Research On The Social Function Thought Of Marx And Engels Culture

On Marx,Engels' era,the idealism was prevalent on philosophy,culture and other areas of.In the research of cultural history,a considerable number of cultural historians held the concept of idealism to exaggerate the role of culture.In this regard,Marx and Engels rectified the tendency and created historical materialism.On the one hand,they proceeded from the realistic individual,emphasizing social existence determined social consciousness,advocated the practice of social transformation.They criticized the cultural historians to unilaterally raise the role of culture and were cautious about the use of cultural terms.The word "culture" was not in much use in their writings.On the other hand,Marx and Engels also realized the great role of social consciousness,although this role relative to the role of social existence was the second.It is in this sense that Marx and Engels attached great importance to the role of culture,studying various cultural phenomena in depth,accurately revealing cultural problems in capitalist society.We mainly study the cultural social function thought of Marx and Engels.The social function of culture refers to the position and function of culture in human society.The cultural social function thought of Marx and Engels was beyond the predecessors and contemporary thinkers and scholars.It is of great significance for us to build a socialist cultural power and improve the soft power of culture.Marx and Engels' cultural thought was based on historical materialism.They regarded culture as an important part of social organism,that culture was practical,historical,social,in class society also had class nature.The practicality of culture is reflected in the need of practice,its content comes from practice,the driving force of development is practice,cultural problems can only be solved by practice.Marx and Engels opposed talking about culture abstractly out of the specific historical era and the material life of human society.Culture reflects the specific historical era of people's labor production,living conditions.The history of culture emphasizes that culture is a change in motion,culture is epoch,stage and temporary.Culture is the product of society.Culture is the result of social labor.Culture changes as society changes.In class society culture is inevitably class.In the class society activities that people create cultural,and political rule,law,education,morality and their views reflect the class interests and will.The disappearance of certain forms of culture depends on the disappearance of class antagonism.In the class society culture to different groups brings different consequences.Marx and Engels' discussion on the cultural class opened the veil of capitalist culture.The bourgeoisie,on behalf of the whole people and the whole society,professed the use of culture for its own rule,and paralyzed the morale of the people,which prevented the free and all-round development of the proletariat and the working people.Marx and Engels considered the social function of culture in an all-round way.From the perspective of social function,Marx and Engels evaluated the role of culture in an all-round way from the dialectics and thus transcend the contemporary cultural historians.Marx and Engels affirmed the positive function of culture to society,but also revealed the negative function of culture in different stages of development,especially in capitalist society,to the social groups such as the proletariat and the working people.A comprehensive and objective assessment of the social function of culture provided a basis for logically rationally explaining that certain social functions of culture are replaced,transformed,strengthened,weakened and vanished.Marx and Engels expounded the positive social function of science and technology,morality,religion,literature and art.Science and technology promotes the development of social productivity,accelerates transition from the old social form to a new social form and improves people's ideas and ways of thinking.Scientific and technological progress promotes the all-round development of human beings eventually.Morality regulates human behavior and promotes social harmony.Morality protects person's legitimate rights and interests and ensures social justice;Morality encourages people to promote social progress;Moral also provides guide for human development and improves society.Religion has a function of comfort;Religion once provided legitimacy for social change;Religion objectively promotes the development of the education;Religion improves the artistic level of building.Literature and art provide historical materials to help people to understand history;Literary and art edify people's grasping the real life better;give people pleasure and improve people's aesthetic level;Literature and art also offer a powerful weapon for the struggle of the revolutionary class.At the same time,Marx and Engels pointed out the negative social functions of certain cultural forms in capitalist society.The application of science and technology leads to the negative consequences to the workers who are excluded from the machine,the damage to physical and mental health of the workers,the unilateral development of workers and the destruction of the human living environment.Christianity accelerates the atomization of civil society,commodity fetishism covers capital exploitation of labor,and religion hinders the development and