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<h1 id="reader-title">Cuba’s “Battle for Ideas” Affects Us All,
or Could, and Should</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/susan-babbitt/"
rel="nofollow">Susan Babbitt</a> - June 21, 2016<br>
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<p>Some suggest more abstract “theoretical” questions are
a luxury. There is no time, given global crises, for
such ivory tower work. Yet no less a revolutionary than
Fidel Castro said that people suffer because of
concepts. He made the point in Caracus after Hugo Chávez
was first elected in 1998. The example he offered was
not obviously political.</p>
<p>Castro said people suffer because of “nicely sweetened
but rotten ideas … that man is an animal moved only by a
carrot or when beaten by a whip”<a name="_ednref1"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn1">[i]</a>
That is, we suffer because of ideas about what it means
to be human. Marx, after all, thought human beings are
distinct from other animals because we care about such
an issue: We don’t just try to realize our nature. We
need to know what it means to do so.</p>
<p>In capitalist societies, he argued, we suffer
“unnatural separation” from our own humanity. We are
alienated, not just from others but from ourselves, and
from our “species essence”. To live well, Marx wrote, we
must fulfill our “natural vocation” for “conscious life
activity” and judge it to be a human one: “Human beings
will only be complete when the real individual . . . has
become a species being”.<a name="_ednref2"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn2">[ii]</a></p>
<p>Species essence is known through intimate <em>felt </em>connection
between one individual and members of the species as a
whole. Of course, now, in the North at least, we don’t
believe in species being. Some political theorists,
discussing “development”, refer to “shared humanity”<a
name="_ednref3"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn3">[iii]</a>.
But it is rhetoric. Properly understood, the idea is
hard. It counters the ideology that living well is a
matter of believing in oneself.</p>
<p>We give lip service to “connectivity” but resist
pursuing it. It is why the “battle for ideas”, in Cuba,
extends back two centuries, predating Marx. Independence
activists saw the mistake in European liberalism. They
argued against a philosophical presupposition of that
view, namely, that human beings can know themselves by
themselves, as if it’s easy, as if it can happen without
real solidarity.</p>
<p>In Caracas, Castro said, “We are winning the battle for
ideas… They discovered ‘smart weapons’ but we discovered
something more powerful, namely, the idea that humans
think and feel.”<a name="_ednref4"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn4">[iv]</a>
Che Guevara knew this idea. He argued, against the
Soviets, that human beings are not primarily motivated
by material incentives. Even in the USSR, “nicely
sweetened but rotten ideas” were holding sway.</p>
<p>In Cuba, such questions have always been part of the
broader, global struggle, for peace and justice. In a
speech on December 2, 2001, months after the attack on
New York City, Castro said, “There is no more powerful
weapon than an individual who knows who she is and where
she is going”. José Martí said knowing oneself, <em>as
human, </em>is every person’s most difficult task. He
can’t be accused of being apolitical.</p>
<p>I was reminded of this line of thinking when I saw the
acclaimed Cuban film, <em>Conducta.<a name="_ednref5"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn5"><strong>[v]</strong></a>
</em>At first glance, it is about Cuba’s many problems.
It tells of a boy and his teacher. The boy’s mother is a
drug addict and the boy is a problem at school. His
teacher defends him and gets into trouble. School
authorities try to force her to retire. Ten years past
retirement age, she resists retirement for the sake of
the children.</p>
<p>We learn about poverty, dog-fighting, discrimination
and bureaucratic rigidity. Yet the film expresses what
kept taking me back to Cuba, again and again, during the
long “special period”, after the collapse of the Soviet
Union. The problems seemed intractable. People were
leaving. The ones remaining were skinny. The world’s
media, almost without exception, predicted Cuba’s
demise.</p>
<p>Yet underneath was an undeniable energy, human energy.
Everywhere, problems were discussed, at meeting after
meeting. I couldn’t see the way forward, or any real
solutions. But I always left Cuba inspired, moved by
something I couldn’t quite identify. I hadn’t
experienced it elsewhere. People were saying they didn’t
know where they were going but they were determined not
to turn back.</p>
<p>In <em>Conducta, </em>the old teacher, called to a
meeting to celebrate her (forced) retirement, interrupts
the program to read a prepared statement. She describes
the pride of her grandmother, descended from slaves,
when the teacher showed her her teaching certificate.
Children, she explains, whatever their problems, are
still children. They can be guided and prepared. Her
words are simple but direct.</p>
<p>She refuses to retire. They will have to fire her. And
then she stands up and walks out, and on, into the
street. It is this scene that represents what I have
found so intriguing about Cuba. No matter how complex
the situation, there are always individuals like that
teacher. There may not be a clear vision of the future,
but there is always a direction. It can be felt. It is
people, driven by feeling between people.</p>
<p>It might seem paradoxical. We expect citizens of a
country with a communist government, with a single
party, to be automatons. Certainly, some are like that,
as in any society. But there’s no contradiction there,
in theory. Armando Hart, who led Cuba’s literacy
campaign in 1961, says it’s a pity intellectuals don’t <em>read
</em>Marx’s philosophy. If they did, they’d know a real
alternative to liberal individualism.<a name="_ednref6"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn6">[vi]</a></p>
<p>Speaking to medical workers in 1960, Guevara advised:
“If we all use the new weapon of solidarity … then the
only thing left for us is to know the daily stretch of
the road and to take it. Nobody can point out that
stretch … in the personal road of each individual; it is
what he will do every day, what he will gain from his
individual experience”.</p>
<p>“What he will gain from individual experience”! Guevara
was a dialectical materialist. This means he was a
naturalist, recognizing causal interdependence. He saw
human freedom as depending upon the “close dialectical
unity” existing between people moving collaboratively in
a definite direction. He was not against individual
freedoms. He just had a more realistic, sensible
conception of how we know them.</p>
<p>Part of the problem with “nicely sweetened but rotten
ideas” is that material incentives give nothing back,
humanly. The “close dialectical unity” Guevara refers to
is a dynamic, constitutive relationship in which people
receive back from others. They grow. Martí thought it
was just “plain and sensible” scientific realism. Cause
and effect. But it involves feelings. That’s different,
in today’s world.</p>
<p>When Castro says, “we discovered … that humans think
and feel”, he is not making a trivial statement.
