A Historical Materialism Dimension On Marx And Engels’ Cultural Thought

Culture,as a unique spiritual activity of human beings,plays an increasingly important role in the history of human society.Since ancient Greece,thinkers have launched a philosophical inquiry into the cultural issue itself,which has generated a variety of cultural views.From the perspective of the whole ideological history,there is a constant theme in the Western cultural tradition,which holds that a certain constituent element of culture is the foundation of the whole culture and even the world.Before the Renaissance,religious theology dominated the cultural field for a long time.During the rising period of capitalism from the 17 th to the 19 th century,the bourgeoisie and its thinkers opposed religious theology with rationalism,and gradually made the rationalist cultural view become the cultural mainstream.Rationalist thinkers usually regard reason or some spiritual force as the domination of the world and the basic basis for the historical development of human society.Based on this,they formed the prevailing "cultural historical view" at that time.Before Marx and Engels,especially their contemporary thinkers,their cultural thoughts were developed in the dimension of historical idealism.Marx and Engels were not born materialists.They were deeply influenced by this rationalist tradition,especially Hegel’s rationalist thought in their youth.Marx’s Doctoral Dissertation,Engels’ Schelling and Revelation and other articles can prove that they have adhered to this rationalist cultural tradition in their understanding of cultural views or cultural issues.In the process of engaging in social practice in their youth,Marx and Engels both encountered the problem of "expressing opinions on material interests" under different circumstances,which loosened their existing rational determinism cultural view and opened their historical materialism turning process in the understanding of cultural views or cultural issues.On the basis of correcting rational determinism through Critique of Hegel’s philosophy of Right and other articles,Marx initially laid down the materialist direction in the understanding of cultural issues.Engels also established his materialistic position on cultural issues through two articles,Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy and the state of Britain:a review of Thomas Carlyle’s past and present published in the German French Yearbook.Deeply influenced by Engels’ Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy and other economists’ thoughts,Marx wrote the economic and Philosophical Manuscript of 1844 on the basis of Paris notes,which initially expressed the idea of cultural materialism.Marx and Engels got "the same result" in different ways,and the complete consistency of this result made them start "common work".The Holy Family is their first theoretical document.In this document,Marx and Engels not only criticized the speculative philosophical method and idealistic historical view of the young Hegelian school,but also "pointed out the basic principles of all their world views",which laid a foundation for the establishment of historical materialism and cultural thought.In the German Ideology,Marx and Engels not only thoroughly cleared up the previous philosophical beliefs,but also clarified their cultural thoughts from the perspective of historical materialism.The Communist Manifesto declares their world outlook and cultural thoughts to the world in concise language.The establishment of Marx and Engels’ cultural thought and historical materialism has a process of symbiosis and isomorphism: on the one hand,Marx and Engels cleared up their previous philosophical beliefs and corrected their previous cultural and historical views,so that historical materialism can be established;On the other hand,because of the discovery of historical materialism,Marx and Engels can build their cultural thoughts on the theoretical basis of historical materialism.In this sense,Marx and Engels’ cultural thought is essentially a kind of cultural thought of historical materialism.The cultural thought of Marx and Engels’ historical materialism is mainly developed from the two dimensions of "subject" and "object" :from the perspective of object dimension,they explained the theoretical basis,interpretation principles,cultural development law,status and function,cultural nature,value evaluation and other issues of cultural thought from the aspects of social life as a whole,dynamic social basic contradiction movement,and static social structure;from the perspective of subject,they clarified the people’s dominant position in cultural creation,and countless individuals’ will or their essential power created culture in the form of historical resultant force.In this sense,culture is the presentation of human essential power.Marx and Engels publicly stated that culture has ideology,and the fundamental value of culture is to realize people’s free and all-round development through the liberation of the proletariat.Marx and Engels’ cultural thought of historical materialism has subverted the traditional view of cultural history and achieved a great change in the history of human cultural thought.From the perspective of historical value,Marx and Engels’ cultural thought is not only the source of Marxist cultural thought and the "cultural turn" of Western Marxism in theory,but also guides the cultural construction of proletarian political parties in practice;from the perspective of realistic enlightenment,Marx and Engels’ cultural thought is still an idea that can grasp the reality.It has realistic enlightenment significance for Chinese culture in the new era to adhere to the Marxist position,maintain the progressiveness of its own culture,and promote the development of socialist culture.