My group's job is to find connection in Marx's writing with other texts we have read this year. I have had this job for almost every book we have done so far in small groups. Nietzsche connected with other texts in almost every paragraph. Marx, however, seems very different from every other text we have read so far this year. I would say he is most similar to Darwin because of his scientific way of writing. Marx writes economically, not philosophically like Gandhi, Nietzsche, or Tao. Even so, the connection we came up with today in class was pretty interesting. Seeing as our group didn't get to share it, I thought I would post our ideas.

Marx says, "Christianity with its religious cult of man in the abstract, more particularly in its bourgeois development...is the most fitting form of religion...the transformation of the product into a commodity...plays a subordinate role, which however increases in importance as these communities approach nearer and nearer to the stage of their dissolution...The religious reflections of the real world can...vanish only when the practical relations of everyday life between man and man, and man and nature, generally present themselves to him in a transparent and rational form" (239).

Marx's view on Christianity reminded me of Nietzsche's view. Christianity appears primitive and restrictive. It puts man in a cage. Both Nietzsche and Marx seem to think a superior form of humanity would rise above religion, namely Christianity. Finding connections between texts can be challenging, but I think it helps us as writers to learn to "synthesize."