Marxism Research Network
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Yang Haifeng: Totality, Totalization, and Negative Dialectics

Marxism Abroad

The concept of totality is a central component of Marx’s philosophy and a major theme in Western Marxist philosophy. Since Lukács’s recovery of this idea, the critique of reification in capitalist society—and particularly the critique of its fragmentation—has been a significant focus for the Frankfurt School and French Marxists. As the critique of capitalist society deepened and the intrinsic logical relationship between the idea of totality and the development of modern philosophy was brought into perspective, capitalist society came to be seen as a reified totality. This development drove reflection upon and the deconstruction of the theory of totality within Western Marxism, leading to a new postmodern Marxist understanding of the concept. Throughout this process, the theory of totality underwent changes not only in its conceptual presuppositions but also in its ideological orientation. Behind these shifts, however, the constant theme remained a reflection upon and critique of capitalist society, alongside the exploration and pursuit of a better future society. This article aims to analyze and reflect upon the dominant ideas regarding totality as held by the mid-20th-century Frankfurt School, French Marxism, and postmodern Marxism, in order to more clearly grasp the intellectual evolution of Western Marxism on this issue. This serves as a theoretical reference for our contemporary re-understanding and development of Marxism and our grasp of contemporary capitalist society and its associated thought.

I. Totality and Critical Theory

After the first generation of Western Marxists restored the idea of totality to Marx’s philosophy, the theory of totality from the 1930s to the 1960s unfolded along two dimensions. First, totality as a critical method, emphasizing the critical significance of totality and the "totalizing refusal" that extends from such a critique. Second, viewing totality as a future ideal state, with the "total person" (总体性的人) serving as the direction for future social development to achieve human liberation and freedom; this was fully expressed in the 1960s through the reinterpretation of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

Totality as a critical method pays particular attention to the following aspects: first, it emphasizes the integration and communication between multiple disciplines to achieve a totalizing reflection on social reality. This was fully embodied in the early Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In Lukács’s thought, a key aspect of totality was the critique of fragmentation in real life and ideology—which he saw as a primary manifestation of reification—with totality serving as the overcoming of this fragmentation. This idea directly influenced the Frankfurt School. In his inaugural lecture, "The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research," Horkheimer noted that the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research took critical social philosophy as its research program. It concerned itself with problems that can only be understood within the context of human social relations—such as the state, law, religion, and society—meaning it addressed the entirety of human social life to change the then-dominant tendency in the social sciences toward positivism. Under that positivist tendency, researchers either started from the isolated individual or from "facts" in the sense of the natural sciences. "Factual research" was carved up into an endless, tedious array of specialized sub-groups. Unless this mode of research were changed, a totalizing perspective on social life would remain unattainable. Accordingly, the members of the Institute complemented each other’s research to grasp social life as a whole.

The emphasis on totalizing critique was not only an inherent requirement of social development at the time but also a necessity for theoretical research. After World War I, liberal competitive capitalism increasingly gave way to "organized capitalism," or monopoly capitalism. This shift brought about a holistic transformation of social life.

First, in economic life, individual free competition gave way to protected organizations. The principles of the individual and free competition were replaced by cooperation and exchange between sectors. The prevalence of organizations such as cartels meant that economic life itself became increasingly totalized; large corporations became internally bureaucratized, inter-corporate relations became more interconnected, and organizational structures increasingly manifested totalizing characteristics.

Second, due to the prevalence of monopoly organizations, what Pollock and others called "state capitalism" emerged. Economy and politics began to form an alliance, and economic problems became political ones. When finance capital, as described by Hilferding, played an increasingly dominant role in economic production and organization—"when the coordination of economic behavior is replaced by conscious planning instead of the natural laws of the market"—economy in the old sense ceased to exist. The government came to dominate the economic process in both production and consumption. This represented the integration of the economy and politics, with the state’s role in economic life becoming increasingly apparent. Horkheimer and others believed this was the result of free capitalist competition; he termed such a state the "authoritarian state" to emphasize its dominant and manipulative role.

Third, the relationship between the individual and the organization became increasingly tight. In the era of free competition, individual freedom was relatively distinct, and the capitalist production process still relied to some extent on individual skill. However, in the era of organized capitalism—from Taylorism to bureaucracy—the labor process became increasingly fragmented and factory organization grew more complex. Individuals were increasingly confined to specific production departments or corporate echelons. The internal organization of the factory shifted from one capitalist facing a group of workers to a multitude of vertical institutions facing the individual. Organizational principles became more abstract and regularized, and the individual was co-opted by the organization. The more powerful the monopoly organization became, the more freely it could confront its members.

The problem, however, was that this totality was not the kind sought by the Frankfurt School. It was a totality built upon the foundation of reification, with its premise remaining the principle of the individual and private property. From the perspective of totalizing critique, this was a "pseudo-totality." Providing a critical reflection on this pseudo-totality was precisely the theoretical mission of the Frankfurt School.

Total changes in social life required corresponding changes in theory. In his inaugural lecture, the "social philosophy" Horkheimer spoke of emphasized, in its ideological orientation, the exploration of a new concept that transcended current research methods and conditions. In its specific method of theoretical construction, it emphasized interdisciplinary labels and communication to achieve totalizing reflection on social life, thereby realizing a critical reconstruction. This approach developed into Critical Theory. The Frankfurt School gathered many outstanding scholars from different disciplines who, around the program of "Critical Theory," launched a critique of social life.

In the book Critical Theory, Horkheimer further elaborated on the idea of totalizing critique. In his view, Critical Theory differed from traditional theory in several ways.

First, Critical Theory points toward the total meaning of social life, rather than the meaning of isolated fields—the latter being the emphasis of traditional theory based on positivism. The realistic premise of this traditional research interest is the division of labor in capitalist society. This division constructs isolated fields whose relations follow the principle of free competition, thus failing to provide a theoretical picture of the totality of social life. In contrast, Critical Theory pursues a rational state of society and explores solutions to real-world suffering.

Second, society and nature exist in a state of fracture. Influenced by the differentiation of knowledge and professional specialization, traditional theory is concerned with the knowledge-map of its own field. Disciplines are isolated from one another; when facing society, they either deem social life unworthy of study or simply apply the methods of natural science directly to the social realm. This is exactly what Critical Theory seeks to change. Critical Theory begins by describing the mechanisms of capitalist society, revealing its internal principles—particularly in economic life. In Horkheimer’s view, this involves the regulatory role of exchange and its oppressive effect on social life. The principle of exchange in capitalist economic life corresponds to the desires of capital, placing the relationship between human and human, and human and nature, in a state of inevitable fracture.

