Historical Society:

Marxism or Catholicism ?

Marxism and Roman Catholicism were discussed at a recent meeting of the Historical Society chaired by Professor Wood. Guest speakers were Miss Shirley Smith and Father Halley.

Marxism covers all aspects of life said Miss Shirley Smith. Marx formulated his philosophy during a period of great growth and change, and change forms its very basis. Like all materialists, Marx believed that food and shelter is the basis of man's existence. Unlike many materialists of his time he saw that things were always changing. Dialectic Materialism combines both aspects.

Change, says Marx, is not purely the product of time. Opposing forces also produce change. Thus two elements will clash and produce something completely different. Using the chicken and the egg as an analogy, one can perceive the subtle way in which the change comes about. The egg exists in the form of an embryonic chicken in a shell. The development of the chicken threatens the existence of the shell, threatens it with extinction. But the embryo needs the shell, and the shell would not exist without the embryo which it is protecting. The shell we can call the thesis, the chicken, the antithesis. The shell's permanently complete state negates the chicken's complete state or true existence, the chicken negates the shell's true existence. But the development of the embryo-cum-chicken, caused by time and the conditions the eggshell provides, forces the chicken to break the shell and to change its existence. This resultant state could be called the synthesis. It is a higher form of life; neither the shell nor embryo.

The Marxist concept of society is a multitude of people related to one another, primarily in an economic way. Their views are shaped by their economic situation. The tragedy is that peoples' ideas do not always keep up with their economic situation and society's economic structure. Hence society's ideas or superstructure is often obsolete. Especially conservative of its traditional ideas is the moneyed (and hence leisured) class in any society. Only those affected by obvious financial limitations will keep up with the economic realities—because they are forced to.