Ella: Marx on Expression of Human Values

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Throughout On the Jewish Question, Karl Marx contrasts religious and political states, demonstrating their differences and incompatibility as existing in dependence on one another (especially in his denouncement of the "so-called Christian state" 36). That being said, considering Marx's ideas in light of Brettschneider's ideas of the "core values" of democracy, we can better understand how, according to Marx, religion and the political state are just different expressions of human values and ideals. In Brettschenider's writings, he explains how, intrinsically, democratic texts and institutions reflect a few core values. In Marx's account, he seems to believe religion and political states follow a similar structure, expressing specific core values differently. 


This idea is best encapsulated on page 32 when Marx states: 


Religion is simply the recognition of man in a roundabout fashion; that is, through an intermediary. The state is the intermediary between man and human liberty. Just as Christ is the intermediary to whom man attributes all his own divinity to his religious bonds, so the state is the intermediary to which man confides all his non-divinity and all his human freedom.


This idea is essential to clarify because the idea that religion and political states serve the same purpose (as vehicles of value expression) demonstrates why religion and politics cannot exist within the same sphere. This is why Marx believed religion must be a private matter rather than a public one, because there cannot be two separate expressors of values in one sphere of life without them sullying each other's integrity. Marx verifies this on page 37, stating that the Christian state, which creates codependency between religion and political life, "has a political attitude towards religion, and a religious attitude towards politics. It reduces political institutions and religion equally to mere appearances." If two different value expressors operate in the same arena, they lose their principles and become surface-level. 


While religion and political states may not always express the same values, there is definitely still some overlap. They are both different types of "recognition of man." Marx affirms this while he explains respect for democratic states, saying that through them, "the human core of religion is realized in a profane manner" (37). Thus, religion and political states cannot depend on one another because their differing methods of value expression confound the ability of institutions to express human values at all. 

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