Third, both traditional theory and Critical Theory concern themselves with the human being, the state of human existence, and the meaning of life. However, the human being of traditional theory is an abstract, isolated individual—an individual in free competition who cannot understand the totality of social life. The states of individual freedom and rationality emphasized by traditional theory further reinforce this individual self-perception. "Bourgeois thought is based on subjective reflection; this thought treats the subject as an autonomous self with logical necessity. Bourgeois thought is essentially abstract, built on the principle of the individual, who believes themselves to be the foundation of the world, or even the unconditional world itself, isolating themselves from various events." Critical Theory opposes the severance of the individual from social life: "The subject in Critical Theory is a specific individual in a real relationship with other individuals and organizations, in conflict with other specific classes, and within the network of relations between the social totality and nature." This subject is a structural existence within social life. By critiquing this structural existence of the real individual, Critical Theory on the one hand drives a change in people's conceptions of social life, and on the other hand, moves to change social life itself by critiquing human thought and the state of real existence. Within these manifested ideas, totality constitutes the inherent principle of construction.

As a critical method, another important feature of the idea of totality is that it logically leads to a totalizing refusal of society. Studying and reflecting on contemporary society from the standpoint of totality logically forms a "negative critique" (否定性的批判). If this critique was not yet sufficiently apparent in the early 1930s, it was fully displayed in the 1940s after the members of the Frankfurt School arrived in the United States. In works such as Dialectic of Enlightenment and Eclipse of Reason, Horkheimer and Adorno further traced the dominant factors in modern social life. At the level of reason, they defined it as the "spirit of enlightenment" and traced this spirit back to the roots of Western culture. At the level of everyday life, they understood it as the totalizing dominance of technology. From these two perspectives, Horkheimer and Adorno’s Critical Theory achieved a totalizing critique of social life. In Marcuse, this totalizing critique developed into the "Great Refusal," which became a hallmark of his theory.

Marcuse followed Heidegger in his early years, but later felt that Heidegger’s ontology was somewhat vacuous and lacked a socio-historical dimension. Consequently, he turned to Hegel and completed his doctoral dissertation, Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity, emphasizing the significance of Hegelian philosophy for understanding social life. In 1941, he completed Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory. In this work, he particularly emphasized two aspects of Hegel's philosophy:

The first is the totalizing character of Hegel's philosophy. Similar to Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness, Marcuse, by recounting the development of philosophy since the dawn of modernity, argued that Hegelian philosophy is one that emphasizes totality: "Hegel repeatedly stressed that the oppositional relationship between subject and object implies that a unity exists which coheres the mutual encroachment between the two; the resolution of this unity of opposites is both a theoretical and a practical problem." In an era of universal fragmentation, the task of philosophy is to reconstruct the vanished unity and restore the principle of totality.

Second is the thought of negativity in Hegelian philosophy. In the "Preface" to Reason and Revolution, Marcuse points out the need to interpret Hegel in a new form, striving to clarify certain meanings of Hegelian thought: "these ideas... are in accordance with the latest developments in European thought, especially with the theoretical developments of Marx." This accordance manifests the dialectic of philosophical criticality and revolutionary character. He develops his interpretation of this dialectic around the concept of "negativity." "The dialectical process derives its momentum from the overcoming of the power of negativity. Dialectics is a process that shows that the mode of existence of any person or thing exists within a world constituted by contradictory relations. Any specific content can be revealed by becoming its opposite. The latter is an inseparable part of the former; this content is the totality of all contradictory relations contained within the content. When human understanding finds itself unable to properly grasp certain things in their prescribed qualitative and quantitative forms, dialectics naturally receives its beginning. Prescribed quality and quantity seem to be a 'negation' of the things that possess quality and quantity." "Only when the immediate state is recognized as a negation, when existence becomes a 'subject' and makes its external state conform to its potential, does true existence begin." Linking negativity with revolution constitutes a vital link in interpreting the relationship between reason and revolution—one might say that the reason dialectics is revolutionary is precisely because its core lies in "negation."

Marcuse argues that if Hegel viewed negativity as an internal link in the self-development of reason, then Marx’s transformation of Hegelian philosophy directly linked this negativity with revolutionary criticality. In Marx's philosophy, every category has a basis different from that of Hegelian philosophy; if all categories for Hegel were reflections and revisions of reality, for Marx, all categories touch upon the negation of these actually existing orders for the purpose of establishing a new social form. "They all profess themselves to be truths that can be obtained only through the negation of civil society. Insofar as all concepts are a condemnation of the totality of the existing order, Marx’s theory is a 'critical' theory." Here, Marcuse understands the relationship between Marx and Hegel from the perspective of social critique, viewing different critiques of capitalist society as the fundamental boundary between the two: if in Hegel "negation" refers more to "negation" internal to the system—a reflection on objects that have not been thought through or rationally scrutinized—then in Marx, "negation" fundamentally signifies the theory's critical "negation" of reality. When this "negation" is realized, it also means that Marx has realized the "negation" of philosophy—a conclusion that Hegelian philosophy ought to have reached but did not truly manifest. The aforementioned "negation" also means that social critique cannot succeed through theory alone; it must become the mission of socio-historical practice.

In 1961, in the preface to the second edition of Reason and Revolution, titled "A Note on Dialectics," Marcuse further explicitly proposed the relationship between "negativity" and the Great Refusal. Hegel’s negativity speaks of moving from immediate existence to its own "Other," which is a vital link for the development of things; therefore, negation is for the sake of affirmation, for establishing a higher identity. This can be illustrated with an example. Suppose in the morning we say "this one" to describe "this one" at that time, and in the afternoon we say "this one" to indicate another "this one" at that time. The "this one" of the afternoon is already different from the "this one" of the morning, yet the word used remains "this one." One could say that "this one" is both here and not here. Only when we negate this concrete "this one" can we derive the universal "this one," and only then can we truly designate the "this one" existing here. Here, the first link is affirmation and the second is negation, but negation is for obtaining the final affirmation. This is Hegel’s "negativity," which constitutes the mediation of the existence and development of things; mediation is a "negation," but negation is for affirmation.

Marcuse further elaborated the meaning of "negation." In One-Dimensional Man, following the Frankfurt School’s line of the critique of instrumental reason, Marcuse argues that in advanced industrial society, technical rationality has achieved a dominant position, eliminating all transcendent consciousness and critical spirit that is discordant with current society. The critical tension between "is" and "ought" in traditional philosophy and the "negative" thinking directed toward society have disappeared, leading to the one-dimensionalization of society, reason, and the individual. In this one-dimensionalized society, human desires, sensibilities, and thinking are all projected and suppressed by technical rationality, becoming objects that can be manipulated. Facing this situation, Marcuse believes we must reaffirm value judgments and negative thinking. Due to the comprehensive one-dimensionalization of existing society, "faced with the effects of the universal existence of the given system of life, its alternative seems to be a utopia." Existing "social critical theory has no concepts capable of bridging the present and the future, nor can it offer promises or demonstrate its own victory; it only maintains negativity. Therefore, it remains loyal to those who, without hope, realize the Great Refusal with their own lives."

