Self Liberation as Social Liberation - Jan. 6, 2007

Self Liberation as Social Liberation
6 January 2006

At this point, you may have already realized that studying the Self is a complicated matter. This is so because we are studying it as a socio-historical concept and we are not directly referring to you and the intricacies of your being. Nevertheless, this does not preclude the obvious implications of our topics to the manner we imagine ourselves. For example, many of you may agree with the dystopic vision of Hobbes, resolving your learned catholic guilt by declaring that everyone is selfish anyway. Others may see themselves, following Locke, as stewards of their God-given talents. Some may take the cynical route against modern civilization and wish they were natives instead like Rousseau. These are all philosophical approaches that we either wittingly or unwittingly subscribe to. By locating the origins of these philosophies in the liberation of free labor at the onset of capitalism, we now achieve an understanding why such stances remain influential given the present social order and why we believe in some of them. However, what is problematic with all these variations of modern individualism as indicated in the previous post is the taken for granted separateness of individuals from society.

Marx's critical perspective takes on a different approach to the problem of Selfhood in the age of capitalism. First, he puts forward dialectics as a basic philosophical tenet which effectively resolves the dilemma posed above. Seen through dialectical lenses individuals and societies are involved in a dynamic and inextricable relationship. Their fates are intertwined. Second, he believes in man's infinite perfectibility - not as an essential belief that is true and unchanging throughout time but by what is made possible by the existing social order. The issue is not whether man is intrinsically good or evil but what are the material conditions which make man good or evil. Thus, the modern capitalist individual may indeed exist and Marx may very well consider him/her a fine improvement from the backward peasant. In fact, it is precisely because of man's condition in capitalism which enables us to imagine the ways to perfect him and his social milieu.

Among many other things, this is where Marx separates himself from other social philosophers because he imagines the inseparability of man from society, man’s perfectibility and man’s ultimate liberation as integral to social liberation.