Historical Circumstances And Contemporary Enlightenment Of Marxist Thoughts On Modernity

Modernity is an experience and perception of modern people about their social living conditions,which includes reflective power of criticalness and progressive forces of constructiveness.It initially originates from literature and art field,and being disclosed to public’s sight in dispute between ancient and modern literature of 17^thand 18^thcenturies.Scholars,including Marx,Engels and their successors,at all times and in all over the world conduct a heated discussion in order to be distinguished from modernization and post modernity,and then to master modernity as well as its essence and features.Marx and Engels don’t come up with this word Modernity,but they frequently respond issue about modernity,and being projected on lots of discourse expression of Modern Society,Modern Nation,Modern Civilization and so forth.If modernity is divided along phases,Marx and Engels live in the first stage of transformation from traditional society to modern counterpart.On the one side,they realize bourgeois revolutions the Britain and France launch,material outcomes two industrial revolutions create,dissimilation logic private ownership drive and colonization tendency world market promote.On the other side,they also understand realistic gaps between Germany and modern national state which result from backward productive forces under German feudalism.The advantage of Marx and Engels’thoughts in regard to modernity is that they not only try to change native feudal and weak face,enabling Germany to catch up with spring tide of modern society transformation,but also attempt to assist oppressed nation and state all over the world to explore a new road of inheriting modernization achievements and abandoning defects of capitalist production and capitalist society in terms of economic system,political institution,cultural idea and relation between human and nature,then enable social history and human civilization enter into a fresh and superior phase.For the sake of these targets,they have to firstly attack decay of conventional society to pull people out of feudal morass,later reveal erosiveness of modern society to save people from modern substantial phantasm,finally probe possibility of future society to import people’s subjective initiative and realistic innovation into rebrand modern society.Their successors live in the second stage of transition from modern society to post-modern society.After entering for 20^thcentury,especially after two world wars,most countries in the world all fulfil the task of transformation from traditional to modern society in the general sense,and there are two modernization paths with it:one is capitalism road modeled on Western Europe,the other is socialism road in the Soviet Union’s image.Inheritors of Marx and Engels’thoughts grope differentiated social transition roads among distinguished social development paths,but their common purpose is to improve people’s living conditions in realistic life and drive social transformation toward progressive direction.For this aim,on the one side,they must face up to development dilemma of modern society and survival crisis of modern people based on critical thinking;on the other side,they need to illuminate rebuilding direction of modern society and development potential of modern people on the side of constructivism.Critical logic and constructive dimension are core essence of Marxism thoughts of modernity.Marx,Engels and their inheritors stick to these two aspects from beginning to end,thus Marxism idea of modernity maintain vigor and vitality in the progress of historical changes and era alternations,not passing into conservatism as a result of discarding critical thinkings and approaching to radicalism because of forgetting constructive points.However,so far relevant academic research works always put more emphasis on critical side of Marxism modernity thought,and consider it as only one reason to keep Marxism idea of modernity unfailing.Meanwhile,scant attention is paid to inner relations of relevant thoughts of Marxism successors.Given it,introducing research perspective of development history is to unmasking development track and evolution logic.Conducting comparative studies about Western modernity theory and Marxism modernity thoughts is to clarify unique points and inherent peculiarities of ideology of Marxism modernity.Comparing main content and presentation form is to exploit beneficial experience,lesson and enlightenment.They constitute main points of theoretical exploration and primary clues of ideological insight.Additionally,in terms of centennial history of pursue modernity and promote modernization,China obviously tracks the third road out,which is different from sample plate of Western modernization and the Soviet Union modernization.In other words,it is Chinese path to modernization.The modernity based on brand-new practice is a kind of new-type modernity without doubt.It is also a new form of human civilization that our country creates being dependent on inheritance,sublation and development of Marxism modernity thought as well as combination between thought and Chinese concrete practice in revolution,reformation and construction.Exploring critical logic and constructive dimension of Marxism modernity idea not only contribute to promote totalization and systematism of Marxism thought in theory,pulling critical methods of modernity research into corresponding consideration about modern society,but also be beneficial to boost further development of Chinese modernization,applying constructive principles of Marxism modernity idea to solution of problems in nowadays society.