Karl Marx and Religion: Life, Influences, Ideas and Legacies

Hello.

My name is Dr Paul Francois Tremlett.

I'm a senior lecturer

in religious studies at the Open University,

and today I'm going to be talking about coal marks

and religion

to begin with Karl Marx and religion. Life influences, ideas and legacies.

Why Study marks.

Marx was 1/19 century thinker trying to understand the economy and society

of his day.

He is perhaps most well known for writing with his friend and collaborator,

Friedrich Engels.

The political tracked the Communist Manifesto. However,

he also developed an original theoretical model

for analysing processes of social and economic change.

And this model has been extremely influential in the discipline of sociology,

from French and Italian social theory to the Frankfurt school

but also theology.

Over the course of these lectures,

we will explore Marx's writings,

the intellectual context in which his ideas emerged and their

influence on wider debates in the social sciences and philosophy,

with a particular focus on the way marks and later thinkers approach religion.

Some critics of Marx's approach to religion have argued that he

reduces it to the effects of economic and social processes.

But this is perhaps

a rather narrow way of understanding Marx's contribution

to the study of religion and society.

Marx's approach to society and religion is important because

even if at first sight, his approach appears directed at explaining a religion away

as a pale reflection of socioeconomic processes.

He nevertheless reminds us that religions are implicated

in social and economic relations

and therefore to understand religion.

We need to include these important layers of context in our studies.

Moreover,

given Marx's interest in elites,

his approach also reminds us of the importance of power

in the study of religions,

from the study of seemingly untouchable institutions

to the study of minorities struggling for a voice.

Marx was born in 18 18 Intria,

which today is in Germany, close to the border with Luxembourg.

He was born into a Jewish family.

His father was a lawyer who later converted to Christianity.

The young Marx studied law at the University of Bonn

and then at the University of Berlin

before switching his studies to philosophy.

Having fallen under the influence of a group

of thinkers known as the young Higa Leon's,

he completed his doctorate on the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus

in 18 41.

Now, Marks had hoped to pursue an academic career.

But his radical views led him to journalism,

and he wrote for and edited a number of radical newspapers in Germany,

France and Belgium.

In 18 44 in Paris, he began a lifelong collaboration with Friedrich Engels.

Together they wrote the German ideology in

18 46 although it wasn't published until 1932

long after both had died,

and the Communist Manifesto, which was published in 18 48

marks.

His political activities eventually forced him into exile in London,

where he remained with his wife and Children

until his death in 18 83

throws his time in London, Marks wrote prodigiously,

notably the Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy,

which was published in 18 59

and Volume One of Capital, which was published in 18 67

as well as numerous reports, Articles and letters

to further incomplete volumes of capital were

edited and published by Angles in 18 84

in 18 93 respectively.

From this brief sketch of Marxist life to observations are worth highlighting.

First, the influence on Marxist thought

of the German philosopher Hagel

and of the young illegal aliens, a group of theologians and philosophers

including Ludwig Fireback, among others,

and second,

that Marx's ideas seem to have undergone some kind of shift around 18 45.

So let's start with Hagel.

George Wilfred Friedrich Hagel was born in 17 70.

His ideas were shaped by the events of his time,

particularly the French Revolution in 17 89

and one of his most important books was lectures on the Philosophy Is History,

in which he argued

that the history of the world is none other

than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.

Hagel conceived of world history as a unified and rational process.

Beginning his account with the ancient Chinese,

Indian and Persian empires,

Hagel argued that these were stationary civilizations

where only the ruler was free.

He then turned to the ancient Greeks.

They're

a concept of freedom had emerged.

But Greek society

of the time depended on the institution of slavery, so

only some could be free

with the Reformation in 16th century Europe,

According to Hagel,

a new culture had emerged,

which regarded the individual as a rational

agent responsible for its own salvation,

and the spirit of the French Revolution in 17 89 promised to shine enlightenment.

Reason on every corner of government and culture,

which Hagel described as a glorious mental dawn

for Hagel, a new kind of rational free community had emerged on the European stage.

Now the idea

that history was a journey

that would conclude with the founding of a

new political community appealed very much to marks.

But it was also Hagel's application of dialectic logic to the study of history

as a process wherein the internal contradictions of

societies were ultimately resolved through change and upheaval

that Marks found particularly compelling.

And later Marx would argue that at the heart of capitalism

lay a fundamental contradiction.

Only this time it was between profit and wages.

The pursuit of profit by the factory owner was inevitably

pitted against the pursuit of wages by the factory worker.

And Marx argued

that the motor of history derived from this contradiction

and the struggle between social classes that it precipitated.

And he predicted

that a decisive battle would be fought once those classes had polarised into two

rival blocs the bourgeoisie

and proletariat,

with the latter

destined to be triumphant.

Now. A key concept

in Marx's early writings was alienation,

which he developed from his reading of fire back

and which was central to both his criticisms of capitalism

and religion.

For example,

Marx argued

that industrial technology

transformed human labour

into a series of repetitive mechanical movements

that rendered the worker

both intellectually and physically. He said

to the level of a machine

in this way the worker was alienated from work

and from the products of work.

But industrial technology also

said marks

dehumanised workers

and therefore alienated workers from what he called their species, being

a distinctive quality unique to human beings, which we might call their essence.

As for religion,

Marks agreed with fire back,

but the duplication of the world into a religious one and a secular one

caused self alienation.

But he went further,

describing religion as the opium of the people

and the call on them to give up their illusions was a call on them

to give up conditions that required illusions.

Just as labour in the capitalist economy alienated the worker.

So religion alienated the individual from the possibility of a better,

more humane world in the here and now,

rather than pushed into some distant hereafter,

fire back then was not radical enough.

It was one thing to expose God

as a product of thought.

It was another to see that thought

as the product of a particular type of society

in need of radical transformation.

Hence, at the end of the thesis on fire back, Marx wrote,

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways.

The point

is to change it.

And the second observation

concerns the claim made by the French

thinker Louis Altizer that Marx's thought underwent

an intellectual shift around 18 45

after which

it was marked by development of a new and distinctive vocabulary.

So he was no longer talking about alienation,

and he began talking about base

superstructure,

ideology,

the relations of production, the forces of production.

All of these concepts and terms can be found

in the preface to a contribution to a critique of political economy,

a piece of writing widely regarded as providing a clear summary

of Marxist materialist approach to society

and which we will look at in a bit more depth in the next lecture

Now. This shift, according to Al Tusa, represented a break in Marx's thought,

whereupon the jiggly in stamp of his early writings was left behind.

So let's conclude this initial section with a quick summary

of where we are and what we've covered. So far,

we have indicated the broad sweep of Marx's

influence on the social sciences and theology,

and we will cover much of this in depth in the lectures that follow,

including the writings of Antonio Gramsci and Luis Alcazar.

The emergence of the Frankfurt school

and also liberation theologians is

such as Otto Maduro.

We have noted the influence on Marxist thought of Hagel

and the young hig aliens, including Ludwig Fire Back,

which is evident in Marx's approach to history

and in concepts such as alienation.

And finally,

we have noted the suggestion that Marx's thought underwent a shift around 18 45

from the early writings, which expressed philosophical, hig alien ideas

to the later writings, which are more sociological.