Marx Voted Top Thinker By Brits

The Guardian ^ | July 14, 2005 | Charlotte Higgins

[KingofZion]

In a shock result, Karl Marx has been voted the greatest ever philosopher following a poll by Melvyn Bragg's Radio 4 show In Our Time. In the public's poll, which assessed 20 philosophers, Marx, author of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, got 27.93% of the 30,000 votes. In second place came David Hume with 12.67%, followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein with 6.8%. Plato trailed in fifth place and Socrates at eighth.

Andrew Chitty, who, at Sussex University, teaches the UK's only MA in Marxist philosophy, said: "This shows that philosophy should take Marxism seriously. It is possible he won because Marxists organised a mass vote; they're much more organised than Hegelians, for instance.

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[Calvin Locke]

What do you expect? Here are a couple of links (rather than waste bandwidth) to Karl's grave in Highgate Cemetery, London.

Yes, I have a morbid curiosity, but I recall an article a while back comparing the grave sites of Marx and Adam Smith.

Karl Marx

"Artistic Karl"

Here's one of Adam Smith's:

Adam Smith

[iconoclast]

One should not underestimate the influence of the communist lecturers in Oxford and Cambridge.

Not to mention 90% of the colleges and universities of the U.S..

[Tribune7]

David Hume could out-consume Schopenhauer and Hegel and Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

[sergeantdave]

Well, Marxism gave me something to shoot at when I was a sergeant.

[Paulus Invictus]

Marx and Socialism rein supreme in merry England. The place is doomed! There are no more Margaret Thatchers available.

[nosofar]

The "intellectuals" always make the mistake of thinking that they won't be murdered once they help convert a country to communism/marxism. They are generally the first ones to be lined up against a wall.

Of course. They've just betrayed one government. The new Communist government isn't going to make the same mistake and allow them to do it again.

[chilepepper]

i KANT agree with them on their choice...

[sergeantdave]

I have to admire your tenacity in getting through an entire screed by Marx.

I got a quarter of the way through his "book" and found that he seemed to be drifting towards insanity. I didn't want the same fate to befall me so I quite reading. I walked outside, propped his book on a stump and drilled it with buckshot from the shotgun.

So when anyone asks me if I read Marx, I can say yes, but I found many holes in his economic theory.

[MadIvan]

I read Lenin as well for my Russian history course. Marx is verbose idiocy. Lenin is insane ranting. For example, his assertion that any literate person can do bookkeeping, and ergo, run an enterprise.

Regards, Ivan

[sergeantdave]

After the Berlin Wall fell, I offered the Russians $1,000 for Lenin's corpse but never got a reply.

I had planned to wire his jaw so it would move. Then dress him in red, white and blue and nail him up on my cupola. I'd wire him so when I raised the flag in the morning, he'd belt out a rousing chorus of "God Bless America."

[Stag_Man]

Ah yes, What Is To be Done? Second only to Mein Kampf in terms of crazed, nonsensical ravings. I got to read both of them in a class called "The Philosophic Roots of European fascism." Awesome class. The professor was basically a right-leaning libertarian. The class basically consisted of reading things like Hegel, Marx, Lenin and Hitler for homework and then going to class and having the professor rip their ideas to shreds. It was glorious. Because of the class I can now destroy anyone who tries to ague that Fascism is on the right side of the political spectrum (and therefore ideologically closer to the Republican party than the Dumbocraps). In short, Fascism was Communism without any ambitions to spark a global workers revolution.

[Kokojmudd]

Maybe the Brits will vote for Bin Laden in 80 years.

[sergeantdave]

I've always contended that Marxism, communism, fascism and socialism should be a required class in high school.

Students should be taught what they are, how they operate, how to identify them and the human suffering they cause.

Of course this won't be taught in public schools. Otherwise students could identify all the abhorent forms of left wing "isms" currently existing in America.

[the invisib1e hand]

Marx Voted Top Thinker By Brits

Are these the same people who expressed "shock" that they were just attacked by a native terrorist?

[KingofZion]

Please don't shoot the messenger. 90% of my fellow San Franciscans are communists but that doesn't mean I agree with them.

We are ALL Londoners this month, but that doesn't mean the major of London and the ones who were polled could not benefit from a little re-education (as they say in Marxist Pyong-yang).

[virgil]

Rousseau was considered a "modernist" wasn't he? These are the beautiful ideas that kill

[righttackle44]

Marx had some great thoughts:

"I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. What he was doing in my pajamas I'll never know."

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."

"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."

[The Westerner]

It was taught when I was in high school as part of a general humanities course. And later in college in a philosophy course. I agree that Marx should be read by students, and then refuted with the right ideas.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[familyop]

"Shove your condescension up your anal orifice."

That's quite a projection. We're not the people who are so well known for that attribute.

"If you don't like being reminded you're full of donkey excrement, too bloody bad."

I'm suprised that you didn't use a more common British epithet to describe me, like for example the old and common, "American Yank: septic tank." But then that's only for saying behind our backs for a few decades while showing us your public relations face, isn't it.