As the lecture presents classical Marxism: the claim that the proletariat's triumph will come as an objective process, without engineered action.
Compared to the Calvinist predestination paradox: if salvation (or revolution) is preordained, why act at all — why go to church, why organize?
The image Shore uses for it, in our paraphrase.
In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.
Shore poses a Calvinist-style puzzle for classical Marxism: if the proletariat is predestined to win anyway, why act at all? That is the problem Lenin will take up.
Put simply Shore's puzzle for classic Marxism: if the workers are destined to win anyway, why act at all? It echoes Calvinism: if God has already decided who is saved, why go to church? Lenin will take this up.
Beauvoir takes Marx seriously but refuses his determinism: she wants room for human agency inside a Marxist story about where history is heading.
Put simply Beauvoir takes Marx seriously but rejects the idea that history is fixed in advance. She wants room for people to act freely within Marx's story of where history is going.
Shore's own illustration of aporia is the Stalinist terror: everyone had to watch ceaselessly for enemies lurking anywhere, even as history's iron laws supposedly guaranteed the communist future.
Put simply Shore's own example of a self-contradiction ("aporia") is Stalin's terror. People had to watch constantly for hidden enemies everywhere, yet history's laws supposedly guaranteed communism's victory anyway.
Links from these claims to others in the course. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
MarxIn Hegelian fashion, the Manifesto makes no distinction between forecast and prescription: the proletariat's triumph is predicted, predestined, and right, all at once. L5 · 36:39
ShoreShore poses a Calvinist-style puzzle for classical Marxism: if the proletariat is predestined to win anyway, why act at all? That is the problem Lenin will take up. L5 · 49:31
Shore's Calvinism analogy: if the triumph is predestined, why act? A tension Lenin steps in to solve.
DerridaAn aporia, or double bind, is the point where language turns on itself: caught between two meanings that cannot both hold, one reaches an impasse where no meaning seems possible. L22 · 38:10
ShoreShore's own illustration of aporia is the Stalinist terror: everyone had to watch ceaselessly for enemies lurking anywhere, even as history's iron laws supposedly guaranteed the communist future. L22 · 38:30
Shore offers the Stalinist terror, with its call for vigilance alongside iron laws of history, as her own example of Derrida's aporia.
ShoreShore poses a Calvinist-style puzzle for classical Marxism: if the proletariat is predestined to win anyway, why act at all? That is the problem Lenin will take up. L5 · 49:31
LeninClassical Marxism invites the Calvinist's question: if the outcome is fixed anyway, why act? Lenin's answer gives intellectuals a role: not to wait, but to hurry history along. L8 · 20:34
Supplies classical Marxism's missing answer to "why act?": the vanguard accelerates the inevitable
ShoreShore poses a Calvinist-style puzzle for classical Marxism: if the proletariat is predestined to win anyway, why act at all? That is the problem Lenin will take up. L5 · 49:31
KosíkIf iron laws drive history inexorably toward a goal, how can that be squared with human striving, or with human activity meaning anything? Kosík holds this antinomy still unresolved. L18 · 42:00
Names the same unresolved antinomy: iron laws of history vs moral responsibilityOur inference
KosíkIf iron laws drive history inexorably toward a goal, how can that be squared with human striving, or with human activity meaning anything? Kosík holds this antinomy still unresolved. L18 · 42:00
ShoreShore's own illustration of aporia is the Stalinist terror: everyone had to watch ceaselessly for enemies lurking anywhere, even as history's iron laws supposedly guaranteed the communist future. L22 · 38:30
The antinomy of iron laws versus responsibility reappears as the aporia of Stalinist vigilanceOur inference
Throughlines that pass through one of these claims.
Terms that appear in the same claims.