The Time, Oppression, and Memory in Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire: A Critical Reading with Dominick LaCapra

Abstract

The notion of time in history is not neutral. There is a linear time imposed by the dominant classes, particularly the bourgeoisie, who, through their hegemonic discourse, create the idea of progressive time. This fiction fulfills a political objective: to maintain the status quo and guarantee the reproduction of domination. On the other hand, there is the temporal experience of the oppressed, marked by the repetition of exclusion and silencing. In this temporality, the conditions of exploitation, misery, and social violence return again and again. The analysis developed in this text, based on Dominick LaCapra’s interpretation of history and his concept of trauma and the necessity of memory appropriation, reveals the irruption of anachronism. This conceptualization allows us to understand how collectives that fail to work through their memories remain trapped in a vicious cycle. From this perspective on history, we also revisit the temporality that Karl Marx presents in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, where he shows how the time experienced by the oppressed returns and reveals, in the class struggle, exploitation inherited both as tragedy and as farce. The articulation between these two thinkers allows to reflect on the necessity of the reappropriation of memory and of a discourse that represents the oppressed as a political field of struggle that enables resistance.