ABSTRACT
The equation at the heart of Jameson’s program asserts that the totality is humanity is History, and it holds in no matter what order the terms are rearranged. The very concept of totality is but the abstract form of the concept of society: that whole which includes all things, that supreme class under which all other classes must be subsumed. The move consists in reconceiving the idea of totality in such a way as to circumvent the serious problems associated with a “theological” Marxism. Hegel could be allowed a positive vision of the totality just because his was an idealistic system: the Spirit immanent in history and rising to consciousness of itself is the totality for Hegel, and there is no contradiction in terms. When Hegel is set on his feet in the name of a rigorous materialism, however, this situation abruptly changes.