dissemination of Science.The philistine democratic literature empty talked politics and delayed the development of German democracy,and the "real "socialism literature hindered the development of German society.Speculative idealism parts from reality,hostiles to the masses;it weakens philosophy to guide social practice;Intuitive materialism parts from practice,as a spectator,it doesn't actually change the world;Vulgar utilitarianism defends bourgeois exploitation and destroys social fairness and justice.Marx and Engels' comprehensive exposition of cultural social functions elicited Merton and other scholars to perfect the evaluation of cultural and social functions.Marx and Engels analyzed some important factors that influenced the cultural social functions.The social function of culture is a complex process from generation to transmission to identity and transformation.It needs a certain means and a series of intermediate links,which is influenced by many factors.Marx and Engels profoundly researched the division of labor,intercourse,traditions,state power and other factors had important influence on the social function of culture.This is mainly manifested that the division of labor determines whether the social function of the culture takes place or not,the level of division of labor restricts the level of cultural production,the division of labor leads to the unequal benefit of the social function of the culture.The forms of intercourse,such as war and colonization,have an important influence on the inheritance and dissemination of culture.Traditional ideas and customs affect people's acceptance of new culture,and state power can directly intervene in production,dissemination and consumption of culture.Marx and Engels put forward three basic principles for evaluating the social function of culture.The culture is closely related to people's psychology.Human psychology is often rational and emotional intertwined,but also changes because of the time,place and person,showing abnormal complexity.Rousseau realized this issue,and advocated the distinction between people's expression of will under different motives."There often is a great difference between the common and the general will;general will only focus on the public interests,and common will focus on the private interests of all,just the sum of the individual will.However,except to get rid of the positive and negative parts of these individual wills,then the rest,the sum is still public." But this simple offset between positive and negative phase can not solve the problem.From the moment some countries of the election and referendum can prove this point.The complexity of the mechanism of the social function of culture presents a challenge to accurately evaluate the effect of the use of cultural social functions.In order to give full play to the role of culture,people have been exploring the use of various methods and tools to accurately evaluate the social effects of culture.Merton divided the function into positive function,negative function and explicit function,and the latent function;it encouraged people to precisely estimate the social function of culture.Quantization is an improvement on the evaluation of the cultural social function on contemporary,but it also covers some important and unquantifiable parts.Marx and Engels adhered to the three cardinal principles during evaluating cultural and social functions.One is the dependence of culture on matter.The two is the relative independence of culture.Three is to take the overall free development of each individual as the ultimate goal of cultural development.These are the principles that we should follow today in appraising the social functions of culture.The principle of cultural dependence on material requires us to adhere to productivity standards when assessing cultural industries.Recognizingthe relative independence of culture requires us to follow the law of cultural development in evaluating the effectiveness of cultural construction.Adhere to everyone's all-round and free development as the ultimate goal of cultural development,adhere to the people-oriented requirements in our assessment of cultural undertakings,earnestly implement the all-round development of moral,intellectual,physical,aesthetics and labor orientation in educating people,put social benefit first in the measure of the benefits of cultural products.The contemporary enlightenment of the cultural social function thought of Marx and Engels.Marx and Engels' thought enlightens us to avoid weakness and play a positive social function of culture and boost China's rise.Under Marxism guidance,we develop the positive role of culture in society,enhance the cohesion of the Chinese nation;enlarge and strengthen the cultural industry,improve the productivity of Chinese culture;promote cultural intercourse between China and foreign countries,extend Chinese cultural influence.To strengthen the cohesion of the Chinese nation for the rise of China and unite the Chinese forces at home and abroad;accelerate the transformation of intellectual achievements,cultivate cultural pillar industry to lay the material foundation for the rise of China;enhance the cultural intercourse influence for China rise to win more understanding and support and create a good international environment.In a word,we should make great efforts to build the spiritual home of people with a high sense of national responsibility,improve China's cultural soft power and expedite the rise of china.