Although science tells us mind and body are connected,
North Atlantic cultures, including academic
philosophers, cleave them apart. This is well discussed,
in Academia: It is acceptable to attribute <em>some </em>rationality
to feelings but we don’t want to go too far.</p>
<p>Feminists deserve credit for insisting on embodiment.
Arguably, Martí pushed the point further. He knew
imperialism and how it dehumanizes. Thus, he also knew
species being – humanness – needs to be discovered. And
when something is unimaginable, unexpected, reason has
limits. Martí suggests, therefore, that reason alone
cannot bring peace and show us how to grow, as human
beings.<a name="_ednref7"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn7">[vii]</a></p>
<p>Some accuse him of being anti-science, or some kind of
spiritualist. But like Marx, he was a naturalist and a
realist, who recognized that we know the world through
causal contact, sometimes felt in the body before
conceptualized with the mind. Indeed, Che Guevara was
bold enough to say “at the risk of seeming ridiculous”
that revolutions can only be driven by “great feelings
of love”.<a name="_ednref8"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn8">[viii]</a></p>
<p>Those who see <em>Conducta </em>as being about Cuba’s
problems miss the point. A Cuban friend said about the
film, “We are a society full of contradictions but with
energy to persevere”. And now, for sure, there are new
problems. The energy is still there. Its source, in
ideas, needs to be respected. Guevara’s remark about
love is part of a discussion of the centrality of
individuals. The argument is deeply philosophical.</p>
<p>In the 2000s, I introduced a philosophy course at my
university, taught at the University of Havana by Cuban
philosophers. I wanted students to know that <em>ideas
</em>come from Cuba, not just culture. Administrators
quickly moved the course to Development Studies, which
is a Social Sciences department. It was as if a course
in Cuba could not be Philosophy. It had to be Geography
or Sociology.</p>
<p>The course was renamed to be on culture, not
philosophy. I had introduced the course as a philosophy
course precisely to counter a stereotype: Ideas come
from the North, culture from the South. When North
Americans talk about freedom and democracy, we are
talking about the human condition. We call that
philosophy. When Latin Americans talk about freedom and
democracy, it’s something else.</p>
<p>José Martí, for example, is taught in literature
departments, if taught at all in the North. Yet, his
many volumes of work offer a compelling vision of human
freedom and how we know it. It was central to his
radical independence movement. Respected Cuban scholars
argue that he proposed a “revolution in thinking”<a
name="_ednref9"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn9">[ix]</a>
and a “new way of being”.<a name="_ednref10"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_edn10">[x]</a></p>
<p>In 1997, closing the fifth PCC Congress, Fidel Castro
said, “What we cannot lose is direction. If we lose
direction, we lose everything”. Right now, the vision
for Cuban socialism is not fully clear. But the
direction is still evident. It is about species essence.
However, to know it as such, which we must, those
“nicely sweetened” ideas should be properly identified.
It may be urgent, politically and globally.</p>
<p><strong>Notes.</strong></p>
<p><a name="_edn1"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref1">[i]</a>
“A revolution can only be born from culture and ideas”.
(Master lecture at the Central University of Venezuela,
February 3) (Havana, Cuba: Editora Política,1999) p. 9</p>
<p><a name="_edn2"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref2">[ii]</a>
Marx, Karl “On the Jewish question”. In Robert C. Tucker
(Ed.), <em>The Marx- Engels reader: Second edition</em>
(New York, NY: Norton) p. 46.</p>
<p><a name="_edn3"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref3">[iii]</a>
Amartya Sen, <em>Development is freedom, </em>p. 283</p>
<p><a name="_edn4"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref4">[iv]</a>
“A revolution”, p. 21.</p>
<p><a name="_edn5"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref5">[v]</a>
English title <em>Behaviour, </em>Spain, 2014, Dir.
Ernesto Baranas</p>
<p><a name="_edn6"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref6">[vi]</a>
<em>Ética, cultura y política </em>(Havana: Centro de
estudios martianos, 2006) pp. 132-4</p>
<p><a name="_edn7"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref7">[vii]</a>
“Emerson” in <em>Selected Writings </em>tr. Esther
Allen (Penguin, 2002), p. 128</p>
<p><a name="_edn8"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref8">[viii]</a>
“Man and socialism in Cuba”. In David Deutschman (Ed.),
<em>The Che Guevara reader</em> (New York, NY: Ocean
Press, 1997) p. 211.</p>
<p><a name="_edn9"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref9">[ix]</a>
Rodríguez, Pedro Paulo, “José Martí en tiempos de
reenquiciamiento y remolde: Desatar a América y desuncir
al hombre”. In <em>Pensar, prever, server </em>(Havana,
Cuba: Ediciones Unión, 2012) p. 10,</p>
<p><a name="_edn10"
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/21/cubas-battle-for-ideas-affects-us-all-or-could-and-should/#_ednref10">[x]</a>
Rodríguez, Pedro Paulo, “Una en alma y intento”:
Identidad y unidad latinoamericana en José Martí”. In <em>De
los dos Américas </em>(Havana, Cuba: Centro de
estudios martianos, 2010) p. 5</p>
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