Thursday, March 19, 2009
From 3/18: Marching Through History
Does history matter when it comes to philosophy? In what sense is human consciousness historical? Though Hegel and Marx don't see eye-to-eye on many things, they both view history as a necessary progression toward some ultimate goal. Whereas history, for Hegel, culminates in Absolute Spirit as the full expression of human self-consciousness, Marx asserts that there will be one final revolution whereby the working class proletariat will overthrow the capitalist bourgeoisie. Are either of them correct? Did communism fail or has the final revolution not yet happened? Do you think Marx's critique of capitalism holds any weight? Perhaps AIG gives us pause to think!
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On a basic level I agree with Marx’s theory of the progression of history. While Hegel announced the 19th century as the end of history, Marx theorizes how history will progress rather than setting an end date. Marx’s theory describes the end of capitalism which he believes is inevitable. Although I don’t believe that capitalism has as many faults as Marx appears to, I do believe that there is a chance that it could be headed in the wrong direction. In today’s world, it seems that we spend most of our time working. While I believe that every man or woman should have what he or she earn, I feel that too much emphasis is put on material possessions and income. If we continue to live our lives with so much stress on the money we have to make, I think that it is possible that Marx’s theory could come true. While I believe that an abrupt end to capitalism is possible, I do not think that communism is the answer. The concept of communism may be desirable, but it is not reasonable. As much as we may want to live in a world where citizens work together for one another, I don’t believe human beings are selfless enough to commit to such a world.
First i would like to apologize for the lateness of this comment i completely forgot about the blog schedule. Having said that, what I found most interesting about our last class discussion was the fact that by definition Communism could work. In a perfect world Communism would definitely work, but then again we would have to be in a perfect world for it to work. Otherwise we would have to be in a totalitarian state where everyone has the same likes and dislikes. Those are the only two situations where real Communism could work. Which is a shame because the core beliefs of Communism are great ideals, but they can never be used in the right way; at least not in today's society.
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