Karl Marx and His Method Term Paper

Total Length: 849 words ( 3 double-spaced pages)

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In the idealist perspective, all that humans feel and experience are not products of sensory experience, but of the mind itself, where all human experiences are generated from the mind. Thus, in the idealist perspective, consciousness about one's status in life and perceived expression of oppression exist and develops only in the mind of the individual. Thus, one only feels oppressed if s/he thinks that s/he is indeed oppressed.

As Marx discusses in his discourse, materialism is distinguished from idealism in that the latter chronicles human history and social experience at a particular period in time, a deterministic approach to explaining social change. In materialism, what instead occurs is a continuous process of social change. Modernism is considered as a product of the previous economic societies of humanity in the historical materialist perspective; idealism, meanwhile, considers modernism as a unique event in society, exclusive of the previous events that surrounded human history through the years.

Evidently, these discourses about materialism and idealism intend to understand how modernism developed in the 19th century, and for centuries to come. Capitalism gave birth to modernism, and both materialism and idealism are approaches that help explains the development of modernism in human society.

In the idealist perspective, modernism developed through intellectual development, wherein humans are able to transcend the capabilities of their thinking, elevating their minds to a higher level.
Thus, this elevation goes beyond the present nature and condition of human society, attributing progress as a product of human intelligence, without the interference of society and the social conditions in which humans live in.

The material historical approach to modernism offers a different version of modernism as a product of capitalist society. For the materialists, modernism developed as the tools and means to produce commodities for society have also changed. Furthering this explanation of material progress, changes in the tools or means of production also means changing the social order of the economic structure of the society, resulting to changes in the roles that people play in the society. The farmers of agricultural societies have migrated to the cities and urban areas to become factory workers, while the landowners of agricultural lands have resorted to using their lands for manufacturing, making them new owners of business organizations and companies in the modern society. This materialist explanation to explaining social change reflects the important role that social environment plays in altering the course of humanity towards development......

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