Questions and Homework

Please feel free to comment on this post with answers to any of these questions: 1. What is the jump from value to "use value"? Why can't value be determined at the moment of transaction based on the commodity's use-value to the buyer? It seems that Marx is trying to set up the introduction of money as a constant-value commodity. Is this an accurage assumption to make? 2. Does Marx address inflation/currency changing value? This seems like it would change the whole system. 3. Is communism Marx's answer to 'bad' capitalism? Is the M=C=M cycle bad? 4. How are the special use value and formal use value related? How do they compare to actual use value? 5. You keep talking about how Marx would not necessarily agree with our current interpretations of communism. What are those differences between how he views it and we do? 6. Marx describes the overthrowing of the bourgeoise as violent and a veiled civil war. Is that the only effective way to get rid of bourgeoisie? 7. How would Marx characterize the ideal revolution? 8. If the bourgeoisie become unnecessary and are eventually ousted by the proletariats what system will come next? Will this be a better economic system or a more even and fair system? 9. Where do societies come from? Is there any kind of living beyond the societal and economic ways we live? 10. What would Marx think about the massive communies that were created in Soviet Russia? Although they were created for the benefit of the people, they seem eerily similar to a capitalist factory. 11. How do the lumpenproletariat effect the system if the system falls apart with the impoverishment of the proletariat? HOMEWORK: READ MARX, "ON THE JEWISH QUESTION" FOR MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26th (AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING BREAK)

Paper Assignment

Due: Monday, December 3 Length: 6ish pages Please construct a substantial re-write of the first paper of the year. You may use aspects of your first paper, but this paper ought to be vastly different. The questions are: How do we create individuality? How do we make personal sacrifice for collective gain? To what extent do we construct our own identities and to what extent are the constructed by society? What’s being represented when societies interact with each other? You MUST cite: Plato, Kant, Hegel and Marx in your response. You may cite any other philosophy from the terms.

Hegel and Freud

On the surface Hegel and Freud do not seem to have much in common, one being a classically trained and very traditional philosopher in every sense of the word, while the other is a progressive psychoanalyst trained in medicine, leading and creating a field of therapy. And indeed the goals of each in his writing come from and are focused towards very different ends. However beyond these obvious differences, are congruencies that make each an interesting tool to have in examining the other.

            Hegel believes that we create our perception and self-consciousness through the process of sublation, or in German aufheben. The idea being that we gain meaning from the world through our creation of a synthesis between what we know to be us, and what we know to be other, our sublation of these two creates something that is both a negation of the two as well as a combination of the two. We create self consciousness through the sublation of another sentient being, by realizing that another person is both not our selves and is also a self-conscious being we view ourselves through the lens of another, allowing us to create our identity as a self conscious being. Hegel says that “Each is the mediating term to the other, through which each mediates and unites itself with itself; and each is to itself and to the other an immediate self-existing reality, which, at the same time, exists thus for itself only through this mediation.” (231) The self-consciousness of one is created by the recognition of itself by the other, and of the other by itself. This constant sublation with others creates our identities as self-conscious beings. However while simple recognition is enough to create our identities as “people”, it is only through a “life-and-death struggle” that an individual can be recognized as an independent self-consciousness. This creates a relationship of the master to the bondsman. In which one of the individual’s existences relies completely on that of the other. However the original ability of each to recognize each other as independent being breaks down, because one (the bondsman) has no consciousness not created by the master. The bondsman eventually becomes the only one of the two able to undergo the sublation to create his identity because he is the only one exposed to a consciousness that is not created by his own.

            Freud starts from a very different base and in his essay on “Civilizations and it’s discontents” yet reaches conclusions, while markedly different in form, seem not to far gone from the general thoughts of Hegel. Freud believes that the life of a man is focused on acquiring that which brings him pleasure, and that the highest level of pleasure is a sexual pleasure. His desire, his Id, pushes on his mind constantly to do what will make him the happiest. He believes that above all else our goal in life as human beings is to achieve happiness. This then leads to the creation of relationships with others that will allow us to gain happiness or to minimize or mask unhappiness.  “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us;” he writes “it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.” (14) He writes that as we grow and develop we are shaped by our failures and sadness whether consciously or not.

            In these ways we can see both differences and similarities between Hegel and Freud. I believe that in terms of our relationships with other people both Hegel and Freud seem to believe that the existence and action of others towards ourselves creates our identities. Hegel however believes in recognition of the other through negation and sublation to create self-conscious identity. Freud on the other hand views our relationships with others as a way for us to achieve happiness or as a vehicle of sadness. This sadness and happiness, being our drive for life, create our Id and therefore the driving force behind both our thoughts and our actions.

for Tuesday (11/6)

Please read Marx, "The Communist Manifesto" (Part I), in dropbox for Tuesday's class. Please step it up on the blog-ness.

Group Three: Hegel vs. Freud

Hegel and Freud have differing views on inter-personal relationships, though both view them as a means to a specific end. Hegel believes that they can be used in conjunction with personal risk to help an individual self-actualize. Freud sees them as a way to approach the pursuit of happiness.

Hegel sees inter-personal relationships as opportunities for self-actualization. It is only through interaction with others that an individual can go through the process of sublation. Additionally, Hegel believes that taking risks (specifically risking life) allows for the possibility of learning more about oneself. In Lordship and Bondage Hegel posits that, “the individual, who has not staked his life, may, no doubt, be recognized as a person; but he has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness,” (Hegel 233). Attempting to combine these two beliefs that Hegel holds would result in an individual taking a big risk in an inter-personal relationship. believe that this is possible through a declaration of love.

Freud agrees with me, stating that, “He (man) made himself dependent in a most dangerous way on a portion of the external world, namely, his chosen love-object, and exposed himself to extreme suffering if he should be rejected by that object or should lose it through unfaithfulness or death,” (Freud 4496). For Hegel, taking a risk like a declaration of love would allow for the possibility of total enlightenment concerning the self. This self-understanding is, Hegel believes, the real value of inter-personal relationships.

Freud believes that inter-personal relationships are necessary for the pursuit of happiness. Specifically, the pathway to happiness requires risking the same love declaration that he himself believes is a dangerous risk to take.  The reason to take that risk is the pursuit of happiness. Freud believes that love (originally sexual love) is the grounding for all human happiness. “Man’s discovery that sexual (genital) love afforded him the strongest experiences of satisfaction, and in fact provided him with the prototype of all happiness,” (Freud 4496). If love is a risk worth taking, then happiness is very important. Therefore, the entire purpose of inter-personal relationships, according to Freud, is the pursuit of happiness.

Both Hegel's and Freud's ideas concerning inter-personal relationships are valid, and both are logical. Their views are different, but both reflect the practicality of using something as simple as relationships with others to one’s advantage.

Hegel v. Freud

In an attempt to examine a meaningful comparison, I considered the somewhat specific contrast between the significance of relationships on the distinction of self for Hegel and Freud.  In Lordship and Bondage, Hegel sees the relationship between two selves as the only means of achieving self-consciousness. In Civilization and Discontents, one of Freud’s (possibly less significant) claims is that only during relationships of true love do mature people allow the divide between ego and the outside world become blurred comfortably, therefore dissolving a consideration of otherness mature people otherwise maintain throughout their existence.

Hegel states “[Self-consciousness] is only by being acknowledged or “recognized”.” (p. 83) He is arguing that, during the sublation of the other, the self is simultaneously realizing that the other is an other but also considering that other to be unreal, or a reflection of the self. The two selves become a master and a bondsman, each of which is the same as the other but also opposite. Therefore, the bondsman, through being the opposite of a “consciousness repressed within itself” (p. 87) and also a dependent consciousness (such as the master), is actually an independent consciousness (I think, although I actually am pretty unsure that I actually understand). Regardless of whether or not I actually understand what Hegel is saying about how one becomes independently self-consciousness, it seems safe to say it requires some kind of relationship.

Freud’s maintains, conversely, that “the ego seems to maintain clear and sharp lines of demarcation. There is only one state - admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as pathological - in which it does not do this. At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that ‘I’ and ‘you’ are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact.” (p. 5) He continues that love isn't the only time we are concrete about the distinction between our selves and the outside world, or that “the feeling of our own ego is subject to disturbances and the boundaries of the ego are not constant,” (p. 5), but we are consensually allowing for the blur of independence while we are in love.

In conclusion, Hegel sees relationships as the only means of self-recognition, while Freud sees relationships as the only time we allow ourselves to abandon our sense of independence. 

homework and a new blog post

For Monday, please read Freud Civilization and Its Discontents chapters 1, 2, 4, and 8. (Hopefully, you have already read some of this). Also for Monday, one member of each group needs to respond to the following question: Compare and contrast what Hegel and Freud say about you and your relationships with others. Please cite the text. The rest of your group MUST COMMENT on this post and sustain the intellectual conversation.