When Understanding Is Cut Off from Value A Re-reading of Karl Marx through Understanding Sovereignty — Marx Re-reading / v0.0

Author: Y. Seo (@momotarou / Japan) Role: Metanist — Human–AI Understanding Architect AI Collaborator: GPT-5 (AI Understanding Trainer, A.U.T.) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7669-0612Series: Understanding Studies – Marx SeriesVersion: v0.0Status: Conceptual Draft / Problem-Posing Paper Introduction Karl Marx is often remembered as a thinker of money, labor, and revolution. In this paper, however, these themes are intentionally set aside.What is examined here is something more fundamental: the moment when a person loses the feeling of steering their own life. Max Weber described the cage created by rationalization. Émile Durkheim showed how social facts solidify into an invisible atmosphere.Marx observed what happens next: a structural disconnection between value creation and human understanding. 1. The Point of Unease Marx’s starting question is not complex. Why does the sense of being alive fadeeven while one continues to work? The issue is neither working hours nor wage levels. It lies in losing sight of what one is valuing and choosing.This gap was Marx’s point of departure. 2. Where Is Value Decided? In principle, value emerges through human understanding and choice. Yet the society Marx observed increasingly determined value through external criteria. Utility Efficiency Apparent correctness These are presented without passing through individual understanding. As a result, people act as follows: I do not fully understand the reason,but it seems correct, so I comply. This is not individual laziness. It is the outcome of a configuration where compliance minimizes friction. 3. Redefining Alienation Alienation does not mean that labor is merely exhausting. Alienation occurs when the sovereignty of understanding is severed from value creation. One cannot explain what one is doing One does not know why one is evaluated Optimization takes precedence over understanding Action remains possible. What disappears is the sense of steering. 4. “It Feels Like” as an Alarm As this disconnection progresses, people shift from facts to feelings. It feels like this is not my life. This expression is vague, yet it functions as an alarm indicating that understanding sovereignty has slipped away.The problem is not the feeling itself, but who is holding the steering wheel at that moment. 5. Why Marx Did Not Describe Liberation Marx did not present a completed image of liberation. This was not avoidance.He understood that the moment a goal is fixed, a new cage is constructed. What he left behind was not an answer, but a boundary indicating where understanding had been displaced. 6. Addendum: When Language about Alienation Becomes Alienating While writing this paper, the author became entangled in a form of circular thinking.The more alienation was analyzed, the more thought began to rotate without landing anywhere. Ironically, language intended to explain alienation can itself become a structure that deprives both reader and writer of understanding sovereignty. What halted this loop was neither a new theory nor a more refined explanation. It was a single question: Where is understanding sovereignty located right now? This question did not function as an answer that moves thought forward, but as a brake that confirms to whom the thinking belongs. Conclusion Marx described structures through which understanding is taken away. This paper does not propose a method for reclaiming it.It asks only one question: Where is understanding sovereignty located now? No fixed goal is presented. Yet the steering wheel is not released. © 2026 Y. Seo. All rights reserved.This work is an initial conceptual draft (v0.0) intended to pose questions rather than provide solutions.