of pre-concepts. Vygotski discerns the use ofpseudo-concepts Finally, the rational representation of reality in the humanbrain is possible because of the practical relations of human beings with their`inorganic body' (Marx) and because of the fact that our brain is notontologically alien to nature. Knowledge, finally, is not a copy of reality. Toknow means acting on the real and transforming it. Thought, conceptualthinking, etc, are 'products' of the function of our 'thinking body' in a concretesocial environment. They became possible in the process of the evolution ofliving matter. 'Spirit' was an immanent potentiality of matter, which passesthrough different degrees of organization and complexity. We found 'spirit' atthe end of this historical process. Not at its beginning. 9
Rationality, however, is only one of the possibilities of our intellect. The relativeautonomy of the imagination makes possible the mythical and the ideologicalrepresentation of the reality. This possibility is not, as I will try to show, themanifestation of a fundamental paranoiac structure of our brain. It is apossibility which is actualized in concrete historical conditions.
For ancient and modern idealism, spirit is independent of matter. Adiametrically opposite thesis is professed by contemporary reductionism. Thisform of philosophy reduces the intellectual and the psychical to their materialsubstratum. In fact, behaviorism elevates the sensory motor activity to the statusof general explanatory principle. For this school, there is a difference ofcomplexity between sensory-motor intelligence and conceptual thinking, not aqualitative difference. Conceptual thinking is a simple extension of the sensory-motor intelligence. For behaviorism, no new principle is necessary to understandthis new form of intelligence. 1° The activity of our brain, F. Jacob notes, willappear to the biochemist as a banal phenomenon like, for example, digestion.Yet, we will never arrive at describing the phenomenon of consciousness, anemotion, a decision, a souvenir, in terms of Physics and Chemistry."
9 Gramsci, A. (1975) Gramsci dans le Texte: De l'avant aux derniers ecrits de prison (1916-1935).Paris: Editions Sociales.19 Zazzo, R. (1975) Psychologie et Marxisme. Paris: DenOel-Gonthier; p71.11 Jacob, F. (1970) La Logique du Vivant. Paris: Gallimard; p337.
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The two aspects, biological and logical are mutually dependent, but they are notcomplementary. The second is not reducible to the first. They are intrinsicallycorrelated and this unity makes possible the emergence of the new: ofconceptual thinking.
The material substratum is a necessary condition for the psychical and for theintellectual life. Yet although neurology is necessary, it is not sufficient forunderstanding the internal self and conceptual thinking. Modern reductionism isnot only epistemologically inadequate, it has direct political and philosophicalimplications. With regard to our problem it is a vulgar anti-humanism. In fact,by attempting to reduce the whole of intellectual and psychical life to geneticallydetermined material structures, it constitutes an epistemological obstacle to theunderstanding of human nature and behavior and, consequently, of humanhistory.
For mechanistic reductionism our barbarous past and present are the result of agenetically determined and, consequently, immutable nature. 12
However, monstrous behaviour and paranoia are not, as already emphasized, thesole characteristics of our species. Affectivity, love, altruism and creativity arealso essential elements of human behavior. Higher animals also have a psychicallife. In their case, the psychical is genetically determined. In the case of humans,on the contrary, it is an original reality, not reducible to its material substratum.In order to understand this specifically human reality, we must bring to light theintrinsic unity of the biological and the psychical, without superposing them in amechanical way. Without neglecting the originality of the psychical. Tounderstand this intrinsic unity, it is necessary to take into consideration thefundamental fact that the human being is a tool making and producing socialbeing.
12 Piaget, J. 1967. Biologie et Connaissance. Paris: Gallimar, and (1970) Psychologie etEpistemologie. Paris: Gonthier; Leontiev, A. (1976) Le Developpement du Psychisme. Paris:Editions Sociales; Vygotski, L.S. (1985) Pensee et Langage. Paris: Editions Sociales; Wallon, H.(1982) La Vie Mentale. Paris: Editions Sociales; p119. Zazzo, R. (1975) Psychologie et Marxisme.Paris: DenOel-Gonthier; Tran Duc Thao (1984) Investigations into the Origin of Language andConsciousness. (1986) Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism. Dordrecht: Reidel.
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Intelligence in its elementary forms is different from instincts and fromunderstanding. It appears before language and constitutes an intermediate stagebetween sensory-motor activity and conceptual thinking. "When humanactivity," Wallon writes, "oversteps the reactions which are immediately relatedto the biological structure of the individual, this activity requires techniques,images, symbols, language, intellectual operations for which society is thenecessary condition. It is impossible to conceive of human being outside ofsociety, without mutilation. Entire fields of his cortex operate on objects ofsocial origin. Society became for human beings a milieu necessary to the samedegree as the physical environment."' 3
Today we know that our sense organs, our nervous system and our brain weredeveloped during the long period of phylogenesis and especially ofanthropogenesis, in interaction with the natural and social environment. Senseorgans and our brain mediate the relations of humans with their environment.These organs of sensation and of conceptual thinking secure the survival ofindividuals and, consequently, of our species.
"The human brain, and specifically the neo-cortex is the organ which generatesand coordinates all dimensions and aspects of human experience ... . The humanbrain is a knowledge producing system and this knowledge is created by thecooperatively, synthetically and holistically functioning neurons of the neo-cortex. These are the functions with which humans produce in their brainsretrievable symbolic representations of the outcome of the interactions with theirphysical and social environment. " 14
Behavior is initially always purposeful and well adaptive. Consequently,humans are born with well functioning operations. And Professor Koukkouconcludes: "Our destructive behavior is not due to some inherited evil in us or tosome evil around us which we have to fight ... .Our destructive behavior is notour fate and is neither inevitable nor unalterable." 15
" Wallon, H. (1982) La Vie Mentale. Paris: Editions Sociales; p11914 Kokkou-Lehmann, M. (1995) 'Models of Human Brain Functions and Paranoid Elements inHuman History' in D. Kazis (ed) (1996) The Human Predicament. New York: Prometheus Books.IS Ibid.
