As
demanded by propriety, human beings often attempt to devalue the material
world. We say that life is not about material things. Usually, what underlies
this opinion is a belief, however subtle it may be, that what is important to
human being is the soul, or the
mental capability, or the possession of virtue. This belief does away with materialism.
Not only this be we often view materialism as a negative thing. When an individual appears too concerned
with material things we call that person materialistic; a word which possesses
a negative connotation. Is this belief correct? And does it help us to exist
and flourish as human beings?
I think Marx would disagree with
this belief. Marx’s theory of alienation requires a material presence.
Alienation is not transcendent, and it is not independent of the history. It
exists here in the material world. Alienation occurs through a twisted sense of
labor, and labor requires the material world to exist.
“The product of labour is labour which has been congealed in
an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labour. Labour’s realization is its
objectification. In the conditions dealt with by political economy this
realization of labour appears as a loss of reality for the workers;
objectification as loss of the object and object-bonding […]”
This implies that the material world is very important to
us. In a sense, we can lose ourselves to it through alienation. But we also see
ourselves and flourish in some sense as human beings through labor and through
imparting ourselves to and interactions with the world around us. The kind of importance I want to show is a constant relevance of the material to the
human being. In his description of nature Marx shows this.
Nature provides the means to life in the sense of the subsistence of the human
being, and nature also provides labor with a means to life in the sense that
labor cannot live with object on which to operate. Marx describes nature as the
human’s inorganic body, and he intends this beyond mere subsistence. The higher
“order” of human being that we so
desire requires nature to operate, i.e. labor requires nature.
Thus the material is actually of
grave importance to human functions of the higher order. The reason we tend to associate negative feelings with those who have material possessions is because we recognize on
some level that we are alienated through system of capitalism. In this
alienation, we are less able to flourish as human beings, and so we envy those
who appear to us to be flourishing at the cost of our own ability to
flourish.
P.S. I welcome better formulations of this idea.
I think Marx would deem this a fair assessment. By his account, our labor is an integral component of our being. 'You are what you do', so to speak. But it's more than that. Marx's description of the alienation of labor illuminates his idea of an existential deficit we create for ourselves when we - the laboring proletariat - produce material goods that do not immediately belong to us.My question is this: can we separate our alienated, laboring selves from our true selves? In other words, might we be able to define ourselves apart from our labor? In Marx's day the answer would be more clearly 'no' than today. Today, we do not have a system of sweatshops driving American production. We have fair labor laws and 9AM-5PM work days. Our jobs - our labor - comprise large parts of our days and weeks, but we have the option of building hobbies. For instance, I love to sing. I am not a vocal performance major because I believe that being a professional singer would place too much stress and anxiety upon my favorite hobby. I aspire to one day become an attorney, because law interests me. I'm not sure that I love studying law as much as I love singing, but I like it enough to build a career upon this interest. I might one day define myself as a singer who practices law, and thus prioritize my hobby above my profession as a defining factor of myself. I have the freedom to do this in the country in which I live. Applied to today's labor standards, maybe Marx's account is not so correct after all. I believe I can be a singer and an attorney - and find fulfillment in the former, even if not in the latter. Even if I happen to hate my job one day, that's really not so bad. Work is just what pays the bills. Hobbies - as long as we can afford them - are what fulfill us.
ReplyDelete