SUBTERRANEAN FORCES TWO

subterranean forces two:marx

There is something similar in the work of Freud and Marx. Both are secular Jews, well-educated, living in a German-speaking world in which social and career advancement depends on not being a Jew.  Marx’ father had his family convert to Lutheranism so that he could be more successful, as many other Jews had done in Germany in the past. 

The big difference between them was where they found their inspiration. Freud found a theory of human existence from studying the non-specific illnesses of upper middle class Jewish women; Marx formed his Big Vision from close analysis of people whom no one ever noticed -- the so-called lumpeNproletariat , unskilled and semi-skilled urban factory and sweatshop workers.  But both of these thinkers spent their time thinking about how ignored, marginalized people whom no one else took seriously got to be in the position they were in. 

Marx’ vision of how these people got to be who and where they were had little, but not nothing,  to do with Descartes’ thinking thing. We will project ourselves back to an imagined social beginning. Just as Freud recreated what he imagined childhood must be like, as a way to ground his vision, so Marx imagined an initial social situation to ground his account of the poor people he saw around him.