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3. The human being, a genetically social being
The social nature of humans is generally recognized, but on a rather abstractlevel. However, modern psychology and physiology have already passed fromthe pseudo-concrete of the intuition to a concrete exploration of the social natureof human beings.
Henri Wallon, for example, has analyzed the fundamental function of emotionfor the psychical and intellectual development of the child. Emotions, as systemsof expressions, carry along in their action the total participation of theindividual. The function of the emotion is to unite the individual with his or hermilieu via their more organic and intimate reactions.
Humanity has survived because of its ability to collaborate, which is mediatedby language. In its turn, collaboration has enhanced language. The survivalvalue of intersubjectivity, Stern notes, is potentially enormous: "Nature in thecourse of evolution created several ways to assure survival through groupmembership in social species. Ethnology and attachment theory have spelled outfor us the behavior patterns that serve to assure those physical and psychologicalintermeshings of individuals that enhance survival. I suggest that nature has alsoprovided the ways and means for any subjective intermeshings that would addsurvival value." 16
Brain and other corporeal organs serve the survival of our species.Consequently, the biological is, in principle, a positive and normal factor ofsocial life. 'Paranoia' (aggressiveness, wars, and other monstrosities) is a socialphenomenon, possible but not inevitable. As such it is not inscribed in ourgenetic program. Wars ... are 'deviations' from the normal function of ourintellect and yet, as historical phenomena, they serve concrete interests, and arejustified by politics and ideology.
Here I must refer to the Seville Statement on Violence, drafted by aninternational committee of 20 internationally known scholars, at the 6thInternational Colloquium on Brain and Aggressiveness held at the University ofSeville, Spain, in May 1986. According to this statement it is scientifically
16 Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books Publications. p36.
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incorrect to say that war or any other violent behavior is geneticallyprogrammed. It is scientifically incorrect to say that humans have a violentbrain. While we do have the neural apparatus to act violently, our higherprocesses filter stimuli. How we act is shaped by how we have been conditionedand socialized."
The biological pessimism of reductionism has no scientific foundation.However, history's record of violence and present day 'meta-modem' brutalitydo not permit any naive social optimism. But now, in order to explain themonstrosities of the past, as well as of the present, we must pass from theindividual to the social.
Two diametrically opposite errors are in that case possible: 1) explain socialrelations on the basis of the attributes of the individuals; 2) forget the reality ofconcrete human beings and consider social relations as independent of the actingsubjects. Accept that subjects are overdetermined by social relations and thathistory is 'history without subject'. In fact, contemporary 'theoretical anti-humanism' consider individuals as simple supports of the social relations.
In The German Ideology Marx and Engels tried to substitute the abstract humanbeing of speculative bourgeois anthropology, with human beings who exist andact in a given social context. For Marx human beings become individuals via thehistorical process. Thus it is possible to maintain that humans are determined bysocial relations, that they are the supports of these relations and that at the sametime they are the active elements of the social becoming. In that case the socialis not reduced to the individual and, at the same time, the individual is noteliminated from history.
Let us now try to understand the barbarous aspects of history and to give ananswer to our initial question, with the help of the dialectic between theindividual and the social.
Collaboration, mutual assistance, and the whole of the culture of the ancienttribal societies were the mediated consequences of the conditions prevailing in
17 Adams, D., Barnett, S. A., Bechtereva, N. P., Carter, Bonnie F., et al. (1990) 'The SevilleStatement on Violence'. American Psychologist. Oct: Vol 45(10); p1167-1168.
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this phase of human history (common possession of the soil, tribal organization,etc). Marx analyzed the unity between the individual and the tribe in the case ofthe Indian societies, in opposition to the antagonistic relations of capitalism.Without idealizing these societies, it is a matter of fact that some of the positivepotentialities of the human being were actualized already in the period ofbarbarity. On the other hand, superstitions, cruelty and a totality of barbarouspractices — the causes of which are to be found in the ignorance of the laws ofnature and the corresponding mythical world views and not to some geneticfaults in the brain of the 'primitive' human being — coexisted with solidarity,pride and affectivity. Even in this remote period of prehistory the human beingappears as a field of contradictory attributes and potentialities.
Solidarity and altruism coexisted with a 'latent individualism'. With thedevelopment of productive forces, private property became possible. This latentindividualism took actual and monstrous forms during the long historical periodof disintegration of the ancient tribal societies. Wealth, egoism, vanity andcruelty became the dominant characteristics of the rising aristocracy. Out of theruins of the ancient tribal society emerged, as Engels notes, the new slave-ownersociety, with its internal class contradictions, barbarous practices, the violenceof the state and war. 18
Private property was not, in the beginning, the product of alienated labor. In thenew class societies alienation was, according to Marx, the result of a triptych:private property, division of labor, commodity and money. Alienation has twointerrelated aspects: 1) alienation from the means of production and the productsof labor, which become commodities and stand opposed to the worker as alienand incomprehensible realities; 2) at the same time, alienation means that anensemble of positive elements of human nature and of human essence existing inthe previous, tribal societies disappeared or degenerated.
One would be inclined to think that with the development of productive forcesand social wealth the unity of ancient tribal society would be maintained andstrengthened. Yet, individualism was already a potentiality of human nature.The final result was the disintegration of the ancient communities.
18 Engels, F. (1987) Dialectics of Nature (1883). Moscow: Marx-Engels Collected Works; vol. 25.
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Let us try for a more concrete approach to this.