One might say this is an approach that pushes the spirit of negative critique to an extreme. In Marcuse's view, dialectical negation means the negation of already existing facts and their logic. From the perspective of avant-garde literature, this means interrupting the power that established facts impose upon language; the power of these given facts has already tended toward a kind of totalizing repression (the totality here is, of course, a pseudo-totality). Therefore, it is necessary to seek another authentic language—a language different from the existing one. This language is currently "absent," but it is precisely this absent language that truly contains various possibilities for future development. In this sense, negation is a "Great Refusal." Here, Marcuse understands "negation" through the influence of Heidegger: "negation" is the use of "Nothingness" to negate "Being." This is precisely a Heideggerian refusal, just as Heidegger uses Being to refuse beings [N], but this refusal also carries his own "revolutionary" meaning—negating what is with Nothingness is for moving toward a new existence and toward new hope.

II. Totality and Human Liberation

If, in critical theory, totality as an ideal still carried a faint utopian color and had not been as clearly articulated as the critical method, then in the re-reading of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter referenced as the 1844 Manuscripts), the idea of totality as a social ideal was more vigorously asserted. The re-understanding of these manuscripts was reflected in two different periods: first, in the 1930s when the manuscripts had just been published and many scholars interpreted them from their own philosophical standpoints; second, in the 1950s and 60s, when scholars started again from the 1844 Manuscripts following the criticism of Stalin and reflections on traditional textbooks [N], leading to a humanist high tide in the interpretation of Marxist philosophy. Despite the different eras, some identical lines of thought existed in both rounds of interpretation: namely, the emphasis on the "total man" [N], where totality constitutes the historical context of human freedom and liberation.

The publication of the 1844 Manuscripts in 1932 attracted the attention of Western academia. In the same year, Marcuse wrote "The Foundations of Historical Materialism," arguing that in the 1844 Manuscripts, the philosophical foundation of Marx’s critique of political economy is the species-essence [N] of man and its realization. This is an expression of the idea of the "total man" based on the ontology of labor: "even the most informal and general characteristics of Marx’s concept of labor have already gone far beyond the scope of economics; it has penetrated into the field that takes the existence of the total man as its research subject." Marcuse’s discourse unfolds from several core points:

First, Marx emphasizes that man is a species-being [N]. When man treats himself as a present, living species-being, he treats himself as a universal and therefore free being. The freedom of the species and its characteristic of universality mean that man is not limited to a certain actual state of beings or his own immediate relationship with beings; rather, he is able to transcend the immediate particular situation and grasp the essence of things within their essence—grasping the essential relationship between man and things. This is man entering into a relationship with himself as a totality and with nature as a totality. Marcuse believes that Marx’s discourse on human species-essence and its realization "summarizes the existence of the whole human being."

Second, in the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx established an ontology of labor, which is the foundation for discussing the total man and the realization of his essence. Marcuse points out that Marx’s discussion of labor and its externalization and alienation clearly expresses the ontological nature of the concept of labor, particularly visible through Marx’s three formulas regarding labor: "We take its three most important formulas: 'labor is man's coming-to-be for himself within externalization or as externalized man'; labor is man's 'movement of self-creation, self-objectification'; labor is 'life-activity itself, productive life itself.' All three of these formulas of Marx, although not proposed in an article conducting an exhaustive investigation of Hegel, still possess the color of the ontological nature of Hegel’s concept of labor." In this formula of the ontology of labor, the core point is that man, through the objectification of labor, creates and appropriates objects, thereby freely realizing himself. This return from alienation is the totalizing appropriation and grasping of the human world.

Third, the realization of the "total man" on the basis of the ontology of labor. Marcuse believes Marx placed great emphasis on the significance of the objectification of labor for the realization of human species-essence, which also allowed Marx to inherit and develop Hegelian philosophy, distinguishing himself from Feuerbach. The objectification of labor contributes to the realization of human essential powers in two aspects: first, through the objectification of labor, man can realize his needs and desires, inscribing his essential powers onto the object and expressing himself through pre-determined objects—this is the condition for realizing the species-essence as universality; second, the objectification of labor is essentially a "social" activity, and thus also a historical activity. People form a relationship of intercourse through objectified labor; this relationship is likewise historical and unfolds through historical activity. It is precisely in the social and historical unfolding that man can break free from abstract essential definitions, manifest a rich existence, and realize the "total man" in the true sense.

Fourth, corresponding to the "total man," Marcuse at this time proposed the idea of "total revolution." In his view, Marx’s investigation of the human essence and its actual existence, especially human alienation in reality, becomes the primordial force for launching a revolution. Due to the comprehensiveness of this alienation, it is determined that change cannot be effected solely from an economic, political, or cultural standpoint; it must be "the thorough transformation of the status quo unconditionally through total revolution." This thinking of Marcuse’s shares similarities with his later "Great Refusal," while the "totalizing" judgment of the status quo constitutes the basis of this revolutionary critique.

In Marcuse's work, although the "total man" constitutes the orientation of his theory, in the construction of his theory he elaborates more on the essence of the dialectic as a totalizing negation, which gives his theory a very strong criticality and radicalism. However, if one considers that when radical negation lacks a constructive dimension, the "total man" easily becomes a utopian imagination.

The longing for the "total man" was likewise the focus of Henri Lefebvre’s reinterpretation of Marx in the 1930s. In the latter half of his book Dialectical Materialism, published in 1938, he conducted a concentrated elaboration of the idea of the "total man." Lefebvre’s discussion unfolds from three aspects:

The first is totality as a philosophical method, which stands in opposition to positivist and idealist methods. Positivism is confined to facts and ready-made things, failing to examine objects through the process of practical activity; idealism, meanwhile, formalizes activity and is unable to truly think from the perspective of reality. Lacking the method of totality, one easily falls into material determinism when facing nature. Although material determinism reflects the modality of human practice at a certain stage, pushing this determinism to its extreme places the human being within a material apparatus, unable to freely manifest life. Lacking the method of totality when facing society leads easily into social determinism—a kind of "natural determinism" within human society that provides the conditions for human activity while simultaneously "limiting this activity. It provides human freedom, yet opposes that freedom." This implies that non-human elements within human activity are still playing a significant role, and the human being has not yet been fully understood. This also demonstrates that only by starting from totality—treating the relationship between person and person, and person and nature, as a whole—can there be true philosophical activity, for the fundamental activity of philosophy is the reproduction of totality.

