On the eve of writing my first paper since my return to school. I have some reflecting to do in order to organize my thoughts on the communist movement as told by your friend (I should probably say comrade) and mine Karl Marx. I know that Karl's goal is the emancipation of the working people of the world from the oppression of the Capitalistic system. I, however, find his "scientific" view of the human condition to be limited in its scope.
As we talked about today Karl saw that the measure of humanity could be summed up as the need to create to be truly happy in life. Production of material objects made by the hands of man provided an outlet for the essence of man to be expressed. While this is irrefutably true, it is an incomplete view of humanity. Absent from this view are motivation, free will, love, and passion. I think that Karl sees himself as Prometheus and is attempting to give knowledge to people which he, as a more enlightened being must simplify and dumb down the ideas so that his people can relate and understand.
Why else would there be reason to simplify his premise for his view of humanity. I believe that Karl worked very hard at making his argument irrefutable. Karl found that the totality of the human condition posed problems for his argument, so he simplified his premises so that the problems presented by the unevaluated areas of the human makeup didn't get in the way of his grand reorganization of society. I believe that by doing this he has damaged the whole of his argument. One of the main differences with his argument, as opposed to other ideas of the day, is his "scientific" approach. By ignoring variables in any system a scientific theory loses its validity, and the scientist turns into a witchdoctor........ can this still be considered scientific?
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Very interesting points Dan. My first thought about Karl oversimplifying humanity was, "What was his childhood like?" I feel like for us, we have this image in our head that in our childhoods we are cuddled and loved and learn the value of loving and being loved. I wonder if Marx missed that in his life. And also I think him ignoring other aspects of humanity is a significant hole in his argument, just like what happens after the revolution he calls for takes place. Even if he has sound social theory about the nature of wealth and power, he leaves little room for implementation or discussion of topics that don't fit into his narrow schema.
ReplyDeleteGood thought provoking post. I think that maybe he oversimplified humanity so as to only address the bare necessities of people? If he tried to tie all aspect of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness into his argument, we would be reading all day. Not that that is a justification for the gaps left in his arguments, but just a thought. Any argument can be refuted, Marx just did a poor job of making his harder than others.
ReplyDeleteI think that you raise a valid critique since the things that you feel Marx failed to account for are things that Marxists struggled to explain like religion, love, nationality, etc. However, for Marx these ideas are just palliatives that mask the pain or distract from the root problem, the oppression of the working class. The triumph of the irrational had not yet happened (stay tuned for next week's lecture) and Marx saw these emotions or aspects of humanity as ways in which the bourgeoisie could continue to exploit the workers. They are a part of the superstructure, not the base.
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