I argued that it is impossible to explain the advent of the slave-owner society,class exploitation and the whole of the barbarous practices characteristic ofhuman societies from the dawn of history to our 'post-modern' era, on the basisof biology and an individualistically oriented psychology. Nonetheless,according to a certain point of view, egoism, brutality and violence arepermanent characteristics of human nature. The Old Testament, for example,narrates that Cain killed his brother. This myth, reflects in fact the antagonisticsocial relations prevailing in the patriarchal society of Israel, where privateproperty and slaves were already a reality.
Wars, humans sacrifices and other barbarous practices existed in the ancienttribal societies. Yet, these practices reflected the ignorance of the laws of natureand, accordingly, the mythical, anthropomorphic and animistic conception of theworld. Rituals, magic, etc, were practices aiming to put imaginary forces in theservice of the community. Wars between tribes, on the other hand, came aboutas the result of necessities such as possession of land or districts for hunting,and were not the result of human paranoia.
The passage from tribal to the slave-owner society was a possibility not onlybecause of the development of the productivity of labor; it was also related tothe historically modulated human nature — the latent individualism and theneed for material goods. During the long historical period of the disintegrationof the tribal societies, the normal need for material goods was transformed intoan insatiable thirst for property. The courage and the dignity of the 'primitive'were transformed into hardness and egoism. Slavery, wars for pillage, wars forthe capture of slaves, state violence, etc, overthrew the system of values of tribalsociety. Correspondingly, they modified human nature. Some of its mostnegative potentialities were realized. Vulgar Marxism considers the passage tothe slave-owners society as 'progress'. But this was only one aspect of thetransition.
Private property continues to constitute the foundation of our 'post-modern' and`democratic' societies. This is, in the last analysis, the principal cause ofcontemporary barbarity. The accumulation of surplus value is the basis of the
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economic crisis of modern capitalism. The thirst for money leads to the mosthideous practices such as the traffic in human organs and kidnapping, mutilationand assassination of children in order to take their organs.
However, it would be equally erroneous to try to explain everything on the basisof either psychology or of material and class interests. The ideologicalaberration determined by ignorance, egoism and a partial class point of view isone of the driving forces of history. Thus, it would be an error to maintain thatthe totality of the horrible practices of the 'primitive' or of our 'civilized'societies, are always and directly dictated by material objectives. Superstition,myths, the prevailing irrationality, the whole of ideology, all these practices(wars, massacres, sacrifices, torture, cannibalism, rituals, etc) were onlyindirectly related to material objectives. Ideology reflects and serves classinterests. Yet, the economic foundation is not reflected without mediations in theideological superstructure. Because of its relative autonomy, ideology becomesa 'material force'. The medieval 'Christian' practices, for example, were notdictated exclusively by the need to perpetuate the feudal way of life. And is itpossible to explain the two world wars and modern 'scientific' genocide ofpeoples on the basis of exclusively economic objectives, without taking intoaccount the function of the dominant ideology? Ideology develops with a certainautonomy, creates its own virtual reality, and acts as a 'material force' of thehistorical becoming. Yet, ideology is not necessarily a mystified conception ofthe world. Ideology can include correct ideas: can be 'scientific'. Thefundamental distinction is between progressive and conservative world viewsnot between truth and falsity. °The distorted conception of reality is a possibility of the function of our intellect.It is the negative component of the liberty of conceptual thinking Let us take thecase of the intellectual development of the child. With the advent of languageand symbolic thinking, as Stern notes, children have the tools to distort andtranscend reality. From isolated episodes they can create symbolicrepresentations contrary to the experienced fact. 2° What is a possibility for thechild is also a possibility for social groups and classes whose ideas and practices
19 Bitsakis, E. (2001) La Nature dans la Pens& Dialectique. Paris: L'Harmattan. Introduction.20 Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books Publications. p82.
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are determined by forces transcending their individual aspirations, ideas,illusions and volition.
Ideology reflects, via complicated and obscure mediations, social reality. Theunity, for example, of the ideological superstructure of tribal societies reflectedthe internal unity of this form of human symbiosis. The contradictions of theclass societies are reflected in the new legal, political and ideologicalsuperstructure. Ideology, as the mystified conception of reality, justified andsanctified the new social reality: class exploitation, wars and state violence.Human beings were now the victims of their own ideas. The mystifiedconception of the social reality became the source of new barbarous practices.
In our societies commodity production is generalized: everything has become acommodity — the soil, the labour force, knowledge, art and human imagination.The worker becomes a tool for the production of surplus value. The newdivision of labour is, according to Marx, the assassination of the people. Everyprogress in science and technology becomes a calamity for the working class.The objectivication of human potentialities in the productive process becomes aprocess of alienation. 21 Antagonism becomes the dominant characteristic ofrelations between nations, classes and individuals, at the practical and at theinstitutional level (see, for example, the Maastricht Treaty). Homo hominislupus. What was already a reality at the dawn of capitalism becomes thedominant social relation in our 'post-modern' era.
One can maintain that the antagonisms of our societies are not the consequenceof a metaphysically conceived human nature. The barbarous reality of our 'post-modern' era, in particular, is the consequence of the internal contradictions ofthe capitalist mode of production. These contradictions are imposed as externalblind forces on active individuals. In this ruthless milieu, the most negativepotentialities of historically-modulated human nature are actualized. 22
In fact, the antagonistic social relations have reinforced egoism, aggressiveness,individualism, etc. On the other hand, wealth, exhibition, vanity, have becomethe dominant values of today's societies. Solidarity, peace and the fundamental
21 Marx, K. (1967) Capital. New York: International Publishers; passim.22 Meszáros, I. (1995) Beyond Capital. London: Merlin Press; passim.
