| Rational self-criticism,the open use of reason and the free and just legal order are the lasting legacies of the enlightenment.Enlightenment established the subject status of Man,but when the tool attribute of reason became the ultimate goal,the world did not realize the complete disenchantment,but fell into the paradox of freedom and equality.Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first to discover social inequality and to launch a critique of modernity,beginning with the end of the French enlightenment.At the same time,the criticism of modernity is the theoretical theme that runs through Marxism’s life.Marxism critically inherited and surpassed Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s criticism of the enlightenment tradition,and endowed equality with scientific and substantial connotation.Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s original research on equality deeply influenced Marxism,and his political philosophy provided a rich ideological resource for Marxism’s philosophical theory.Before the historical materialism came into being,Jean-Jacques Rousseau took a rather dialectical approach to thinking,and came up with some historical materialism insights.This view of history,with its dialectic and self denial,had a profound impact on Marxism’s historical materialism,Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s deep criticism of the alienation of authoritarian society,and his pursuit of human freedom and Equality is a rich source of nutrients for Marx’s theory of alienation.Obviously,both sides have the rational culture in one continuous line of succession relations.Marxism used Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s dialectical and unified logical thinking structure of individual will and common will to transform the dialectical relationship between individuality and universality,He draws on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s analysis of problems to demonstrate the significance of human liberation;he also inherits Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory of people’s sovereignty,and is inspired by it in terms of legislative thought,freedom and equality.But we must also recognize that Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas of equality are bourgeois Idealism.Jean-Jacques Rousseau entered the history with transcendental logic,and deduced the already existing state of human society,and his dialectical view of history is tinged with conjecture and emotion.Marxism went beyond Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s abstract theory of human nature,and based on the theory of historical materialism,he critically absorbed Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s argument about private ownership,realizing that private ownership led to the division of Civil Society.It corrects the inversion of therelationship between the state and civil society,and puts forward the conclusion that civil society decides the political state.Marxism also critically inherited Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s alienation thought,deeply aware that the division of Labor and private ownership as two sides of the same thing play a decisive role in the emergence and deepening of alienation,only from the two aspects of division of Labor and private ownership,through the Communist movement,can we realize the sublation of alienation,the restoration of human nature,and the free and comprehensive development of human beings.Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a realist who talks about equality between people,a realist who operates the kingdom of equality,a complex revolution based on morality and common will.He constructed a moral republic without god but with divinity,and Marxism combined political economy and philosophical perspectives,transcended Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theoretical vision and endowed equality with substantial connotations,and build the community on the basis of science,rather than Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s moral imagination.Considering the equality thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Marxism from the perspective of enlightenment modernity can not only reveal the inheritance origin and innovation transcendence relationship between Marxism and Jean-Jacques Rousseau,it can also be found that Marxism’s critical theory of modernity is closely connected with the course of human history.The problems of modern society that he revealed have not been solved,and the solutions to the problems have not been transcended.It has continued in various critical theories of modernity and has provided new critical theories with resources of thought and wisdom.As a late-developing country,China has not finished the cause of modernity,and the situation of value nihilism caused by the process of modernity makes Marxism’s criticism of modernity show great contemporary significance.It also provides rich ideological resources for the reconstruction of public value norms. |
