Posted on 05/05/2024 4:55:42 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Why and how did this angry, odious, insufferable fantasist become the intellectual lodestar for the global left?
This week, with the global celebration of May Day and with the ongoing protests on the nation’s college campuses, it is worth remembering that the man who largely inspired both was a hateful, intellectually shallow misanthrope, remembered by history and admired by jesters and dupes largely because of his odiousness.
The First of May is celebrated by socialists around the world, not specifically because of Karl Marx but to honor the anarchists hanged for the Haymarket Affair in Chicago in 1886. Nevertheless, this “International Labor Day” has very much become a Marxist tradition, formerly commemorated with parades and ceremonies by the Soviet Bloc nations and still very much acclaimed by those who still revere Marx and his communist ideology.
Marx is likewise celebrated these days in the pro-Hamas camps on America’s college campuses. The ideology of struggle expressed by the protesters is very much in the Marxist tradition. Reams of Marxist literature have been collected at various abandoned/disbanded protest sites around the country, most notably on the UCLA campus. And, of course, Marxist organizations and agitators have been front and center throughout the demonstrations. As the inimitable Mike Gonzales has repeatedly stated, noting that Marxism is always at the forefront of these types of protests: “The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.”
The question is why. Why is Karl Marx, of all people, so adored and admired by the world’s angry and disillusioned youth? He was but one of hundreds of thousands of 19th-century communists and but one of hundreds of leftist intellectuals and theorists of his era. Why him?
The fact of the matter is that Marx was a loathsome person who hated nearly everyone and everything. He was aggressively lazy and didn’t have any knowledge of business, capitalism, or even any connection to the working class. As the late, great Paul Johnson noted, “the only member of the working class that he ever knew at all well, his one real contact with the ‘proletariat,’ was his household maid, Helene Demuth.” And so concerned was he with her plight that he forced himself on her, got her pregnant, denied paternity of her child, convinced Engels to pretend to be the father, and only met the child on one occasion.
More to the point, Marx was known by his friends, contemporaries, and even admirers to be a crackpot. Some of his erstwhile allies mocked his ideology as a quasi-religious attempt to replace Christian morality with something strikingly similar (Max Stirner). Some admired his ideas “in theory” but knew that they had no chance whatsoever to work “in praxis” (Ferdinand Lassalle). And still others candidly acknowledged that his economic schemes were borderline insane. Writing more than a half-century later, the renowned American leftist literary critic Edmund Wilson conceded that Marx’s foundational work, Kapital, “contains a treatise on economics, a history of industrial development, and an inspired tract for the times; and the morality, which is part of the time suspended in the interests of scientific objectivity, is no more self-consistent than the economics is consistently scientific or the history undistracted by the exaltation of apocalyptic vision.”
In short, Marx’s theories were a mess—and everyone knew it, even before World War I proved them so and forced a full-scale “revision” of the entire movement.
So again, why Marx? Why and how did this angry, odious, insufferable fantasist become the intellectual lodestar for the global left?
The answer is complicated, obviously, but can largely be broken down into three primary contributing factors.
First, Marx’s obnoxiousness proved to be an advantage as much as a liability. Marx was a bully. Indeed, he was among the most practiced and skilled bullies in the world. Anyone who dared to contradict him or to offer a competing theory of leftism was an open target for aggressive and hostile rebuttal. Marx attacked nearly all his one-time friends, including Stirner, Weitling, Bauer, and Feuerbach. He attacked the utopian socialists who preceded him. He attacked the anarchists who followed him. He attacked everyone, and he attacked them viciously and, for the most part, effectively. He successfully bullied all his potential competitors for intellectual supremacy of the left into submission or exile, often self-imposed.
Second, Marx was a “revolutionary” in the sense that he advocated violent overthrow of the existing regime. Whereas many of his contemporaries were mere theorists or incrementalists, Marx favored bold, dramatic, society-transforming action. Indeed, he believed that a violent, destructive, and bloody revolution was a necessary component of the communist transformation.
Needless to say, such violent fantasies often appeal to the young and disaffected. Although most of Marx’s contemporaries favored the incremental establishment of their ideology, those who were especially antisocial and disgruntled with the status quo found his illusions of brutal heroism cathartic and enticing. Much the same is true today, as it was in the period between Marx’s and our own…
Which brings us to the third reason Marx is so revered today.
Among those who admired Marx’s call for bloody revolution was a singular psychopath who, when he was merely 17, saw his brother Sasha hanged by the Czar, who was exiled to Siberia when he was 25, and who spent much of the rest of his adulthood bouncing around and being thrown out of various countries in Europe for advocating violence in Marx’s name. That psychopath—known as Lenin—would eventually be given safe passage back to Russia by the German government, who rightfully anticipated that he would end Russia’s participation in World War I. Almost immediately after his famous arrival at the Finland Station in Petrograd, Lenin began consolidating power. In time, he would become the world’s first prolific mass murderer—thereby proving Marx’s augury of widespread bloodshed correct. He would also found, in March 1919, the Communist International (the Comintern), which he would use to place spies and Marxist advocates among the labor leaders in nearly every major nation on earth.
The rest, as they say, is history—ugly, brutal, repetitious, and painfully stupid history. Karl Marx was a crackpot with a shockingly poor understanding of history and economics. The same can be said of his multitudes of modern-day disciples. If they were otherwise, clearly, they wouldn’t be his disciples.
marx and engles wrote in the communist manifesto “From each according to his ability to each according to his needs” but the Americanized version is “From those who can and do to those who could but won’t, why SHOULD they when they can employ the police power of government to TAKE IT from those who can and do then GIVE IT to those who could...but won’t”. remember folks...John Smith tried the collectivist approach in hopes it would feed the pilgrims in their new land but the lazy marxists(before marx was even a gleam) caused mass starvation because marxists NEVER EVER do their part for the “collective outside of their hot air, which requires no heavy lifting, yet demanded to be fed like everyone else who DID the heavy lifting. sort of like the current crop of campus protesters who only work at destroying things but still want someone else to provide their Starbucks and chipotle. no work=no food is how Real life works and when the rest of society stops allowing themselves to become “guilt trip recipients”, there will be a BIG change...but not until. let me ask you One question punk...are YOU feeling guilty today? well are you PUNK?
“Why and how did this angry, odious, insufferable fantasist become the intellectual lodestar for the global left?“
They are God-less. That empty space in them must be filled. They fill it with anger and moral outrage and so they become gods. You serve Heaven or you serve hell. There’s no inbetween.
Good description.
I would say Marxism attracts those who want to control other people. Like Obama, Hillary, etc.
Needless to say, such violent fantasies often appeal to the young and disaffected. Although most of Marx’s contemporaries favored the incremental establishment of their ideology, those who were especially antisocial and disgruntled with the status quo found his illusions of brutal heroism cathartic and enticing. Much the same is true today, as it was in the period between Marx’s and our own…
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what has been the surprise of the week has been the more conservative patriotic response to the palestinian rioters by young college aged patriots such as:
<> protecting the flag at UNC
<> singing the star spangled banner across college campus
bfl
This is essentially the same green light given in Islam.
Many people are attracted to the idea of being able to do whatever they want, with hatred, jealousy, lust, greed, and vengeance as their motives, and feel morally justified while doing so.
Socialists today say "we'll do it right!". The hubris in assuming that you're brighter than everyone in the past two centuries seems dubious. US capitalism has lead to the highest standard of living anywhere in the world. Most of the illegals flooding into the US are from failed, semi-Socialistic countries. That in and of itself is enough to quash the bogus socialistic propaganda.
“Communism is intellectual cotton candy for people with childish minds. It’s economic junk food. Easy sell to people who possess no discipline at all.”
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
This.
Because communism works, but only among small, trusted groups: like family, small circle of friends, maybe a classroom.
But as soon as the group gets large enough, corruption, laziness, lack of innovation (ie, no incentives), lack of accountability, and greed inevitably take over. Leadership then quickly morphs from altruism into tyranny.
But this is not taught in our schools, not exemplified in our media, not identified in the news, not recounted in history. The weak minded are then malinformed and exploited. Those who produce and have are vilified by those who consume and don’t have.
Nothing but old fashioned emperor worship re-packaged with modern techno-babble.
Marxism takes the seven deadly sins and binds them all together making a fascia, one of those axes with a handle made up of bound-together sticks that you see in coats-of-arms.
It's the origin of the word fascism of course.
Marx bound the sins into a philosophy, one with many ornate terms and specious arguments to make it perpetually interesting to academic morons.
But the key is this: Because Marxism capitalizes on the basest urges and nastiest human tendencies, it is really cake selling it to people.
It's like taking B.O., crabgrass, alcohol abuse, laziness, smoking, overeating, sexual licentiousness, theft, hate, lack of charity, lack of patience, etc., and binding it into a philosophy.
Most Marxists-in-the-rough when they encounter it immediately say, "What's not to like?"
So Marxism will always be popular, due to the grab-asstic, smelly, caveman, sociopathic tendencies of most humans.
It takes a heavy dose of education and fire-and-brimstone religion plus watching The War Room to stifle Marxism.
We must never quit eradicating Marxism the way we must never quit eradicating bugs and crabgrass.
Also interesting is that those committee members always have greater needs to be filled than you do. Not everyone is going to have a Black Sea dacha, but the Bernie Sanders of the party always seem to “need” a few.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
“I do not at all wonder that British youth is in revolt against the morbid doctrine that nothing matters but the equal sharing of miseries, that what used to be called the ‘submerged tenth’ can only be rescued by bringing the other nine-tenths down to their level…”
Pretty much sums it up.
Somehow, the ‘submerged tenth’ have seized control and are engaged in a vindictive Jihad to take down our country, exploit and punish the other nine tenths and redistribute it's wealth.
With Marxism, it always comes down to misery and mass murder in the name of the greater good once the submerged tenth runs out of other peoples money to fund their unworkable Utopian dreams.
why ?
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and those that love him
BTTT
Central to the ideology is the idea that the reason your life sucks, is because you are being oppressed by a conspiracy of the powerful, rather than due to any personal inadequacies.
This is a common factor with Marx, CRT, feminism, and other Leftist ideologies.
In what corner of the world do these nut cases live?
It only works in families and small groups of friends because of love: the willingness of those who can produce, to use their productive energies to benefit those they love.
The fact of the matter is that Marx was a loathsome person who hated nearly everyone and everything. He was aggressively lazy and didn’t have any knowledge of business, capitalism, or even any connection to the working class.
It’s why Marxism is a style for the parasites slackers with no shortage of laziness or stupidity.
Marx was a spoiled brat who resented his father and the system his father wanted him to become successful in. He was incredibly lazy, and washed out of every school/university to which his father sent him. He was driven by childish immature rebellion - something to think about when considering the actions of university students who embrace his pseudo-intellectual drivel.
Marx, and Marxism is what you get when you combine sloth, resentment/hatred, egoism, parasitism, arrogance, and a lack of respect for the opinions, rights, accomplishments, and self-determinism of other individuals.
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