The second is totality as the essential definition of the human being: the "total man." What is the total man? "The total man is the subject and object of change; he is the living subject who stands opposite the object and overcomes this opposition; he is the subject who is divided into many partial activities and scattered definitions and overcomes this fragmentation; he is both the subject of action and the final object of action, even the product of action when producing external objects. The total man is a living subject-object, a subject-object who is first torn to pieces and later imprisoned in necessity and abstraction. The total man moves through this fragmentation toward freedom; he becomes nature, but it is a nature that is free. Like nature, he becomes a totality, yet he masters nature; the total man is the man who has 'eliminated alienation'." Integrating Lefebvre's relevant discourses, we can conclude: first, the total man is the person who has escaped unidirectional determinism—such as material or social determinism—in which humans are dominated by forces they cannot understand. The total man means that man is nature, and man is society itself. Second, the total man has escaped the state of separation and alienation. In capitalist society, with the establishment of the dominance of economic necessity, the human becomes homo economicus; the totality of products and productive forces becomes the "other" to the human, who thereby falls into an alienated state of existence. This alienation is manifested not only as the alienation of the person from their activities, products, and human existence, but also as internal alienation and separation within the person themselves, such as the separation of action from thought. Third, creativity and freedom become the essential definitions of the total man. In a state of alienation, human creative activity is a means of turning the person into an alienated being, and freedom departs; but with the return of the total man, creativity will become the manifestation of the human's essential powers. In this creative activity, the total man will eliminate the oppositions between subject and object, essence and existence, self and other; the human will return to the human. Fourth, Lefebvre even believes that when the total man is realized, the highest organ of power is also the total man—the free individual within a free collective.

The third is the definition of the ontological basis of the total man. Lefebvre similarly emphasizes the ontological significance of labor, regarding productive labor as a free and creative activity. The total man expresses himself through totalizing activity, and this holistic activity is also the collective activity of humans—this activity is "production." "The meaning of the word 'production' is of vital importance because it contains and explains other activities, and because it contains and implies human essence, action, and knowledge. This word is sometimes undervalued because people mention it in its narrowest scope, but it implies the whole of human values." In The Sociology of Marx, completed in the 1970s, he confirmed the ontological significance of "praxis," arguing that praxis is creative activity which, in the concrete historical process, is embodied as productive labor. The highest form of expression of this labor is artistic productive activity. The total man is the human in an artistic existence. Taking artistic existence as the highest state of human existence is an important ideal for Lefebvre. He emphasizes that art is productive labor capable of escaping the characteristics of alienation, realizing the unity between producer and product, individual and society, and nature and man. This is consistent with his thought in Everyday Life in the Modern World from the late 1960s. In this book, Lefebvre emphasizes that revolution must be total, encompassing economic, political, and cultural dimensions; as politics and economy in real society become increasingly coercive, the "cultural revolution" [17] becomes increasingly important. This "cultural revolution" is inseparable from the transformation of philosophical experience, and art can become the vital soil for that transformation. The revolution of everyday life is the transformation of everyday life into a work of art, which is an important path to escaping the alienation of everyday life.

By the 1960s, when the study of the 1844 Manuscripts rose again, the discussion of human totality remained a significant topic. Among these documents, Erich Fromm’s Marx’s Concept of Man is undoubtedly an important text. In this text, Fromm’s point of departure is the total man. The entire article actually discusses two major issues: first, how to understand the human being and their essence in history; second, the alienation of the human essence in capitalist society. The second question is based on the first and argues for its validity. Regarding the direction of Marx’s theory, Fromm points out: "Marx's aim was that of the spiritual emancipation of man, of his liberation from the chains of economic determinism, of restituting him in his human wholeness, of enabling him to find unity and harmony with his fellow man and with nature." Therefore, the total man and the freedom of human nature constitute the consistent theme of Marx’s philosophy—not only in the early 1844 Manuscripts, but also in the later Capital. Wholeness of human nature, the total man—that is, the person who freely and consciously creates life—realizes the human's free essence in creative activity and achieves the reconciliation of contradictions between person and person, person and nature, and person and object. It is precisely with this idea of the total man that Marx conducted a profound critique of human alienation in capitalist society.

Alienation is rooted in the estrangement between human existence and essence—that is, the fact that humans are not what they potentially ought to be. Humans ought to be whole, total men in essence, but in reality, they are in a state of alienation, as Marx described in the 1844 Manuscripts. Labor was originally the exercise of human essential power, but in reality, alienated labor has turned the human’s self-activity—their essential activity—into a means for maintaining physical existence; the world of humans is dominated by the world of things. Unlike capitalism, socialism aims to eliminate human alienation, fully develop human capacities, and realize free and creative human development. Therefore, socialism is about returning the human to the total man; this is the essential definition of socialism.

These discussions further advanced the understanding of totality. Scholars did not only understand totality as a critical method, but more so as a definition concerning future society and the perfect essence of man. It can be said that this pushed totality to an extremely high position.

III. From Totality to Totalization: Sartre’s Exploration

During the rise of humanist discourse in the 1960s, Althusser conducted an in-depth critique of this discourse via structuralism. Regarding theoretical content, Althusser categorized this discourse as bourgeois ideology, arguing that taking the early Marx—who was under humanist influence—as the "true" Marx failed to escape the ideological interpretative framework. In the development of Marx's thought, it was only after an "epistemological break" [18] that his scientific theory of history emerged. Althusser emphasized that an epistemological break existed between the young Marx and the late Marx, reflecting two different "problematiques" [19]. In his view, a person’s problematique determines their way of thinking; every specific problem only gains its meaning within this totalizing framework. This means that the problematique possesses a totality, and this totality exerts an external constraint on individual existence. In Marx's scientific theory of history, "overdetermination" [20] constitutes the core of this theoretical framework. In this explanation, overdetermination similarly constitutes a totality. Although Althusser criticized the philosophical discourse of humanism, he did not criticize the concept of totality within that discourse; rather, he replaced the theoretical foundation of this totalizing thought. Where humanist discourse placed the human at the foundation of totality, he emphasized the internal relations between elements such as economy and politics; within this relational structure, the productive forces play a fundamental role. It can be said that Althusser replaced the human or existential totality of humanism with an objective totality.

Unlike Althusser, his contemporary Sartre held a humanist interpretative stance toward Marxist philosophy. Like the aforementioned humanists, Sartre similarly criticized the neglect of the human in orthodox Marxist philosophical interpretations, arguing that this neglect created a "humanist void." The "man" here is not just the human in a general sense, but the individual; this means that Marxism needs to be supplemented by his existentialism. Meanwhile, Marxism, with its concern for and critical analysis of socio-historical life, is better able to activate existentialist reflection. The total life of social history needs to be concretized through individual existence, while the fragmented state of individual existence needs even more to realize "totalization" within social life to achieve a dual perspective on both social life and individual existence. In this reflection, Sartre is no longer concerned with a fixed totality, but with a dynamic totalization. He emphasized: "The thought of 'existence' inherits two requirements from Marxism itself, which it considers to have originated from Hegelianism: if something as a truth is to be able to exist in human science, it must be changing, it must become totalizing." Totalization means both the totalization of history and the totalization of knowledge; so-called dialectical reason is the knowledge of this dual relationship of totalization.