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values of various religions and of Marxism are considered historically outdatedand utopian. War becomes an accepted and effective means for the appropriationof natural resources and markets, recent examples of which include the Gulfwars, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Tchetchenia.
However, as already emphasized, aggressiveness and violence are not inherentin our hereditary substance. Latent individualism was not a negative or aparanoiac feature of the 'primitive' human being. It was a normal element of therelations of unity and differentiation between the group and the individual.Every system — physical, chemical, biological and so on — strives to conserveits identity. This is normal. Yet the individualism of the capitalist societies is asocial, not a biological, phenomenon. It is an actualization of one of thepotentialities of human nature. And the massive crimes of the Nazis, of the U.S.army in Vietnam, Irak etc, of the Russians in Tchetchenia, etc, are not the resultof an innate paranoia. They are 'rational' practices, the outcome of theantagonisms in which people and leaders are entangled, and at the same time ofthe ideological, mystified conception of the world.
Human nature and human essence were profoundly affected by modern socialrelations. The already existing danger of extermination of the human species isnot the consequence of a genetic fault. It is not explained by the personalqualities of political leaders. It is the consequence of the fact that people, classesand states are entangled in an ensemble of contradictions and are driven byforces objectively independent of their volition. The anarchy of capitalistproduction, on the other hand, entails the exhaustion of natural resources and thedestruction of the environment. The need for raw materials, energy and marketsprovokes local wars. A global war is not excluded today. The question ofwhether humanity will be able to control the course of history and survive isobjectively posed.23
Socialism is the only alternative to the actual crisis. It is necessary for thesurvival of human species. However, is it possible? Is there a fundamentalanthropological obstacle to the creation of a society of equality, liberty and
23 Ibid.
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peace? I will try to answer this question via an analysis of the concepts ofhuman nature and human essence.
4. Human Nature
Human nature and human essence are often considered identical. I will try toshow that while they are intrinsically related, they are not identical.
There is a long tradition of the idealistic conception of human nature(Pythagoras, Plato, Neoplatonism, Christian metaphysics, Kant, Hegel, Fichte,etc), but this fact does not exclude a priori the possibility of a scientificunderstanding of human nature.
Ancient idealism of the Socratic-Platonic tradition, elaborated an unhistoricalconception of human beings. For Christian theology, on the other hand, thehuman being is a sinful being, entangled in the contradiction between necessityand free will. The heteronomy of the body was opposed to the autonomy of thesoul, which Christian theology tried to liberate from the laws of nature. Christiananthropology has not been able to transcend this contradiction. Accordingly,human history is incomprehensible within the frame of this metaphysicalconception of human species.
Enlightenment, on the contrary, at least in its more rational moments, tried toconceive the human being as a natural and social being. In the bourgeoisconception, Reason and Liberty are fundamental attributes of human nature.However, the anthropology of the Enlightenment was, in most cases, tributary tothe Christian metaphysics. More than that, the 'human being' of rising capitalistsociety has been considered as the final product of history. It was identified withthe bourgeois 'man'. Correspondingly, as Marx remarks, a definite set of socialrelations has been considered as the result of the immutable laws of history,conceived in abstracto. Kant, for example, in spite of his dialectical intuitions,conceived the human being sub speciae aeternitatis and tried to found an ethicson a priori, unhistorical principles. Hegel, on the other hand, considered Libertyas the essence of human beings, an essence to be realized in the process of thecoming of the absolute 'Spirit' to self-consciousness. In this way, Hegelprojected an 'end of history' — a glorious end, in contrast with the miserable`end' of the 'post-modern' bourgeois ideologists.
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Enlightenment thinkers saw reason as one of the fundamental attributes ofhuman nature. However, logos, liberty, law, justice and all these unhistoricalconcepts of the bourgeois humanism, were the product of a `mauvaiseabstraction'. They were the ideological reflection of bourgeois society. Theromantic reaction against the omnipotence of Reason and against the flaws ofthe rising industrial society was, in spite of its progressive-utopian moments,unable to discern a way out of the narrow horizon of capitalism.
The bourgeois conception of human being was not identical in all its momentsand in all its aspects. For Kant, for example, the human being is the last productof nature; and Diderot and other philosophers of the Enlightenment professed anaturalistic materialism. Utopians (Thomas Morus and others), on the otherhand, transcended the horizon of bourgeois society. Others, like Hobbes, made adevastating critique of rising capitalism. From Moms and Erasmus to Hobbesand Locke, from the French current of Enlightenment to Kant, Fichte, Hegel,etc, it is possible to discern the opposition between idealism and materialism inthe bourgeois conception of human beings, though the idealist component isdominant.
Idealist or not, the bourgeois conception of human nature has at its core anahistorical notion: that the human being is an egoist being. He is looking out forhis own personal interest and satisfaction. Consequently, human nature isincompatible with socialism. According to this conception we must leave thingsas they are. Any attempt to change them for the better will be futile and utopian.This pessimism is perfectly compatible with the individualism of the bourgeoisieand the raging pursuit of material wealth. The individualism of the bourgeois iselevated to the status of a universal and diachronic attribute of human nature.
Contrary to the Enlightenment and the Marxist tradition, some contemporarycurrents, as is well known, reject the concepts of human nature, of humanessence and humanism, as deprived of theoretical content. For structuralism, forexample, history is a process without subject. The subject is a simple vehicle ofsocial relations. Althusser, for example, in his structuralized Marxism, rejectedthe concepts of human nature and of humanism, and professed a militant anti-humanism. For the different currents of positivism, finally, statements aboutvalues are pseudo-statements, void of theoretical content.
