the afterlife, making them feel better about being oppressed and therefore easily manageable by the bourgeoisie. “Marx argued that religious ideology that urged people to obey authority and work hard for salvation in the afterlife was a way in which superstructure justifies the base, because it generates an acceptance of one’s conditions as they are.” (Cole, 2014). Marx argued in one of his most famous publications ‘The Communist Manifesto’ that if religion was no longer evident or at least not at the forefront of society at the time, then the oppressed would rise against the bourgeoisie and form a communist (proletariat) revolution to overthrow the capitalist regime, as cited in (Marx and Engels, 2002). You can arguably see evidence of this kind of revolution in The
…show more content…
Examples which arguably support this theory could be seen in the form of celebrations such as weddings where a religious building is used to mark an occasion independent of whether the people getting married are religious or not. When comparing Marx and Durkheim’s perspectives on religion you could argue that they both agree on one factor, that religion is used as a social control. However, where Durkheim sees religion as a beneficial factor in social control, upholding order within society and maintaining a collective conscious, Marx sees it as a way to control society in order to maintain the status-quo, ensuring the existence of power to the bourgeoisie while discriminating against the proletariat.
Weber argued against these views that religion was used as a social control and instead viewed religion as a tool for social change, a subject which Durkheim paid very little attention to. This could arguably be seen in communist China, where Buddhism acts as a form of religious harmony where both Buddhism and socialism seek to provide an end to suffering by analysing its conditions and removing its main causes through praxis. “This new, relatively tolerant attitude toward
Examples which arguably support this theory could be seen in the form of celebrations such as weddings where a religious building is used to mark an occasion independent of whether the people getting married are religious or not. When comparing Marx and Durkheim’s perspectives on religion you could argue that they both agree on one factor, that religion is used as a social control. However, where Durkheim sees religion as a beneficial factor in social control, upholding order within society and maintaining a collective conscious, Marx sees it as a way to control society in order to maintain the status-quo, ensuring the existence of power to the bourgeoisie while discriminating against the proletariat.
Weber argued against these views that religion was used as a social control and instead viewed religion as a tool for social change, a subject which Durkheim paid very little attention to. This could arguably be seen in communist China, where Buddhism acts as a form of religious harmony where both Buddhism and socialism seek to provide an end to suffering by analysing its conditions and removing its main causes through praxis. “This new, relatively tolerant attitude toward