Against Pragmatism and Fundamentalism: Lenin on the Democratic Party's 'Leftward' Drift and Reification (Absolutism) of Beliefs

from Google AI:

The reification of belief frequently operates as a form of epistemic or ideological absolutism, though the two concepts describe different mechanics of thought.

To understand how they connect, it helps to break down what each term means and how one leads to the other.

Defining the Concepts

Reification of Belief. Reification occurs when an abstract concept, mental model, or subjective opinion is treated as a concrete, objective reality. When you reify a belief, you stop seeing it as a human interpretation of the world and begin treating it as a literal, physical fact.
Absolutism. Absolutism is the philosophical or ideological stance that certain truths, principles, or rules are universally valid, unchangeable, and entirely free from exceptions or context.

How Reification Drives Absolutism

Reification serves as the psychological and philosophical engine that makes absolutism possible. This transition happens in a few distinct ways:

Erasing the Subject. A belief requires a believer, meaning it is inherently tied to human perspective and limitation. Reification strips away the human element, making the belief appear as an independent feature of the universe rather than a fallible human thought.
Eliminating Nuance. Concrete physical objects either exist or they do not. By turning an abstract idea into a "thing," reification forces a binary view of truth, leaving no room for gray areas, evolution of thought, or competing interpretations.
Immunity to Revision. If an idea is just a mental model, it can be updated when new evidence arrives. If that idea is reified into an absolute fact of nature, questioning it feels like denying reality itself, which locks the believer into rigid dogmatism.

Key Distinctions

While they overlap heavily, they are not strictly identical.

Feature	Reification of Belief	Absolutism
Core Mechanism	Treating a mental abstraction as a concrete object.	Treating a principle or truth as universal and unchangeable.
Primary Focus	How an idea is categorized (subjective vs. objective).	The scope of an idea's authority (conditional vs. unconditional).
Example	Treating the concept of "the market" as a living entity with its own will.	Claiming a specific moral rule applies identically to every person in all situations.

In short, absolutism is often the end result of reification. You can hold a philosophical absolutist position without necessarily confusing ideas with physical objects (for example, in pure logic or mathematics). However, in politics, religion, and everyday life, absolutism almost always relies on reifying human beliefs until they feel as solid and undeniable as stone.

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