Marx judged modernity as unsatisfying and vulgar compared to antiquity’s limited wholeness.

Evidence

This is why the childish world of antiquity appears on one side as loftier. On the other side, it really is loftier in all matters where closed shapes, forms and given limits are sought for. It is satisfac­ tion from a limited standpoint; while the modem gives no satisfac­ tion; or, where it appears satisfied with itself, it is vulgar. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 170

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Marx’s Grundrisse passages on Greek art and the ‘childhood’ of humanity, and to his ambivalence on modernity.