Unusual interpretations of Marx

[jondwhite]

What are the more unusual but nonetheless supportive interpretations of Marx? I understand there was a biography portraying him as a role model for followers of Christianity.

[Anonymous]

That is not the conception. Based on Engels writing on the Primitive Christians, some followers of Christianity have said that there is a similarity between Christianity and Communism, and that Jesus was the first communist. In reality,  the word communism came  from Christianity, because they possessed everything in common, and the word Socialism came from Roben Owen who was a Christian

[Dave B]

A brief history is; That theme started in the 1840’s by Fuerbach with his essence of christianity which Karl and Fred thought was brilliant; which it was. It was ‘debunked’ in 1845 by Stirner in his ego and his own in 1845. Which led to reappraisal of Karl’s and Fred’s ‘erstwhhile philosophical conscience’  position in their German ideology. Then in 1871 Darwin with his social instincts in ‘Decent of Man’ provided a materialist basis for the essence Fuerbach’s 1840’s idea which had been abandoned because there then hadn’t been one. Thus Darwin’s in ‘Decent of Man’ debunked the debunking of Fuerbach ( and Kant to some extent) by Stirner; and thus to that extent debunked that part of the essence of German Ideology, and standard Marxism’s approach to Christianity. Then towards the end of the 19th century the then standard Marxism felt free to revisit the subject and readopt the original Fuerbachian thesis. And we saw a renewed interest in early christianity and commumism. eg https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/early-christianity/index.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/misc/socialism-churches.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1908/christ/index.htm And I think Bernstien’s revelation of the Whinstanley material in 1890 ish was no accident either. Incidentally mixed in with this late 19th century intellectual milieu of christianity and ‘communism. In 1888 Friedrich Nietzsche of all people, in his analysis agreed that the essence of (early) christianity was libertarian communism. He said the ‘anarchists, by which I think he was talking about ‘libertarian communism’ were essentially christians. And  he said the ‘communists’ by which I interpret as I think he understood it essentially  ‘Leninism’, were merely envious for power and only wished to replace them with themselves.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antichrist_(book)  There is a lot of cross over between Nietzsche and Stirner and the core ideas are very similar.  And they are both interesting albeit sophists in my opinion. So to start with Fuerbach’s essence of christianity. Fuerbach ‘started off’ with the idea that the people that generated and took on board early christianity were instinctive, prejudiced,  emotive, psychologically and personally communists, for some reason or another. So they were irrational communists first or to start off with. And they had then generated and refashioned and/or accepted a set of ideas from the ones they had available to them at the time, eg ‘religion’  to fit into with their communistic prejudices. The trick cyclists call it rationalisation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology) And also Fuerbach in this context, 50 years ahead of his time in his essence of christianity, was the first to explore anthropomorphic projection. Or he said that the value systems that the gospel god and JC had were in fact the value systems of the early christians themselves. So early christians ‘made’ god and JC out of the aspirational value system image they had of themselves.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection Or in other words you can get a ‘royal road’ idea of what someone is like from the wet dreams and fantasies they conjure up. Incidentally George Eliot was embroiled in all this kind of stuff and she certainly, in my opinion, read all her books, knew exactly what rationalisation and projection was.  Take it or leave that; it is my honest appraisal having hacked through all that shit.  [As a digresssion when we think of christianity we justifiably think of the murderous vindictive, war criminal , hypocritical shit house of the old testament. To which modern christains revert to rationalise and justify their position. That was a problem for a very significant strand of early christianity eg the Marcionites.  They said that the old testament god was a bastard and therefore nothing to do with and different to their idea of God. Ironically we probably know more about Marcionism an even Marcion than we do about early christianity itself; thanks to the dedication of very early surviving material from the 2nd century attacking it.  And that he was, with a relatively rich multiple cross reference biography, the son of a rich merchant capitalist from circa ad 150. Thanks to the early Christians we know for almost certain that the gospel of Luke was extant around AD because Marcion had allegedly rewritten it, and we appear to have most of that. Not substantially different from ‘our version’ apart from the nativity stuff is absent. Which is ideologically consistent with Marcion ideology that sort to separate the old testament material from the ‘new religion’ ]  So anyway to go back to Karl and Fuerbach, in 1844; shamelessly and anachronistically paraphrasing the argument in post Darwinian 1871, Pannekoekian and Kropotkinian mutual aid  terms We have evolved to be instinctive and emotive primitive communists are can’t be contented unless we live in a ‘social’ environment to and for which we are congenitally pre-conditioned to live in. Anymore than animals in a zoo can be.  After having gone on an ‘unfortunate’ historical detour we are at the position were we we live in an anti communistic, self-estranged  and anti social instinct ‘private property’ social world. But we have the potential to return to communism, for which we instinctively strive, with all the technology, ‘entire wealth of previous development’  to boot.  Thus  Karl MarxEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844  ….(3) Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution. ….. Stirner and Nietche said that the ‘riddle of history’ was looking after number one, the ego, and concern for others was for saps; invented by people who looked after themselves. The essence of the argument isn’t that intellectual and in fact quite simple. I like a bit to go on holiday and stay in villa’s in the Algave with a little private swimming pool, have a working washing machine and a supply of clean underpants etc. But my social instinct ‘ego’ feels bothered and harassed by the mere existence of poor people. 

