It remains true that arguments against Marx are overwhelmingly based on fabrications, or from red scare nonsense. I cannot tell you how many times I still see the mud pie argument despite it being disproven in the opening pages of Capital.
I think you’re spot on, Marx specifically has a lot of connotations the general, uninformed public is terrified of.
I remember when I had to read it for a class the first time and the vibes in the room was exactly like you’re opening some of book of sin. I was scared of a book, as a college student at the time. Then we actually started reading it, and it was like “wow this guy gets the issues of the system”.
While I personally have agreements and some disagreements with Marx, I think he helped give me a lot of solid ideas that the system itself could be reformed and reforged.
I think it’s a shame that his ideas had carried a public taint to them for so long, due to several authoritarians co-opting his message. I have no clue why it’s not required high school reading at this point, since I feel it’d go a long ways towards helping more people get curious about improving and changing the system for the better.
I think it’s a shame that his ideas had carried a public taint to them for so long, due to several authoritarians co-opting his message
While we might point to some Socialist experiments that succumbed to needless authoritarianism (for example, Romania), This is a view that looks at 20th century socialism, and collapses the experiences of these places. Just the former eastern bloc, for instance, is far more diverse, socially, and politically, than westerners often caricature it as.
The aforementioned example of Romania, with its horrific treatment of women, vs the comparatively very modern East Germany with its state-owned gay bars are in many respects, world apart. Collapsing these places with a blanket term of “authoritarian” and waving it away as all just an unfortunate shame, is unhelpful at best, and actively anti-intellectual at worst.
For the record, I said several authoritarians, I didn’t say every one was one. I would say your reading of my comment was uncharitable at best and rude at worst.
People should read Marx, but this argument is invalid. I think Nazism is evil and I don’t think I need to read Mein Kampf to determine that.
It remains true that arguments against Marx are overwhelmingly based on fabrications, or from red scare nonsense. I cannot tell you how many times I still see the mud pie argument despite it being disproven in the opening pages of Capital.
I think you’re spot on, Marx specifically has a lot of connotations the general, uninformed public is terrified of.
I remember when I had to read it for a class the first time and the vibes in the room was exactly like you’re opening some of book of sin. I was scared of a book, as a college student at the time. Then we actually started reading it, and it was like “wow this guy gets the issues of the system”.
While I personally have agreements and some disagreements with Marx, I think he helped give me a lot of solid ideas that the system itself could be reformed and reforged.
I think it’s a shame that his ideas had carried a public taint to them for so long, due to several authoritarians co-opting his message. I have no clue why it’s not required high school reading at this point, since I feel it’d go a long ways towards helping more people get curious about improving and changing the system for the better.
While we might point to some Socialist experiments that succumbed to needless authoritarianism (for example, Romania), This is a view that looks at 20th century socialism, and collapses the experiences of these places. Just the former eastern bloc, for instance, is far more diverse, socially, and politically, than westerners often caricature it as.
The aforementioned example of Romania, with its horrific treatment of women, vs the comparatively very modern East Germany with its state-owned gay bars are in many respects, world apart. Collapsing these places with a blanket term of “authoritarian” and waving it away as all just an unfortunate shame, is unhelpful at best, and actively anti-intellectual at worst.
For the record, I said several authoritarians, I didn’t say every one was one. I would say your reading of my comment was uncharitable at best and rude at worst.