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Marx realized a Copernican revolution in the domain of philosophicalanthropology. For Marx, the concept of human nature is perfectly legitimate. AsN. Geras states, "the sixth thesis [on Feuerbach] does not show Marx rejectedthe idea of human nature. Marx did not reject the idea of human nature. He wasright not to do so."24 What Marx rejected was the abstract, speculative,unhistorical conception of the human being. At the same time he tried to definethe concept of the human nature on the basis of the totality of the existing socialrelations. The human being is not merely a gregarious animal. It is an animalwhich can be an individual only in the midst of society. The social nature of thehuman being is conceived by Marx in unity with his or her material being. Byvirtue of this the anthropology of Marx has been associated with the longmonist-materialist tradition, the origin of which is to be found in the IonianSchool and especially in the work of Democritus.
It is now possible to define human nature as the totality of the relativelyinvariant and mutually determined elements, attributes, relations andpotentialities of the human being in a given moment of history.
Such a definition admits the existence of relatively invariant, as well as ofchanging elements of human nature. It tries to grasp not only the biological butalso, and above all, the social and political determinations of the human being.Within the frame of this conception, human nature becomes an historicalcategory. The human being is considered as a field of contradictorypotentialities, which can be actualized in concrete external conditions.
What is invariable and what is mutable in human nature? Let us first examinethe biological aspect of the question.
It is well known that we possess a number of invariant biological elements:number of chromosomes and stability of the hereditary substance, an historicallyconstituted but now essentially invariable physiology, stable chains ofbiochemical processes, an invariant nervous system, a brain with stablestructures and functions, etc. Moreover, it would be possible to define the so-called instincts (hunger, love, self-preservation, etc) as the manifestation ofpsychosomatic mechanisms having a biochemical support; mechanisms
24 Geras, N. (1983) Marx and Human Nature. London: Verso; p116.
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activated under given circumstances. However, even the invariability of thediachronic elements of human biological nature is not absolute. The geneticcode for example is the product of the biological history of the human speciesand is affected by the physical environment. Our brain evolved in mutualdetermination with labour and social life. In fact the evolution of the cortex isnot simply a product of biology. It is a presupposition and at the same time theproduct of social life, and of work in particular. Even the instincts entaildifferentiated cognitive adaptations to exterior data. 25 Ontogenesis does notreally reproduce phylogenesis. According to Wallon, there is no destiny: thebiological and the social are necessary conditions, but they are only conditions. 26
The psychosomatic unity of the human being is a scientific datum of crucialontological impact. Our feelings have a somatic, physiological and biochemicalsubstratum. A sudden and great joy, for example, can kill you, because of theexcessive production of adrenaline. Love, also, has a biochemical-hormonicsupport. Fear releases biochemical processes and strain provokes somaticmaladies. The brain, our 'thinking body', is the material support of our intellect.(Thought and 'spirit' are not exterior to brain. They are not substances dwellingin our brain. They are the 'product' of the functioning of the brain in givensocial conditions.) Our idiosyncrasy is determined by biological peculiaritiesand at the same time it can be modified by education and the activity of theindividual. Our dispositions, potentialities and propensities depend on corporealbut also on social determinants. What we mean by human nature is never foundin pure form. It is always socially mediated.
The human being was an animal which has been hominized. In the biologicalnature of the earliest hominids, there already existed elements of sociability andpotentialities of a social character. Consequently, it would be incorrect to accepttwo stages of evolution, if one thought of them as sequential in time. We mustaccept, instead of a coupure', an historical process of continuity and qualitativechanges. Not a superposition of two 'natures', but their dialectical historicalinterrelation and mutual determination.
25 Piaget, J. (1967) Biologie et Connaissance. Paris: Gallimard; p377.26 Zazzo, R. (1975) Psychologie et Marxisme. Paris: Dentiel-Gonthier; p49.
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Humans have needs. Needs are the exteriorization of their nature, not only oftheir biological nature, but of their social nature as well. Needs are satisfied insociety, through collaboration and interchange. Labour is a necessity, whichmediates the metabolism between humans and nature. As Marx emphasized,human beings act upon nature and change it. In this way they modify their ownnature.
The human being is, above all, a social being. At the same time it is a relativelyautonomous totality within the frame of a given society. The so-called instincts(auto-preservation, love, etc) are not an anthropological obstacle to thesocialization of humans. On the contrary, they played a positive role within theframe of the tribal society. The latent individualism, on the other hand, was notthe manifestation of a paranoiac element inscribed into the genetic code of`primitive' man. It was a source of creativity, dignity, pride and courage. Theungenerous individualism of our 'civilized' societies is the consequence ofantagonistic social relations and of the supreme value of capitalism: privateproperty. In this, as Hobbes conceived it at the dawn of capitalism, belumomnium contra omnis is the dominant relation. Consequently, 'paranoia' is asocial phenomenon.
Needs such as food and love, etc, are motive forces of history. There are needsthat exist in all forms of society (the need for eating, or the 'instincts' forpreservation and sex). However, even the so-called 'instincts' are manifesteddifferently in different conditions because they are socially mediated. There arealso needs originating in particular societies, under particular conditions ofproduction and intercourse. Needs and 'instincts' are and can be creative forcesof human nature. For some anthropologies, on the contrary, libido, 'egoinstincts' etc, are the source of egoism. However, this interpretation of`instincts' reflects the dominant, individualistic ideology.