First, Sartre distinguished between the two concepts of totality and totalization. In his view, totality implies a solidified structure—exactly as structuralist discourse describes—in which this structure dominates everything as a given fact. In this sense, Althusser's overdetermination actually makes determinism more exquisite. Sartre believed that the characteristic of the dialectic lies not in totality, but in totalization, because totalization implies a changing and dynamic pattern; it implies a "becoming," an expansion of or even a breakthrough from the given structure. In the process of totalization, something is always being lost; therefore, the process of totalization implies both the union of relations and their dispersal. "In our view, the reality of the collective object resides in circularity: it demonstrates that totalization is never completed, and that totalization exists at most under the name of a detotalized totality." This means that totality is the relatively "degraded" state of totalization.

For example, at the social level, inert practice [21] (practico-inert) hinders the totalization of society. Like the aforementioned humanist scholars, Sartre also takes the creative activity of the individual as the basis for the free development of the person. However, in real social life, because human history is built on the basis of scarcity [22], scarcity causes people to come into conflict with one another. It causes human creative activity to be inverted into conflicting and antagonistic activity, placing humans in a state of potential self-annihilation and a state of being a danger to every other person. Being separated from oneself as well as easily separated from others, man’s creative practice degenerates into inert practice. This state is even more apparent in industrialized societies. "It is perhaps more rational and easier to understand industrialization as the result of a development on the basis of past scarcity, which is a real factor of history (insofar as it manifests as institutions and practices), and which is established on the basis of the negation of man by man through things through the mediation of others." Within inert practice, the material system—which ought to serve as a mediation—becomes the dominant system instead, and man becomes a tool receiving instructions from the material system. Sartre’s discussion here is an application and extension of Marx’s critique of alienation and fetishism and Lukács’ theory of reification, forming his own explanatory framework. In his view, reification does not merely turn people into things; it imposes the social structure as a necessity onto every member of a social group. These members belong to the group and perceive society as a totality, as a molecular structure. This bears some resemblance to Althusser’s totality: when such a totality is taken as a self-evident premise, the individual is already situated within the oppression of real existence, becoming a "thing" within the total structure. For instance, in discussing labor in a workshop, Sartre argues that this is a field of inert practice. External unity constitutes the precondition for labor; within this external unity, man is subordinated to the machine-totality. The laborer is partitioned by this totality onto different production lines, completing their work via the instructions of the machine. In these discussions, totality seems to correspond more closely to the reified social structure. This interpretation is closer to Marx’s theory of the critique of fetishism, and this reflection on totality is an important reason why Sartre emphasizes totalization.

Secondly, Sartre distinguishes between totalization and assimilation. In his view, assimilation refers to formalized sameness. In assimilation, all elements strip away their own particularity; they lack mediation between them, thus becoming a homogeneous existence. Totalization is different; it possesses internal mediation, and each element forms internal interconnections within the totalization. For example, in the investigation of social life, the relationships between people need to be understood through concrete activities. Investigating the concrete activities of individuals and social practice requires understanding the material reality situated within group relations and the material structures mediated by human practice; these constitute the mediation of relations between people, thereby forming multiple and complex relations. Such relations cannot be understood through assimilation. If assimilation makes everything simplified and formalized, totalization makes everything concrete and diverse. Of course, this does not mean totalization implies transparency; there is always something in this process that remains in an opaque, mystified state. It is precisely these opaque and mysterious elements that cause human life to often remain external to the human. When such mysterious elements issue orders to humans at the level of social life, they are the "instructions of things" discussed above. Sartre's discussion does not idealize totalization; rather, he sees the problems within this process, as well as the significance and limitations of totalization.

For Sartre, Marxist philosophy is a philosophy of totalization. It is not a completed system, but a movement to drive its own totalization as it faces this changing world. How is this achieved? Sartre proposed the "progressive-regressive method" [23] in philosophical research. In his view, Marx articulated this method effectively. Marx pointed out: "The social history of men is never anything but the history of their individual development, whether they are conscious of it or not. Their material relations are the basis of all their relations. These material relations are only the necessary forms in which their material and individual activity is realized." Sartre believes this passage from Marx indicates: first, material relations are the prerequisite conditions for human activity, constraining people's modes of activity and their consequences—this is an inert material force; second, humans are not entirely dominated by material conditions; they strive to change this force and make it shift according to their own intentions; third, however, the result of this change is often external to man, becoming an alienated force; fourth, the elimination of this alienated force depends on the process of totalization. As discussed previously, the process of totalization is not an ideal state, which means totalization is an ongoing process. The situation described above is the progressive and regressive state of humans in historical activity. This requires philosophy to constantly return to the past, moving forward while in the act of returning, thereby completing this synthesis in thought. As Fredric Jameson commented: moving from the present to the past by analytical methods, regressing to the meaning and value of actions (which must be past) at the moment they occurred, and then re-creating them synthetically in thought in a way that closely resembles their original richness and complexity. This is precisely the progressive-regressive method in philosophical thinking. Social life realizes its own totalization within this progression and regression, and philosophical reflection also realizes its own totalization in this process.

Compared to thought that only emphasizes totality, Sartre uses totalization to re-understand Marxist philosophy, emphasizing that a relatively closed totality gives way to a totalization characterized by continuous deconstruction and construction. This highlights the dimension of movement in Marxist dialectics more effectively. In the process of totalization, although inert practice and the system of instructions from things exist, Sartre believes that the creative activity of individuals is a force capable of changing inert practice, continuously driving the totalization of social life, thereby opening an open theoretical space. Compared to totality, totalization can better demonstrate the dialectics of Marx's philosophy.

IV. Totality and Servitude: Adorno's Critique

From Sartre’s discussion, we can see that by the late 1960s, the conceptual approach to understanding totality underwent an important change. Totality no longer served as the ideal dimension of man, nor was it the direction of social idealization. Totality came to be seen as a characteristic of contemporary capitalist society. It is precisely this totality that suppresses individual existence and forms the repressive force of society. One could say that totality is the essence of contemporary advanced Western society; it is this totality that increases social power and control. Breaking totality is an important link in the liberation of modern society and the liberation of man. This thought is fully expressed in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics.

Adorno’s critique of totality is reflected in several aspects:

  1. Hegel’s Absolute Idea and the carrier of this idea, the World Spirit (Weltgeist), is a kind of totalizing existence that takes precedence over the individual; it is a spiritual portrayal of the world of commodity exchange. Adorno believes that Hegel’s Absolute Idea and its historical carrier, the World Spirit, constitute a theory of totality. In Hegel’s discussion, the World Spirit is an independent existence compared to individual action; it permeates every concrete spirit but also antedates every concrete spirit. This determines that the World Spirit has priority over individual actions and concrete ideas; individual actions or spirit are only possible within the totality of the World Spirit. Within such a relationship:

First, even though in Hegelian philosophy the existence of the individual is an important link in the realization of the World Spirit, the individual is a false existence, because the totality can only return to itself in the Hegelian sense after it has discarded the existence of the individual.

