Marx lies within

Abstract

This paper is a journey towards discovering the Marx that has been part of my intellectual existence. Here, I attempt to trace how and why Marx became manifest in my life and work. I identify four aspects of Marxism that I think, has influenced and enabled me most: Marxism as a way of teaching (pedagogy), Marxism as a way of life (critical humanism), Marxism as a way of combatting alienation (disrupting alienation), and Marxism as a way of comprehending reality (dialectical). I explore Marx’s influence in pedagogy, particularly, a Freire-Marx radical pedagogy as the revolutionary struggle through which the concreteness of dehumanization is communicated dialogically not only among the oppressed, but also to the oppressor, in order to re-constitute reality. I understand Marx’s class consciousness as critical humanism based on compassion because class is not an a priori category, pure container, an empirical formula. Rather, it eventuates in the context of struggle, that is, humans identify with human suffering in the context of oppression to become critically conscious as class beings. I conceptualize how Marx demystifies self-love as alienation, indicating that it was not love at all, but self-estrangement of humans from their true soul-essence, and also, estrangement of humans from nature. Lastly, understanding freedom as emancipation of the species being, a truly social being, a truly natural being means the annihilation of the alienated-self (false-self) and the sensuous manifestation of the communist self (true-self). Accepting that that reality is dialectical and that we must act and think dialectically, and therefore, transform ourselves materially and spiritually is the last contributions of Marx that I discuss here. It is in manifesting these four elements of Marx that lies within me, I reveal the Marx that has influenced and enabled me most