Marx

For so many years I have thought about Marx. Who has not? The idea of an equal and solidary community, free of ideological superstructure or irrational will-o’-the-wisps. A world that knows only matter and sees in it a scientific, progressive movement. Its goal? A world in which humanity is complete, that is, harmonious, without envy and ill will, solidary and equal in rights, without alienation and external determination, which alone makes possible the unfolding of the individual within a collective.

This dream of a better future that will inevitably, following the course of history, necessarily be reached—albeit in the future—encourages struggle and revolution, but for others also serenity: What can be put in history’s way, after all?

Consciousness is determined by matter, according to Marx. The world as will and representation, by contrast, in Schopenhauer, and already in Kant too, ultimately… Why should the world either arise from my representation or have nothing at all to do with me? What is not right here?

The unfolding of spirit—building on Hegel—why thought of so narrowly? In the spirit of the Enlightenment, the aim was to establish a view of the world that follows science alone. That protects against charlatans, ideologies, magicians, seducers, warriors and other deceivers.

We have driven spirit away and replaced it with money, success, power. The wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, the Sermon on the Mount, the shamans and seers, for example, no longer figures in our cultural identity. It was downgraded as superstructure. The intersubjective, the anchoring of one’s own consciousness in another consciousness, leads onto the path of meditation. Empathy shows us not only that we are not merely not alone, but participate in something that goes beyond us.

The paint on a canvas—it means more than just that. As in Jackson Pollock’s final painting, it lets us look into the beginning. In beholding, heterogeneity arises.