While reading such books as “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx, “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African” written by himself, and “Civilization and Its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud, I was extremely impressed with them. I was challenged with the problem of a sense of “selfhood”, human interactions. I would like to develop my own views, like these authors did, with respect to ethics, metaphysics, society, psychology, and artistic production. I would like to tell my opinion of how these authors bring about a sense of individualism through history and society’s struggles.
If we are talking about “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx, it is necessary to mention that some students often have misunderstandings and are wrong in their believes that Karl Marx was a Soviet – Russian and even the originator of Soviet Communism. Marx was an intellectual and a wise person; he came to believe that intellectual activity needed to be connected with actual politics. Marx’s work (mainly through the 1840s) was totally devoted to relating history and economics to matters of psychological and social concern. He developed an important and influential theory of a condition resulting from the increasing abruptness of capitalism and its total dependence upon machines and machine production. There were several uprisings of workers against their governments in 1848, so Marx and his friend Engels were asked to compose the statement of purpose for the Communist League (radical organization). But Engels said in his preface introduction to this book that the Manifesto was “essentially Marx’s work” and that “the basic thought… belongs solely and exclusively to Marx (Marx and Engels, 2002, pg. 35).
It is essential to Marx’s theory to assert that all events are pasted in a historical pattern of the evident development of human powers. In order to satisfy their needs societies organize. This determines not only what those societies are actually about, but also shows us the direction and the way in which changes will occur. The dynamic force of change is the conflict between different parts of society, what Marx called the “class struggle”. ‘The Manifesto” actually discusses, how such a revolution could come about. Capitalism arose from the revolutionary actions of a feudal regime that frustrated growth and development. “Manifesto” explains the need for the next revolution, revolution of the mass of workers directed against their capitalist masters. Manifesto has become a world classic. Some of Marx’s sentences became part of the general outlook of the modern reality, even among those scholars and ordinary people who are strongly opposed to Marxism. I think that the power of “The Manifesto” resides in its indictment of capitalism and it also resides in its vision of humanity. Here we can see that “those who had always been the objects of history become its subjects” (Marx and Engels, 2002).
I would like also to discuss the “On the Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin, where he establishes evolution by common descent. He points out it as the dominant scientific explanation of certain diversification in nature. He outlines his ideas, sets out the essence and key positions of his theory:
“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it varies however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form” (Darwin, 1998, p. 5.). I think that Darwin’s evolutionary thinking is based on essentialism. He assumes the existence of essential form for any estimated class of existent. But he does not consider differences between individuals as deviations from the perfect essential form. Sometimes, Darwin points out the importance of the individual, because the mechanism of evolution, the mechanism of natural selection operates on the basic individual differences. As for me, I think that Darwin made a great contribution to scientific theory by identifying the evolutionary stages in general and by showing many conceptual changes in both science and society. Darwin also insisted that social policy should not be guided by such concepts as struggle and selection in nature. To my mind, he tried to show in his work that sympathy should be extended to all nations and races. He states these ideas very clearly in his fundamental book “On the Origin of Species”.
Then I would like to discuss “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African” written by himself. There is no better way to study and learn history than from a person’s memories in his own words. From this book, we can learn about slavery based on the experiences of a former slave. The following phrase describes the meaning of the whole book: “I might say my sufferings were great: but when I compare my lot with that of most of my countrymen, I regard myself as a particular favorite of Heaven, and acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurrence of my life” (Equiano, 2001, p.3).
In the book “Civilization and Its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud the author enumerates the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The basic idea is that the principles underlying an individual’s quest for instinctual freedom contradict the ideas behind the unity of civilization since unity comes at a cost of personal freedom and results in repression of instincts. Freud’s theory is based on the idea that humans have certain instincts that are necessary and immutable: “Most notable are the desires for sex, and the predisposition to violent aggression towards authoritative figures and towards sexual competitors–both of which obstruct the gratification of his instincts. Human beings are governed by the pleasure principle, and the pleasure principle is satisfied by the instincts,” (Sigmund Freud, 1989, p. 23).
So, as the conclusion, I would like to say that I tried to bring forward the points of these author’s ideas and to tie them up. And their points of view show us that all people are evolved and managed to establish a strength from our history that enables us to move forward in society and as individuals to make the most of ourselves. What I am trying to say, is that everything in our life is connected, and in order to understand its meaning we need to look back on such topics as ethics, metaphysics, society, psychology, and artistic production, and on studies that were made in these fields.
Work Cited
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Gareth Stedman Jones. The Communist Manifesto. Penguin Classics, 2002.
Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species. Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1998.
Olaudah Equiano, Angelo Costanzo. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Broadview Press, 2001.
James Strachey, Sigmund Freud. Civilization and Its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company, 1989.