And this is important. Why? Because it suggests that even Engels did not see “materialism” as merely the study of economic or other overtly-material factors in order to understand exactly how history would work out. Rather, he and Marx were interested in how changes in the material world exerted an influence on what we would call the long arc of history. This may sound banal, even obvious. But this is not necessarily how history was understood by people before and after their time. Take, for example, the “Great Man” theory of history, a Whiggish invention, holding that famous personalities predominantly affect historical outcomes. In other words, there is no America without George Washington, not French Revolution without Louis XVI.
There is, of course, some truth to such a conception, but it’s not the whole story. Washington was one factor in the founding of the United States, but many other things played a part: the spread of liberal political ideology, the massive distance between Britain and its colonies, the particular material arrangements of farmland that helped foster a sense of independence in the United States, the state of trade in Colonial New England, etc.
Similarly, many hold that history is effectively determined by ideas; we’re all familiar with this narrative. Richard Weaver blamed William of Ockham for the emergence of Nominalism (and thus somehow Protestantism and the Enlightenment—never mind that this ignores a variety of other historical factors like how those ideas were transmitted, their material availability, the political state of Germany in Luther’s time, etc.).
What Engels is saying, then, is that material forces must be taken seriously. Changes in technology, including changes in economic systems and the ideas they engender, do play a part in how history happens, the paths it takes. “Self-interest” may have only become a meaningful justification for actions with the emergence of capitalism (and the technologies that made it possible, including developments in shipbuilding, the breakdown of bonds of feudal fealty, the emergence of a predominantly money-based economy, etc.), to take only one example. Ideas change over time in part because the social systems and material conditions that make those ideas easy to hold change over time. These things come together in complex ways, made all the more complex by our freedom (something Engels acknowledges in the passage quoted).
Why do I bother bringing this up now? I bring It up in large part because Christians engage in certain kinds of idealism all the time. They’ll blame the decadence of the modern West on liberal political philosophy or (among Catholics and Orthodox) Protestantism. They’ll say that the acceptance of an idea like no-fault divorce spelled the end of the family. They’ll imply that somehow, if only we got these ideas out of their heads, we could turn back the clock (further implying that that’s somehow desirable). We get told that if we could only ban x or y thing or idea we could go back. “Change the culture and you’ll make us virtuous!”
But what if “culture” is a product of conditions both material and immaterial? What if we need to reckon with how smartphones, or global digital communication, or the emergence of skyscrapers impact our “culture” and sense of “community”? What if understanding and addressing issues like consumerism, commodity obsession, and individualism require thinking about the material historical conditions that made such things possible (like the emergence of factory technologies and the enclosure of common land hundreds of years ago)?
This is why I beg us to understand our multifaceted world “materialistically.” Certainly, one can go too far and be a reductionist (though it seems Engels was not). But our mistake today tends to be too idealistic, to simply look to changes in ideas to explain how things are now. This, however, leaves us toothless; we can do nothing but decry losses rather than reckon with history and harness developments in material conditions toward Christian ends.
To be a “materialist” is to recognize the power history has as more than a series of ideas; it is to take seriously change, giving us a chance to, guided by divine Providence, make our own history, to be God’s hands, as St. Teresa said long ago.
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