[jondwhite]

Thanks for that but Marx as a Christian inspiration was just an example, I was looking for more obscure interpretations 

Quote:

Michel Henry wrote an important work on Karl Marx, whom he considers, paradoxically, as one of the leadingChristian thinkers and one of the most important western philosophers,[47][48]due to the weight he gives in his thought to living work and to the living individual (praxis) in which he sees the foundation of economic reality.[49] One reason why Marx's genuine thought has been so misunderstood is the complete ignorance of his fundamental philosophical writings during the development of the official doctrine of Marxism, due to their very late publication — for example, The German Ideology only appeared in 1932.[50] But the real reason for ignorance of Marx's philosophical texts is Marxism's negation, from its earliest days, of subjectivity, because Marxism is nothing other than a repetition of Hegelianism, which is a philosophy of objectivity which reduces the individual to the effective becoming of the Absolute and its manifestation in the light of ek-static exteriority.[51] This work on Marx was published in two volumes entitled respectively Marx I. Une philosophie de la réalité and Marx II. Une philosophie de l’économie, translated in English as Marx: A Philosophy of Human Reality.

[Anonymous]

I don't think that marx is a repetition of hegel. Those are allegations of the Marxist humanists and marx never created Marxism that was bakunin

[Anonymous]

jondwhite wrote:

Thanks for that but Marx as a Christian inspiration was just an example, I was looking for more obscure interpretations 

Quote:

Michel Henry wrote an important work on Karl Marx, whom he considers, paradoxically, as one of the leadingChristian thinkers and one of the most important western philosophers,[47][48]due to the weight he gives in his thought to living work and to the living individual (praxis) in which he sees the foundation of economic reality.[49] One reason why Marx's genuine thought has been so misunderstood is the complete ignorance of his fundamental philosophical writings during the development of the official doctrine of Marxism, due to their very late publication — for example, The German Ideology only appeared in 1932.[50] But the real reason for ignorance of Marx's philosophical texts is Marxism's negation, from its earliest days, of subjectivity, because Marxism is nothing other than a repetition of Hegelianism, which is a philosophy of objectivity which reduces the individual to the effective becoming of the Absolute and its manifestation in the light of ek-static exteriority.[51] This work on Marx was published in two volumes entitled respectively Marx I. Une philosophie de la réalité and Marx II. Une philosophie de l’économie, translated in English as Marx: A Philosophy of Human Reality.

Do you want anything more obscure than Hegel ? Those that argue that Marx was a  aHegelian thru all his life, they are totally mistaken. In regard to Hegel I would say like CLR James: There is nothing for us. Our world can not be explained thru Philosophy, and I do not think that we need any philosophy, or any philosopher

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