Second, this totality is an identity-totality that has eliminated non-identity. Its true prototype is modern society based on commodity exchange. This is an abstract totality. In philosophical terms, this abstract form is a manifestation of solipsistic relations between people; in real life, it embodies the abstraction and homogeneity expressed by commodity exchange. As Alfred Sohn-Rethel pointed out: the implementation of socialization only occurs in the exchange on the part of commodity possessors, and thus occurs in an action whose performance is unmixed with commodity use and is clearly separated in time from commodity use. Therefore, the commodity abstraction and the formalism of the social synthesis it serves must be found within the scope of exchange relations, in its so precisely demarcated space of activity. Adorno, deeply influenced by Sohn-Rethel, proceeds from Marx’s discussion of commodity production and exchange to argue that the process of commodity production and exchange is, in fact, the exclusion of the non-homogeneous side of different things to allow them to be compared on a homogeneous level. This is the prerequisite for different commodities to be exchanged. "The principle of commodity exchange, which reduces human labor to the abstract general concept of average labor time, is fundamentally similar to the principle of identity. Commodity exchange is the social model for this principle; without it, there would be no commodity exchange. It is through commodity exchange that non-identical individuals and products become commensurable and identical. The expansion of this principle makes the entire world a totality of identity." This identity, which eliminates non-identity, constitutes the essential characteristic of modern society. Hegel’s so-called World Spirit is precisely the conscious reflection of this society. "In Hegel's works, identity, as totality, has ontological priority." In this social configuration of identity, all individuals can only survive by relying on the social totality. Individuals reside within a totalized social existence, but the totality cannot be dissolved into the individual. The totalizing World Spirit is, fundamentally, the manifestation of the social configuration of identity at the philosophical level.

Third, at the level of social life, this World Spirit easily degenerates into a national spirit (Volksgeist) or a group spirit, bringing about servitude and suppression in social life. The World Spirit manifests itself in different historical periods; this reason within history is embodied through a national or group spirit, thereby elevating a certain national or group spirit to the height of the Absolute Spirit, establishing a position of dominance and suppression over social life. Adorno's discussion is aimed at the spiritual condition of the fascist era. In Hegel’s view, the national spirit is the concrete form of the universal—the World Spirit. The doctrine of the national spirit justifies the legitimacy of a certain nation's rule. In real life, this spirit is manifested through a certain group spirit, thereby forming dominance and power. Adorno believes that Hegel's doctrine of the national spirit is reactionary; it integrates individuals. In a practical sense, national unity is the precondition for the existence of bourgeois society, while the group spirit directly identifies a committee-approved group as the dominant power institution and can defend this status from a spiritual perspective.

  1. The totality of identity embodies the inherent power of control in contemporary society; it is the negation of non-identity. To change the dominant position of this totalizing control, it is necessary to re-emphasize negativity (die Negativität). In Adorno’s view, although there is a moment of negation in Hegelian dialectics, this moment is the externalization of the spirit—the "other" encountered as the spirit moves toward itself. This movement does not truly absorb the non-identical; rather, it is an external expression of identity. More importantly, the dialectic includes a moment of the "negation of the negation," which is the spirit returning to itself from its other. This is a second confirmation of identity. "Equating the negation of the negation with affirmation is the essence of identification." In these two negations, non-identity has no legitimate position. Based on the discussion above, in order to critique and subvert the dominant position of the totalizing spirit, it is necessary to re-emphasize negation. This negation is not to return to identity itself, but to affirm non-identity.

Unlike Hegel, who dissolves the non-identical other into identity, Adorno emphasizes that non-identity here is a false existence. This prevents Hegelian dialectics from truly moving toward an other that is different from the spirit, and the potential of the dialectic is dissipated within this non-identity. The dissolution of non-identity makes the truth of Hegelian dialectics a formalized truth without living content; this determines that the World Spirit is merely the completion and justification of the identical commercial world. If truth in Hegelian philosophy is a formalized existence, a lifeless existence, this implies that the prototype generating this truth—capitalist society—is an existence without revolutionary vitality, a closed and formalized social structure, a society that justifies its own legitimacy.

In contrast to this negative non-identity, two different theoretical logics exist. First is the logic that emphasizes individual existence. In Hegelian philosophy, the emphasis on the World Spirit and the totality of identity necessarily abstracts this spirit from individuality and the individual, making it something that stands above the individual and something to which the individual must adapt. In this scenario, emphasizing the individual appears to be a way out, breaking the reign of the World Spirit. In Adorno’s view, if this totality cannot be broken first, then emphasizing individual existence merely serves as a supplement to the rule of totality; because within the totalizing World Spirit, the universal principle of the whole is the principle of individualization for the individual. Totality consolidates its dominant position precisely through the illusion of individual autonomy. Second is the logic that replaces everything with "Being," as Heidegger did. For Adorno, while the ontology of Being appears to transcend the subject-object core of Hegelian philosophy, the supremacy of Being itself and its emptiness—which transcends all individualized existence—likewise possesses the characteristics of identity. It is a human identification with one's own existence as something void. "Ontology and the philosophy of existence contain a fateful dialectic. To drive man from the center of creation and place him in a powerless truth—like the subject's mode of action—will prove the feeling of powerlessness and make people identify with it; this actually reinforces the spell of second nature." Here, "second nature" refers to the society in which people live, woven together by human actions and thoughts. Faced with Being, the individual is a subjugated object.

In Adorno’s view, to break this enslavement of non-identity by identity, the thought of "negation" must be liberated from the model of the "negation of the negation." In the latter model, although negation is an affirmation of non-identity, this affirmation is merely the object to be negated by the final negation. Non-identity is affirmed only to re-affirm identity. In Hegelian dialectics, the critical spirit of negation is actually itself negated. Only by re-affirming "negativity" can there be an affirmation of non-identity and a possible path out of totality.

  1. Constructing a new totality of non-identity—the constellation. Adorno’s emphasis on negativity is a critique of the identity-totality, but this does not mean his theory points toward a fragmented state of existence. Adorno emphasizes non-identity in order to construct a different kind of "totality" from the current one, which he calls the "constellation" [24].

In Adorno’s view, philosophy since the modern era—especially in Hegel—has been an experience of homogeneity, and the emphasis on identity is the expression of this experience. This identity-philosophy is both an expression of a social existence based on commodity exchange and a negation of concrete existents; thus, it serves as a justification for actual society. Against this philosophical tradition, he proposes that the subject cannot systematically swallow the object. Philosophy should be an experience of heterogeneity, incorporating objects that cannot be identical-ized into philosophical construction. The relationship between subject and object is then neither the subject swallowing the object nor the object subsuming the subject; they exist in a state of correlation—that is, a constellation-like state of existence.

