Political Theory

H14 - Narrative Paths to Modernity: Swift, Marx, Darwin

Date: May 31 | Time: 03:45pm to 05:15pm | Location: Classroom - CL 410 Room ID:15722

Chair/Président/Présidente : Robert Sparling (University of Ottawa)

The Citizen Body: Storytelling and the Metaphor of Origin: Marlene Sokolon (Concordia University)
Abstract: Although Darwin’s theory of natural selection is primarily an explanation of the biological world, his ideas have long influenced the literary imagination from evolutionary narrative in nineteenth century to contemporary fiction of prehistoric chronicles and the unavoidable theme of mutation in comic books and film. More recently, Darwin’s ideas have been applied to the cultural world by the approach of literary Darwinism, which explores how human beings evolved to produce and consume storytelling as an adaptive function. Although debates continue as to the meaning and purpose of human storytelling, one version suggests that narrative is essential to how human beings understand and navigate our complex sociopolitical environments. From this perspective, we have evolved to use storytelling as part of the way in which we comprehend, give meaning, and acquire knowledge. Turning this idea of storytelling as an evolved practice of understanding back upon Darwin, this paper explores the question of what role storytelling performs in Darwin’s own account of natural selection? Some of Darwin’s writings, such as his autobiography and journal from the Voyage of the Beagle, are explicit narratives. In other texts, such as the Origin of Species and Descent of Man, Darwin liberally uses metaphor and simile to explore development, continuity, and diversity. Focusing specifically on passages which deal with an account of “origin,” the paper explores the contribution of Darwin’s use of narrative to understanding the complexity of how and why we think in terms of foundations or beginnings. The final part of the paper applies this understanding of foundational narratives to examples of the long tradition of storytelling of political origin from Plato’s myth of metals to the Canadian myth of two solitudes. Significantly, the human capacity for storytelling is suggested to both generate and be formed by the narrative activity of creating boundaries of the origin of what is and is not considered “my own.”

The Mystery of the Needs Principle Solved: Marx’s Unnamed Interlocutor in his Discussion of “…to each according to their needs.”: Paul Gray (Brock University)
Abstract: Great mystery surrounds Marx’s assertion of the famous principle, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” Although the ‘needs principle’ is often attributed to Marx, he is not its inventor. Many commentators have speculated about from whom Marx gets the needs principle. Candidates include Louis Blanc, Mikhail Bakunin, Etienne Cabet, Moses Hess, Prosper Enfatin, Etienne-Gabriel Morelly, and Gracchus Babeuf. In this paper, I argue that Marx’s articulation of the needs principle is in dialogue with an unnamed interlocutor and that knowing their identity is absolutely crucial for interpreting Marx’s ideas about justice. Furthermore, I argue that it is either impossible or highly unlikely that Marx receives the needs principle from any of the aforementioned candidates. In this attempt to solve the mystery, I argue that there is definitive proof that Marx’s unnamed dialogue partner is Hegel, and specifically, Hegel in his assertions about need in a few key passages in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Understanding the basis of this dialogue is not only important for interpreting Marx’s affirmation of the needs principle, but reveals why Marx’s ethics is in conscious opposition to radical notions of natural rights expressed during the French Revolution. Instead, Marx’s revolutionary ethics is based in a historicist theory of freedom, which attempts to dispense with needs expressed as rights, and, indeed, any need for rights.