I was undertaking the daunting challenge of musing over what the world is all about when, through my musings I was presented with a far more arduous task of trying to figure out what Marx is all about
I must once again stress my disclaimer – I have little to no knowledge of philosophy so my wonders are inaccurate and incomplete. I’m looking for you lot (which I think consists of Euny) to help me out.
Apparently there are two broad approaches that hastily present themselves when trying to garble about what constitutes the world and everything else: materialism and idealism.
Materialism would state that ‘matter in motion’ is the fundamental constituent of the universe. It is wholly objective, acting according to its own natural laws. Materialism would hold that thought/emotion is simply a chemical function – to the brain, as urine is to the kidneys
Idealism would approach the universe as being a series of concepts. Matter, as realised through sensory perception is a construct of one of many purely subjective concepts.
Marx is generally described as a materialist. In its strictest sense, outlined above, I have found that to be an inaccurate depiction. It appears that Marx believes that human conceptual reflexes are relevant but are shaped by the objective conditions in which they are experienced. The conditions in which a women (or man) is forced to subside and reproduce her species shape her universe. Her natural depends on how she produces. This half-way house unification between idealism and materialism could be called ‘humanism’. Marx took from the Hegelian dialect that the objective (material) world is experienced entirely subjectively, to assert that the objective reality of the socio-economic nature directs and shapes the subjective experience of it, and vies versa.
In his conception of history, Marx thought it best, therefore to look at the modes of subsistence, and see how that shaped the moods, motivations the subjective realities which led to humanity taking the course it history it did – instead of looking at idealist conceptions such as God, or materialist concepts such as genetics, he approached from this humanist stance to try to understand what compelled history to pan out the way it did, and what compels it to follow the path it currently does. Economic gain, as a key motivation for a woman’s action is what he called a ‘relative drive’, originating from the mode of subsistence she found herself in, and is not, like hunger, a ‘fixed drive’. So he was wary about trying to understand human nature as an overly objective, ahistorical and acontextual force, instead suggesting it is perhaps more of a social consciousness or force.
Marx stated that changes in these ‘relative drives’ caused historical changes. He argued that such epoch changes would occur when the mode of social organization began to hamper the productive forces hat allows humanity to subsist. Thus evolution (as opposed to revolution, which implies ending up in the same place) could not be imposed on society, it is caused by a challenge to woman’s ability to subsist, due to the social organisation in which she finds herself in. Such challenges lead to a change in the social consciousness which re-shapes the social organisation to one that allows subsistence.
Maybe I’m being optimistic, but faced with the forces of climate change, peak oil, and gross alienation and inequality; the social organization we find ourselves in seems to be hampering our ability to subside. Time for a change, perhaps?