Yet, how did Homo sapiens emerge out of his animal condition? Our remoteancestors had some biological advantages over other primates. Thesepeculiarities made possible the use of rudimentary implements. And it waswork, this "eternal and natural necessity which mediates the metabolismbetween man and nature and therefore human life itself," according to Marx,
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that played the decisive role in the intellectual development of humanity. 27
Conceptual thought is an exclusively human possibility. Some animals alsowork (bees, spiders, etc). But as Marx notes: "We presuppose labour in a formin which it is an exclusively human characteristic. A spider conducts operationswhich resemble those of the weaver, and a bee would put many a humanarchitect to shame by the construction of his honey-comb cells. But whatdistinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect buildsthe structure in his mind before he constructs it. At the end of every labourprocess, the result emerges which had already been conceived by the worker atthe beginning, hence already existed ideally." 28 Conceptual thought is linkedwith creativity and liberty.
The biological is the material substratum of the intellect and more generally ofthe personality with its idiosyncratic singularities. During historicaldevelopment, experience, knowledge, art, culture, etc, were accumulated andconstituted the common heritage of humanity. Progress was now essentiallysocial, not biological. However, progress was a contradictory process, because itwas based on class exploitation, wars, etc. During this process, the biologicalitself was, to a certain degree, socialized. As F. Jacob puts it, the behavior of theindividual is modified because of the increase of social experience. In fact, thegenetic program consists of one closed part and a second open one. This leavesto the individual a certain liberty of responses. This part determines thepotentialities of the organism. It is the growing importance of the open part ofthe program, that which gives a direction to evolution. With the possibility ofresponse to stimuli, increase the degrees of liberty of the organism concerningthe selection of the responses. The number of the possible responses increase tosuch a degree, that it is possible to speak of free will. 29 Consequently, free willmay be considered not as a metaphysical gift from a transcendental being, but asa human possibility. On the other hand it is not inscribed in the most profoundstructures of matter — in the quantum particles — as modern mysticismprofesses.
22 Marx, K. (1967) Capital. New York: International Publishers. Engels, F. (1987) Dialectics ofNature. Moscow: Marx-Engels Collected Works; vol. 25.28 Marx, K. (1967) Capital. New York: International Publishers; p178.29 Jacob, F. (1970) La Logique du Vivant. Paris: Gallimard; p338.
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Human history is part of natural history. However, human history transcends thehistory of inanimate nature. The human being has an inborn historicallymodulated biological nature. Consequently, one could argue that "since theindividual is ontologically prior to the social organization, it is his geneticallydetermined human nature that gives shape to society."3° As Levin and Lewontinsay, the biological deterministic theory of human nature is logically consistent.However, one could argue that it is incorrect to try to discern two separate stagesin the evolution of human beings. The first social relations were determined bythe specificities of human biological nature. In this stage the biological attributeswere dominant However, the necessity of living in society was determined bythe needs of the 'animal' and this was already an expression of the social natureof the 'primitive' humans and of their future potentialities.
Two one-sided conceptions of the human being, as already noted, wereformulated by philosophers: 1) social relations are independent of theindividuals, considered as simple supports of them. A fatalistic conception ofhistory is the implication of this conception; 2) human nature is considered inabstracto, independently of the social relations. Idealism is the main propagatorof this point of view. However, individuals are determined directly, or viacomplicated mediations, by the existing social reality. At the same time, they arenot the passive support but the active nucleus of the historical becoming. It isimpossible to explain social relations by taking the single individual as a startingpoint.
Social relations transcend the aspirations, the illusions and the praxis of theindividuals. They act as objective forces and determine the ideas, the praxis, theessence and the nature of human beings. However it is impossible to understandhistory if we do not take into consideration the historically constitutedindividual. To take an analogy from physics: the laws of thermodynamics arenot reducible to the properties of the atoms or of the molecules of a statisticalensemble. Yet, atoms and molecules are the material supports of the laws ofthermodynamics These laws transcend the atomic or the molecular properties.At the same time they depend on these properties via existing mediations
Levins, R., Lewontin, R. (1985) The Dialectical Biologist. Harvard: Harvard University Press.p254.
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between the microscopic and the statistical level. The same is valid for chemicalreactions and more generally for the collective properties of statisticalensembles. The new transcends the singular and at the same time it presupposesit. In a similar way, but on another level, social laws are not reducible to thebiological or other properties of the single individual.
Individuals are inserted in a lattice of inherently contradictory relations. How dohuman beings conceive social reality? To quote Marx once more: "In the socialproduction of their life, men enter into definite relations that are independent oftheir will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage ofdevelopment of their material forces. The sum total of these relations ofproduction constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation onwhich rises a legal and political superstructure and on which correspond definiteforms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material lifeconditions the social, political and intellectual life in general. It is not theconsciousness of men that determines their social being. On the contrary, theirsocial being determines their consciousness."31 It must be added here thatconsciousness is not directly determined by the social being and that in its turn,it is an active force of history. According to Marx's well-known aphorism, ideasbecome a material force from the moment they penetrate the masses. However,the clouds of ideological dust that cover the reality of capitalist society,complicate both: its rational understanding and the liberation of people from theghost of ideology and its material counterpart.
Consequently, the source of the internal relations of the individual are to befound via complicated mediations outside of the individual and in society.Society constitutes the external base of the personality, `sa propre essenceexcentree', its objectivized potential, on the basis of which, and by theinteriorization of which, human beings become human. The study of personalitybegins with the study of the ensemble of social relations. 32 The category of
31 Marx, K. (1977) Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publ.;p20.32 Seve, L. 1974. Marxisme et Theorie de la Personnalite. Paris: Editions Sociales; passim; (1987)`La personnalite en gestation' in Je sur l'individualite, collectif. Paris: Messidor Editions sociales;p224-226.
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biography is also an historical category. This aphorism holds for the biologicalaspect of humans as well.
I have already noted that the ideologies of an immutable human nature arepolitically reactionary and are used against any project aiming to transcendcapitalist society. However, the dialectical conception, accepting the existenceof relatively invariant elements in human nature, has nothing to do with thepreceding ideologies.
