The Realistic Road: Research On Marx’s Thought Of Human Liberation

In modern times, the personal main position in the world has been established,modern capitalism begin to develop. People liberate from traditional dependencyrelationship. But the happiness from the Enlightenment is along with new dilemma.Facing with these problems, thinkers tried to find new roads to liberation. But beforeMarx, no one really make their roads combined with the people because people areconsidered as metaphysical, so these type of liberation are just beautiful dreams. Marxpoints out that the liberation is not thought and metaphysical person’s activities clearly,but realistic history activities forced by practice. He is against the abstract theoreticalmethod. In his view, the liberation is realistic historical movement, but not the idealtarget. Just as Engels says: just as the knowledge, history will not be ended in a perfectcondition, which exists in illusions; on the contrary, all the history states are temporarystages in the human society which develops from low to high. So only with HistoricalMaterialism,we can find the realistic road to liberation.The paper is divided into five parts:Chart one: People’s Ideal and predicament since the modern times. Before moderntimes, happiness of mankind mainly depended on external force. In ancient Greecethey depended on external nature, and in medieval they worshiped The God. On thisstages, the subject was covered. From the modern times, the personal main position inthe world had been established. Reason became the standard of everything. At thesame time, modern capitalism started to develop, and the productive forces developedrapidly. People’s lifestyle had changed at all aspects. They had full of confidence forthe future. But happiness from the Enlightenment was along with new problems. Thecapitalist society produced universal commutation relation, which was aboveindividual and destroyed personal independence and integrity. Many thinkers wanted to put forward roads to liberation. Rousseau is the first one that criticized thecivilization. He pointed out the ruin and alienation produced by material developmentand technology in order to achieve the ideal condition by building The moral Republic.The utopia socialist criticized social reality of the earlier stage of capitalism andwanted to establish some kinds of Utopia. Hegel put the historical development toabsolute mind, he hoped to establish the freedom in nation which is the highest stageof ethics. They started a critical Modern Times. But they didn’t put the person in aspecific historical environment, and they couldn’t solve the contradictions. Theirbeautiful roads are just beautiful dream.Chart two: The theoretical ways to the thought of Human Liberation-Historicalmaterialism. Historical materialism discusses the Human Liberation from subject,process and foreground. The realistic individual is the premise of historicalmaterialism, and the the real main body of history. The realistic individual is in specialhistorical situation, whose essence is the sum total of social relations. Their lineality isderived from practice.Marx combines the practice with history through revealing thepractice’s deep structure. He interpreted the General logic and Specific process ofhistory to make the history be realistic perceptual activity which follows certain rules.Marx points out the complicated relationship between productive forces and theproduction relations during this dialectical movement. He points out that the prospectis the communism which is the third form of history in which people achieve thefreedom. Communism is not a goal that is waited to be realized. It is an eternalgenerative process. During this process, the capitalism has created conditions,with theconations the second form will transcend itself, modern mechanical industry is thefundamental condition.Chart three: The realistic way to the thought of Human Liberation-Criticism onModern social. Historical materialism shows us the realistic road to liberation. Butonly by inspecting the reality society we can enter it. Marx inspects three aspects ofpolitics, economy and the state of people by Historical materialism. In his opinion, thePolitical emancipation is not human liberation, but lay the foundation for human liberation. The bourgeoisie theorists claim that people have achieved the freedom andequal which get guarantee from political system. But Marx points out that the freedomand equal are just means of the rule of the bourgeoisie. The critic of politics is preludeof economy-Criticism which is fundamental. The criticism of capital reveals thecapital’s dominance, materialized relation, and surplus value which uncovers the secretof exploitation between Capitalists and workers. In this society, people are inalienation. Only by ascending the materialized relation and alienation, humanliberation could be realized. The criticism of capitalist society is also an identificationof liberation road, because people’s and history’s development is in the realisticdevelopment of society.Chart four: The contemporary meaning of the thought of HumanLiberation:forever Marx. With the development of history, Capitalism has changedlargely, Marx is facing new challenges. In modern times, people lost their spiritualhome in the front of instrumental reason. Materialized relation emerges with new faces.Following with the death of The God, people also die. Contemporary thinkers criticizethis phenomenon and point out new road to liberation. In the view of Heidegger,Technology alienation and Consumption alienation make people to lose their spirithome, only by questioning the meaning of existence can awaken and clarify the truestate. Marcuse criticizes the Consumption alienation and One-dimensional man, Hebases his hope on appreciation to awake people’s emotional strength. Habermas tries toachieve liberation by Communicative ethics. These thinkers are supplement andextension to Marx’s thought. But their thoughts are limited to the field of Philosophy.The Criticism on contemporary society enriches the theory of Marx, but only thecapital-critic is the fundamental way. in a word,people are on the way to liberation, soMarx’s thought of Human Liberation still has important importance.