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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 8 ideas from 'The Communist Manifesto'

For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels]
Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels]
The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels]
The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels]
Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels]
Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels]
Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels]
Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels]