I’m going to skip over a lot of the preliminary discussion concerning this text. The fact that the essay contains antisemitic language and ideas is not news, and hardly needs mentioning. I am also going to presuppose that whoever engages with this post is at least passingly familiar with the central thesis of the work, because this post doesn’t need to be any longer than it already is.
There is one major flaw I see in the piece. The work is dependent on the idea that Jews are an underclass, hence the need for Jews to “liberate” themselves from Judaism, not unlike how the Proletarian class must seek to abolish itself, and not just the Bourgeoisie.
I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Yeah, Jews are oppressed, but unlike the black/white racial hierarchy, Jewishness is not an identity conferred on one through oppression. It’s an ethno-religious group which has existed for thousands of years in a variety of contexts where oppression may or may not be present. This simple fact makes Karl’s dialectical approach seem absurd on its face. Christianity and Judaism are not in a dialectical relationship. It makes no sense.
Perhaps it’s cruel of me, but I can’t help but wonder if this is a manifestation of Marx’s insecurity over being Jewish himself. He never had much connection with the cultural or religious aspects of his ethnic heritage, given that his father converted to Christianity during Karl’s childhood to practice law. And yet, I have read that he was bullied for being Jewish, that it showed on his face and in the color of his skin. Perhaps it’s not unreasonable to suspect that Marx himself desired to erase the Jewish aspects of himself to escape the bigotry he experienced, and simply projected that onto all Jews.
I know this isn’t his most cherished work, but given that the anti-imperialist left is “antisemitic” in the minds of people brainwashed by cable news, the mere existence of this essay is a powder keg. How easy would it be for someone to merely reference the title and author of the essay and devise a convincing argument that we hate Jews. Such an argument would depend upon not listening to actual Marxists and not understanding the history of socialism, but liberals being incurious and ignorant as they are, the ball might be in our court to disabuse people of these ideas.
Check out these two twitter threads (thread 1, thread 2) and this article for a different reading of Marx’s On the Jewish Question.
I think you’re somewhat failing to take into account how much antisemitizam there was in Europe and how prevalent it was, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries. Marx is writing about Jews in Europe in the mid 19th century, and is responding directly to widespread antisemitic rhetoric - “The Jewish Question”.
Anticommunists will always misrepresent us and everything we do, we don’t need to pander to them in any way. There are plenty of other people that will listen to us and be open to our ideas. Liberals (active political liberals, not the average “apolitical” person in the west) are not a group we can radicalize and we shouldn’t focus our efforts on them.
Also, the theory that people are brainwashed by propaganda is not scientific or Marxist and we shouldn’t use it. It leads to a dead end in terms of tactics to fight propaganda. Check out the full article I linked above for a Marxist theory of how propaganda works.
I agree.
I just wanted to say that committed liberals can be radicalised because I was one of them. I’d read the main theory and thought it was the best thing ever. I was easy to radicalise when a Marxist highlighted the contradictions in that theory. As I knew the texts well, I grasped the critique quickly. It awoke some questions that I had repressed e.g. about how to solve poverty if there’s capitalism. Maybe the first step was showing me that liberal thought is capitalism and all the bad shit that entails.
Not to say there wasn’t any cognitive dissonance. I had a very uncomfortable few years as the world lost coherence and I had to build it back up. A lot of people will just refuse to grapple with the logical implications of Marxism. But they can be reached if you can have good faith conversations with them.
Great article, thank you for linking.
After reading the excellent article you linked, I see the error in my thinking. I was approaching the essay in a vacuum, and consequently couldn’t understand it. Thank you for helping me learn.
I dunno OP, personally I got a lot out of that essay and honestly would say it was one of the first Marx’s writings that actually clicked with me. Like yeah jewish people are an ethnic group, but they also exist within the structure that is the jewish theocracy; I think this is what he felt they should be ‘liberating’ themselves from, theocratic thinking; also at the time Marx was writing this you should try to put the essay into context, he is speaking in satire for most of it as its a response to an actual anti-semite and often hes using language in a way to make absurd comparisions through satire.
I understand. It didn’t really occur to me that Marx was writing satirically in response to Bauer, but after doing a bit more research and taking another pass at the essay, I can see that now. I was missing relevant context.
