Marx, Nietzsche, Freud

Résumé du document

Marx, Nietzsche and Freud are three German thinkers who lived during different epochs, the eldest was born in 1818 and the youngest died in 1939. As very different as they are, one is an economical and political theoretician, one is a philosopher, one is a doctor, they can however be seen as similar to the extent that they raise doubt about the most secure values and institutions that have been prevailing in the society for ages. This is the reason why the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur gave their work the grouping characterization of 'hermeneutics of suspicion'. With different purposes and different ways of approach, each of these authors assume that the obligation between consciousness and its world is structured by something hidden that is not immediately obvious. Marx, Nietzsche and Freud strived to reveal these ignored objectives. My essay will emphasize on how the three authors find an explanation for: why is there this society which arose after mankind's development and which is still for many of us a big question mark as for its reasons and its origins? While paying attention consecutively to how each author attacks the main 'truths' that is to say, in my essay, religion, politics, the organization of society and the individual's action, I will show the links that exist between their theories, and how they have the same dynamics of revealing the shadowed side of things.

Extraits

[...] Marx, Nietzsche and Freud strive to reveal these ignored causes. My essay will emphasis on how the three authors find an explanation for why there is this society which arose after mankind's development and which is still for many of us a big question mark as for its reasons and its origins. While paying attention consecutively to how each author attacks the main that is to say, in my essay, religion, politics, the organization of society and the individual's action themselves, I will show the links that exist between their theories; how they have the same dynamics of revealing the shadowed side of things. [...]

[...] This overlapping of two different levels greatly exemplifies the Freud's process. He showed in a first time that one's consciousness has hidden, unknown and repressed causes –leading to dreams as he says in On dreams for instance. This individual renunciation also leads to master chiefs and to culture itself, as the result of their sublimation. This idea comes closer to Nietzsche's view of art as product of one's Dionysian side[5] (which can be seen as Freud's unconsciousness). The example of the theme of art is another similarity between the authors. [...]

[...] However, Nietzsche claims that men could one day get ride of this morality whereas Freud sees it a necessary consequence of man's nature. The origin of moral is intensely linked to the question of religion to which Nietzsche devotes much attention too. Along with slave morality, feeble men full of resentment have created religion as we know it under Judeo-Christianity, thus directing resentment towards them. This quote from Genealogy of morals illustrates this point: suffer, someone must be to blame for it”-thus thinks every sickly sheep. [...]

[...] Many find an answer turning to religion; Marx, Nietzsche and Freud bring another version of what remains a mystery and which I am going display. First of all, Marx's skepticism towards the assumed freedom of one's consciousness can be summarized in this quotation from A ruthless criticism from everything existing: motto should be: Reform of consciousness through analyzing the mystical consciousness [ whether it appears in religious or political form”. In this letter of 1843 to Arnold Ruge, Marx says that the world should acquire a consciousness which it does not possess yet. [...]

[...] Basically, after being represented by an animal, the father finds his human shape again through gods and further through the figure of Jesus: “while the totem may be the first form of father-surrogate, the god will be a later one, on which the father has regained his human shape”. Again, is nothing other than an exalted father”. As for Catholicism, to observe that the Eucharist celebration consists of strictly speaking eating the body and drinking the blood of the Christ would support Freud's view[3]. [...]