GRGR(24): Tchitcherine, Wimpe, Marxism, and you

[one million billionth of a millisecond on a sunday morning]

p. 701, the discussion between Tchitcherine and Wimpe ("longago IG Farben
V-Mann" and Tchitcherine's dealer):

Wimpe refers ("Marxist dialectics? That's _not_ an opiate, eh?") to
Karl Marx's famous quote, something along the lines of "Religion is
the opiate of the people."

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dialectics

Arguing that the Marxist dialectics Tchitcherine offers are _not_
an antidote (to opiation?), Wimpe brings in a mess of GR themes:
religion was always about death; it was used as a technique for
getting people to die for one particular set of beliefs about death.
The secular version replaces the goal; now death is for History,
helping it to grow to its predestined shape.

The System again: Wimpe's describing mechanisms the System uses to
take care of business. It apparently has no preference - the outcome
is the same, people dying for the appropriate (i.e. appropriate
for the System) reasons.

But Wimpe has a little more to say: "But look: if History's changes
_are_ inevitable, why not _not_ die? Vaslav? If it's going to happen
anyway, what does it matter?"

Why not not, indeed?

We also get a little bit of philosophy-of-the-self (p. 702):

	"Then, right up till the point of decision," Wimpe curious but
	careful, "a man could still be perfectly pure . . ."

	"He could be anything. _I_ don't care. But he's only real _at_
	the points of decision. The time between doesn't matter."

	"Real to a Marxist."

	"No. Real to himself."

	Wimpe looks doubtful.

	"I've been there. You haven't."

Why doesn't the time between matter? And what are these points of
decision? Apparently the ones where a person must decide whether or
not to die for History. [Does the System really offer a choice?]


Josh

-- 
josh blog: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/blog/
      tdr: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/tdr/