5.1 The Unexpected Force of Social Thought

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Del curso dictado por University of Amsterdam

Classical Sociological Theory

1023 calificaciones

University of Amsterdam

Classical Sociological Theory

1023 calificaciones

This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will offer the participants an introduction into the most important classical sociological readings between the 18th and 20th century. Highly influential social science scholars, such as Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, will be discussed during 8 sessions. Combined with small tests, based on the video’s and recommended readings, the participants will be encouraged to dive deeply into the complex texts and get familiar with classical sociological concepts that are still very relevant today.

De la lección

Session 5: Karl Marx (1818-1883)

The German philosopher, radical economist, and revolutionary leader Karl Marx founded modern "scientific" socialism. His basic ideas, known as Marxism, form the foundation of socialist and communist movements throughout the world. Several topics like alienation, class struggle, and capitalism will be covered in this week's session.

5.1 The Unexpected Force of Social Thought5:57

5.2 Economic Chains of Interdependency6:29

5.3 Homo Faber6:40

5.4 Alienation6:31

5.5 Class Struggle6:52

5.6 Caught in the Capitalist System6:30

5.7 Class Consciousness5:32

5.8 Marx’s Predictions5:49

Conoce a los instructores

Bart van Heerikhuizen
Dr.
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Every time I speak about Karl Marx in front of a live audience,

the atmosphere in the lecture hall feels more charged.

Smith, Comte, Tocqueville, interesting authors, okay.

But Marx, hey, that is something else.

Everybody who is interested in the social sciences has heard of him,

whether they are well acquainted with his theories or not.

And often people have already an opinion about him.

And in many cases, it's very strong opinion.

They agree with his vision or they disagree, but whatever is the case,

they are outspoken about it.

But there is also another possibility.

Students sometimes walk up to me and say something like, my

mother always talked about this great guy, Karl Marx, and when I was a kid, I was

impressed by all those books that he had written standing there on the bookshelf.

But actually I never quite understood what that was all about, so I'm so

happy that in this class, you will help me, you,

teacher, to get an idea of what Marx actually had to say.

And maybe that's not just a bad attitude to start with.

It can not be denied that Marx is very different from

any other theorist that we discuss here.

Durkheim or Waver were never quite as influential in social,

economic, political or cultural life than Karl Marx.

Social democratic parties, socialist and communist parties,

in Europe, European countries like France, Germany, Sweden, Poland or

the Netherlands have always made it very clear that their political program

rested on the firm foundation of the thoughts of Marx.

And of course his friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels.

Maybe some social democratic leaders would

prefer their potential voters to forget those intellectual origins.

But, then again, there are always members of those left-wing political movements,

who urge the leadership to remember and to honor their intellectual roots.

There's another and a bigger problem.

Completely innocent people have been killed on a massive scale by regimes

whose leaders said that they were inspired by Marx and Engels.

That they were only putting into practice what those thinkers had preached.

This has happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin, in Maoist China,

in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge, whose leaders sometimes had studied

Marxism at western universities, slaughtered millions of people.

Now, of course,

we can say that this is not at all what the great humanists Karl Marx and

Friedrich Engels had intended by writing their books and their articles.

Their arguments were abused by ruthless dictators and their cruel henchmen.

And that may be true, but still, there is this ugly line

connecting the interesting things that 19th century Karl Marx had to say

with 20th century mass murder.

And that is a problem we should not shy away from.

One of the important questions here is whether there are elements in Marx's

thought that made it less difficult to interpret him as somebody

who justified violence.

And I'm convinced, for example, that there is something very

totalitarian in August Comte's positivism that doesn't leave space for

criticism once the positivist's truth has been scientifically guaranteed.

But Comte had this good fortune that nobody used or

abused his ideas in defence of censorship,

or defending the prosecution of critics of the positivist church.

But Marx was less than lucky in that regard.

Bloody tyrants in the West and in the East appropriated his arguments.

You can say they alienated them from his body of work, and

put them to use as an apology for their murderous projects.

And however undeserved that is for Karl Marx and poor Friedrich Engels,

there are lines in their books that lend themselves to being used in such a way.

And, here, we should really pay attention to that aspect,

because it may teach you something about the unexpected force and

the dangerous potential of social fault in general.

The uses that have been made of the ideas of Karl Marx should at least

liberate us from that idea that social theory is always and

will always remain without any consequence.

That is such a common cliche.

People often say all those deep thinkers Comte, Tocqueville and Durkheim,

writing those great books, nobody reads them, nobody cares to read them.

What influence did they actually have?

And, you know, apart from the fact that this is not true at all, that,

for example,

Emile Durkheim had an important influence on the French educational system.

The best way to show that this is really is an ill-founded cliche is to

simply reply by saying, what about Marx?

So, to talk in a more or less detached way about what is interesting and

still worthwhile in the ideas of Karl Marx, no, that is not a very easy task.

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