Marxist philosophy Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew ...

, a character mask (german: Charaktermaske) is a prescribed social role which conceals the contradictions of a social relation or order. The term was used by

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

in published writings from the 1840s to the 1860s, and also by

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

mimesis Mimesis (; grc, μίμησις, ''mīmēsis'') is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of meanings, including ''imitatio'', imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act ...

(imitative representation using analogies) and

prosopopoeia A prosopopoeia ( grc-gre, προσωποποιία, ) is a rhetorical device in which a speaker or writer communicates to the audience by speaking as another person or object. The term literally derives from the Greek roots "face, person", and " ...

(impersonation or

personification Personification occurs when a thing or abstraction is represented as a person, in literature or art, as a type of anthropomorphic metaphor. The type of personification discussed here excludes passing literary effects such as "Shadows hold their b ...

), and the Roman concept of

persona A persona (plural personae or personas), depending on the context, is the public image of one's personality, the social role that one adopts, or simply a fictional character. The word derives from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatr ...

, but also differs from them.

Neo-Marxist Neo-Marxism is a Marxist school of thought encompassing 20th-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or exi ...

and non-Marxist sociologists, philosophers and anthropologists have used character masks to interpret how people relate in societies with a complex

division of labour The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...

, where people depend on trade to meet many of their needs. Marx's own notion of the character mask was not a fixed idea with a singular definition.

Versus social masks

As a psychological term, "character" is more common in continental Europe, while in Britain and North America the term "personality" is used in approximately the same contexts. Marx however uses the term "character mask" analogously to a theatrical role, where the actor (or the characteristics of a

prop A prop, formally known as (theatrical) property, is an object used on stage or screen by actors during a performance or screen production. In practical terms, a prop is considered to be anything movable or portable on a stage or a set, distinct ...

) represents a certain interest or function, and intends by character both "the characteristics of somebody" and "the characteristics of something". Marx's metaphorical use of the term "character masks" refers to carnival masks and the masks used in classical Greek theatre. The issue is the social form in which a practice is acted out. Sophisticated academic language about the sociology of roles did not exist in the mid-19th century. Thus, Marx borrowed from theatre and literature to express his idea.

György Lukács György Lukács (born György Bernát Löwinger; hu, szegedi Lukács György Bernát; german: Georg Bernard Baron Lukács von Szegedin; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, critic, and aes ...

pioneered a sociology of drama in 1909, a sociology of roles began only in the 1930s, and a specific sociology of theatre (e.g. by Jean Duvignaud) first emerged in the 1960s. Marx's concept is both that an identity appears differently from its true identity (it is masked or disguised), and that this difference has practical consequences. The mask is not a decoration, but performs a function and has effects, even independently of the mask bearer. The closest equivalent term in modern English is ''social masks''. However, this translation is inappropriate: *A "social mask" is a mask of an individual, while Marx's concept of character masks is applied to cases other than individuals, when matters present themselves differently from their true nature. Marxists and non-Marxists have applied it to persons and politicians, groups and

social classes A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, incom ...

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information ...

social movements A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and m ...

and

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or po ...

social institutions Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...

, organizations and functions, governments, symbolic expressions, historical eras, and dramatic, literary or theatrical contexts. *The category of "social masks" is much more general and inclusive, and Marx's character masks are a subtype of social mask. They are masks of people and things which represent a social, political, intellectual or economic function, within given social relationships among groups of people. *Marx's character masks are bound up with a specific type of society at a specific historical time, and with a specific theory of how the social relations in that society function. However, the concept of "social masks" assumes no specific theory, society or historical time. Social masks can be assumed to have existed forever, and are treated as a permanent part of human existence.

"False awareness"

There is a link between character masks and deliberate misrepresentation or

hypocrisy Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another or the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. In moral psychology, it is th ...

. But character masks are not always hypocritical, as the motive for their use is genuine, principled or naive – or a product of self-delusion. People can mask their behavior, or mask a situation, without being aware that they are doing so.

Paul Ricœur Jean Paul Gustave Ricœur (; ; 27 February 1913 – 20 May 2005) was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutics. As such, his thought is within the same tradition as other major hermeneutic ...

explains: "False awareness" (''), as used by

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

apologia An apologia (Latin for apology, from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is a formal defense of an opinion, position or action. The term's current use, often in the context of religion, theology and philosophy, derives from Justin Mar ...

, which disguises, embellishes or obscures social contradictions ("the bits that do not fit"). A ''mystical truth'' in this context is a cultural idea which cannot be verified, because it is abstract rather than logical. Mystical truths cannot be tested scientifically, only subjectively experienced.

Economic

Marx argues that, as capitalist class society is intrinsically a contradictory system – it contains many conflicting and competing forces – masking of its true characteristics is an integral feature of how it operates. Buyers and sellers compete with other buyers and sellers. Businesses cannot practically do so without confidentiality and secrecy. Workers compete for job opportunities and access to resources. Capitalists and workers compete for their share of the new wealth that is produced, and nations compete with other nations. The masks are therefore necessary, and the more a person knows about others, the more subtle and sophisticated the masks become. A centerpiece of Marx's critique of political economy is that the labour contract between a worker and their employer obscures the true economic relationship. Marx argues that workers do not sell their labor, but their

labor power Labour power (in german: Arbeitskraft; in french: force de travail) is a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do work, labour power, from the physical act of ...

, creating a profitable difference between what they are paid and the value they create for the employer (a form of economic exploitation). Thus, the foundation of capitalist wealth creation involves a mask. More generally, Marx argues that transactions in the capitalist economy are rarely transparent – they appear different from what they really are. This is discovered only when the total context in which they occur is examined. Hence Marx writes: This implies another level of masking, because the economic character masks are then equated with

authentic Authenticity or authentic may refer to: * Authentication, the act of confirming the truth of an attribute Arts and entertainment * Authenticity in art, ways in which a work of art or an artistic performance may be considered authentic Music * ...

behaviour. The effect in this case is, that the theories of economics masks how the economy actually works, by describing its surface appearance as its real nature. The general principles of economics may appear to explain it, but in reality they do not. The theory is therefore ultimately arbitrary. Either aspects of the economy are studied in isolation from the context in which they occur, or generalizations are formed which leave essential parts out. These distortions are ideologically useful to justify an

economic system An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a society or a given geographic area. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entit ...

, position or policy as reasonable, but it is a hindrance to true understanding.

Significance

Masks as mediators of social contradictions

Abstractly, the masking processes specific to capitalist society mediate and reconcile social contradictions, which arise from three main sources: *

relations of production Relations of production (german: Produktionsverhältnisse, links=no) is a concept frequently used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their theory of historical materialism and in ''Das Kapital''. It is first explicitly used in Marx's publish ...

(ownership relations governing the

factors of production In economics, factors of production, resources, or inputs are what is used in the production process to produce output—that is, goods and services. The utilized amounts of the various inputs determine the quantity of output according to the relat ...

, defined by property rights, and work roles), which create and maintain a class-divided society, in which citizens are formally equal under the law but unequal in reality; class interests are represented as the general interest and vice versa. The state formally serves "the general interest" of society, but in reality it mainly serves the general interest of the

ruling class In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by exte ...

, and more specifically what the

elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. ...

, the

polity A polity is an identifiable political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any other group of ...

or the

political class Political class, or political elite is a concept in comparative political science, originally developed by Italian political theorist Gaetano Mosca (1858–1941). It refers to the relatively small group of activists that is highly aware and active ...

''considers'' to be the general interest of society. * relations of exchange in the marketplace, where buyers and sellers bargain with each other, and with other buyers and sellers, to get the "best deal" for themselves, although they have to cooperate to get it (they must give something to receive something). Supposedly this is a "

level playing field In commerce, a level playing field is a concept about fairness, not that each player has an equal chance to succeed, but that they all play by the same set of rules. In a game played on a playing field, such as rugby, one team would have an unfai ...

" but in reality it is not, simply because some command vastly greater resources than others. The attempt is made to "personalize" otherwise impersonal or anonymous market relationships expressed by transactions. * the ''combination'' of relations of production and exchange, in which competitors have an interest in hiding certain information, while presenting themselves outwardly in the most advantageous way. Specifically, people are placed in the position where they ''both'' have to compete and to cooperate with each other ''at the same time'', at a very advanced (or at least civilized) level, and to reconcile this predicament involves them in masking. This requirement exists in all kinds of types of society, but in bourgeois society it takes specific forms, reflecting the element of ''financial gain'' which is involved in the way people are relating or are related.

"Naked self-interest"

In ''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Com ...

'', Marx & Engels had stated that: This "naked self-interest" seems to contradict the idea of "masking" in bourgeois society. Supposedly market trade creates transparency and an "open society" of free citizens. In reality, Marx and Engels claim, it does not. The "nakedness" may not reveal very much other than the requirements of trade; it is just that the cultural patterns of what is hidden and what is revealed differ from feudal and ancient society. According to Marx, the labour market appears as the "very Eden of the innate rights of man", insofar workers can choose to sell their labour-power freely, but in reality, workers are ''forced'' to do so, often on terms unfavourable to them, to survive. As soon as they are inside the factory or office, they have to follow orders and submit to the authority of the employer. Even in "naked commerce", the possible methods of "masking" what one is, what one represents or what one does, are extremely diverse. Human languages and numerical systems, for example, offer very subtle distinctions of meaning that can "cover up" something, or present it as different from what it really is. Anthropologists, sociologists and linguists have sometimes studied "linguistic masking". The "masking" of quantitative relationships takes three main forms: *masking plain computational error; *masking through a

categorization Categorization is the ability and activity of recognizing shared features or similarities between the elements of the experience of the world (such as Object (philosophy), objects, events, or ideas), organizing and classifying experience by a ...

of counting units which hides the real situation, or presents it in a certain light; *masking through the ("meta-theoretical") interpretation of the overall significance of a quantitative result. Data may be accepted as a valid result, but dismissed as irrelevant or unimportant in a given context, and therefore not worth paying attention to; or conversely, the importance of specific data may be highlighted as being more important than other related facts.

Sources of the concept

Marx's studies of Greek philosophy

The theatrical mask, expressing an acting role, was supposedly first invented in the West by the Greek actor

Thespis Thespis (; grc-gre, Θέσπις; fl. 6th century BC) was an Ancient Greek poet. He was born in the ancient city of Icarius (present-day Dionysos, Greece). According to certain Ancient Greek sources and especially Aristotle, he was the first pe ...

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...

(6th century BC) and the Greek Aristotelian philosopher

Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routledg ...

(circa 371–287 BC) is credited with being the first in the West to define human character in terms of a typology of personal strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, Marx's idea of character masks appears to have originated in his doctoral studies of

Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...

in 1837–39. At that time, the theatre was one of the few places in Germany where opinions about public affairs could be fairly freely aired, if only in fictionalized form. Independently from Marx, the romantic novelist

Jean Paul Jean Paul (; born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 21 March 1763 – 14 November 1825) was a German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories. Life and work Jean Paul was born at Wunsiedel, in the Fichtelgebirge mountai ...

also used the concept, in portraying the human problems of

individuation The principle of individuation, or ', describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinct from other things. The concept appears in numerous fields and is encountered in works of Leibniz, Carl Gustav Jung, Gunther Anders, Gilbert S ...

. In Jean Paul's aesthetics, the ''Charaktermaske'' is the observable face or appearance-form of a hidden self. It is Jean Paul's definition which is cited in the ''

Deutsches Wörterbuch The ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (; "The German Dictionary"), abbreviated ''DWB'', is the largest and most comprehensive dictionary of the German language in existence.Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of t ...

and

Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm Carl Grimm (also Karl; 24 February 178616 December 1859) was a German author and anthropologist, and the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm. Life and work Wilhelm was born in February 1786 in Hanau, i ...

from 1838 onward. Other early literary uses of the German term ''charaktermaske'' are found in

Joseph von Eichendorff Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (10 March 178826 November 1857) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator, and anthologist. Eichendorff was one of the major writers and critics of Romanticism.Cf. J. A. Cuddon: '' ...

's 1815 novel ''Ahnung und Gegenwart'', a veiled attack against Napoleon, and some years later, in writings by

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of ''Lied ...

. Heine was among the first to use the theatrical term "Charaktermaske" to describe a social setting. Perhaps the concept was also inspired by

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...

's discussion of masks in his ''

The Phenomenology of Spirit ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (german: Phänomenologie des Geistes) is the most widely-discussed philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; its German title can be translated as either ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' or ''The Phenomen ...

''. In his ''Aesthetics'', Hegel contrasts the fixed, abstract and universal character masks of the ''

Commedia dell'arte (; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Chara ...

'' with the romantic depiction of "character" as a living, subjective individuality embodied in the whole person. In 1841, the German theatre critic Heinrich Theodor Rötscher explicitly defined a "character mask" as a ''theatrical role'', acted out in such a way that it expresses all aspects of the assumed personality, his/her social station and background; successfully done, the audience would be able to recognize this personality on first impression.

Theatre and drama

The shift in Marx's use of the concept, from

dramaturgy Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The term first appears in the eponymous work '' Hamburg Dramaturgy'' (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing composed th ...

and

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. S ...

to political and economic actors, was probably influenced by his well-known appreciation of drama and literature. Certainly, European writers and thinkers in the 17th and 18th centuries (the era of the Enlightenment) were very preoccupied with human character and characterology, many different typologies being proposed; human character was increasingly being defined in a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

way, independent of

virtues Virtue ( la, virtus) is morality, moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is Value (ethics), valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that sh ...

and vices defined by religion.

Polemics

The first known reference by Marx to character masks in a publication appears in an 1846 circular which Marx drafted as an exile in Brussels. It occurs again in his polemic against Karl Heinzen in 1847, called ''Moralizing criticism and critical morality'' and in part 5 of a satirical piece written in 1852 called ''Heroes of the Exile''.

The 18th Brumaire

In chapter 4 of '' The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'' (1852), a story about the sovereign's dissolution of the French legislative assembly in 1851 in order to reign as imperial dictator, Marx describes how Napoleon abandoned one character mask for another, after dismissing the Barrot-Falloux Ministry in 1849. In this story, character masks figure very prominently. Contrary to Hegel's belief that states, nations, and individuals are all the time the unconscious tools of the world spirit at work within them, Marx insists that:

Alfred Meissner

In 1861–63, the Austrian writer Alfred Meissner, the "king of the poets" criticized by Engels in his 1847 essay ''The True Socialists'', published three volumes of novels under the title ''Charaktermasken''. It is unclear whether Marx was aware of this, but according to Jochen Hörisch it gave the term "character mask" a certain popularity among German speakers.

Abandoning the concept

Character masks are mentioned five times in ''

Capital, Volume I ''Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I: The Process of Production of Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals) is the first of three treatises that ma ...

'', and once in '' Capital, Volume II''. Here, the reference is specifically to ''economic'' character masks, not political character masks. However, both the official Moscow translation of ''Capital, Volume I'' into English, as well as the revised 1976 Penguin translation of ''Capital, Volume I'' into English by Ben Fowkes, deleted all reference to character masks, substituting a non-literal translation. English translators of other writings by Marx & Engels, or of classical Marxist texts, quite often deleted ''Charaktermaske'' as well, and often substituted other words such as "mask", "role", "appearance", "puppet", "guise" and "persona". Marx's concept of character masks has therefore been little known in the English-speaking world, except through the translated writings of the

Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), duri ...

and other (mainly German or Austrian) Marxists using the term. Tom Bottomore's sociological dictionary of Marxist thought has no entry for the important concept of character masks. The ''Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory'' likewise does not refer to it. David Harvey, the world-famous

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay right ...

popularizer of Marx's writings, does not mention the concept at all in works such as his ''The Limits to Capital''. Likewise

Fredric Jameson Fredric Jameson (born April 14, 1934) is an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. James ...

, the famous commentator on post modernity, offers no analysis of the concept. There is no entry for the concept in James Russell's ''Marx-Engels Dictionary'', in Terrell Carver's ''A Marx Dictionary'' or in the ''Historical Dictionary of Marxism''. Jochen Hörisch claims that "despite its systematic importance, the concept of character masks was conspicuously taboo in the dogmatic interpretation of Marx". However, Dieter Claessens mentions the concept in his 1992 ''Lexikon'', there is another mention in ''Lexikon zur Soziologie'' and the more recent German-language ''Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism'' has a substantive entry for character masks by Wolfgang Fritz Haug. Haug suggests that the conjunction of "character" and "mask" is "specifically German", since in the French, English, Spanish, and Italian editions of ''Capital, Volume I'', the term "mask", "bearer" or "role" is used, but not "character mask". But since "character mask" is a technical term in theatre and costume hire – referring both to physical masks expressing specific characters (for example,

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observan ...

masks), and to theatrical roles – it is not "specifically German", and most existing translations are simply inaccurate. However, Haug is correct insofar as "character mask" as a sociological or psychological term is rarely used by non-German speakers.

Marx's argument in ''Das Kapital''

Marx's argument about character masks in capitalism can be summarized in six steps.

Roles

The first step in his argument is that when people engage in trade, run a business or work in a job, they adopt and personify (personally represent) a certain function, role or behaviour pattern which is required of them to serve their obligations; their consent to the applicable rules is assumed, as a necessity to succeed in the activities. They have to act this way, because of the co-operative relationships they necessarily have to work with in the

. People have to conform to them, whether they like it or not. If they take on a role, they have to fulfill the packet of tasks which is part of the job. People are initially born into a world in which these social relationships already exist, and "

socialized In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cult ...

" into them in the process of becoming "well-adjusted adults" – to the point where they internalize their meaning, and accept them as a natural reality. Consequently, they can learn to act spontaneously and automatically in a way consistent with these social relations, even if that is sometimes a problematic process.

Interests

The second step in his argument is that, in acting according to an economic function, employees serve the impersonal (business, legal or political) interests of an abstract

authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The ...

, which may have little or nothing to do with their own personal interests. They have to keep the two kinds of interests separated, and "manage them" appropriately in a "mature, professional" way. In this way, they "personify" or "represent" interests, and who they personally are, may be completely irrelevant to that – it is relevant only to the extent that their true personality fits with the role. People are slotted into functions where they have characteristics which are at least compatible with the functions. They always have a choice in how they perform their role and how they act it out, but they have no choice about taking it on. If they succeed in their role, they can advance their position or career, but if they fail to live up to it, they are demoted or fired. Human individuality is then conceptualized in terms of the relationship between buyer and seller.

Masking

The third step in his argument is, that the practices just described necessarily lead to the "masking" of

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as we ...

s and

personalities Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include: * construction of a c ...

, and to a transformation of personality and consciousness. It is not just that people can rarely be "all of themselves" while performing a specialized function in the

, and must also express something new and different. There are also many competing, conflicting and contradictory interests at stake – and these must somehow be dealt with and reconciled by the living person. Different interests have to be constantly mediated and defended in everyday behaviour, with the aid of character masks; these masks exist to mediate conflict. It means that people are obliged or forced to express certain qualities and repress other qualities in themselves. In doing this, however, their own consciousness and personality is altered. To be part of an organization, or "rise to the top" of an organization, they have to be able to "act out" everything that it requires in a convincing way, and that can only happen if they either have, or acquire, real characteristics which are at least compatible with it. That requires not just an "acculturation" process, but also sufficient behavioral flexibility,

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be ...

, acumen and

creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed liter ...

– so that a person does not inappropriately "fall out of the role". Discord between identity and function is tolerated only in contexts where it does not matter.

Inversion

The fourth step in his argument concerns an inversion of subject and

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...

. It is not just that the commercial relationships between things being traded begins to dominate and reshape human behaviour, and remake social relations. In addition, human relations become the property of things. Inanimate things, and the relationships between them, are endowed with human characteristics. They become "actors" relating in their own right to which people much adjust their behaviour, and they are also theorized in that way. This is a special case of

anthropomorphism Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

because it occurs ''within'' human relations, not in relation to an object external to them. A symbolic language and way of communicating emerges, in which inanimate "things" are personified. A market (or a price, or a stock, or a state etc.) gains an independent power to act. Marx calls this

commodity fetishism In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people ...

(or more generally, "fetishism"), and he regards it as a necessary reification of the symbolizations required to traverse life's situations in bourgeois society, because the relationships between people are constantly being mediated by the relationships between things. It means that people are eventually unable to take their mask off, because the masks are controlled by the business relationships between things being traded, and by broader legal, class, or political interests. If they are actually unable to take the mask off, they have effectively submitted fully to the power of abstract, impersonal

market forces In economics, a market is a composition of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering ...

and legal rules. As many philosophical texts suggest, by being habituated to a role, the role is internalized by individuals, and becomes part of their personality: they become the thing that they acted out.

Alienation

The fifth step in the argument is that on the world's stage, the "dance of masked people, and of the things they have endowed with an independent power to act and relate" leads to pervasive human alienation (the estrangement of people from themselves, and from others in contacts which have become impersonal and functional). It durably distorts human consciousness at the very least, and at worst it completely deforms human consciousness. It mystifies the real nature, and the real relationships, among people and things – even to the point where they can hardly be conceived anymore as they really are. The masks influence the very way in which realities are categorized. People's theorizing about the world also becomes detached from the relevant contexts, and the interpretation of reality then involves multiple "layers" of meanings, in which "part of the story" hides the "whole story". What the whole story is, may itself become an almost impenetrable mystery, about which it may indeed be argued that it cannot be solved. The real truth about a person may be considered unknowable, but as long as the person can function normally, it may not matter; one is judged simply according to the function performed. In what Marx calls "ideological consciousness", interests and realities are presented other than they really are, in justifying and defining the meaning of what happens. People may believe they can no longer solve problems, simply because they lack the categories to "think" them, and it requires a great deal of critical and self-critical thought, as well as

optimism Optimism is an attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled ...

, to get beyond the surface of things to the root of the problems.

Development

The last step is that effectively capitalist market society develops human beings in an inverted way. The capitalist economy is not primarily organized for the people, but people are organized for the capitalist economy, to serve others who already have plenty of wealth. In an increasingly complex division of labour offering little job security, there is more and more external pressure forcing people to act in all kinds of different roles, masking themselves in the process; by this act, they also acquire more and more behavioural and

semiotic Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...

flexibility, and develop more and more relational skills and connections. The necessity to work and relate in order to survive thus accomplishes the "economic formation of society" at the same time, even if in this society people lack much control over the social relations in which they must participate. It is just that the whole development occurs in an imbalanced, unequal and uncoordinated way, in which the development of some becomes conditional on the lack of development by others. Commercial interests and political class interests ultimately prevail over the expressed interests of individuals. In the periodic economic crises, masses of people are condemned to the

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refere ...

scrapheap, no matter what skills they may have; they are incompatible with the functioning of the bourgeois system, "collateral rubbish" that is swept aside. Even highly developed people can find that society regards them as worthless – which quite often tends to radicalize their opinions (see

extremism Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied sha ...

and

radicalization Radicalization (or radicalisation) is the process by which an individual or a group comes to adopt increasingly views in opposition to a political, social, or religious status quo. The ideas of society at large shape the outcomes of radicalizat ...

Revolution

A seventh step could in principle be added, namely a big crisis in society which sparks off a revolution and overturns the existing capitalist system. In that case, it could be argued, the false masks are torn off, and people have to stand up for what they really are, and what they really believe in. But that is a possibility which Marx did not comprehensively theorize in ''

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...

''.

Engels

The mask metaphor appears in the early writings of

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

Capital, Volume III'' – when rebutting a criticism of Marx's theory by Achille Loria. Engels's substantive

sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

suggestion seems to be that: *in a society's progressive, constructive era, its best characters come to the fore, and no character masks are necessary for them. *when society degenerates and submits to intolerable conditions, it not only gives rise to all sorts of dubious, talentless characters who cannot lead the way forward, but also society's

dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inaliena ...

can only be sustained by masking the social contradictions. *based on comprehensive knowledge of a country and its

national psychology National psychology refers to the (real or alleged) distinctive psychological make-up of particular nations, ethnic groups or peoples, and to the comparative study of those characteristics in social psychology, sociology, political science and anth ...

, it is possible to specify the types of personalities who exemplify the nature of the era. The problem with this kind of argument is just that, in defining the meaning of what is happening in society, it is very difficult to provide definite scientific proof that this meaning is the objective truth. It remains an interpretation, which may make sense of things at a certain level, without providing the whole truth. Engels's comment illustrates that the concept of character masks is not infrequently used in a

polemical Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topic ...

way to describe a false or inauthentic representation. Engels, like Marx, also used the notion of a "mask" in the more general sense of a political "guise" or "disguise", for example in several of his historical analyses about religious movements.

Marxist theories

Early Marxism

*In his biography of Marx, Franz Mehring refers to character masks, but more in the sense of Weberian

ideal type Ideal type (german: Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical con ...

s or stereotypical characters. *The ''Marx-Studien'' published by

Rudolf Hilferding Rudolf Hilferding (10 August 1877 – 11 February 1941) was an Austrian-born Marxist economist, socialist theorist,International Institute of Social History, ''Rodolf Hilferding Papers''. http://www.iisg.nl/archives/en/files/h/10751012.php poli ...

and Max Adler referred to character masks as a theoretical category. *The communist dramatist

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

made extensive use of neutral and character masks. In plays such as ''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' and ''The Good Person of Szechwan'', the masks support what Brecht called "the alienation effect" (see

distancing effect The distancing effect, also translated as alienation effect (german: Verfremdungseffekt or ''V-Effekt''), is a concept in performing arts credited to German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht first used the term in his essay "Alienation Effects in ...

Lukács

referred to the "very important category of economic character masks", but he never provided a substantive analysis of its meaning. He only referred candidly to his own "Socratic mask" in a 1909 love letter to a friend. In a 1909 essay, Lukács opined that "the bourgeois way of life" is "only a mask", which "like all masks" ''negates'' something, i.e. the bourgeois mask denies vital parts of human life, in the interests of money-making. Lukács restricted the application of the idea to capitalists only, claiming that Marx had considered capitalists as "mere character masks" – meaning that capitalists, as the personifications ("agents") of capital, did not do anything "without making a business out of it", given that their activity consisted of the correct management and calculation of the objective effects of economic laws. Marx himself never simply equated capitalists with their character masks; they were human beings entangled in a certain life predicament, like anybody else. Capitalists became the "personification" of their capital, because they had money which was permanently invested somewhere, and which necessarily had to obtain a certain yield. At most one could say that capitalists had more to hide, and that some had personal qualities enabling them to succeed in their function, while others lacked the personal prerequisites. According to Lukács, the character masks of the

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

express a "necessary false consciousness" about the

class consciousness In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...

of the

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...

Post-war Western Marxism

In the post-war tradition of

Western Marxism Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an i ...

, the concept of character masks was theorized about especially by scholars of the

, and other Marxists influenced by this school. Most of the Frankfurt theorists believed in Freud's basic model of human nature.

Erich Fromm Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the US ...

expanded it by developing the social-psychological concept of "

social character The social character is the central basic concept of the analytic social psychology of Erich Fromm. Overview The concept describes the formation of the shared character structure of the people of a society or a social class according to their w ...

". *It also appears in Marxist-existentialist thought, such as in the writings of

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialist, existentialism (and Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter ...

. In his famous book ''

Being and Time ''Being and Time'' (german: Sein und Zeit) is the 1927 '' magnum opus'' of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. ''Being and Time'' had a notable impact on subsequent philosophy, literary theory and many othe ...

'', Heidegger distinguished between the "they-self", i.e. the self that is just "being there", in common view, and the ''authentic self'', the "self-aware" self who explicitly grasps his own identity. *In a radical synthesis of Marx and Freud,

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( , ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author of several influential books, mos ...

created the concept of "character armor". It refers to the total "harness" of physiological defences which mask off the pain of repressing feelings – feelings which the individual is not permitted to express in civil life, or is unable to express adequately. Masking is nowadays acknowledged by behavioural scientists to be also a purely biological or psychophysical process in sentient organisms: neurologically, the subjective experience of some perceived stimuli by the organism is modified or distorted by the intervention of ''other'' perceived stimuli. It can have a critically important effect on the ability of the organism to make choices, orient itself, or display sensitivity. Reich's idea was developed further by Arthur Janov, where the

primal scream Primal Scream are a Scottish rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie (vocals) and Jim Beattie. The band's current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes (guitar), Simone Butler (bass), and Darrin Mooney (drums ...

breaks through the masks of the body and its behaviour. *In the philosophy of the Marxist semiotician

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

, the mask features primarily as a "sign" with fixed meanings. *The concept of character masks was used by Anglo-Saxon Western Marxist or post-Marxist thinkers like

Perry Anderson Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, historian and essayist. His work ranges across historical sociology, intellectual history, and cultural analysis. What unites Anderson's work is a preoc ...

, Werner Bonefeld,

Paul Connerton Paul James Connerton (April 22, 1940 – July 27, 2019) was a British social anthropologist best known for his work on social and body memory. Biography Born in Chesterfield to James Connerton, and his wife, Mary (born Perry), he was first e ...

, Michael Eldred, Russell Jacoby,

Lawrence Krader Lawrence Krader (December 9, 1919 – November 15, 1998) was an American socialist anthropologist and ethnologist. Early life Krader was born on December 9, 1919 in Jamaica, New York. In 1936, at the Philosophy Department of the City College of ...

, and Michael Perelman.

János Kornai János Kornai (21 January 1928 – 18 October 2021) was a Hungarian economist noted for his analysis and criticism of the command economies of Eastern European communist states. He also covered macroeconomic aspects in countries undergoing pos ...

also refers to it. In Germany and Austria, the concept has been used in the Marxian tradition by Elmar Altvater, Ingo Elbe, Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Michael Heinrich, Robert Kurz, Ernst Lohoff, Klaus Ottomeyer, and Franz Schandl (as cited in the notes).

Theodor Adorno

Adorno argues that Marx explained convincingly ''why'' the appearance-form and the real nature of human relations often does not directly coincide, not on the strength of a metaphysical ''philosophy'' such as transcendental realism, but by inferring the social meaning of human relations from the way they observably appear in practical life – using systematic critical and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premi ...

al thought as a tool of discovery. Every step in the analysis can be logically and empirically tested. The hermeneutic assumption is that these relations require ''shared meanings'' in order to be able to function and communicate at all. These shared presuppositions have an intrinsic

rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...

, because human behaviour – ultimately driven by the need to survive – is to a large extent purposive (

teleological Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...

), and not arbitrary or random (though some of it may be). If the "essential relationships" never became visible or manifest in any way, no science would be possible at all, only speculative metaphysics. It is merely that sense data require correct interpretation – they do not have a meaning independently of their socially mediated interpretation. In that sense, the mask presupposes the existence of something which for the time being remains invisible, but which can be revealed when one discovers what is behind the mask. It may be that the essence suddenly reveals itself on the stage of history, or more simply that the understandings which one already has, are altered so that the essence of the thing is finally grasped.

Frankfurt School analysis

Inspired by Marx's concept of character masks, the founder of the

Max Horkheimer Max Horkheimer (; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist who was famous for his work in critical theory as a member of the Frankfurt School of social research. Horkheimer addressed authoritarianism, milita ...

, began to work out a critical, social-psychological understanding of human character in the so-called ''Dämmerung'' period (in 1931/34). Horkheimer stated the Frankfurt School perspective clearly: The Frankfurt School, and especially

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...

, was also concerned with how people might rebel against or liberate themselves from the character-masks of life in bourgeois society, through asserting themselves authentically as social, political and sexual beings. The Frankfurt School theorists intended to show, that if in bourgeois society things appear other than they really are, this masking is not simply attributable to the disguises of competitive business relationships in the marketplace. It is rooted in the very psychological make-up, formation and behaviour of individual people. In their adaptation to bourgeois society, they argued, people ''internalize'' specific ways of concealing and revealing what they do, repressing some of their impulses and expressing others. If people are dominated, they are not dominated only by forces external to themselves, but by ideas and habits which they have internalized, and accept as being completely "natural". Max Horkheimer puts it as follows: "The principle of domination, based originally on brute force, acquired in the course of time a more spiritual character. The inner voice took the place of the master in issuing commands."

Contradictory masks

The "masking" of an alienated life, and the attempts to counteract it, are thought of in these Marxist theories as co-existing but contradictory processes, involving constant conflicts between what people really are, how they present themselves, and what they should be according to some external requirement imposed on them – a conflict which involves a perpetual struggle from which people can rarely totally withdraw, because they still depend for their existence on others, and have to face them, masked or unmasked.

The struggle for identity

To the extent that the commercial and public roles impose heavy personal burdens, and little space exists anymore "to be oneself", people can experience personal stress, mental suffering and personal estrangement (alienation), sometimes to the point where they "lose themselves", and no longer "know who they are" ( identity crisis). *People may continue to function routinely ("the silent compulsion of economic relations"), sublimating, suppressing or masking the contradictions, perhaps in a

schizoid Schizoid personality disorder (, often abbreviated as SzPD or ScPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency toward a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness ...

way, as a

zombie A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in ...

, as a

psychopath Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been ...

, or by becoming withdrawn. In that case, Erich Fromm argues, human beings can become wholly conformist "automatons" ("the automation of the individual") in which a "pseudo self" replaces the "original self" – "The pseudo self is only an agent who actually represents the role a person is supposed to play, but who does so under the name of the self." Ultimately, there exists no individual solution to such identity problems, because to solve them requires the positive recognition, acceptance and affirmation of an identity by others – and this can only happen, if the individual can "join in" and receive social acknowledgement of his identity. Marx himself tackled this problem – rather controversially – in his 1843/44 essay "

On the Jewish Question "On the Jewish Question" is a response by Karl Marx to then-current debates over the Jewish question. Marx wrote the piece in 1843, and it was first published in Paris in 1844 under the German title "Zur Judenfrage" in the ''Deutsch–Franzö ...

Recent controversies

Dialectical difficulties

Much of the scientific controversy about Marx's concept of character masks centres on his unique

dialectic Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...

al approach to analyzing the forms and structure of social relations in the capitalist system: in ''

'', he had dealt with persons (or "economic characters") only insofar as they personified or symbolized – often in a reified way – economic categories, roles, functions and interests (see above). According to Marx, the capitalist system functioned as a "system", precisely because the bourgeois

and trade, including property rights, were imposed on people whether they liked it or not. They had to act and conform in a specific way to survive and prosper. As the mass of capital produced grew larger, and markets expanded, these bourgeois relations spontaneously reproduced themselves on a larger and larger scale, be it with the assistance of state aid, regulation or repression. However, many authors have argued that this approach leaves many facets of capitalist social relations unexplained. In particular, it is not so easy to understand the interactions between individuals and the society of which they are part, in such a way, that each is both self-determining and determined by the other. Marx's concept of character masks has been interrogated by scholars primarily in the German-language literature.

Werner Sombart Werner Sombart (; ; 19 January 1863 – 18 May 1941) was a German economist and sociologist, the head of the "Youngest Historical School" and one of the leading Continental European social scientists during the first quarter of the 20th century. ...

stated in 1896 (two years after '' Capital, Volume III'' was published) that "We want a psychological foundation of social events and Marx did not bother about it".

Soviet Union

The historian Sheila Fitzpatrick has recorded how, in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, "The theatrical metaphor of masks was ubiquitous in the 1920s and '30s, and the same period saw a flowering of that peculiar form of political theater: the

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so ...

." Those who supported the revolution and its communist leadership were politically defined as "proletarian" and those who opposed it were defined as "bourgeois". The enemies of the revolution had to be hunted down, unmasked, and forced to confess their counter-revolutionary (i.e. subversive) behaviour, whether real or imagined. It led to considerable political paranoia. Abandoning bourgeois and primitive norms, and becoming a cultured, socialist citizen, was "akin to learning a role". In the 1920s, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) adopted the slogan "tear off each and every mask from reality". This was based on a quotation from

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

, who wrote in his 1908 essay on ''Leo Tolstoy as mirror of the Russian revolution'' that the "realism of

Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

was the tearing off of each and every mask"(''sryvanie vsekh i vsiacheskikh masok''). The communist authorities kept detailed files on the class and political credentials of citizens, leading to what historians call "file-selves". Much later, in 1973 (16 years before

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New ...

entered the intellectual scene) the German

critic Michael Schneider claimed that: According to this interpretation, there was a "blind spot" in Marx's explanation of bourgeois society, because he had disregarded psychological factors. Moreover, Marxists had interpreted Marx's theory of the "personification of economic functions" as an ''alternative'' to psychology as such. Thus, equipped with a simplistic "reflection theory of consciousness" and an "objectivist concept of class consciousness", the Russian revolutionaries (naively) assumed that once the bourgeois had been liberated from his property, and the institutions of capitalism were destroyed, then there was no more need for masking anything – society would be open, obvious and transparent, and resolving psychological problems would become a purely practical matter (the " re-engineering of the human soul"). Very simply put, the idea was that "the solution of psychological problems is communism". However, Raymond A. Bauer suggests that the communist suspicion of psychological research had nothing directly to do with the idea of "character masks" as such, but more with a general rejection of all approaches which were deemed "subjectivist" and "unscientific" in a positivist sense (see

positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. ...

). The USSR became increasingly interested in conceptions of

human nature Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or w ...

which facilitated social control by the communist party, and from this point of view, too, the concept of the unconscious was problematic and a nuisance: by definition, the unconscious is something which cannot easily be controlled consciously. However, psychoanalysis was considered bourgeois; this situation began to change only gradually

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev ...

had made his famous secret speech, in which he condemned the "personality cult" around Stalin (see "

On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях», «''O kul'te lichnosti i yego posledstviyakh''»), popularly known as the "Secret Speech" (russian: секре ...

"). The obligatory official broadsides against Freud and the neo-Freudians in the Soviet Union ceased only from 1972, after which psychoanalysis was to a large extent rehabilitated.

The New Left and the Red Army Faction

The

was a radical trend which began in 1956/57, a time when large numbers of intellectuals around the world resigned from the "Old Left"

Communist parties A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

in protest against the Soviet invasion of Hungary during the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

. These New Left intellectuals broke with the official

Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various ...

ideology, and they founded new magazines, clubs and groups, which in turn strongly influenced a new generation of students. They began to study Marx afresh, to find out what he had really meant. In Germany, the term ''Charaktermaske'' was popularized in the late 1960s and in the 1970s especially by "red"

Rudi Dutschke Alfred Willi Rudolf "Rudi" Dutschke (; 7 March 1940 – 24 December 1979) was a German sociologist and political activist who, until severely injured by an assassin in 1968, was a leading charismatic figure within the West German Socialist Stu ...

, one of the leaders of the student radicals. By "character masks", Dutschke meant essentially that the official political personalities and business leaders were merely the interchangeable "human faces", the representatives or puppets masking an oppressive system; one could not expect anything else from them, than what the system required them to do. Focusing on individual personalities was a distraction from fighting the system they represented. According to the German educationist Ute Grabowski, The positive utopian longing emerging in the 1960s was that of reaching a life situation in which people would be able to meet each other naturally, spontaneously and authentically, freed from any constraints of rank or status, archaic rituals, arbitrary conventions and old traditions. In their social criticism, the youth began to rebel against the roles which were formally assigned to them, and together with that, began to question the social theory of roles, which presented those roles as natural, necessary and inevitable. In particular, the

women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...

began to challenge gender roles as

sexist Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primar ...

and

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...

. There seemed to be a big gap between the façade of roles, and the true nature of social relationships, getting in the way of personal authenticity (being "for real"). Official politics was increasingly regarded as the "masquerade" of those in power. To illustrate the spirit of the times, Anne-Marie Rocheblave-Spenlé who had previously authored a classic French text on role theory, in 1974 published a book titled, significantly, ''Le Pouvoir Demasque'' (Power unmasked). The concept of "character masks" was by no means an unimportant political concept in Germany, since it was being used explicitly by terrorists in their justifications for assassinating people.

Ten points of controversy

Questions subsequently arose in New Left circles about ten issues: *whether behaviour is in truth an "act" or whether it is "for real", and how one could know or prove that (the problem of authenticity). *whether character exists at all, if "masks mask other masks" in an endless series *how people make other people believe what their real character is (see also

charisma Charisma () is a personal quality of presence or charm that compels its subjects. Scholars in sociology, political science, psychology, and management reserve the term for a type of leadership seen as extraordinary; in these fields, the term "ch ...

). *the extent to which masks "of some sort" are normal, natural, necessary and inevitable in civilized society (or given a certain

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberP ...

). *whether there can be objective tests of character masks as a scientific concept, or whether they are a polemical, partisan characterization. *the extent to which the device of "character masks" is only an

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An ab ...

or a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

, or whether it is a valid empirical description of aspects of real human behaviour in capitalist society. *what is specific about the character masks of capitalist society, and how this should be explained. *whether the "masks" of a social system are in any way the same as the masks of individuals. *to what extent people are telling a story about the world, or whether they are really telling a story about themselves, given that the mask may not be adequate and other people can "see through it" anyway. *whether Marx's idea of character masks contains an

ethnocentric Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of ...

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...

bias. German sociologist Uri Rapp theorized that ''Charaktermaske'' was not the same as "role"; rather ''Charaktermaske'' was a role forced on people, in a way that they could not really escape from it, i.e. all their vital relationships depended on it. People were compelled by the

. Thus, he said, "every class membership is a Charaktermaske and even the ideological penetration of masquerades (the 'class consciousness of the proletariat') could not change or cast off character masks, only transcend them in thought." In addition, ''Charaktermaske'' was "present in the issue of the human being alienated from his own personality." Jean L. Cohen complained that: As the post-war economic boom collapsed in the 1970s, and big changes in social roles occurred, these kinds of controversies stimulated a focus by social theorists on the "social construction of personal identity". A very large academic literature was subsequently published on this topic, exploring identity-formation from many different angles. The discourse of identity resonated well with the concerns of adolescents and young adults who are finding their identity, and it has been a popular subject ever since. Another reason for the popularity of the topic, noted by

Richard Sennett Richard Sennett (born 1 January 1943) is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and former University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Center on Capitalis ...

in his book ''The corrosion of character'', is the sheer number of different jobs people nowadays end up doing during their lifetime. People then experience multiple changes of identity in their lifetime – their identity is no longer fixed once and for all.

Humanism and anti-humanism

Marx's "big picture" of capitalism often remained supremely abstract, although he claimed ordinary folks could understand his book. It seemed to many scholars that in Marx's ''Capital'' people become "passive subjects" trapped in a system which is beyond their control, and which forces them into functions and roles. Thus, it is argued that Marx's portrayal of the capitalist system in its totality is too "deterministic", because it downplays the ability of individuals as "active human subjects" to make

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

choices, and determine their own fate (see also

economic determinism Economic determinism is a socioeconomic theory that economic relationships (such as being an owner or capitalist, or being a worker or proletarian) are the foundation upon which all other societal and political arrangements in society are based. ...

). The theoretical point is stated by

Peter Sloterdijk Peter Sloterdijk (; ; born 26 June 1947) is a German philosopher and cultural theorist. He is a professor of philosophy and media theory at the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. He co-hosted the German television show ''Im Glashaus: Das Ph ...

as follows: In the antihumanist version, the individual is viewed as "a creation of the system" or "a product of society" who personifies a social function. In this case, a person selected to represent and express a function is no more than a functionary (or a "tool"): the person ''himself'' is the character mask adopted by the system or the organization of which he is part. Hidden behind the human face is the (inhuman) system which it operates. In the humanist version, the process is not one of personification, but rather of impersonation, in which case the function is merely a role acted out by the individual. Since the role acted out may in this case not have much to do with the individual's true personality, the mask-bearer and the mask he bears are, in this case, two different things – creating the possibility of a conflict between the bearer and the role he plays. Such a conflict is generally not possible in the antihumanist interpretation ("if you work for so-and-so, you are one of them"), since any "dysfunctional" character mask would simply be replaced by another.

Louis Althusser's anti-humanism

In the antihumanist philosophy of the French Marxist

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

, individuals as active subjects who have needs and make their own choices, and as people who "make their own history", are completely eradicated in the name of "science". In fact, Althusser recommended the psychological theory of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

and

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

in the French Communist Party journal ''La Nouvelle Critique'' specifically as a "science of the (human) ''unconscious''". In the glossary of his famous book ''

Reading Capital ''Reading Capital'' (french: Lire le Capital) is a 1965 book about the philosopher Karl Marx's ''Das Kapital'' by the philosophers Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, and Jacques Rancière, the sociologist Roger Establet, and the critic Pierre Ma ...

'' (co-written with

Étienne Balibar Étienne Balibar (; ; born 23 April 1942) is a French philosopher. He has taught at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, at the University of California Irvine and is currently an Anniversary Chair Professor at the Centre for Research in Modern E ...

), Althusser announces: Critics of this idea argue people are not merely the "bearers" of social relations, they are also the "conscious operators" of social relations – social relations which would not exist at all, unless people consciously interacted and cooperated with each other. The real analytical difficulty in social science is, that people both make their social relations, but also participate in social relations which they did not make or consciously choose themselves. Some roles in society are consciously and voluntarily chosen by individuals, other roles are conferred on people simply by being and participating in society with a given status. Some roles are also a mixture of both: once people have chosen a role, they may have that role, whether they like it or not; or, once habituated to role, people continue to perform the role even although they could in principle choose to abandon it. That is why both the humanist and the antihumanist interpretations of character masks can have some validity in different situations. According to some critics, Althusser's "totalizing perspective" – which, by destroying the

dialectics Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing t ...

of experience, cannot reconcile the ways in which people "make history" and are "made by history", and therefore falls from one contradiction into another and destroys belief in the power of human action (because "the system" dominates everything).

The sociological imagination

C. Wright Mills Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journals, and i ...

developed a concept known as the

sociological imagination Sociological imagination is a term used in the field of sociology to describe a framework for understanding social reality that places personal experiences within a broader social and historical context. It was coined by American sociologist ...

, the idea being that understanding the link between "private troubles" and "public issues" requires creative insight by the researchers, who are personally involved in what they try to study. The analytical question for social scientists then is, how much the concept of "character masks" can really explain, or whether its application is overextended or overworked. For example,

Jon Elster Jon Elster (; born 22 February 1940, Oslo) is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University. He received his PhD in social science from the École Normale Sup ...

argued that: Jürgen Ritsert, a Frankfurt sociologist, queried the utility of the concept of character masks:

Sociobiology

Faced with the problem of understanding human character masks – which refers to how human beings have to deal with the relationship between the "macro-world" (the big world) and the "micro-world" (the small world) – scholarship has often flip-flopped rather uneasily between

structuralism In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broad ...

and

subjectivism Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth. The success of this position is historically attribute ...

, inventing dualisms between

structure and agency In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behaviour. ''Structure'' is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. '' Agency ...

. The academic popularity of

structural-functionalism Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability". This approach looks at society through a macro-level o ...

has declined, "role definitions" have become more and more changeable and vague, and the Althusserian argument has been inverted: human behaviour is explained in terms of

sociobiology Sociobiology is a field of biology that aims to examine and explain social behavior in terms of evolution. It draws from disciplines including psychology, ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, and population genetics. Within t ...

. Here, "the person" is identified with "the physical body". This is closer to Marx's idea of "the economic formation of society as a process of natural history", but often at the cost of "naturalizing" (eternalizing) social phenomena which belong to a specific historical time – by replacing their real, man-made ''social'' causes with alleged ''biological'' factors. On this view, humans (except ourselves) are essentially, and mainly, animals. The treatment of humans as if they are animals is itself a strategy of domination.

Postmodernism

The more recent

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

criticism of Marx's portrayal of character masks concerns mainly the two issues of

personal identity Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time ca ...

and

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

. It is argued that modern capitalism has moved far beyond the type of capitalism that Marx knew. Capitalist development has changed the nature of people themselves, and how one's life will go is more and more unpredictable. There is no longer any clear and consensual view of how "personal identity" or "human character" should be defined (other than by identity cards). It is also no longer clear what it means to "mask" them, or what interests that can serve. Roles are constantly being redefined to manipulate power relationships, and shunt people up or down the hierarchy. The postmodern concept of human identity maximizes the flexibility, variability and plasticity of human behaviour, so that the individual can "be and do many different things, in many different situations", without any necessary requirement of continuity between different "acts" in space and time. The effect as a lack of coherence; becomes more difficult to know or define what the identity of someone truly is. As soon as the self is viewed as a performance, masking becomes an intrinsic aspect of the self, since there still exists an "I" which directs the performance and which therefore simultaneously "reveals and conceals" itself. The corollary is, that it becomes much more difficult to ''generalize'' about human beings. The most basic level the categories or units used to make comparisons remain vague. At most, one can objectively measure the incidence and frequency of different types of observable behaviour. Aggregate human behaviour is then often explained either as a biological effect or as a statistical effect, estimated by

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...

. Some Marxists regard this perspective as a form of

dehumanization Dehumanization is the denial of full humanness in others and the cruelty and suffering that accompanies it. A practical definition refers to it as the viewing and treatment of other persons as though they lack the mental capacities that are c ...

, which signifies a deepening of human alienation, and leads to a return to

religion Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

to define humanity. Modern

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...

and the

sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...

, it is nowadays argued, have radically altered the whole idea of what is "

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

" and what is "

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...

". Increasingly, information technology becomes a tool for social control. Some Marxists even refer to the spectre of ''totalitarian capitalism''. Human individuals then appear to be caught up in a stressful battle to defend their own definition of themselves against the definitions imposed or attributed by others, in which they can become trapped.

Kurz and Lohoff

In their famous 1989 article "The class struggle fetish", the German neo-Marxists Robert Kurz and Ernst Lohoff reached the conclusion that the working class is ultimately just "the character mask of

variable capital Constant capital (c), is a concept created by Karl Marx and used in Marxian political economy. It refers to one of the forms of capital invested in production, which contrasts with variable capital (v). The distinction between constant and v ...

", a logical "real category" of Capital. The identities of all members of capitalist society, they argued, are ultimately formed as bourgeois character masks of self-valorizing value. In that case, people are valued according to the extent that they can make money for themselves, or for others.

Žižek

attempts to create a new theory of masks, by mixing together the philosophies of

and

with his understanding of fictional literature and political events. In Žižek's theory, oppressive social reality cannot exist and persist without ideological mystification, "The mask is not simply hiding the real state of things; the ideological distortion is written into hevery essence f the real state of things" Thus, the mask is a necessary and integral component of an oppressive reality, and it is not possible to tear away the mask to reveal the oppressive reality underneath. In ''The sublime object of ideology'', Žižek summarizes

's concept of cynical reason: Often the pretense is kept up, because of a belief (or anxiety) that the alternative – i.e. dropping the pretense – would result in a negative effect, and compromise cherished values or beliefs. To maintain and build a team morale, results are dependent on shared beliefs, regardless of the integrity and awareness of those belief's within reality. The result, Žižek claims, is a "symbolic order" of "fetishist disavowal" in which people act morally "as if" they are related in certain ways – to the point where "the symbolic mask matters more than the direct reality of the individual who wears this mask." Using a Freudian theory, Žižek aims to explain the psychological processes by which people are reconciled with the symbolic order, or at least make it "liveable" for themselves (see also Freudo-Marxism).

Frank Furedi Frank Furedi ( hu, Füredi Ferenc; born 3 May 1947) is a Hungarian-Canadian academic and emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent. He is well known for his work on sociology of fear, education, therapy culture, paranoid parent ...

suggests that the concept of denial, central to Žižek's understanding of masks, has a stark contrast from contemporary post-Freudian society: "In today's therapy culture, people who express views that contradict our own are often told that they are 'in denial'. It has become a way of discrediting their viewpoint, or shutting them up." If people disagree, or will not cooperate, they are not taken seriously in a dialogue, but accused of having a psychological problem which stands in need of professional treatment. Thus, a dissident is neutralized by being turned into a patient who is "unhealthy", and people are managed according to psychotherapeutic concepts designed to invalidate their own meanings. Furedi implies that yesterday's leftist concepts can be recycled as today's tools for

psychological manipulation Manipulation in psychology is a behavior designed to exploit, control, or otherwise influence others to one’s advantage. Definitions for the term vary in which behavior is specifically included, influenced by both culture and whether referring to ...

: an idea which originally had a progressive intention can evolve until, in reality, it plays the very opposite role – even although (and precisely because) people continue to sentimentally cherish the old idea. The point is not simply to interpret the processes by which oppressed people are reconciled with, or reproduce their own oppression (

Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

's and

Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence in ...

's structuralist theory of "ideological reproduction"); the challenge is to create new ideas which can free the oppressed out of their oppression. For this purpose, ideas have to be situated according to how they are ''actually being used'' in the real world, and the oppressed have to be regarded as active subjects who can change their own fate. Philip Rieff summarizes the main problem, and the main achievement of psychoanalysis, from the point of view of freeing people from the masks that may oppress them: If it is true that "we do not even know who we are", then it becomes difficult to understand how people could free themselves from deceptive masks, and change the world for the better, unless they all get a massive dose of psychotherapy to "find themselves".

Unmasking

If one successfully unmasks something, one understands it for what it really is, and can handle it; inversely, if one understands something and can handle it, it is unmasked. Yet, as Marx notes, "in the analysis of economic forms neither microscopes nor chemical

reagents In chemistry, a reagent ( ) or analytical reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, or test if one occurs. The terms ''reactant'' and ''reagent'' are often used interchangeably, but reactant specifies a ...

are of assistance. The power of

must replace both." Economic analysis not only studies the total social effect of human actions, which is usually not directly observable to an individual, other than in the form of

statistics Statistics (from German: ''Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...

or television. The "economic actors" are also human beings who ''create'' interactions and relationships which have human meanings. Those meanings cannot be observed directly, they are in people's heads, actively created in their

social relationship A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

s, and expressed symbolically.

Collapse

Capitalism unmasks itself in the course of development, when its internal contradictions become so great, that they cause collapse – impelling the revolutionary transformation of capitalism by human action into a new social order, amidst all the political conflicts and class struggles. In trying to get on top of the relations they have created, human beings are themselves transformed. Scientific inquiry, Marx felt, should be an aid in the cause of human progress, to ensure that the new social order emerging will be a real

open society Open society (french: société ouverte) is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932, and describes a dynamic system inclined to moral universalism.Thomas Mautner (2005), 2nd ed. ''The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy'' Open so ...

. Human progress is achieved, to the degree that people abolish the oppressions of people by other people, and oppressions by the blind forces of nature.Marx, '' Capital, Volume III'', Penguin ed., pp. 958–959.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Character mask Marxist theory Identity (social science) Sociological terminology

Versus social masks

"False awareness"

Economic

Significance

Masks as mediators of social contradictions

"Naked self-interest"

Sources of the concept

Marx's studies of Greek philosophy

Theatre and drama

Polemics

The 18th Brumaire

Alfred Meissner

Abandoning the concept

Marx's argument in ''Das Kapital''

Roles

Interests

Masking

Inversion

Alienation

Development

Revolution

Engels

Marxist theories

Early Marxism

Lukács

Post-war Western Marxism

Theodor Adorno

Frankfurt School analysis

Contradictory masks

The struggle for identity

Recent controversies

Dialectical difficulties

Soviet Union

The New Left and the Red Army Faction

Ten points of controversy

Humanism and anti-humanism

Louis Althusser's anti-humanism

The sociological imagination

Sociobiology

Postmodernism

Kurz and Lohoff

Žižek

Unmasking

Collapse

See also

Notes