To sum up: Human nature is constituted by a number of biological andpsychological, relatively invariant elements, and at the same time, by a numberof more variable characteristics which reflect mediated social relations. Humannature is an historical category. In a given society human nature is a field ofcontradictory potentialities. Social reality determines which of them will beactualized. The historicity of human nature corresponds to the historical formsof society but it is not a passive and linear creation or reflection of them.
Consequently, there is not, in principle, an anthropological obstacle for a societyfree from class exploitation, violence and war.
5. Human Essence
I have maintained that human essence is not identical with human nature,although, there is an intrinsic interrelation and mutual determination betweenthem. What, then, is human essence?
The debate concerning the category of 'essence' began at the same time asphilosophy itself. For metaphysical essentialism, the essence of a thing, existsobjectively as a reality in itself unaffected by space or time. Nominalismconsidered essence as a mere conceptual instrument, deprived of any objectiveexistence. For Aristotle, as opposed to Plato, essence exists only in the singulars,as a form specific to matter. Hegel tried to formulate the dialectic betweenessence and phenomenon. Marx in his turn rejected the metaphysical conceptionof essence, but retained this category, giving it a new meaning.
A human being is irreducible to his or her natural materiality. Even if one rejectsany form of transcendence and accepts the ontic unity of man with the rest of thenature, even in that case one must accept a kind of dialectical transcendence in
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the interior of the immanence. 33 The human being emerged in the midst ofnature as a creative and thinking being. This possibility had existed already inthe higher species of the animal kingdom. In an analogous way "barbarityincluded in itself the potentiality of civilization." 34
The essence of human beings, therefore, is not reducible to their biological orspiritual character. A human being is an indivisible totality, determined bybiological, psychic and spiritual elements and potentialities. The human being isan historical being. Human essence, consequently, is not a timeless, but anhistorical category. The human being is an open totality, determined by therealities, the contradictions and the potentialities of the society, and is at thesame time the demiurge of history. Human beings not only evolve; they createthemselves.
How then to define human essence?
It would be possible to say that essence is "the ensemble of the necessary andinvariant properties of a reality." Another definition would be the following:"Essence is the ensemble of the relations constituting a given reality, taken intheir becoming." The preceding definitions are more suitable for materialrealities. Karl Marx, breaking with speculative, unhistorical anthropology, gavea new meaning to the category of human essence: "Human essence is not anabstraction inherent in the single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble ofthe social relations." Against the dominant essentialism (essence: immutable,unhistorical category), Marx grasped the historicity and the foundation of humanessence. In this way he dissociated his anthropology from the dominant traditionwhich makes human essence, conceived in abstracto, the foundation of politics,history and ideology.
Individuals are for Marx, products of history. It is impossible to found thescience of individuals on any basis other than history. Correspondingly, it isimpossible to found the science of history without founding at the same time thetheory of the historic production of the individuals. Marx shifts the field of hisanalysis from human essence to social relations. The inversion of the standpoint
33 Quiniou, V. in Tort, P. (ed) (1992) Darwinisme et societ e. Paris: PUF.34 Ibid.
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of abstract humanism permits the passage to a concrete conception of theindividual, henceforth conceived in his real essence: the social relations.
Marx, in his famous Sixth Thesis uses the concept of essence. However, it seemsthat he identifies human essence with human nature. Many writers have used thetwo concepts as synonymous (see for example Geras). Yet, one could argue thatsocial relations are something different from the essence of the individual. Itmight be more correct to say that social relations determine human essence. Buteven in that case human essence depends on the ensemble of the social relations,without being completely determined by them because of the fact that theconscious human being, although, living in a world dominated by blindnecessity, is able to transcend the external constraints. Human essence dependson social relations: its potentialities depend and are manifested in concrete socialmilieu. At the same time human essence is an active factor of the social reality.Finally, as society changes, human essence is also modified.
I have emphasized the existence of relatively invariant elements of humannature. And if, without being unaware of their intrinsic correlation, we do notidentify human nature with human essence, then it would be possible to definehuman essence as the totality of the psychical and spiritual content of the life ofthe individual, as well as of the dominant characteristics of the human beings, asthey are actualized in the course of history.
Essence then becomes an historical category related, above all, to the spiritual,moral and cultural contents of the human being. It is then evident that essencevaries in relation to the external, social conditions and the totality of thebiography of the individual.
It is also evident that because of the alienation, in the double sense describedabove, the historically constituted essence of human beings in the contemporarycapitalist societies evaporates in direct relation with the destruction of the socialrelations, the cultural tradition and the normal relations with nature. However,this historical process is not, necessarily, irreversible.
Human essence was identified by idealistic anthropologies with the spiritualnature of the human being. Vulgar materialism, on the other hand, identifiedsoul and spirit with natural processes and substances. In both cases soul and
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spirit were founded on metaphysical, not on historical presuppositions.However, if we consider soul and spirit as the totality of the interiorizedrelations of the individual with the world (nature and society) and thepotentialities existing within the frame of these relations, then it is possible toarrive at an historical-materialist conception of the spiritual and psychical natureof human beings. In fact, interiorization and assimilation are historicalprocesses. They presuppose the individual, they are subjective processes and atthe same time they are historically-socially determined.
