Having lost much of its political clout and theoretical power, communism no longer represents an appealing alternative to capitalism. In its original Marxist formulation, communism promised an ideal of development, but only through a logic of war, and while a number of reformist governments still promote this ideology, their legitimacy has steadily declined since the fall of the Berlin wall.
Separating communism from its metaphysical foundations, which include an abiding faith in the immutable laws of history and an almost holy conception of the proletariat, Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala recast Marx's theories at a time when capitalism's metaphysical moorings—in technology, empire, and industrialization—are buckling. While Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri call for a return of the revolutionary left, Vattimo and Zabala fear this would lead only to more violence and failed political policy. Instead, they adopt an antifoundationalist stance drawn from the hermeneutic thought of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty.
Hermeneutic communism leaves aside the ideal of development and the general call for revolution; it relies on interpretation rather than truth and proves more flexible in different contexts. Hermeneutic communism motivates a resistance to capitalism's inequalities yet intervenes against violence and authoritarianism by emphasizing the interpretative nature of truth. Paralleling Vattimo and Zabala's well-known work on the weakening of religion, Hermeneutic Communism realizes the fully transformational, politically effective potential of Marxist thought.
Gianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo (born January 4, 1936) is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.
His philosophy can be characterized as postmodern with his emphasis on "pensiero debole" (weak thought). This requires that the foundational certainties of modernity with its emphasis on objective truth founded in a rational unitary subject be relinquished for a more multi-faceted conception closer to that of the arts.
Hermeneutic Communism is a work which for the most part correctly identifies the problems we face, yet it is another in a long line that is fairly useless in terms of offering solutions. I don't think a battle against "truth" will lead to gains for the world's poor, for instance. Two thirds of the way through the book Vattimo asks, "is politics without truth possible?" The thing is, we already know the answer because we've lived with "politics without truth" for some time (and I don't simply mean current obsessions with "fake news"), and it is widely known for leading to bad results.
What Vattimo is offering is not just hermeneutics, but anti-foundationalism, relativism, a "postmodern communism." Suffice to say, I'm not convinced we can have a successful politics of pure interpretation, of nothing but relative truths. I am for interpretation (in fact I stake a lot on it with my love of literature), but only until it is no longer productive. That, for me, is the key, and nowhere in Vattimo's work do I see any indication to the limitations of his approach (in fact, he only portrays the exact opposite—what limitations?)
In the end I can only shake my head, left to my concerns that "weak thought" and relativism simply leave us with "weak strategies" (if any at all) and division.
Hip book to read. totally glosses over some really problematic things with postmodernism (like the descention into anomic normlessness that it has brought western civilization) but, then again, its a trendy book - not really much more than a 'whoa, what a cool sounding juxtaposition' and 'by the way, the quote about Marx saying philosophers have merely interpreted the world, the point is to change it, is not a rebuking of hermeneutics, but (by some pretzel logic) - a vindication of hermeneutics! the only way to be a marxists is to give interpretations that also change the world' fun for ten seconds, and also the last chapter of this book on Chavez and Obama falls into the "Stuff you can learn by reading a newspaper" category ala Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and other less interesting alarmists who sell books by scaring people i.e. second rate Chomsky and Klein wannabes (not like I'm saying Chomsky and Klein are geniuses, but that's another book to review).
Vattimo and Zabbala are quite brilliant when they deal with the implications of their Hermeneutics, and I agree with the main theses of the book; the first being that there is no possibility of a guided "revolution" of any sort in the foreseeable future. So, if you are a communist, all you do is probably to just carry "communist thoughts" in your mind and do nothing else (in all likelihood, and of course, with exceptions). You also probably have no clue what to do if you had accomplished such a revolution, and will wake up to a reaaaaaally weird and difficult day of hangover after you have done celebrating.
The fact is that there is all sorts of scholarly talk about how to formulate a revolution, and absolutely n o t h i n g as to how the next day will look like. Vattimo and Zabala write that what is to be done will show itself through the "joint work of theory and praxis", which is the same as saying that we do not know anything, though we know a really nice sounding word about how to act emancipatorily. There is nothing. We haven't really thought about this. We were so taken by the brilliancy of Marx, that we ended up thinking that the "joint ownership of productive forces" was a solution, and have only been realizing now that this just points to a beginning, this was the main homework to take up and work on in the first place.
This is what I have learned and taken up from this text. I think the text is a great addition to the current state of discussion on Ideology. The idea of Interpreting the world, i.e., making better and better truth claims in the space of ideology, is itself revolutionary, and not only that, this Re-Interpretation and Re-Imagining of what-is-possible is exactly what is demanded from the changemakers of humanity in our day and age, in our portion of spacetime. Thank you for the elucidation of these two ideas, so brilliantly.
