Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Part II

The contemporary "culture wars" are fought on numerous fronts. But there are two basic alliances: the Enlightenment, and the forces of reaction. (Both the fomer and the latter have both intellectualist/elitist and anti-intellectual/populist versions.)

The Enlightenment Underground sides with the spirit of Enlightenment against the rhetoricians of reaction and true believers. This may appear to make us seem less radical and militant than we are. Make no mistake: the Enlightenment Underground is a militant and radical Enlightenment. We are not reformists, or if we are, it is as a matter of tactic, not temperament.

Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud have become known as critics of the Enlightenment. This is so foolish that it can hardly be credited to anything other than historical short-sightedness. They are critics of what was formerly known as "the bourgeosis" -- but no Enlightenment which could be simply identified with the bourgeosie could be worth having.

The Enlightenment Underground understands that Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud have carried forwards the radical Enlightenment, which (alone?) has the power to keep the moderate Enlightenment honest and true to itself.

The radical Enlightenment has always been materialist, radical, and militant, from Spinozism and the Diggers and Levellers down to our own time. Marx, Nietzsche and Freud criticize the instabilities and tensions of bourgeois subjectivity from a position within it -- in this way they best exemplify the very spirit of Enlightenment, of critique, and the possibility of utopia.