Marx

Marx speaks of total emancipation of state and man in one similar act due to the paradoxical nature of the state with relation to man. He describes the ultimate goal being that of man returning to his “true” self (129). However, what is this “true” in relation to and does removing all forms of social distinctions contribute to the reformation of the “true” man?

The “true” man concept that Marx speaks of is possibly in relation to the suppression that the working class of his time felt. Recognition through “abstract citizenship” (abstract citoyen) and not having to revolutionalize social life through its components of private interests, civil law etc, creates a society of “true” men as this revolution, as Marx says, views all these components as “preconditions”. (129) This revolution of “reduction of society and its web of relationships to man himself” leverages on the anger within the working class against the suppression by the bourgeois. As such, the “true” in this concept would be one that is relative to the way the working class feels that they are short-changed and that they deserve to be equal to the bourgeois because both classes are equal at birth ex-social distinctions. The true would be the “equal-ness” of all men in a society without social distinctions

Through evolution, man has evolved from “lesser” creatures like chimps. Even in its primitive stages of evolution, man has seen the natural formation of hierarchy. Just like nature, hierarchy is a necessary part of survival. Only the fittest survives, as Darwin writes. To emancipate the current social order of men to their “true” state would not necessarily be “true” in itself.