A Defense of Humanism

Abstract

Abstract Whatever humanism may be, it has as its common principle, in simple terms, human value. The various humanisms may differ greatly in their interpretations of human value, but to the extent that they all emphasize this value, such differences are merely as between one humanism and another, and not as between humanism and in- or antihumanism. Marx often used the expression "human value" in an approving sense, and it is certainly not exclusively bourgeois jargon. Historically, humanism played not merely an antifeudal role, but also an anti-capitalist one; hence it cannot be said that humanism can never be other than bourgeois ideology. Marx did indeed criticize the humanism of Feuerbach, but far from utterly denying humanism, he brought it to a higher stage of development. Marx and Feuerbach both placed many in the highest position and recognized no essence higher than man's. But Feuerbach only opposed ideological illusions of superhuman forces, whereas Marx went further and opposed all the actual social relations that degraded man to the status of nonhuman. Marx was able to reach this revolutionary conclusion because he grasped actual man, social man. Marx broke only with historical materialism, but not in the slightest with humanism. The humanism we advocate is again Marxist humanism and no other. The noun "humanism" expresses its genetic link with historical humanism; the adjective "Marxist" expresses its difference from other humanism.