Marx's Criticism of Religion

Please choose one of the following four prompts and respond with a synthetic statement. Be sure to follow the guidelines laid out on the Checklist.
(1) "Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Explain this quote against the background of the passage from which it is taken and of our readings so far. Why is religion, why is the critique of religion so central for Marx?
(2) "It is therefore the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics."
Drawing on this quotation from the “Introduction to a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” as well as on earlier texts, explain Marx’s notion of critique and criticism. How does it relate to the statement, in the last of the “Theses on Feuerbach,” that “[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it”?
(3) With reference to at least two of the texts we have read in this class so far, explain the relationship between emancipation and estrangement/alienation.
(4) "Only when real, individual man resumes the abstract citizen into himself and as an individual man has become a species-being in his empirical life, his individual work and his individual relationships, only when man has recognized and organized his forces propres as social forces so that social force is no longer separated from him in the form of political force, only then will human emancipation be completed."
What notion of the human (of “human essence”) is Marx working with in passages like this one? What does it imply for individuals?
Thesis 1-4, corresponding to each of the above questions, will be in the attached files. Please read them carefully and use your interpretation and analysis to answer the question.
You don't need any citation for this essay. Please avoid using any outside sources.
Be sure to read the checklist before writing. Make sure the final essay checks with every point on the checklist.

In your answer to the first take-home essay, be sure to

☐ address all aspects of the prompt in a synthetic statement that brings together the various strands of your argument. This also means that you do not address anything that is not directly relevant to the prompt.

☐ argue cogently, succinctly, and in an organized manner.

You are being asked to provide an argument, i.e. to relate the various elements of your answer in a clear and logical manner, avoiding anything extraneous.
This implies that you make your argument evident to your reader,

☐ beginning with an introductory paragraph that clearly states what you are going to talk about (your topic); what you have to say about it (your claim[s]); and how you are going to say it (structure of your argument and evidence marshaled);

☐ going on to develop your development coherently, i.e. not just listing your points but relating them to one another, all the while keeping readers apprised of how what they are reading at a given moment relates to your overall claim;

☐ and ending with a conclusion that is not merely a restatement of the introduction but demonstrates to readers what has emerged in the course of your paper, i.e. showing them how the parts you enumerated in the introduction and linked in the body of the essay have come together to form a new whole.

It also means that you make your ideas as accessible as possible by avoiding anything that might distract or confuse your readers, including (but by no means limited to):

☐ unnecessarily long and/or convoluted sentences;
☐ a proliferation of subclauses (especially subclauses introduced by

gerunds) instead of full sentences;
☐ spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes;*
☐ passive voice and other impersonal constructions (“one,” for example)—

it must always be clear who is speaking, who (or what) is doing what; ☐ the use of technical language or fancy words when commonly used

(though not colloquial) language could convey the same ideas with the

same degree of precision;
☐ filler words of all kinds: essentially, extremely, basically, obviously, etc.;

* Use the template or manually set the language of your document to English (in Microsoft Word: “select all,” then choose “Language” from the “Tools” menu) BEFORE you start typing—it will help you avoid a number of mistakes, particularly with spelling and punctuation— and enable the spellcheck function, I would also strongly caution you against relying on it. It does not prevent mistakes of the they’re/their/there, if/of, from/form, etc. variety.

☐ overabundant use of pronouns, such as thus, therefore, however, etc.; ☐ gendered terms where alternatives exist, e.g. use human being instead of man

☐ going back and forth between tenses;

☐ only tangentially relevant (never mind irrelevant!) information;

☐ general points without direct bearing on your answer (“Since the

beginning of time, humans have . . .”);

☐ rushing to finish without rereading your paper.
☐ Please refer to the MLA Handbook or The Chicago Manual of Style for all

questions concerning grammar, punctuation, clarity, mechanics, etc.

☐ Make sure to reread your essay before you submit it.

☐ support your argument with evidence from the texts (including references; use the translations and editions in the course reader).
You are being asked to show that you know what you are talking about by backing up your claims about the texts with material from the texts. To make your argument persuasive, it is necessary not only to logically connect the claims you make about a text but to show that they are true claims. There are various ways to do so (citation, paraphrase, summary, quotation, etc.). In all these cases and for all your claims—not just for direct quotations—you need to provide references to the texts in the translations and editions we are using in this course (see below).

☐ format your document according to the following set of specifications:
☐ Your essay should be about 1000 words long.
☐ It is to be double-spaced, set in a 12-point font aligned to the left with

automatic hyphenation turned off, on numbered A4 pages with 2-

centimeter margins.**
☐ On the first two lines, state your name and which of the four prompts you will answer, respectively. There is no need for a title or a bibliography. ☐ Save your essay in a file named Takehome1_XYZ.docx (replace “XYZ” with your last name and only your last name) and submit it on Moodle. Make sure you click the submit button.

Follow these guidelines carefully—I will not grade incorrectly formatted files.

I will evaluate your answers strictly according to whether they addressed the question, whether you argue persuasively, and whether you sufficiently support your claims with evidence.
I will not grade you on language or style except indirectly, that is, where your writing prevents me from understanding and hence from assessing what you are trying to say.

Citation guidelines

You must use the translations and editions available on the Moodle course page. Cite them using the following short titles:

“Theses” “Question” “Contribution”

“Theses on Feuerbach”
“On the Jewish Question”
“A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right”

** The template available on Moodle has these already set.

Manuscripts Ideology

“Manifesto” 1857 Preface 1859 Preface “Forms” Capital Fragment Gotha

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
The German Ideology
“Manifesto of the Communist Party”
“Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy” “Preface to a Critique of Political Economy” “Forms which Precede Capitalist Production” Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production [Fragment on Machines]

“The Critique of the Gotha Program”

Place the short title in parentheses, followed by the page number. There is no need for a “p.” or any other abbreviations or punctuation. For example:

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (“Theses” 123).

To cite the phrase from opening of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, for example, you would write:

Marx refers to communism as a “specter” (Manifesto 1).

To cite an idea without quoting it, the procedure is the same. In the following example, however, note that mentioning the title in the sentence itself makes it superfluous to cite it in parentheses:

Already in the Manuscripts, Marx articulates private property as relationship (334– 41).

Incidentally: I have used indented quotations in these examples for clarity. In your essay, do not use block quotations, do not start a new paragraph, but quote everything as part of your paragraph, like so: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (“Theses” 123).