In Adorno’s constellation, on the one hand, he emphasizes the state of correlation between subject and object, subject and subject, and object and object; on the other hand, he places greater emphasis on the priority of the object. Here, although the object remains an object within the subject's thought, unlike identity-philosophy, Adorno emphasizes that the object always contains something different from the subject. The subject is also an object by nature. Even if the subject is, as Husserl emphasized, still a form of insufficient existence, it cannot replace the determinacy of the object itself. Adorno’s emphasis on the priority of the object is not intended to treat the object as an unapproachable "thing-in-itself," but to stress that the subject cannot swallow the object. This priority of the object is relative to the subject, but it is not equivalent to the existing priority of the object within "second nature"—that is, social existence. In actual social existence, the priority of the object is ultimately the priority of human creations; this is a fetishistic priority. Marx's critique of commodity fetishism was precisely a critique of this issue. It is precisely in contrast to this priority of things that the thought of the subject swallowing everything emerges.

Emphasizing the constellation-state between things and things, or objects and subjects, does not mean this is a completely fragmented relationship. Compared to traditional totality with the subject or spirit at its core, the constellation is a new type of non-dominating relationship where elements are interconnected to form an open space. In this state, the priority of the object is not to establish a pre-existing dominant position, but to emphasize the inherent insufficiency of the subject and spirit, preventing the emergence of a dominant totality that ignores the individual. In this sense, the constellation is an exploration of another state of civilization.

Through the critique of traditional totality via negative dialectics, Adorno opened a path for the critique of the philosophy of his time. After the 1970s, the critique of totality became an important turning point in the development of philosophy and a new theoretical orientation for post-Marxists when re-discussing Marxism.

V. Post-Marxism and the Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Totality

After the 1970s, postmodernism began to take the academic stage, and correspondingly, post-Marxism began to influence the study of Marxist philosophy. In 1950, Polanyi first used the term "post-Marxism" in Personal Knowledge, primarily to propose a form of Marxism different from Soviet Orthodox Marxism. With the rise of postmodernism in the 1970s, philosophers critiqued modern philosophy. This trend directly influenced the understanding of Marxism among some scholars at the time and began to change the meaning of the term "post-Marxism": it referred not only to a contemporary project of Marxism distinct from the Soviet Union but also to a critique of the then-current interpretations of Marxism based on modern philosophical models. In Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, they used "post-Marxism" to emphasize a theoretical project different from Soviet Orthodox Marxism while also critiquing the essentialism in Marxist interpretations of the time, incorporating postmodern critiques of modern philosophy and Marxism since the 1970s. In this reflection, the concept of totality was directly challenged, and the deconstruction of totality became a major component of post-Marxism.

When postmodernism began to prevail in the 1970s, the critique of modern philosophy became a standard feature of postmodernism. In the view of postmodernists, modernism emphasized metaphysics, essence, the subject, the center, totality, truth, hierarchy, and purpose, thereby providing legitimacy for modern society and a philosophical foundation for internal domination within it. In The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard argued that the narrative of modern scientific knowledge replaced traditional narratives, forming modern society's view of the world. However, the modern scientific narrative does not provide its own proof of legitimacy. Especially with the separation of science and politics, there was a greater need to achieve an internal unity between the two at the level of philosophical metaphysics, while simultaneously providing a demonstration for the narrative of scientific knowledge. In Lyotard's view, Hegelian philosophy is a significant example of this demonstration. "The speculative apparatus has a notable result: in this apparatus, all discourses of knowledge concerning all possible existents have no direct truth-value; their value depends on the position they occupy in the process of 'Spirit' or 'Life,' or in the philosophical encyclopedia described in speculative discourse. When speculative discourse cites these discourses of knowledge, it is also elaborating for itself what it knows—that is, it is self-elaborating. From this perspective, true knowledge is always an indirect knowledge composed of cited statements, which are incorporated into the metanarrative of some subject that guarantees the legitimacy of the knowledge." [25] This "metanarrative" both guarantees the legitimacy of the scientific knowledge narrative at a foundational level and demonstrates the totality of modern society. Lyotard believed that this demonstration actually turned scientific knowledge into a type of instrumental knowledge and placed practical reason above scientific knowledge, which conversely led to a further separation between the two. The totality of modern knowledge is thus a false totality; this is precisely the problem encountered by postmodernism. If one considers modern philosophy’s role in justifying and protecting the legitimacy of modern society, the postmodernist critique becomes even more understandable. When discussing Marx, Lyotard argued that social critique based on the Marxist principle of dichotomy faces the following dilemma: "The social basis of the principle of dichotomy, namely class struggle, has become so blurred that it has lost any radicality. The critical model finally faces the danger of losing its theoretical basis; it may degenerate into a 'utopia,' a 'hope,' a protest raised in the name of man, reason, creativity, or a social category (such as the Third World or student youth) for the sake of honor. This social category is assigned the function of the critical subject at the last moment, but such a function will henceforth become highly improbable."

Influenced by postmodernism, Laclau and Mouffe characterized their theoretical project as post-Marxism in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Their post-Marxism focuses primarily on the deconstruction of essentialism and totalizing thought within the Marxist tradition:

First, although their post-Marxism targets traditional Marxism, they did not follow the path of Western Marxists by reinterpreting Marx’s thought through the lens of the human person or structure. Instead, they re-reflected on the interpretive framework of traditional Marxism itself. In their view, neither economic determinism, nor Bernstein’s ethically tinged interpretation, nor Luxemburg’s theories of spontaneity and free will ever moved beyond the ruptures between economic base and superstructure, necessity and contingency, or the identical class subject and dispersed subjects. These thinkers also failed to see that the economic structure of capitalist society cannot provide a political-logical basis for launching struggle or opposing division; on the contrary, it promotes the loss of class characteristics. These three dilemmas made a new theoretical strategy increasingly necessary, particularly regarding how to suture dualisms, how to construct a new identity through articulation [26], and how to obtain a foundational legitimacy for the representation of social classes. Here, they turned their attention to Gramsci, believing that his theory of hegemony was more conducive to solving these problems because hegemony emphasizes precisely the articulation of various forces. However, they also believed that Gramsci's hegemony theory still bore the traces of traditional Marxism, as Gramsci likewise emphasized the foundational role of the economy: "(1) he insists that the hegemonic subject must be constructed on the platform of fundamental classes; (2) he assumes that, except for periods of suspension constructed by organic crises, every social formation constructs itself around a single hegemonic center." This is what Laclau and Mouffe disagreed with. Clearly, they did not, as Western Marxism did, replace the economy or free will with "man"; rather, they sought to launch a critique of this essentialist approach. This is because, starting from essentialism, it is impossible to face the diverse subjects of modern pluralistic society or to combine these different subjects into a force oriented toward the future.

