Overview: Marx and Hegel

 

Marx was Post-Hegelian, who was Post-Kantian, who was Post-Humian, who was Post- ...you get the picture.

Each of them built off the ideas of their predecessors and to an extent, through this process, verified one of Hegel's main points - the historical dialectic  -which gave birth to one of Marx's main points - historical materialism.

The historical dialectic is when an idea is presented and then refuted. Out of the refutation, and  conflict between the thesis and the anti-thesis, comes a beautiful synthesis - a merging of both ideas better than either on their own. History progressed like this up until Hegel, so he thought, who had achieved the end of rationality, unable to be refuted, negated, or anti-thesized. (Is that even a word?)

Marx on the other hand did not agree. HE ANTI-THESIZED THE UN-ANTITHESIZABLE!!! (Now I know that that ones not a word). He thought this dialectic wasn't between ideas, but between the material means one possessed or did not possess. The battle between the have's and have not's. Bourgeois vs. Proletariat. 

But, how do these two theories play out in social media?

One way is you could say that social media is a platform for these two different types of dialectics to engage.

1. For Hegel, ideas are shared, refuted, and synthesized through all forms of posting, commenting, liking, sharing, etc. You could say that social media is accelerates the process of history by making it easy for everyone to be involved in the collective conversation. A good social website, according to Hegel, would engage in this process.
2. For Marx, one way to look at it could be that some businesses use social media to advertize and those with more money can sponsor adds and become even more successful than those without money for advertizing, which would be a critique of Marx. But, a pro that Marx could see is that even those without money can still create pages and accounts for free, thus equalizing the playing field. A good social website would have both a free and a paid version.

These are two points from Marx and Hegel about what a good social website would do.

• Provide a place for people to engage in the collective and historical dialectic.
• Offer both a free and a paid version thus helping to level the playing field between have's and have not's.

 Comment below if you can think of any other ways.

Greg