The Eros Of Marx

Or ol' buddy Dr. Freud stated that there are really only two actual pursuits in life--love and work. Our only concerns are with a) what will you create, give birth to, produce, and b) how shall you relate to, communicate with, engage the world around you. That is all. The rest is of no consequence. Or, there is no 'the rest.'

When I invoke Karl Marx, and a discussion of the 'proletariat,' what I am really invoking is the 'spirit of work/creativity.' What my real concern is--and I sense Marx's was as well--is how can we work well. Because, after all, our working touches and affects our loving (just ask a child whose parent comes home pissed from the office or factory and you have a good idea of how true this actually is!).

What I gather Marx was interested in was addressing the 'working dimension' of humanity and how this 'working dimension' is often conditioned by certain historical circumstances that have resulted in the oppression of human creativity--all of which would necessarily become infectious with regards to our loving dimension. If we can't work well we can't love well. Work frustrations are also frustrations of loving.

One cannot separate working and loving, loving and working. A handicap in one area tends to lead to debilitation in the other. That boundary of leaving 'shit at the office' never holds. It is a porous membrane and our homes are infected/affected by what takes place while working; just as our working is infected/affected by what is taking place in the home. Kids are a prime example of how porous a membrane the supposed demarcation is between love and work. Many a child's difficulties in school have been discovered as stemming from difficulties at home. The child's working (learning) is frustrated by the child's loving.

What the child shows is of the interrelated nature of home and school (their love and work) is a fact that never changes. It is a relationship that never is altered in any way, shape, manner, or form. And it is the fool who thinks it is or can be.

So, now when we turn to Karl Marx and his discussion of labour, surplus value, modes of production, the proletariat, Kapital, the bourgeousie, and so forth, one can hopefully see how what Marx was discussing (in often very technical language) was really one of the two central concerns/pursuits of our life. It makes Marx a friend of not just our 'working/creating' but of our 'loving/relating.' Just imagine if the shackles of what humanity were often lead to feel around their working were removed--what would that mean for our loving? How might we relate better to and with one another if we eliminated some of the unnecessary frustrations of working? What if there were no wage-slaves, but everyone did what was in tune with their passion? If that were the case--and everyone were aligned with their passion in working--would that not possibly result in more com-passion in our loving and relating one with another?

I, for one, think it would. My own experience tells me as much. When I come home excited from working and feeling fulfilled in what I have either created myself that day, or helped to create in concert with a community of others, then I experience a much more harmonious expansion of that fulfillment into the home. And if that has not happened I come home looking for some 'substitue gratification'--generally in the form of some sort of pathologicallly addictive behaviour (drugs, alcohol, sex, co-dependence, shopping, couch-potatoing, hyper-media consuming) that is a hopeful, albeit shallow, attempt to redeem and heal my 'self' of those frustrations experienced while working (or, in some cases, slaving).

Now who would have thunk that Karl Marx was a friend of home and hearth? That is opus Das Kapital's underlying concern happened to be with the shackles that can, and still do in many cases, burden human creativity. As well as how those burdens on human creativity/work/labour are a detriment to the Whole of Humanity: as the inhibit not just our working, but our loving.

Wow, Karl Marx as lover!