Unfortunately, Vattimo and Zabala also gave me a ton of things to simply un-read and forget about indefinitely. The text is unbearable when the authors give their own version of the Post-Modern attack on the concept of Truth and argue the emancipatory potential in this jest. No. Just, no and no and no. Truth itself is a category worth defending, and absolutely nothing is gained by relinquishing it as such. If you destroy truth, then what the hell is your book for, dude? You clearly make some claims towards truth with this book, do you not? These blatantly obvious inner contradictions of PoMo, to put it very mildly, are to be overcome. We simply cannot give away Truth for the sake of an "imagined" multiplicity and/or diversity, AND the jest is absolutely not necessary to accomplish true forms of the latter. The PoMo argument gives us nothing but a soup of subjective truth claims with no potential for any collective meaning-making to take place.
With this, the political thesis of the book to look at Latin America looks more and more naive and an empty gesture at best, and sure, there are things to learn in the way South America has manage to sustain community life in important spaces, though the political implications of Chavez et al., from 2024, does not look very bright. We have to face the fact that the disinstitutionalized, the disempowered, the oppressed, the precariat, the proletariat, ..., are simply not fit to rule as it looks from the status-quo, are simply not ready to take any kind of responsibility. The masses are reminiscient of the "slaves" in Mark Twain's diaries of Adam & Eve et al., where liberated slaves want to come back as slaves. Freedom has its cost, it requires risk and responsibility, and most of us, and especially as collectives, let us face it, are not ready for this.
This obviously folds back onto our not-knowing the day after the revolution. That is what is to be known if you are talking about any kind of revolution in the first place, or if not, you are not only consuming yourself, you are also crowding out the existing human potential for change by empty gestures, which is what we have been getting from current Marxism, yes with some good exceptions, but for the most part.
With all these shortcomings that are typical of PoMoism and Marxism, I should say that the other main thesis of the book also stays with me: It is not a time to revolt, though it is a time to interpret, to Re-Imagine, often accepting to be small, heterogenous and diverse, and live social change in begin-with-yourself-and-your-people kinds of, and Gibson-Graham-ish ways of being. Sure. Sounds like fun, too.
I've finished re-reading this book, and I have to say my opinion of it has improved, and I'd consider it among my political philosophy favorites. It still feels hastily written in places, and I'm not sure it TOTALLY accomplishes it's lofty aims, but there are true veins of gold in here.
Here's what I like about it...
Have you ever gotten to talking politics with someone only to realize they're acting like they're on the goddamn debate team, and been like, "Calm down, friend, let's have a CONVERSATION. Let's talk about the nuances, the alternate viewpoints, the historical contexts, the moral ambiguities, etc without trampling all over each other in some absurd attempt to declare a victor" ...? At the heart of this text is a compelling plea for us to approach politics as a conversation, rather than a debate. It promotes philosophical "interpretation" and a kind of relative relativism, if I may call it that, within a Marxist framework - a framework that it shakes up quite a bit, by the way.
There are observations and predictions regarding war, peak capitalism, liberalism, global economic disruption, and mass human displacement in this text that seem remarkably astute and even prescient given today's political happenings.
My primary caveat...
The writers assume a high level of familiarity with 20th century philosophy on the part of their readers. There are about 20 authors (Marx, Heidegger, Derrida, Benjamin, Arendt, Rorty, Kagan, Popper...) that I wish I was more familiar with prior to reading this book.
But, hey, I guess that's more motivation to keep on reading!
It is indeed an interesting book to read, I simply think that Gianni Vattimo was too quick in taking the sides of the communist leaders in Latin America. Brazil, Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Equador and others are overflowing of corruption after these communists came into power. Vattimo fails in recognizing that most of these vote winners got that using public money to make an social scheme. Why Vattimo did not mention that all the men trusted by Lula was caught in corruption, tried and sent to prison, and yet Lula refuses to recognize it? What Vattimo has to allege about the chaos in which Chaves left Venezuela and about the shameful way in which Maduro came into power. Maybe Gianni Vattimo will come out with another edition of this book using better historical facts to demonstrate his point.
Komünizm, kapitalizmin eşitsizliklerine karşı direnci harekete geçirirken hermeneutik, hakikatin yorumlayıcı doğasına işaret ederek arabuluculuk yapar.
De este choque de ideas, de pensadores tan diversos como Marx y Heidegger, Joseph Stieglitz, Richard Rorty, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Thomas Kuhn y Hugo Chávez (entre otros), se pueden sacar tres cosas en claro entre las chispas que deslumbran al lector:
1º, que la época de las certidumbres ya terminó; la "verdad" no existe, nos queda solamente la interpretación, o sea la "hermenéutica", siempre provisional y siempre sujeta a cambios ante nueva evidencia.
