What I have learned about human beings throughout my studies is that a human is smart individually, but, people are dumb collectively. A society is corrupt to the individual as it is designed to help the majority of people instead of the individual. Therefore, more times than not individuals become victims to systems that sacrificed the needs of the few for the needs of the many. John Locke has a problem with this because he does not believe an individual should suffer and have his or her personal freedoms be stripped for the help of the masses. This is a philosophy of his I can agree with because an individual's well being should not be overlooked by the will of a higher entity, being society. This philosophy relates to Taoism, as Taoism paints society as corrupt and contradictory to the natural way of life. A human being should not have to give up his or her free will for the sake of any society as long as that free will does not entail killing other human beings, or harming the free will of other human beings.
Karl Marx on the other hand, sees that the masses should be catered to. Karl Marx's ideals would seem to do away with the human characteristic of hoarding the majority of wealth in countries for their own selfish desires. By distributing wealth across the board, Karl Marx is onto a fair way to go about human life as a society. He also is very accurate in describing the flaws of society as an economic issue and that when the economy favors the few (bourgeosie) the many (proletariat) will eventually have no choice but to revolt. Going back to Taoism, I like these ideals Karl Marx wants to stick into society, and how they relate to Taoism. Taoism teaches there is no life "better" than another life, instead "better" is a corrupt mental perception and judgement. This idea of "better" that is seen in Capitalism, opens the window for greed as people begin to hoard their money, creating the mind state that the more money I have, the "better" I am. I personally believe that this idea of "better" is simply a falsified image of oneself that can be described as the ego, and is corrupt to the individual as the ego creates lies for the individual to live by. So, by living by Marxist's ideals, I believe the ego would be diminished and people wouldn't be tortured by the desires of being, "better," the Taoist inside of me tends to agree with Karl Marx in this respect.
I believe I can live by both of these ideals. Maximizing my freedom to use my will and create for myself is something I can take from John Locke to live a good life. As for Karl Marx, I see the importance of not allowing the desire and lust for material wealth to overcome myself. Karl Marx specifically resonates with me though because I believe his vision of the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie is very real today in the society we live in. I've been learning about Karl Marx over the past three semesters and the more I learn about him the more I see his vision in terms of how the proletariat is being oppressed by the bourgeoisie, and when the shit hits the fan, I would love to join the fight, just like what happened in 1776 and the Revolutionary War.
This week I've commented on Danielle Grosso's blog. http://daniellegrosso.blogspot.com/
