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Superstructure and Materialism

This document discusses the relationship between the material base and ideological superstructure in society. It criticizes those who neglect one or the other. Specifically, it criticizes "crude materialists" who focus only on raw statistics and material conditions without considering ideology. The document argues ideology, in the form of traditions, identities and the "force of habit," significantly impacts how people interact with the material world. It provides the example of property redistribution in India to show how ideology could cause the new ruling class to willingly give power back due to beliefs like karma and the Hindu caste system. The conclusion is that both the material and ideal aspects must be considered to understand social behavior and change.

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17 views

Superstructure and Materialism

This document discusses the relationship between the material base and ideological superstructure in society. It criticizes those who neglect one or the other. Specifically, it criticizes "crude materialists" who focus only on raw statistics and material conditions without considering ideology. The document argues ideology, in the form of traditions, identities and the "force of habit," significantly impacts how people interact with the material world. It provides the example of property redistribution in India to show how ideology could cause the new ruling class to willingly give power back due to beliefs like karma and the Hindu caste system. The conclusion is that both the material and ideal aspects must be considered to understand social behavior and change.

Uploaded by

babeuf
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Superstructure and Crude Materialism

Dialectical materialism holds that society is split into


two halves: the material base, and the ideological
superstructure.

An infamous characteristic among Western leftists is


a tendency to overemphasize the ideological
superstructure, to play games of “identity politics,” to
moralize and obsess over lofty ideals.

The material world is a scary thing for such people,


since if it was investigated sincerely, it would at once
disperse any notion they have of their own
“oppression,” and would reveal that they are, in relation
to the rest of the world, extraordinarily privileged.
Thus, they resort to the world of ideals and identities,
where billionaire capitalists become “oppressed”
because they belong to a particular identity group, and
poor laborers become “oppressors” because they
expressed negative opinions about a particular identity
group.
At the present moment, however, we do not wish to
study the “cult of identity.” Rather, we wish to study its
counterpart, the “cult of raw matter.”
What we mean to speak of is a trend which, while
defying lofty idealism, falls victim to crude materialism.
This trend neglects the ideological superstructure and
focuses only on the material base, even insisting that
the superstructure is irrelevant to the operation of the
base.
Crude materialists hold that the world can be
reduced into raw statistics, numerical calculations—
that so long as x amount of people receive y amount of
food and wages, there will be no problems, no
contradictions within society, and everything will
progress smoothly and without fault. This tendency is
just as dangerous as the tendency to neglect all material
facts for lofty ideals. If the ideal side is not considered,
then one will quickly find he is nothing more but a
salesman for political ideology. One will not have much
luck beating capitalists at that.
Humans are social creatures. They have
psychologies, consisting of ideals, identities, social
peculiarities, and traditions—personal, familial, local,
national, religious and even political traditions. Such
immaterial things play a vital role in how humans
interact with the material world. The “force of habit,” as
Lenin termed it, has significant implications on the
future movement of society. Lenin wrote in Left-Wing
Communism, An Infantile Disorder:
“We are waging a war against the bourgeoisie, whose
resistance has been increased tenfold by their
overthrow, and whose power lies in the force of habit...
The liberal, bourgeois atmosphere permeates and
corrupts the proletariat and causes constant relapses
into spinelessness, disunity, individualism, and
alternating moods of over-excitement and depression.
The force of habit of millions is a most terrible force. By
their ordinary, everyday, imperceptible, demoralizing
activity, they achieve the very results which the
bourgeoisie need and which tend to restore the
bourgeoisie. The proletariat is in a persistent struggle
against the force of habit of the old order.”

What Lenin explains is what must be understood by


crude materialists. The ideological superstructure—the
“force of habit”—has a tendency to impel people to
interact with the material world in a specific manner.
Since the present order is a liberal, globalist, hedonistic
order, the force of habit among the masses tends to
engender and strengthen liberalism, globalism, and
hedonism. These terribly unnatural things have become
natural instincts for a large part of humanity.
Let us look at an example of a way in which ideology
and the “force of habit” could affect the development of
the material world. We will use India. Let’s assume all of
the property in India was evenly redistributed
overnight, and the workers and peasants—the vast
majority of the country—were declared the new ruling
class. Besides this, let’s assume nothing else among the
population changes; they remain ideologically the same
as before.

Those who view things only in terms of raw matter,


paying no attention to ideology, would be impelled to
celebrate this triumph of India’s working classes. But
when one considers ideology, it should become quite
obvious how this episode would go. We will not even go
into detail about the obvious national problems which
would persist: we will simply note that 80% of India is
devoutly Hindu, and some crucial aspects of Hinduism
are the caste system, karma, and reincarnation.
After the day of property redistribution, the
Brahmins (the priestly caste) would simply order the
Kshatriyas (the military caste) to go crush the Sudras
(the working caste) and give their property back to the
Vaisyas (the property-owning caste). The most
important aspect here—the real point of our study—is
that the Sudras, the workers and peasants, believing
that the God Ishvara has confined them to the bottom of
the caste system as a punishment for their actions in the
past life, will almost certainly go along with their own
removal from power.
To the Hindu, is it not better to face exploitation in
this life and reincarnate as a Vaisya in the next life,
rather than to disobey one’s lot in this life and
reincarnate as a Dalit, an untouchable, in the next life?
Thus we see the ideological superstructure, the
“force of habit,” affecting the real, material world. To the
crude materialist, the willing surrender of power by the
majority of the working class would be absolutely
inexplicable. For the Vaisyas and Brahmins to be
physically removed from power in India, there would
have to be an ideological struggle against Hinduism
itself; for there to be an ideological struggle against
Hinduism, there would need to be physical struggle
against the Vaisyas and Brahmins.

Hence, we see neither the ideological nor material


aspect of society can be neglected. Matter and ideology
must be considered in a reciprocal relation to each
other. Ideology has arisen out of human interaction
with the material base, and dictates future human
interaction with the material base. Understanding the
relationship between ideology and matter, without
giving favor to one and obscuring the other, is
absolutely vital to understanding the behavior and
movement of societies. If one ignores the material world
and only focuses on the ideal, they will always be
manipulated; if one ignores the ideal world and focuses
only on the material, they will always be outsmarted.

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