2º, aunque el comunismo como lo concibieron Lenin, Stalin y otros comunistas en la época sovietica — la desaparición de clases, etc. — no es una posibilidad real, la lucha por semejante ideal es lo único que nos puede salvar de la deshumanización total.
3º, que los mejores ejemplos de esta combinación de interpretación constante y lucha por los ideales sociales de igualdad y oportunidad, o sea, el "comunismo hermenéutico", son los gobiernos demócraticos pero revolucionarios de América Latina, muy especialmente el de Hugo Chávez.
El primer argumento tiene un abolengo larguísimo, desde los antiguos griegos: la realidad es incognocible, así que lo único que podemos "saber" son nuestras interpretaciones. La expresión moderna más influyente se deriva del famoso libro de T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, del cual se entiende que la única manera de avanzar inteligentemente (en las ciencias como en la política, la economía o cualquier otra actividad humana) es a través de la constante interpretación y reinterpretación de nuevas configuraciones, porque la experiencia constantemente nos confronta con nuevas y sorprentes evidencias. Este procedimiento intelectual, de rechazar la "verdad" como inalcanzable mientras buscamos intepretaciones inestables pero servibles, es (simplificando mucho) lo que Heidegger llamaba "la hermenéutica.
Le creencia en una "verdad" absoluta es lo que Vattimo y Zabala llaman "metafísica", un mito o combinación de mitos a que alguna gente (nuestros gobernantes en general) se adhieren aun cuando la experiencia no los apoya. Entre las supuestas "verdades" falsas están no solamente los mitos del capitalismo puro, de "mercados libres" o "el fin de la historia" que pregonaba Fukuyama, sino también las antiguas ideas fijas del comunismo, como de que la "conciencia de clase" sería inevitable entre los explotados, o un futuro "dictadura del proletariado", etc. Aquí el argumento de Vattimo y Zabala nos recuerda el brillante ensayo de Zygmunt Bauman, "Réquiem para el comunismo" en su libro Daños colaterales. (Vea mi reseña en Goodreads.)
Los autores nos pueden confundir con su alabanza del "pensamiento débil", que no quiere decir flojo sino sin fuertes compromisos ideológicos. Es algo como el pensamiento "abierto" de Karl Popper, y muy parecido al pensamiento "líquido" de Bauman — que no solamente acepta nuevas corrientes, sino que puede cambiar su curso cuando sea preciso. (Curiosamente, entre los muchos autores que citan Vattimo y Zabala, Bauman está ausente.)
El tercer argumento es, para mí, el más problemático. Creo que es bueno e importante reconocer que los gobiernos dirigidos por Hugo Chávez y Evo Morales, y de otras maneras los de Dilma Roussef y José Mujica, representan rupturas con viejos modelos y que, de sus diveras maneras, intentan crear sociedades más justas e igualitarias. Pero los autores obvían muchos de los problemas y las contradicciones del chavismo, y de la larga historia de gobiernos de una "tercera vía" en ese continente, desde Getulio Vargas y Juan Domingo Perón a (con muchas diferencias, pero también una vía alternativa) Salvador Allende. Pero esos son argumentos para otro ensayo.
A silly and frivolous book that, no joke, sees Hugo Chavez as some kind of great “Event of Being” or something. I could spend hours tearing this thing apart but please, I implore you, just stay away.
Pretty good in certain ways. There is a bit of the post-Marxist tendency to "foundationalize" anti-foundationalism through subtle insertions of concepts from the margins in order to stabilize the positive value of "interpretation" against "truth" - the dialectic upon which the general argument of this essay is based. So in this sense it does not fall so far away from Negri's aim at restructuring all agonist struggles into one fundamental antagonism - between "transcendence" and "immanence". However, unlike some other books, the drive of the argument is clear, the examples interestingly chosen and timely and while it does not seem 100% clear how the leaders in Latin America escape alternative "framings" of their political struggles, there is a good hint of effort for explaining so in terms of resistance to West-centric narratives of truth. Since the book/essay contains some lovely short statements and the cover went out well in particular, I'll be happy to keep this on my shelf.
Not necessarily new –if you’re familiar with post-foundational political theory– but an interesting and worthy addition.
I would have liked a bit more engagement with Badiou’s conception of truth—particularly the founding axiom: all are equal—and how they relates to their notion of communism (which is loosely sketched out in this book).
The ideas reminded me a little of Marchart’s Post-Foundational Political Thought In which he describes post-foundational positions not as anti-foundational relativism, but as continual and ever evolving hegemonic struggles: not no ground, but no *final* ground.
and to a lesser extent Bowman’s Post-Marxism versus Cultural Studies
Some interesting discussion of anti-foundationalist philosophy on the one hand, and an fairly insightful critique of the capitalist status quo on the other. Nevertheless, this book fails to live up to its potential in that the connection between anti-foundationalist philosophy and the struggle against capitalism is asserted rather than defended.