Marxism And Passivism

Disease and degeneracy has taken place of the progression promised by the Enlightenment, there is discomfort present within modern society and its streamlining that has led to the world despair and nihilism. Modern mechanical social structure stands responsible for the capacity depletion of humanity to find meaning, and the increased intellectual sophistication is in fact a manifestation of a vane sense of egoism, bound to erupt violently. What was deemed to become the age of information has become the age of miscommunication. Modernism was and is to a large extent the most infectious and violent critical discourse birthed from the Enlightenment and the modern culture industry has brought mass society into a state of passivity – a culture that …show more content…
Contemporary theory tends to sway towards a breakdown between theory and practice – this contributes to the construction of authoritative discourse. The Enlightenment has proven to be incapable of it’s promise of producing freedom in a world where man is alienated from nature – the operation of instrumental reason has become the driving force of modernity – the promise of freedom and the construction of imprisonment. Modern society and its cultures have used instrumental reason to serve their purposes whether through politics or aesthetics, instrumental reason approaches to overshadow both man and nature and all possibilities of subjective freedom become …show more content…
Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.” (Marx) The distinction between reason and freedom must be understood, as freedom is the insight into necessity. What is meant here by Marx is that the comprehension of necessity equaled freedom from determination by nature. The technological and intellectual instruments necessary to prevail natural determination were initially industrialized in capitalism. Consequently, liberty is not mystified by instrumental reason, but is rather restricted by the institutional conformation of capitalism as well as the social necessities of private interest which are responsible for the fragmentation of society and alienation of man. In addition to the manipulation of people’s necessity, the shape given to the objects of their consumption establish the fundamental manner of consumption. In capitalist society, the worker’s means of existence has disintegrated into the immutable response to the necessities of his own products. It is precisely in this degeneration that mass control of industry manufactured matter lies over man. (Marx,