Second footnote to the post titled “Avant-garde”

For both Hegel and Marx, and despite Marx’s voluntary split from Hegel, and even though Marx gave lots of deference and respect to Hegel, historical and social change was inevitable. There was no going around change. But for Hegel, historical and social change would occur on its own. Change would occur miraculously and naturally in Hegel’s view. For Marx, on the other hand, historical and social change would occur as a result of violent revolution, given the nature of the social relations that define and shape capitalism. Whereas Hegel’s theory of history was theocentric, it all revolved around God and the universal mind, Marx’s theory of history was anthropocentric – it revolved around economics and class and the social relations which define and shape capitalism – and as a result, Marx’s theory of history contended that given the basic nature of capitalist social relations, change would have to occur as a result of violent revolution based on economics and class and the basic nature of capitalist social relations, which one should note are extractive and exploitative and exclusive and repressive.