Second, the transformation of Althusser’s theory of overdetermination. Althusser opposed the topographical model of base and superstructure found in traditional interpretations; although he acknowledged the foundational role of the economy, he viewed the economy and the superstructure as a complex totality, emphasizing the simultaneous effects of multiple factors. Regarding this view of Althusser's, Laclau and Mouffe argue that two problems exist: first, there remains a remnant of essentialism—namely, the decisive role of the economy; second, Althusser still holds a conception of a closed totality. This essentialist overdetermination remains unable to enter modern society or promote the formation of modern radical political subjects. For Laclau and Mouffe, what they value more is how to form a radical force linked by multiple subjects through a formal articulation in a diverse and complex society—a society that cannot be subsumed under a single essence. Therefore, they do not view society as a totality, but rather as an open, plural, and complex existence: "In order to place ourselves firmly in the field of articulation, we must abandon the concept of 'society' as a totality constructed by parts. Thus we must view the openness of the social as the basis of construction or as the 'negative essence' of existence, and regard various 'social orders' as unstable or fundamentally untamable fields of difference. Consequently, it is impossible to understand social diversity through a system of mediation, and 'social order' cannot be viewed as an underlying principle. There is no particular space where society is sutured, because society itself has no essence." Only by eliminating the factor that is "decisive in the last instance" from overdetermination can this society become a non-closed society and reveal the negative forces within it.

Third, reconstructing an open totality. Laclau and Mouffe’s opposition to closed totality does not mean they are moving toward a society of "scattered sand" [27]; rather, they are moving toward another kind of non-essentialist, open totality. It can be said that, on the basis of deconstructing traditional totality, they move toward another kind of totality—one characterized by a transformed plural logic. "The break with orthodox essentialism is not achieved through the logical collapse of categories, an approach that would fix separate elements into identities, but rather through the critique of any fixed type and the affirmation of the incompleteness, openness, and politically negotiated character of every identity. This is the logic of overdetermination. According to this logic, the meaning of every identity is overdetermined because all immediate meanings are subverted and transcended; there is fundamentally no essentialist totalization, nor is there an essentialist separation between objects. Some objects existing within others prevent any of their identities from becoming fixed. Objects are articulated, not like parts in a clockwork mechanism, because objects within other objects prevent the suturing of their identities." They borrow from discourse theory—a dispersive linkage of elements not determined by a transcendental subject—to experience a non-sutured, non-identical social space. In such a society, the logic of antagonism plays a leading role. Antagonism is distinct from opposition and logical contradiction. Contradiction (A—not A) is a logical concept; opposition (A—B) is a concept of physical fact. In traditional philosophy, contradiction and opposition are actually internal elements of a homogenized totality that guarantee the possibility of that totality. The meaning of antagonism, however, lies in: "The presence of the 'Other' prevents me from being a complete self. Relations do not arise between various complete totalities, but from the constitutive impossibility of these totalities. The existence of the Other is a logical possibility; it exists, so it is not a contradiction. ...As long as there is antagonism, I cannot become a being that is complete in itself. The same is true for the force opposed to me: its objective existence is a symbol of my non-existence, and in this way, it has multiple meanings that prevent it from completely fixing itself. Real opposition is an objective relation between determinable and definable things, and contradiction is likewise a definable relation within concepts, whereas antagonism constitutes the limit of objectivity; it is revealed as a partial and unstable objectification." Therefore, the focus of radical political strategy is how to unite various antagonistic factors in a non-closed society through discursive articulation.

Similar to the views of Laclau and Mouffe, Derrida’s deconstruction of traditional Marxism is likewise intended to construct another kind of totality. He also opposes that closed, essentialist philosophical conception of traditional Marxism, which converts difference into identity. In an "out of joint" era, transforming ineradicable differences into internal elements of a closed totality represents a negation of diversity and heterogeneity. When the liberalism of that time opposed Marxism, it fell into the same logic, leading to the conclusion of the "end of history." Reflection on this was a major reason for Derrida writing Specters of Marx. Derrida argued that to speak of the specters of Marx in today’s era is not to pursue a homogeneous specter: "Today we are here not only to prophesy a future for them, but even more to appeal to diversity for them, or more seriously, to appeal to heterogeneity for them." Therefore, it is not about re-suturing the "out of joint" cracks, but about entering into those cracks—where separate things combine into one—without damaging the fracture, dispersion, and difference, and without excluding the heterogeneity of the Other. Only in this way can one escape the "metaphysics of presence" in Marxism and allow it to maintain a criticality arriving from the future. This is also the fundamental reason he emphasizes the "messianic" arrival. Here, what Derrida deconstructs is traditional philosophy and its concept of totality, while constructing another kind of totality that differs from the tradition and its orientation toward identity.

Post-Marxism’s deconstruction of traditional totality is essentially a philosophical reflection on socio-historical changes. Especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the process of globalization appeared largely as a process dominated by developed capitalist countries, particularly the United States; this is precisely why the slogan "the end of history" became prevalent. Philosophically speaking, the end of history implies the victory of liberal democracy and the victory of the totality discussed in traditional philosophy—a victory that ignores or even disregards the Other. Thus, the deconstruction of traditional totality and the emphasis on a new totality—one without a dominant power and one that maintains difference—carries positive significance for reflecting on the aforementioned slogans and the power structures of modern society. This is a positive theoretical response by post-Marxism to historical transitions and changes in social thought.

The problem here is that when post-Marxism emphasizes a non-closed, loose totality, because this totality lacks an essential element playing a dominant role, the question of how to reveal the structure and state of social existence from such a loose totality becomes a major problem constraining post-Marxism. Regardless of how post-Marxists view the structure of contemporary society, the logic of capital plays a dominant role at every level. Differing from the past, following the social development since the 1970s and especially the deep unfolding of globalization after the 1990s, it is no longer just capitalist countries that are linked together, but the entire globe. This has brought societies of different cultures together, forming what appears on the surface to be a loose totality. Problems never before encountered in past societies are increasingly coming to the fore, some even becoming major issues on the surface. In this situation, while emphasizing a totality with internal differences does indeed reflect an investigation and understanding of this new global existence, overemphasizing this difference can erase the dominance of the logic of capital. In this sense, post-Marxist discussions on new totality reflect the theoretical explorations of scholars deeply influenced by Marxism when facing capitalist society; on the other hand, they also show that when facing new social and intellectual changes, further exploration is needed on how to exert the critical power of Marxist philosophy while fully absorbing modern philosophical thought.

( Author Background: Yang Haifeng, PhD in Philosophy, Professor at the Center for the Study of the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and the School of Marxism, Peking University. )

Network Editor: Tong Xin Source: Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Sciences Edition), 2023, No. 3.