Xue Yonglong: The Metaphorical Narrative and Inner Logic of Marx's Critique of False Ideology
In the process of elucidating philosophical propositions, there is a particularly interesting phenomenon: on the one hand, theorists maintain a cautious stance toward the use of metaphors, striving to avoid the sensible [1] color that rhetorical metaphors might bestow upon their theories; on the other hand, metaphors often appear at pivotal points of argumentation, and theorists frequently rely on them to elucidate various abstract propositions. For example, although Althusser identified Marx's "topographical" metaphor of the base/superstructure as descriptive and possessing interpretive limitations—advocating that the interpretation of a new philosophical problematic should be de-metaphorized—it is evident that Althusser himself did not adhere to this principle. Within Althusser's theoretical field, metaphors such as "ideological state apparatuses" and "epistemological break" are highly conspicuous. This paradoxical situation forces philosophical research to re-confront metaphors and examine their role within texts.
Metaphor is a unique mode of thinking that penetrates appearances to perceive essence: "Without metaphor, abstract concepts are incomplete." Just as the allegory of the cave is to Plato, the metaphor of the tree to Descartes, and the tabula rasa [2] to Locke, metaphor is likewise a crucial presence in Marx’s critique of false ideology. Utilizing a triad of metaphors—the "caricature," the "hat," and "Prometheus"—Marx conducted a layer-by-layer critique of false ideology, allowing its theoretical premises, mechanisms of operation, and developmental trends to be fully presented. Metaphorical narrative in the Marxian context is neither a mere decoration for rational critique nor an aesthetic add-on; rather, it is intended to point directly to the heart of the problem. It must be clarified beforehand that Marx’s critique of false ideology was launched within the framework of critiquing bourgeois ideology, aiming to establish and demonstrate the scientificity and necessity of proletarian ideology.
I. The Context of Emergence and Value Orientation of Metaphorical Narrative in Marx’s Critical Thought
Marx’s critical narrative possesses the characteristics of an "artistic whole," encompassing both a conceptual rational critique manifested as the movement between various categories, and a poetic metaphorical critique manifested as the figurative expression of theory. Here, rational critique is the primary line and metaphorical critique the auxiliary line; the emergence of the latter serves the former. Even so, metaphorical critique in Marx’s work still exhibits a relative independence; in specific contexts, it even releases a "genealogical" effect. Thanks to the rise of the textual research paradigm, the dimension of metaphorical narrative in Marx’s thought has garnered attention in academic circles. However, the profound intellectual depth and systematization of these metaphors have not yet been fully excavated. An examination of Marx’s use of metaphor is undoubtedly a new way to interpret his critical thought; if one ignores or trivializes seemingly microscopic metaphorical issues, it becomes impossible to maintain a holistic view of Marx’s critical thought.
Steeped in the tradition of German Romanticism, the critical thought of the young Marx was permeated with romantic irony. Using vivid metaphors to satirize all irrational systems and to denounce the various factors hindering human liberation is a major highlight of Marx’s critical thought. The frequent use of metaphor highlights the creativity and imagination of Marx's critical narrative: "Through creative imagination, Marx describes abstract things using sensible objects, placing invisible things 'before the eyes,' thereby producing a startling theoretical effect." The essence of metaphor is to understand a currently unfamiliar or difficult-to-grasp object by means of a relatively familiar or easy-to-grasp one. For a metaphor to be established, it is usually based on an empirical inter-correlation; thus, some scholars emphasize that the deep reason for Marx’s skillful use of metaphor in critique is primarily the empirical similarity between the objects of study. In Marx’s writings, various metaphors do not exist in isolation; they often possess a continuity of meaning. Sometimes, several seemingly independent metaphors form a strongly linked "metaphorical system," constituting a complete "metaphorical genealogy."
The emergence of metaphorical narrative in Marx’s critical thought did not stem from his own rhetorical preferences, but was a theoretical choice dedicated to subverting old apologetic discourses and penetrating historical appearances. On the one hand, historical materialism reveals a social-historical process that is dynamically changing and full of contradictory movements, whereas the traditional theoretical discourses steeped in the logic of capital act as an intellectual barrier protecting the actual rule of capitalism, serving an apologetic function in reality. Therefore, to thoroughly subvert old apologetic discourses, Marx had to move beyond the domains of speculative philosophy and bourgeois political economy to carry out revolutionary creation in both conceptual systems and modes of expression, thereby revealing the falsehood and hypocrisy of old apologetic discourse and clarifying its essence as false ideology. Clearly, old apologetic discourse is built upon mechanical logical deduction and empty terminology; if critical narrative remained confined within such limits, it would be like "scratching an itch through one's boot" [3]—hardly manifesting the subversiveness of the critique, and even less able to convey the tension and revolutionary potential of the critical narrative. In Marx’s critical discourse, however, metaphorical narrative—with its historical processuality (e.g., capital "sucking," "accumulating," "swelling"), its realistic associativeness (e.g., "mechanical monster," "magician," "from pupa to butterfly"), and its value-laden nature (e.g., "vampire," "zombie")—not only deeply fits the need of historical materialism for a "pathological anatomy" of capitalist society, but also contains a revolutionary verdict against old apologetic discourse. It embodies the profound intent of transforming thought into material force and moving theory toward practice.
On the other hand, metaphorical narrative as a weapon of critique was also an inevitable choice for Marx in critiquing the abstract rule of capitalism. By the mid-19th century, the capitalist mode of production had established its dominance in the core regions of Europe. Supported by commodity exchange, the law of value, and capital accumulation, it formed a highly abstract network of social relations, subjecting people to exploitation and oppression in a mystified manner that was difficult to grasp directly through everyday experience or traditional concepts. To fully reveal the true form of the abstract rule of capital and to demystify capitalist ideology, Marx took up the weapon of metaphorical narrative. Through various vivid metaphors, Marx allowed abstract relations to be presented in a sensible way. With concrete images carrying strong emotional impact, he made the exploitation mechanisms of capitalist society (such as the mechanism for extracting surplus value) perceptible, identifiable, and understandable, thereby achieving a deep penetration of historical appearances.
Marx's use of metaphor carries the philosophical mission of "changing the world," embodying a logic that moves from "cognitive demystification" to "ideological construction" and finally to a "call to action." First, cognitive demystification is the starting point of metaphorical narrative. Derrida’s use of the "specter" metaphor in Specters of Marx clearly corroborates this point. He noted that the ideal of capitalist rule is often accompanied by the absence of the "specter," yet as Hamlet indicates, "everything begins with the apparition of a specter, or rather with the waiting for this apparition." In essence, because the "specter" that appears for the departed soul in the cold night has not yet emerged, the ideological veil covering capitalist exploitation cannot be completely lifted; hence, a mist that obscures cognition always hangs over capitalist society. Clearly, Derrida’s understanding fundamentally aligns with Marx’s critical logic and fits Marx’s purpose of unveiling the true face of things through metaphorical narrative. Second, ideological construction is the core of metaphorical narrative. Distinct from metaphors in the fields of art or culture, metaphors in Marx’s critical thought are not merely aesthetic expressions or emotional outlets; they intend to use concrete imagery to build a bridge between reality-critique, historical laws, and future visions, thereby constructing a theoretical system of critique. For instance, the "vampire" metaphor Marx used when critiquing capital, after tearing away the mask of "capitalist civilization" and exposing the bloodthirsty nature of capital, constructs—in the sense of the logical deduction of "accumulation—crisis—revolution"—the theoretical framework of the necessity that capitalism will eventually be transcended. Finally, the call to action is the ultimate aim of metaphorical narrative. Transforming theory into practice and driving the revolutionary action of the proletariat is the core orientation of metaphorical narrative in Marx’s critical thought. In Marx, the metaphor of "the proletariat as the grave-digger of capitalism" breaks the abstraction of class discourse, establishing a concrete connection between the "grave-digger" and the "old system," thereby clarifying that the proletariat is the bearer of the historical task. The metaphor "revolution is the locomotive of history" uses a kinetic image to respond to the strategic question of "revolution vs. reform," stimulating the will to action of the revolutionary subject. Thus, from cognitive demystification to ideological construction to the call to action, the metaphorical narrative in Marx’s critical thought forms a closed logical loop: it awakens the proletariat through demystification, points the way through construction, and prompts action through the call, ultimately pointing toward the goal of overthrowing the old world and establishing a new one.
Fundamentally, metaphor is the "use of one conceptual sign to represent another," using the visible appearance of Object A to hint at the invisible deep meaning of Object B, intended to establish a profound connection between objects. Compared to direct, step-by-step demonstration, metaphor manifests as a selective and targeted projection from the "vehicle" to the "tenor"—it is a "folded" argument. As a unique mode of thinking, metaphor plays a key role in Marx’s critique of false ideology. The triad of metaphors—the "caricature," the "hat," and "Prometheus"—are interlinked and progress step-by-step; through them, Marx achieved a layer-by-layer critique of false ideology. Today, facing the realistic challenges of the symbolization and concealment of false ideology, Marx’s metaphorical method of critique undoubtedly provides us with an important cognitive weapon. It can help us clear the mist to see the invisible coding of interests and power, while also activating practical consciousness and driving our reflection upon and transformation of reality.
II. "Speculation Reproduced as Caricature": Revealing the Theoretical Premise of False Ideology
False ideology becomes an object of Marx's critique not only because it functions to conceal the pursuit of specific interests of the privileged classes, but also because its generated theoretical premise was precisely the archenemy Marx confronted during his intellectual revolution. Marx denounced false ideology with the aim of "'unmasking' all historical attempts to prove the supremacy of the spirit." At the philosophical level, the false ideology identified by Marx appeared in the guise of speculative idealism, ontologically inverting the true relationship between social being and social consciousness, and epistemologically regarding spiritual ideas as the fundamental factor in historical development. It was precisely this extreme exaggeration of the role of spirit, emphasizing its supremacy and thus attempting to establish its rule in reality, that constituted the theoretical premise for the generation of false ideology. In the critiques of Marx and Engels, they utilized the metaphor of the "caricature" to reveal this theoretical premise, declaring that "what we are opposing is precisely speculation reproduced in the form of caricature."
The use of the "caricature" metaphor for critique was not a sudden whim of Marx's, but rather intellectual material he gleaned from the "critique of critique." Edgar Bauer, a prominent member of the Young Hegelians, remarked when reviewing the works of Madam Paalzow that whenever the author of Godwie-Castle intended to portray a character that was completely natural or completely evil, she succeeded only in producing a caricature. Edgar Bauer used "caricature" to analogize the character imagery in Madam Paalzow’s novels to illustrate that she was not adept at depicting full, rounded characters, but instead dwelled on a single aspect of a character's personality, highlighting their one-dimensionality and distortion—creating either a total saint or a total villain. Here, the word "caricature" achieved a vivid argumentative effect because, given the characteristics of a caricature, it is on the one hand hyperbolic, aiming to highlight a specific feature of an object, and on the other hand, it usually represents a non-realistic scene, creating a contrast with real life. Marx likewise used the "caricature" metaphor in the senses of hyperbole and non-reality, but he did so to oppose Edgar Bauer’s brother, Bruno Bauer—the producer of false ideology who held spiritual ideas in extreme esteem. In The Holy Family, Marx and Engels called Bruno Bauer a "caricaturist," pointing out that in order to establish the universality of self-consciousness, he reduced all of human history to the history of the formation of spiritual ideas, placing all natural factors and the processes of real life in opposition to the spirit. One could say that Bruno Bauer one-sidedly developed Hegel’s speculative philosophy, reproducing Hegelian speculation in the form of a caricature; once this caricature entered the social-historical domain, it manifested as a false ideology lacking reality and devoid of progressiveness.
The "caricature" metaphor is intended to identify the principle of spiritual supremacy as the pillar of false ideology, exposing it as essentially pure ideas lacking a foundation in reality. Within the field of Bruno Bauer’s speculative philosophy, the status of self-consciousness is greatly elevated. Self-consciousness "is self-consciousness as substance; it has been transformed from an attribute of man into an independent subject. This is a metaphysical and theological caricature of the severance of man from nature." [4] Marx’s critique is that the philosophy of self-consciousness does not depict real people, but only a metaphysical and theological caricature of man, in which man is a pure spiritual being detached from nature and society. The reason Bruno Bauer’s self-consciousness is a "theological caricature" is that he seized upon only one aspect of Hegel’s philosophical system and exaggerated it into a transcendent, history-creating force. In fact, Hegel’s philosophical system contains three major elements, encompassing Spinoza’s substance, Fichte’s self-consciousness, and Hegel's own unification of the two—the Absolute Spirit. However, Bruno Bauer absorbed only the aspect of self-consciousness and proceeded to view it as everything, believing that the critique of thought is praxis itself and that spiritual activity alone is sufficient. In the preface to The Holy Family, Marx and Engels call this philosophy of self-consciousness "the most complete expression of the Christian-Germanic principle," a principle making "its last attempt by turning 'critique' itself into a transcendent power." Just as Hegel used philosophy against theology, Bruno Bauer originally intended to use the development of self-consciousness to describe real human history and thereby attack religious theology, yet he ultimately retreated into the theological realm of self-consciousness. His actual practice was to use a new theology to oppose theology, thereby "drawing a circle of a new theology as atheism" for his own thought. Initially, the philosophy of self-consciousness deeply influenced the young Marx, but as he repeatedly encountered the "problem of material interests" [5], he gradually realized that this self-confident theory was weak and fragile in the face of reality.
The reason the philosophy of self-consciousness, which extremely promotes spiritual power, constitutes a false ideology is rooted in the conservatism of its philosophical paradigm—it carries out a critical revolution only in the mind, concerning itself solely with the dissolution of old forms of consciousness and the establishment of new ones, without taking any action to transform the existing world. Marx and Engels pointed out: "In Hegel's Phenomenology, the material, sensory, and objective foundations of the various forms of alienation of human self-consciousness are ignored, and the result of this entire destructive work is the most conservative philosophy, because once this destructive work has turned the objective world, the world of sensory reality, into 'thought-things'... it believes it has conquered that world." As for Bruno Bauer, he clearly learned the speculative techniques of Hegelian philosophy, abstracting man into self-consciousness; what he failed to notice or understand, however, was that in Hegel, self-consciousness is characterized as a "reflective" category, which is both related to pure spirit and yet, because of its own limited power, must return to itself through "the other." That is to say, Hegel at least demonstrated a certain concern for reality. Unlike Hegel, Bauer’s so-called self-consciousness focuses only on spirit. In his eyes, every person—like every spiritual product—is turned into a point of view; man becomes a man detached from reality, an unreal man. Consequently, Marx and Engels pointed out that Bauer turns man into "a caricature without content, a caricature that contents itself with extracting a single determination from some spiritual product or from real relations and movements."
The works of "caricature" completed by false ideology, which carries out the principle of spiritual supremacy, further pit the spirit against the masses, standing in opposition to the true subjects of history in real political practice. Marx and Engels stated that speculative philosophy "makes man into a man of self-consciousness, rather than making self-consciousness into the self-consciousness of man." Its purpose is to use this inversion to make the majority of individuals living in the real world subject to the self-consciousness of a few individuals. In the system of speculative idealism, spiritual factors are elevated to the status of subject and agent [6], while real people and their practical activities are turned into predicates and footnotes. In this way, spirit becomes the fundamental measure of human development, and it is as if humanity can only attain meaning through the fulfillment of spiritual undertakings. To gain favor from the government, Bauer’s philosophy of self-consciousness gradually drifted toward politics, proposing that Truth is the subject and human individuals are merely followers of Truth: "Only when people constantly follow Truth by relying on the arguments of Truth... have they fully mastered Truth." According to his view, under actual rule, people should consciously discard their free individuality, unconditionally obey all political consciousness of a universal nature, and realize their own value under the guidance of "universal truth." Furthermore, to deal with the reproaches of the masses, Bauer once attempted to close "the gap between himself and the crowd," [7] believing that the history of any era is "prescribed in advance by the 'pen'" of the thinker, and that real-world problems should also be solved with the "pen." Marx and Engels revealed the falsity of his speculative philosophy, pointing out that Bauer makes "critique" serve his own political career and views the expectations the masses have for his theory as a form of "indictment," thereby exposing the deceptive nature of his philosophical ideology. And this was indeed the case: as a false ideology, once speculative idealism imagines spirit as the subject of history, it no longer concerns itself with the real subjects of historical activity; it does not "touch the coarse bodies of people living in the deep basements of England or the high attic lofts of France, but instead 'creeps' entirely within the idealistic intestines of man."
Marx used the "caricature" metaphor to skillfully reveal the theoretical premise of false ideology—that false ideology is an "inverted" system of ideas based entirely on the priority of spirit, completely setting aside human empirical factors to endow "free, self-determining, and self-critical reason" with supreme authority. With the help of the caricature metaphor, Marx vividly and concretely revealed the falsity of false ideology, pointing out that it seeks nothing more than to exaggerate the role of spirit and preach spiritual supremacy so that people will firmly believe the pure will of the state is the fundamental criterion they should follow to reach happiness.
III. "Turning Hats into Ideas": Permephating the Mechanics of False Ideology
At the level of philosophical critique, Marx exposed the unscientific and deceptive nature of false ideology, alluding to the fact that it is no more than a tempest in the mind that drives the wheels of history backward. The Victorian era in which Marx lived was still an era where "things" and ideas conspired together. By deeply analyzing the characteristics of this era, Marx observed the mechanics of false ideology from the perspective of the determination of interests—elevating "things" from objects to subjects, and finally establishing "things" as a type of "relation" that achieves dominance in the human world. In the real world, specific "things" evolve into an "abstract rule." Thus, real society is based on the dependence on things, and man begins to move toward self-alienation in non-sacred forms [8]. For example, specific thoughts evolve into a code of conduct in the world of ideas.
Marx’s intention in criticizing false ideology was by no means merely to reveal the inversion of reality and spirit, but rather to further crack the mystery of "why it is inverted"—that is, why economic forms are transformed into ideological forms, and why real individuals are ruled by abstract ideas. In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx once made the following classic metaphor: "If an Englishman turns men into hats, a German turns hats into ideas." [9] The Englishman was the banking giant Ricardo; the German was the university professor Hegel. Ricardo’s method was first to reduce man to a thing, thereby reducing the relations between people (producers and consumers, capitalists and workers) to relations between things (commodities, money, and capital). Hegel’s method was to elevate things into ideas, thereby reducing a world surrounded by various things to a world governed by various ideas. Here, Marx uses the "hat" metaphor twice to uncover the subtle, progressive relationship between Ricardo’s thought and Hegel’s thought—namely, that the "hat" in Ricardo’s context is precisely the prototype of Hegel’s "idea." Therefore, understanding the former constitutes the prerequisite for grasping the true meaning of the latter.
Using hat production—common in Ricardo’s time—as an analytical case, Marx sought to show that Ricardo had actually noticed the existential dilemma of man being blindly dominated by economic laws, where man begins to become insignificant within exchange relations. In his economic research, Ricardo had a sharp side; he "confuses the cost of producing hats with the cost of maintaining man, which is to turn man into a hat... exposing modern economic relations in their nakedness and piercing the greatest secret of the bourgeoisie." But at the same time, Marx also noticed that as a spokesperson for bourgeois ideology, Ricardo’s theoretical exploration came to a screeching halt after he discovered the phenomenon of "man being turned into hats." In other words, Ricardo did not investigate the deep-seated causes of this phenomenon, but instead treated it as a "natural law of society" and as something right and proper. With the help of the metaphor "turning hats into ideas," Marx drew closer to the truth of history. He realized that capitalist society "is an enchanted, perverted, topsy-turvy world," where capital in capitalist society has become a "relational" existence, and abstract capital shackles living human beings. It can be seen that the profundity of Hegel "turning hats into ideas" lies in his use of German speculative philosophy to elucidate English economic problems. He conceptualized empirical facts and used an interpretive mode where ideas usurp the role of the subject, representing the alienation problem of "things swallowing people" observed by Ricardo, and more thoroughly exposing the reality of human enslavement by false ideology under capitalist conditions. On the surface, this false ideology is the rule of "things" over people; in reality, it is the rule of man over man—the rule of individuals co-opted by a certain class or interest group over universal, real people.
Through the "hat" metaphor, Marx saw through the two major stages by which false ideology acts upon society: first, making man a subject of "things" and declaring "things" to be the "universal light" [10] in the world; second, establishing a system of ideas supported by "things" and declaring this system of ideas to be "inherent" to society and naturally formed. "Turning man into hats" belongs to the first stage; "turning hats into ideas" belongs to the second. These two stages are logically closely linked, and both tend toward a single result: the gradual dissolution of human subjective consciousness and the replacement of man’s subjective status with a universal "mediator," causing people to be disciplined by abstract things in the real world without realizing it. In terms of his mode of thinking, this critical narrative reflects the difference between Marx and the thinkers of the modern Enlightenment. Marx put forward opposite conclusions in the modern era, a time when human subjectivity was emphasized and highlighted, revealing the true yet false side of capitalist society that people do not easily perceive.
On the one hand...
The “hat” metaphor implies the commodity-attribute of the human being; that is, the human figure always appears at both ends of commodity exchange. The individual is no longer a person with individuality, but rather stands opposed to others only “as a living equivalent, as a person of equal value.” Each person can prove their equality with others only through the equivalents held in their hands. In a commodity world maintained by exchange value, the trend toward the “reification” of man is difficult to reverse. Universal social exchange and social connections are rapidly established, and thus the slogan “man is an end,” held since Kant, becomes “man is a means.” In reality, although everyone proclaims that they treat man as an end, the actual end is personified exchange value. Complex social relations are “transformed into the attributes of things; ‘materialism over all’ becomes the typical characteristic of capitalist ideology.” As the form of the rule of things extends across all fields of society, this reified social relationship continuously penetrates human thought, solidifying into a reified consciousness within the human mind. Marx points out that after commodities, money, and capital are enthroned, the relationship between person and person behind commodity exchange, money circulation, and capital operation is gradually obscured. What appears in reality is only the change in the specific forms of commodities, money, and capital; social relations take on “the fantastic form of a relation between things” before people’s eyes. Man’s obsession with things not only causes him to lose his authentic self but also assists things in enjoying a “sacred privilege,” becoming a power that dominates everything. Under capitalist conditions, both the capitalist and the worker are in a state of “reification,” incorporated without exception into the operation of the “machine” of capital; the difference is that the capitalist feels satisfaction within it, while the worker feels despair. Thus, it can be seen that the first way false ideology acts upon man is by leading him toward self-alienation within “unholy forms,” [11] making him worship before the “secular god” of the object.
On the other hand, the transition from the “hat” to the “idea” suggests the emergence of a new form of rule—that is, in the capitalist era, “what will be dominant are increasingly abstract ideas.” As the “acid of modernity” that dissolves individual differences, capital erodes all sacred images in both the earthly and heavenly worlds. On the basis of “the dependence on things,” it constructs a form of relations and ideas supported by objects, whereby abstract identity constitutes the universal norm of social life. As the great synthesizer of German Classical Philosophy, Hegel believed that “ideas, thoughts, and concepts produce, determine, and dominate the real life of men, their material world, and their real relations.” He proceeded to question the spirit of the age (Zeitgeist) through a mode of thinking where the Idea and the concept determine history, pointing out that man can only obtain freedom within the unfolding process of the Absolute Spirit. At the same time, Hegel also sensed the loss of man’s subjective status in reality and the situation in which man is being ruled by mysterious forces; this is the realistic basis for his “Lord-Bondsman dialectic” and the living prototype for his “turning the hat into an idea.” In pre-capitalist societies, people were mutually dependent, whereas capitalism overturned previous traditions, causing the individual to now be subject to “abstract rule.” Marx points out that abstract rule is nothing more than the theoretical expression of the material relations that dominate the individual. The dominance of things “appears in the consciousness of the individuals themselves as the rule of ideas, and the belief in the eternity of these ideas—i.e., of the aforementioned relations of dependence on things—is naturally reinforced, nurtured, and instilled by the ruling class through every possible means.” Regarding the intellectual inheritance between Hegel and Marx, Guy Debord pointed out: “Each commodity pursues its own blind struggle with passion, yet unconsciously realizes something that transcends itself... while each special manifestation of the commodity ultimately falls in battle, the general commodity form continues forward to achieve complete self-realization.” Here, the abstraction from the “special commodity form” to the “general commodity form” is the secondary virtualization of the “hat” into the “caricature.” Based on an analysis of the situational context of the “hat,” Marx grasped the true meaning of Hegel’s mystical reason and thereby perceived the logic of the transformation of false ideology from the “hat” to the “idea.”
IV. “Prometheus Bound”: Foreshadowing the Developmental Trend of False Ideology
Marx’s critical narrative displays an internal tension, manifested in the subject’s transformation from slumber to awakening, from suffering to resistance, from fatalism to revolution, and from tragedy to comedy. The dissection of the theoretical premises and functional mechanisms of false ideology aims to break through the cages of reality, transform the existing order, and subsequently explore the path to escape false ideology. As Lenin said, the task of Marx’s ruthless critique of all factors that bind and hinder human development in a specific reality “is to expose all forms of antagonism and exploitation in modern society, to examine their evolution, and to prove their transitory nature and the necessity of their transformation into another form.” In short, the critique of false ideology simultaneously foreshadows the emergence of a new ideology—that is, discovering a new world through the critique of the old world, and revealing the realistic possibility of transcending the old world and growing a new world out of it by exposing its internal contradictions and obsolescence.
In Marx’s work, “Prometheus Bound” is cited with profound significance. He links Prometheus as a god with the proletariat as a human, discovering that both share the same characteristics of being both sufferers and liberators. Consequently, the critique of false ideology reveals a deep meaning of moving from bondage toward redemption. Prometheus is a vital metaphor in Marx’s writing, not only because Marx praised Prometheus as “the most noble saint and martyr in the calendar of philosophy,” but also because Prometheus provided a structural and supportive content for Marx’s critical theory. Under capitalist conditions, the physical oppression and enslavement suffered by the proletariat, as well as their spiritual deception by false ideology, are remarkably similar to Prometheus, who was chained to a rock on the Caucasian cliffs in ancient Greek mythology. There is a deep affinity between them, which is sustained in Marx’s narrative. Fredric Jameson once pointed out that a mythological tradition is implicit in Marx’s texts; connecting Marx to mythological metaphors “does not much affect the reputation of the former, because it explains the persistent vitality of the latter... the latter is the ultimate source and paradigm of all storytelling.” Clearly, the texts of the “Other” can serve as a mirror; whether what this mirror reflects is absolutely faithful or not, the perspective it provides is always important. In a discourse system aimed at liberation, the proletariat, as the “heart” of liberation, becomes a mythological entity. Marx’s critique of false ideology manifests as a further unfolding of the Prometheus myth-metaphor, and the process by which the proletariat escapes false ideology is the process by which Prometheus shatters the chains of fate.
Marx did not conduct a specialized philological study of the Prometheus myth but focused on telling the human story of Prometheus as an ironist. In the preface to his doctoral dissertation, he cited the declaration: “In a word, I hate all gods.” This is Prometheus's confession. In Aeschylus’s writing, facing the threats and inducements of Hermes, Prometheus says: “I tell you, I hate all the gods who have received my favors and have repaid me with evil, persecuting me.” That is to say, the gods Prometheus hates actually refer to something specific: these “gods” are the Thunderer Zeus and the gods around him. They exercise tyrannical rule by relying on new laws, establishing and consolidating the world of gods institutionally through the division of power. Their power is based on receiving offerings and prayers from the human race, yet to enjoy absolute authority, they repay humans with evil for their favors, hiding “fire”—man’s most important means of life—and chaining Prometheus, the fire-bringer. Marx observed the realistic prototype of this mythological story: the nature of the bourgeoisie coincides with this “divinity.” The bourgeoisie is repaying the proletariat with evil—the more the proletariat labors, the more it owns nothing; the proletariat’s production accumulates wealth for the capitalist but accumulates abject poverty for itself. This ironic scene plays out every moment for Prometheus and the proletariat. Relative to the high position of the bourgeoisie, the status of the proletariat continues to decline. To avoid suspicion and resistance from the proletariat, the bourgeoisie places a mask of “fatalism” over the hierarchy, asserting that the proletariat’s position at the very bottom of society possesses a realistic rationality; this is precisely the illusion of false ideology existing in an inverted world. Based on this, Marx said: “The light-filled dwelling, which Prometheus in Aeschylus called one of the great gifts by which he turned savages into men, no longer exists for the worker.” Marx aligns the suffering situation of the proletariat with that of Prometheus for the purpose of awakening the class consciousness of the proletariat, making them realize that the injustice they suffer is not individual but universal.
Regarding the misfortune of the proletariat, Marx offers “recognition” rather than a mere “promise.” He realizes that all misfortune is not as it should be, but is imposed by the system. Consequently, transcending false ideology lies in overthrowing the institutional forms that produce it; one must not only use the “weapon of critique” to struggle against existing consciousness but also use the “critique of weapons” to transform current relations of production. The suffering of the proletariat is covered by a thick ideological veil; once the proletariat falls into extreme deprivation and the veil is lifted, the liberation of the proletariat will become possible. As Hayden White described: “When Marx emploted the history of the bourgeoisie as a tragedy, the history of the proletariat was placed within a larger comic structure, the result of which included the dissolution of all classes and the transformation of humanity into an organic whole.” In the mythological story, Prometheus predicted the inescapable doom of the Thunderer Zeus: that he would have a son through marriage who would be stronger than the father, and eventually, the father’s power would be stripped and deposed. This plot fits Marx’s narrative of the philosophy of liberation. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels point out that what the bourgeoisie “produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” This is a prediction of historical prospects, while simultaneously pointing out that the oppressed can only obtain new life through their own strength.
Of course, if the proletariat is to become a transformative force, it must meet corresponding conditions. On the one hand, the proletariat must be thoroughly infuriated within capitalist society; only when the suffering they endure becomes unbearable, and only when laboring day and night makes them unable to maintain even animal-like functions, will they rise in revolt and shatter the shackles given by society that never belonged to them. Here, suffering is to be infuriated; suffering and redemption walk the same path. On the other hand, only when suffering becomes universal suffering can redemption become universal redemption. Only when the proletariat becomes a “plural” hero, a heroic whole, can their goal of eliminating old institutional oppression and false ideology be realized. The proletariat in Marx’s writing is the “Prometheus Returned.” Unable to endure the bondage of the “Great Chain of Being,” they become conscious revolutionaries in real space. With the help of the Prometheus metaphor, Marx predicted the trend toward the demise of the capitalist system and the collapse of false ideology.
V. The Internal Logic of the Triple Metaphor in Marx’s Critique of False Ideology
Marx’s general critique of false ideology is the core content of his theory of ideology. The three images Marx used in the process of critique—“speculation represented as a caricature,” “turning the hat into an idea,” and “Prometheus Bound”—though appearing in different texts, do not exist in isolation but have their own internal logic. The triple metaphor of the critique of false ideology, moving from theoretical essence to practical mechanism and then to historical destiny, not only collectively constructs a cognitive framework regarding false ideology but also forms a series of interlocking and progressively advancing layers in a critical system. This allows the dialectical critical logic of historical materialism to be fully presented. Furthermore, the internal logic between the triple metaphors indicates that the critique aimed at false ideology is not for the sake of discarding ideology itself, nor simply for judging whether a certain ideology is false, but strives to expose the roots of falsity and its operational mechanisms. Its core interest points toward the necessity of humanity escaping the “rule of ideas.”
First, the triple metaphor constitutes a rigorous, interlocking chain of critique. Marx believes that the fundamental flaw of false ideology lies in—
"Inversion"—namely, that for speculative philosophers, spirit is elevated to a supreme status, while the real world becomes a mere product of spirit's self-movement. This mode of thinking is precisely like a "caricature" [14]: it appears to follow a certain rule of reality, but it does so in an exaggerated and distorted manner, swelling a part into the foundation of the whole, and ultimately reducing the whole to a mere reflection of the part. If we understand Marx's critical narrative in a deconstructive sense, the triple metaphors within his critique function as interconnected nodes. Each carries a distinct function while preconditioned by the others, forming an interlocking chain of critique. Specifically, the metaphor of "speculation reproduced as a caricature" points directly to the epistemological flaws of false ideology—flaws that produce a mode of thinking where reality is subordinated to spiritual concepts, setting the stage for the metaphor of "turning the hat into an idea." It is precisely through this theoretical tendency to abstract reality into concepts that false ideology can transform concrete material relations into abstract ideas; only thus can the "abstract rule" within reality smoothly enter the realm of social consciousness and become a survival principle to which people are habituated. Furthermore, the insight provided by the "turning the hat into an idea" metaphor into the mechanisms of false ideology provides the realistic basis for the fate of "Prometheus Bound"; it indicates that when contradictory conflicts become irreconcilable, liberation following "bondage" will arrive. The triple metaphors are interlinked like meshing gears, forming a closed loop of critique.
Second, the triple metaphors form a progressive, holistic schema of critique. Combining the specific context of Marx's critique with the process of his intellectual transformation, one finds that his metaphorical narrative regarding the critique of false ideology actually progresses from identifying surface characteristics to revealing essential laws, even touching upon the generation and construction of ideology in general. To expand: While the metaphor of "speculation reproduced as a caricature" points out the distortion of reality by false ideology, this critique remains at the level of phenomenal description, answering only the question of the form in which false ideology manifests. The metaphor of "turning the hat into an idea" delves into the internal practical mechanisms, clarifying how false ideology achieves rule over reality by making concepts independent; it provides a concrete demonstration of how the appearance of free exchange in the capitalist field "veils and conceals the exploitation and inequality inherent in the relations of production." The metaphor of "Prometheus Bound" reaches into the depths of history; not only does it demonstrate the historical necessity that false ideology will eventually be dissolved from a critical dimension, but from a constructive dimension, it identifies the revolutionary subject and practical action for dissolving false ideology—namely, after recognizing the operational mechanisms of capitalist abstract rule, launching a movement for liberation using practice as a weapon. Based on this, these triple metaphors move from phenomenal description to the excavation of essence, and from static problem analysis to the revelation of dynamic laws, forming a progressive, spiraling, and holistic schema of critique.
Third, the triple metaphors fully present the movement of the historical dialectic. The critique of false ideology was a driving factor in the occurrence of Marx’s philosophical revolution, coupling and advancing alongside the development of historical materialism; the two appear as "two different sides of the same process." In this sense, Marx’s metaphorical narrative of the critique of false ideology actually presents the movement of the historical dialectic in its entirety, embodying the dialectical logic from the generation and development of contradictions to their resolution. First, the metaphor of "speculation reproduced as a caricature" marks the generation of contradiction—that is, "ideas," as one side of the contradiction, achieve rule over "reality," the other side, through deification, causing the world to transform at a theoretical level into a paradoxical "upside-down" [15] structure. Second, the metaphor of "turning the hat into an idea" displays the development process of the contradiction as it expands from theory into the realm of reality; in reality, false ideology utilizes specific means to enter a stage of concealing the contradiction, using the symbolic meaning of the concept to swallow the material attributes of the "hat." Of course, while this concealment and swallowing appear to keep the contradiction in a controlled state, as time passes, the contradiction will inevitably intensify within that concealment and develop toward a higher stage. Finally, the metaphor of "Prometheus Bound" foreshadows the resolution of the contradiction; when the contradiction reaches a critical point where it can no longer be concealed, the sparks of revolution will emerge from the cracks of the contradiction, and false ideology will go to its ruin under the sunlight of liberation. This movement—from produced contradiction to developed contradiction to resolved contradiction—fully presents the logic of the historical dialectic within historical materialism and highlights the dialectical character of Marx's critical thought.
The theoretical system for criticizing false ideology that Marx constructed based on the triple metaphors of "caricature," "hat," and "Prometheus" is by no means a pure theoretical deduction of the study; it is rooted in real soil. His metaphorical critical thought remains explanatory and penetrating in the present day. In today's society, the false ideology Marx criticized has not disappeared; rather, it has broken free from traditional forms of manifestation and exists in more hidden forms, extensively penetrating the social fabric. The "speculation reproduced as a caricature" reflects on reality to help us see clearly how some Western scholars use "caricatures" to cover up social pathologies, beautifying the capitalist system as the "end of history" [16] for human civilization and distorting the wealth gap and ecological crises into "inevitable costs" of development. The daily performance of "turning the hat into an idea" allows us to see how, in the field of consumerism constructed by the logic of capital, "capital's needs" are disguised as "individual needs," and individuals become participants in the valorization of capital through self-gratification. Meanwhile, "Prometheus Bound" warns us that under the dominance of the logic of capital, technological alienation and digital hegemony are deeply intertwined; humanity appears to possess more powerful technological forces, but in reality is being tightly bound by the shackles of a collusion between capital and technology, falling into a dislocation between the illusion of "autonomous control" and the reality of "hidden domination."
Source: Marxism Studies (《马克思主义研究》) Issue 11, 2025 Editor: Huihui