[b]I just thought that I would make a thread addressing some quotes by Karl Marx since I view him to be a interesting and misunderstood philosopher.
I thought it would be interesting to discuss certain Marxist thoughts and philosophies.
Here are some quotes for discussion by Marx:[/b]
Replies would be nice.
Imafeared I ain’t read Karl in nigh on thirty year. Now, I can usually offer up an opinion on just about anything, but I don’t recall those quotes or their context. They seem kind of generic on their face and I’ve got no truck with them. Sorry I can’t conjur up a fight, but maybe someone else will get me started when they flesh this out a might. 
Fair enough. 
Give me your opinions on the short quotes if you wish to.
I am a bit green with Marxist philosophy.
I disagree. To the extent “consciousness” equals awareness or cognition (as opposed to conscience (moral/ethical)), then I think it is determined by man’s physical being. I think you can be awake and cognitive, like a baby in the womb, with no real social being. You may be a blank slate, but that does not mean you are unconscious.
Social being greatly influences the nature of your conscious and your conscience, but not the consciousness itself. Indeed, without consciousness, you can have no social being. Consciousness comes first.
I agree. I agree that it is dialectic, though I don’t agree with economical determinism.
Hmmm. Yes. Like consciousness precedes social being, so too, labor and activity precede human thought; even if that labor/activity is the simple act of breathing and firing synapses. I suppose one could argue that the soul thinks and even exists independently of the body, but I think, in the context of Marx, who is closer to Earth, what I think he meant is well taken.
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True. We all wax on, here on ILovePhilosophy.com, but it’s really mental masturbation in comparison to the “real” world.
Marx would roll his eyes at the internet and denominate it the new opiate of the masses, shaming even religion in it effects on Americans.
On the other hand, it could be a motivator to action in the countries and among the people that need action, all while serving as a sedative to Marx’s enemies. He’d probably give up on American Labor and rather have them asleep at the key board, voting for their capitalist masters, while people everywhere else learned how to subvert the capitalists by using the internet and actually implimenting ideas with action.
This post is only concerned with the first quote: “Man’s consciousness is determined by his social being.”
This is patently false. While the content of a mans’ consciousness may be influenced by society, the actual mechanism is a part of his identity. Its function of integration and differentiation does not change no matter where he was born or raised.
Social being = mode of production = economy. We could specifically cite the case of the reification of money, which under capitalism - indeed, in all the world - is ultimately a false (i.e. unnatural) need. Needs, in turn, produce desires. Desires drive human beings. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that if man’s desires are shaped by the economy in which he lives, his entire consciousness (or at least a good deal of it) is likewise.
Marx is often confused to be an economic determinist. I think there was someplace in his writing where he attempted to make it clear that he wasn’t. It’s been a long time since I read any of his stuff.
That makes sense, but it also has a specific definition of “social being” that is narrower than what I thought it was. If that is what Marx meant, then I understand it now, but I was shooting at a broader target. There was not context to the original quote.
For instance, animals have “needs” too, but I’m not so sure that transmorgifies into “desires” and even if it does, thier soclial being, in the broad sense, does not seem to be dictated by it. It is only man that keeps driving for more than he “needs.” If that is because his need for money (production/economy) is false, then it begs the question; "Why does man have this false need/desire/drive beyond satiation?
In any event, I just wanted to clarify the reason I answered as I did when there was not context or definitions to the original quote. If Marx meant what you said, it makes more sense.
=D> Very good.
Why? Because in every new generation someone supplies it in them.
This goes all the way back to the first conscious human being which I think happened accidentally by the social practices of the religious.
I would even go further to say that religion planted the “impression” in us all in wanting more around some symbolic form of heavenly salvation that is impossible to achieve here on earth by mere physicalism alone.
We created a ideal of this religious symbolic conception as civilization representing our factitious desire of “more” where everything that physically substained us amongst nature previously was deemed “not enough.”
Activity leads to “impressions” and through such impressions does ingenuity , invention, and construction arise from.
Nature does not supply the impressions as they derive from man himself.
Thoughts or ideas extends from impressions of man’s own self.
Sorry; I missed this. What are you looking for, though? General comments on the subjects in those specific quotes, or a more general discussion of Marx’s achievements, or something more specific? I’m hesitant to wade in without knowing what the goals are…
It’s been a long time for me, too. There is a lot of ink spilled on this issue, though, and some of it is downright weird (e.g., Althusser). I think it’s fair to say that Marx started as a very humanistic thinker, and moderated that as his system developed. The way I approached him was to bear in mind the concerns of those early works, and read his socio-economic theories–which are fairly deterministic–in light of that interest. But really, once you see how thoroughly Hegelian his basic conception of history is, it’s probably a bit hard to escape a certain claustrophobic determinism, at least in a surface reading… 
Two cultures with relatively the same economic systems can have entirely different moral values and intelligence. It all only becomes econo-centric when the economy becomes the moral and cultural system. This has partially happened, in so far as the mass media is concerned, in the USA and in other nations aswel, but it was much-less the case during the literal times of Marx.
Joker, I would also suggest studying the period when anarchism was formulated. The late 1800’s and into the first years of the next century are crucial points of departure for the birth of what would become “organized socialism” and/or communist theory.
It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that society was divided in such a way which provoked large scale national, even continental, anarchist activity.
Read up on Kropotkin, Proudhon, Godwin, Bakunin, Malatesta (my favorites). These are important characters in the development toward what Marx would define as “stages toward proletarian dictatorship”. Granted, primitive revolutions against feudal lords and land owners have occurred throughout civilized history, but never was the idea popularized until the late eighteen hundreds, I don’t believe. This was due to the immense concentration of industry development, in turn, creating increasing, and very noticeable, class differences in society. The conditions for workers were horrible in those times, and it was those conditions which inspired anarchist activity. You wouldn’t believe how many bombs were tossed into opera houses and resturants in attempts to kill as many bourgeois as possible. Back in those days, anarchists didn’t fuck around, homes.
General comments on the quotes.
In my own theory religion, morality and economics is a extension of ancient man’s religious activities.
Religion is the gateway origin from which man’s absurd activities derive from.
Proudhon is one of my favorites.
Bakunin and Kropotkin make for good reads too.
Did Karl Marx say this?
I say he didn’t!
Prove me wrong if you disagree. Cite chapter and verse. That quote is found nowhere in the writing’s of Karl Marx.
You are correct: He said “opium,” not “opiate.” He said “people,” not “masses.” Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I sure wouldn’t want to go around thinking Marx said religion is the opiate of the masses.