The Iraqi Communist Party and Hegel’s owl of Minerva

The decision by the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) to go along with what is called the “Political Reconciliation”, though not inherently wrong, has lead, among other things, to a drastic stagnation in the ICP’s intellectual activity and suppression of critical thinking that questions the very concept of Political Reconciliation or other political and intellectual matters.
This piece is not concerned directly with issues of Political Reconciliation. It is mainly concerned with the (mis)conception on the part of the ICP that equates political Reconciliation with the Party’s (mis)perceived obligation of suppression of critical thinking. It seems that there is a prevalent , though unspoken, thinking that views any critical or ‘aberrant’ thinking that deviate from the official line adopted by the party as something that might embarrass the party and jeopardize its position in the political landscape.
One might ask for some evidence for suppression of democracy. One vital piece of evidence is that the Charter of the Party states clearly that the minority of its membership have the right to expresses their views in the Party’s media. Sadly, this is not happening, despite the fact that even the Party’s website advocates that articles do not necessarily represent the (official) line of the Party. Certainly, this practice does not only constitute a violation of the Party’s Charter, but it also serves to suppress democracy and undermine the Party’s credibility. The Charter is the only document that regulates members’ conducts, and is not supposed to changes in accordance with changes in political processes. If there were a change, then this should be enshrined again in the charter.
(I am using the word Party here as a shorthand expression, since I am sure and know that not all those in the ICP behave or think similarly. However, I am referring here only to what I see or experience when reviewing the Party’s media)
Such above mentioned misconception on the part of the ICP that sees critical thinking as a possible liability or a threat to Party could be explained (but not be explained away) in psychological and philosophical terms.
The psychological level regards the Party’s belief in the possibility of having its position undermined through the expression of ‘aberrant’ thoughts as derived from an infantile magical belief in the Power of Words. The party’s (mis)conception that thoughts exclusively affect reality is a part of psychological infantile thinking, in which the words or thoughts acquire a magical power. It is infantile because the child at an early stage of its development goes through what is called the primary narcissism, in which the child thinks in an omnipotent way that its thoughts will affect reality. We see evidence of this thinking in religious prayers, for example, or in the psychiatric disorder of obsessional thoughts.
In religious prayers, those who pray believe that their utterances will affect reality. Acquiring a megalomaniac power, the person uttering the prayers projects his perceived megalomania on an external, omnipotent Creator. The Creator becomes omnipotent only through the megalomaniac psychological stance of those who pray. But this megalomania is only a defense mechanism against deep-seated powerlessness or impotence. In other words, the omnipotence of the Creator is a mere reflection of the impotence experienced by a person uttering the prayers.
Suppression of critical thinking by whomever and for whatever reason is extremely dangerous, as it leads to a more feeling of disempowerment and impotence and hence to a stronger belief in, or the need for, having an external omnipotent force that determines one’s fate. The inevitable outcome is more despair as well as one’s failure to acknowledge one’s own ability to change reality; it is a recipe for defeatism.
What does all this entail? ICP advocates itself as a radical party, that is, a party that strives for locating power in people and believes in their ability to revolutionize or (if one does not like this word) radically change their lives for better. But by suppression of critical thinking, the ICP endorses a process of disempowerment, which, psychologically and socially speaking, would have to lead inevitably to the escapist belief in having an omnipotent and omnipresent Creator.
Suppression of democracy contributes to seeing the world in a fetishistic, instrumental fashion, in which case the relationship to the Creator becomes the fundament of goodness and badness, hence blinding a person to the ills of opportunism, corruption and other social ills. Suppression of critical thinking runs counter to the materialistic teachings of the ICP (materialistic means here the notion of locating power in people and not in an external superpower of what is called God or whatever).
Political calculations that go at the expense of democracy prove not only myopic, but extremely dangerous. They would inescapably undermine the striven for, declared ICP’s project. The ICP thus becomes as religious (read: escapist), in realistic terms, as any other religious party, despite declaring otherwise.
The philosophical explanation can partly find it roots in Hegel, Marx’s master.
“What ever happens, every individual is a child of his time, so philosophy too is its own time apprehended in thought. It is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overlap his own age, jump over Rhodes…
One more word about giving instructions as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it. As the thought of the world, it appears only when actuality is always there cut and dried after its process of formation has been completed…
When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy’s grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wing with the falling of dusk”.
G.W.F. Hegel
Philosophy of Right

“Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Athena. She was associated with the owl, traditionally regarded as wise, and hence a metaphor for philosophy. Hegel wrote, in the preface to his Philosophy of Right: The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk. He meant that philosophy understands reality only after the event. It cannot prescribe how the world ought to be” (Reference 2).
Hegel’s statement above and what I have discussed elsewhere (reference 3) are relevant to the ICP’s stance on democracy and critical thinking in the following terms.
1. It is a fatal mistake to view Marxism as a uniformed teaching, theory or philosophy.
2. Some commit an equally fatal mistake when referring to Marxism as science. Viewing Marxism as science hinders having different views of the so-called reality. Major parts of the problem here are the equation of science with scienticism, disregarding the distinction between natural and social sciences, and discounting the notion that even natural science, as Nietzsche taught us, is just one way of perceiving the world (reference 4).
3. Seeing Marxism as science that transcends its age is scientifically and philosophically wrong- as Hegel above indicates. Also, science is an ever-changing enterprise in terms of its concepts and methodologies. Hence, the additional statement that Marxism is a scientific methodolog, hence has eternal validity, is an evasion of critical thinking, since methodologies themselves are derived from basic concept ingrained in science in general or in a particular science. For example, the method of single case studies is more appropriate to sciences of subjectivity as well as to some natural sciences like cosmology or geology, whereas statistical analysis is more appropriate to some sciences like agriculture.
4. Marx had adopted Hegel in his notion of seeing philosophy as a product of its time, hence it is philosophically wrong for the ICP to speak of just one Marxism, as there are ‘Marxisms’, all of which are, more or less, legitimate products of their time, and one might add, of their place.
5. If we agree with Hegel that philosophy cannot transcend its time, then one has to review what Marxism means now for the ICP in terms of its political and intellectual stances. But such a review can only be fruitful and feasible in an environment that is conducive to free thinking and critical spirit. This Intellectual review is the biggest challenge the ICP is confronting.
The ICP cannot afford deferring confronting this intellectual challenge, because it is an existential challenge as well.
Only through confronting this challenge with all necessary enthusiasm, openness, courage the ICP could allow Hegel’s owl of Minerva to spread its wings and fly.
Bibliography
1. G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel s Philosophy of Right, tr. T. M. Knox (Oxford, 1967).
2. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=tZe&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&ei=gaWBS7bnKZeanwPShLTXBg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAUQBSgA&q=hegel+minerva+wikipedia&spell=1
3. http://www.althakafaaljadeda.com/talal_alruba2e.htm
4. Nietzsche, The Gay Science. Cambridge University Press. 2001.

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