In Highgate cemetery in north London two graves are diagonally opposed from one another - those of Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer. That’s appropriate, since Spencer’s ‘social Darwinism’ is noted for its justification of violence to others in the name of evolution, while Marx championed equality, community and openness to all.
Central to the difference between these two thinkers is the question of whether conversation can produce communal agreements among people who accept the need to cooperate with each-other across their differences, at least in part; or whether such differences are so deeply embedded in ideology, identity and material circumstances that competition - the ‘survival of the fittest’ - is the only way forward.
This isn’t just a clash between philosophies from the past; it’s also a challenge that’s deeply embedded in politics and social activism today, when divide-and-rule tactics and either-or thinking are so dominant. Donald Trump, for example, represents the triumph of an unreflective mind inside an aggressive spokesperson for the survival of the white race. By contrast, at least in her guarded statements on policy decisions that embrace the maximum of cooperative understanding, Nancy Pelosi is trying to be a reflective integrator of community beyond a single constituency.
