1
Russell Rockwell
November 29, 2001
Brecht Forum, New York
Remarks on Frank Rosengarten’s
“The Organic Principle” in Selected Writings of CLR James
In these remarks I would like to focus on how Frank’s paper describes the
characteristics of James’s “organic principle” that are specifically attributed to
Hegel’s thought, primarily the Logic. These are 1) James’s initial employment of,
then replacement of, the idea of “mutually exclusive forces” with the idea of
absorption into self and transcendence; and, 2) totality, at the core of the organic
principle, as belonging to, “the privileged subject who has mastered the fine
points” of dialectical logic.
The Dialectic as the Struggle Between “mutually exclusive” forces
Frank describes James’s initial concept of the organic principle in terms of
opposing, mutually exclusive forces. Frank takes his main example from James’s
criticism of colonial rule in his native country of Trinidad. There is, on the one
hand, the organic principle discernible in James’s depiction of struggling
Trinidadian communities. On the other hand, the mechanical, bureaucratic rule
exercised by the colonial powers, an alien force located thousands of miles
away, confronts and holds back the potential libratory forces internal to the
indigenous community. The alien, colonial power fosters all sorts of internal racial
2
and class divisions, which at least temporarily overwhelm the organic potential of
the Trinidad community. Hence, colonial rule is the fundamental basis of the
prevalence of the anti-organic, imposed way of life that prevails for now over the
potential of those suppressed, positive forces that Frank depicts as summarized
in James’s concept of the organic principle.
There are two implications here, one practical, and the other philosophical.
1) The practical implication is that Trinidadian political independence would
liberate the community, releasing for Trinidadians the fullness of a life associated
with the organic principle determined