Marx’s Critique Of Capitalist Culture

Marx has made a comprehensive analysis of capitalism all his life.As an important part of the structure of social organisms,capitalist culture has also been examined objectively and comprehensively.Based on the classical works of Marxism,this paper probes deeply into the course of Marx’s criticism of capitalist culture and its revolutionary changes,Marx’s Dialectical Interpretation of capitalist culture and the social value of Marx’s criticism of capitalist culture.The first part explores the course and revolutionary changes of Marx’s criticism of capitalist culture.Marx was not born with the cultural view of historical materialism.His principles of cultural criticism changed from rationalism to implied materialism until the direction of cultural criticism based on historical materialism was established.In the process of criticizing capitalist culture,he completed the transition from general principle criticism to specific content criticism.On the basis of critically inheriting the existing ideological theories,Marx transcended the idealistic interpretation of capitalist culture from the view of cultural history,and took "realistic man and his practical activities" as the logical starting point of criticism.He organically unified dialectics and materialism,and realized the revolutionary change of capitalist cultural criticism by adopting the concrete methods of system theory and generative theory.The second part discusses Marx’s Dialectical Interpretation of capitalist culture.On the basis of a comprehensive survey of capitalist culture,Marx affirmed its historical legitimacy,that is,breaking through the feudal and religious cultural cages;promoting the formation of a colorful cultural ecosystem under the circumstances of world history;providing spiritual impetus for material production in capitalist society;and providing ideological resources for the development of new social forms and cultures.On the other hand,from the perspective of social organisms,it criticizes the limitations of the capitalist ideology reflected in the aspects of social economy,politics and daily life,which are as follows: criticizing the capitalist Christian cultural form to strengthen the capitalist dominance over people’s soul;criticizing the ideological falsity of capitalist culture;criticizing the invasion by profit-seeking logic.It criticizes capitalist self-interest and eternal concept of social production,and criticizes capitalist culture to reject other heterogeneous cultural forms for global expansion.Thus,it constitutes Marx’s objective and comprehensive understanding of capitalist culture.The third part discusses the social value of Marx’s criticism of capitalist culture.Marx’s criticism of capitalist culture does not simply stay at the level of abstract theory,but ultimately points to social reality.On the one hand,it is to awaken the class consciousness of the proletariat and revolutionize the existing world;on the other hand,it is to construct a new cultural form that is compatible with the free and all-round development of human beings.As the logic of economic globalization constantly leaps into the process of cultural exchanges and mutual learning among different nationalities,Marx’s critical thought of capitalist culture still has its vitality in contemporary times.First,it provides epistemological guidance for identifying and drawing lessons from capitalist culture;second,it provides guidance for our country to properly handle the relationship between culture and ideology,and further strengthen the construction of ideological leadership.Thirdly,it provides value guidance for the construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics,which is people-oriented,unified with social development and contains harmonious and diverse values,and further promotes the construction of cultural self-confidence.