I have used two concepts: soul and spirit. Their meaning is not always clear.Plato, for example, discerned, as is well known, three components of the soul:the rational (koytutticOv) the courageous or spirited (OugoEtSec) and theappetitive (entOutnitucOv) and 'located' the first in the head, the second in thebreast and the third below the midriff. The distinction is not clear in Christiantheology. The same holds for vulgar materialism. Anyway, it would be possibleto use the concept of spirit for the cognitive functions and the concept of soul forthe affective ones, although it is impossible to separate them, even if thecognitive functions are 'located' in the cortex and the affective ones in the moreprofound layers of the brain. Modern psychology rejects any formal distinction:"Affective and cognitive processes cannot be in reality separated. In a simplelearning task, activation builds up and falls off. Learning itself is motivated andaffect-laden. Similarly, in an intense affective moment, perception and cognitiongo on. And finally, affective experience (for example, the many differentoccasions of surprise) have their own invariant and variant features. Sortingthese is a cognitive task concerning affective experience." 35
Let us accept the definition of the soul as the totality of the interiorized relationsof the individual with the world and the potentialities existing within the frameof these relations. In that case we will accept that soul has a material-biologicalsupport (the brain, the nervous system and the sensory organs) without beingreduced to its neuro-physiological processes. A fundamental function of thepsychic is consciousness. However, soul is not identified with consciousness. Italso includes non-conscious states, 'instincts', feelings, etc, which presupposespecific functions of the material support. The psychic has developed in the long
35 Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books Publications; p42.
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Is Human Nature Compatible with Socialism?
process of phylogenesis, and in the more recent period of social life: from thetropism of unicellular organisms to the reflexes of the higher forms, thedevelopment of the brain, sensory-motor activity, the development of conceptualthinking, and the totality of the feelings, the emotions and the imagination.
The personality presupposes a certain number of invariants. However theseelements are not invariant in the absolute sense of the word. They are disclosedin a variable way, depending on the external conditions. Idiosyncrasy, in its turn,is not independent of the biography and the conditions of life of the individual.The biography is the final result of the mutual dependence and the mutualdetermination of biological, psychical, and social factors — of the totality of thedeterminations of the personality. Personality is not the outcome of a lineardeterminism. The individual, as conscious being, transcends the biological,idiosyncratic and social determinants — this possibility is one of the foundationsof human liberty. Society, more generally, broadens the field of its potentialities:knowledge of the world is one of the presuppositions for the emancipation of thehuman species from blind natural and social necessities.
Up to this point, I have tried to analyze some of the crucial moments of thehistorical process of hominisation and I have emphasized the contradictorycharacter of this process. On the basis of the preceding analysis one could arriveat a naive, optimistic conception of history. This optimism is not absent in theMarxist philosophical tradition. Even Marx overestimated the positivepotentialities of human nature, and vulgar Marxism conceived history as aglorious process which would culminate in a perfect communist society. Yet,history persists with its barbarity, tragedies and deceptions. In spite of this fact itis not arbitrary to maintain that we are not living the end of history. Theplanetary antagonisms of our century will result in the destruction of ourspecies, or in a society based on a freely adopted collective form of socialorganization.
6. Concluding RemarksCapitalism, according to Marx, transforms the worker into a machine for theproduction of surplus value. The division of labour transforms the worker into afragment of a human being. The conditions prevailing in the capitalist societies
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Critique 36-37
do not even allow to the proletarian to satisfy the essential needs arising directlyfrom human nature. The satisfaction of socially determined needs is essential forliberation. People cannot be liberated, according to Marx, as long as they areunable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality andquantity.
However, the objective of communism is not merely the satisfaction of thematerial needs of human beings. It is the all-round development of theindividual. And the free development of each individual is related to the freedevelopment of all. The realization of a communist society will mark the end ofalienation, and the realization of the most positive potentialities of man. Thisdoes not mean that communism involves the recuperation of an ideal essenceexisting at previous moments of history and lost in class societies. Humanitywill not arrive at a final moment of evolution, at an end of history,corresponding to the recuperation of an ideal essence. The realization of acommunist society will mark, according to Marx, the passage from thebarbarous prehistory to the real history of humanity Human history is notdirected toward a telos and the historical process is not a continuous becomingwhich will result in an ideal form of society.
Socialist revolution presupposes the ideological, the political and theorganizational maturity of the working class — of the modern proletariat and ofits allies. The new social relations will modify human nature and will enrichhuman essence. Human beings are, according Marx, the products ofcircumstances. In an inverse sense, it is human beings that changecircumstances. However, the educator needs educating. How to break thisvicious circle? Let us quote Gramsci: "Every man changes, modifies himself, tothe degree he changes and modifies the ensemble of the relations of which he isthe center of connection... . If our individuality is the ensemble of these rapports,to create a personality means to take consciousness of these relations; to modifyour own personality means to modify the ensemble of these rapports."36
36 Gramsci, A. (1975) Gramsci dans le Texte: De l'avant aux derniers ecrits de prison (1916-1935).Paris: Editions Sociales; p177.
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Is Human Nature Compatible with Socialism?
The actual dominant relations render inoperative the different systems of ethics— Christian, Kantian, and so on. Would it then be possible, by rejecting thetranscendental and a priori ethical systems, to elaborate an ethics founded on thepsychosomatic unity of humans and their social nature? Animals manifestfeelings of sympathy, of mutual assistance and altruism. That which is in theanimal an instinct, became one of the characteristic attributes of human beings.And these can become conscious and dominant features of our species, in asociety liberated from the antagonistic relations of the actual societies. Thehuman species has transcended the primitive bestialities. Contemporarymonstrosities are not necessarily our eternal fate. The objective conditions for anew humanism exist, potentially, in the actual world.
Future does not depend on our chromosomes. It depends on the capacity ofhuman species to create an ensemble of new social relations, which conform toits most positive potentialities. Communism is a not yet realized potentiality,inscribed in the actual capitalist world. 37 The main obstacle for the actualizationof this potentiality is not human nature, but the enormous difficulties to controlthe passage from the kingdom of the necessity, to that of 'free and freelyassociated workers.'
37 Bloch, E. (1976) Le Principe Esperance. Paris: Gallimard; passim.
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