While I found Marx’s theories sometimes hard to grasp (just due to the depth of his thoughts), I will elaborate on the aspect I found most relative to my life, as well as interesting. Marx’s concept of “estranged labour” was of particular interest to me. When I began reading, while simply attempting to understand his ideas, I started to feel a strong relation to Marx’s opinions. A particular example was given that bettered my understanding and helped me take a stance on the issue as well, “Admittedly, animals also produce. They build themselves nests, dwellings, like the bees, beavers, ants, etc. But an animal only produces what it immediately needs for itself or its young. It produces one-sidedly, whilst man produces universally” (76).
This concept of going to work, or school, to eventually provide some sort of service to mankind is much different than an animal who spends it’s life providing for itself and it’s children – not it’s fellows. Marx speaks of the concept of things being ‘alien’ – my understanding is that because we are producing for others, we are losing drive/desire/tangible feelings towards what we do.
This accounts for that striking difference between the ‘home’ and ‘work’ life we have discussed previously. The home life is how we relieve ourselves from the stress and demands of our work lives. My understanding of the reading is that Marx thinks of this as a negative consequence, therefore a negative practice, and while my opinion is not fully formed, I can’t help but think he has posed an interesting and fact-based argument.
No comments:
Post a Comment