Political Theory – Marx’s Jewish Question
Description
Answer the following question in relation to the quote below:
1. Explain this paragraph in your own words. In your explanation, address the meanings of the terms “political,” “civil society,” and “egoism”. Make sure you relate your explanation to Bauer’s analysis of the Jewish Question, and to Marx’s critique, as it appears in this paragraph.
“Man emancipates himself politically from religion by expelling it from the sphere of public law to that of private law. Religion is no longer the spirit of the state, in which man behaves, albeit in a specific and limited way and in a particular sphere, as species-being, in community with other men. It has become the spirit of civil society, of the sphere of egoism and of the bellum omnium contra omnes [war of all against all]. It is no longer the essence of community, but the essence of differentiation. It has become what it was at the beginning, an expression of the fact that man is separated from the community, from himself and from other men.” (Marx, The Jewish Question, p. 35 )
