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Single Idea 5303

[filed under theme 13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 4. Cultural relativism ]

Full Idea

Law, morality, religion are to the proletarian so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

Clarification

'Proletarians' are working class, 'bourgeois' are middle class

Gist of Idea

For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests

Source

K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], §1)

Book Ref

Marx,K./Engels,F.: 'The Communist Manifesto', ed/tr. Taylor,A.J.P. [Penguin 1973], p.92

A Reaction

This Marxist idea has been the main driving force in spreading relativist views through modern culture. There is a lot of truth here, but philosophy is plausibly the search for truths which both the bourgeois and the proletarian will accept.

The 32 ideas from K Marx / F Engels

23872 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels]
5277 Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels]
5280 Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels]
5276 The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels]
5278 Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels]
5281 Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels]
5273 Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels]
5283 In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels]
5282 If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels]
5274 Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels]
5275 Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels]
5284 Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels]
5279 Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels]
5286 Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels]
5289 When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels]
5285 Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels]
5288 The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels]
5290 The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels]
5287 Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels]
5291 The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels]
5294 To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels]
5292 Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels]
5293 Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels]
21992 Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels]
5301 The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels]
5302 Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels]
5303 For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels]
5304 Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels]
5306 The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels]
5305 Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels]
5307 Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels]
21998 Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels]