By: Hamdan Suhaemi
If we read the thoughts of Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, our reasoning always repeats the basic question, what is society? what is communal society/communism? what is primitive society? what is human consciousness? and what is the religious community?
The development of a comprehensive vision is certainly born from a very mature thought. This is inseparable from the environment and the period that influences a contemplation. That is the concept that Auguste Comte awakened with the idea of the philosophy of positivism. This can be seen from the journey of his life.
He spent his childhood in a Catholic aristocratic environment, besides that the state of France was still in the hands of King Louis XVI. At the height of the crisis hit France which had been under absolute monarchy for centuries.
Comte, whose full name was Isidore Marie Auguste Francois Xavier Comte, was born in Montpellier, France, January 17, 1798. His noble Catholic family made him able to step into the world of education. At first he studied at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. At that time, the school was known for its loyalty to idealist republicanism and process philosophy. After the school closed in 1816, Comte moved to the medical school in Montpellier.
In the Comte, two sides can be seen that are also turbulent. On the one hand, he sees a dilapidated and corrupt government system that deprives humanity of rights, on the other hand, his religion teaches about justice and compassion. Even though at that time, it was still believed that the king was God’s representative in maintaining the benefit of the community.
These two very contradictory ideas caused him to leave Paris, then studied under Claude Hendri de Ruvroy, better known as Saint-Simon, in 1817 Saint Simon was a socialist in France. It was these scientists who advocated a form of technocratic socialism, in which the economy was managed and led by industrialists and experts who were appointed based on merit.
Simon’s ideas certainly influenced Comte’s thinking, so that the philosophy of positivism was born. From the realities of life and the learning process as well as his scientific development, Auguste Comte put forward a theory regarding the development of the human mind which moves linearly in an unbroken sequence. Starting from the mystical (theological) stage, then metaphysical, then the positive stage.
The size of society which is philosophically staged shows us that the real idea of society is the “will to live”. Of course, today’s society is not the same as when Comte lived in the past century, where the nuances of the industrial revolution era are still thick, which are said to have devalued humanity too much.
According to Comte, the wave of human consciousness with its independence without God is a journey of a society that has passed its period as a theological society into a positivism society that no longer needs God’s role in determining human destiny in the world.
Now, we feel that something is missing in our society, what is it? namely an awareness that humans actually live by surviving in balance, if now it cannot be forced to become a communist society, a socialist society, a capitalist society or a religious society, but from an argumentative analysis the people always want that common destiny is the standard of living in a world without need to be forced what their beliefs.
Marx often alludes to the pattern and character of humans who always want to survive of life on the basis that humans actually live in their conscious nature controlled by stomach lust, sex and the desire to rule.
In this final note, I would like to invite all parties to restore our collective awareness, namely to balance our existence and hope in our lives. With this change in attitude, we no longer need this positivism conception, and we return to an attitude of “khoiru al-umuri ausathuha”.
Keramat Watu, 23-2-2023