Was Engels homophobic?

[El_Revolucionario]

I have read quotes from Engels that looked homophobic.

well I understand that alot of people were homophobic at the time, but was he really? Also was Marx homophobic? Just making sure.

[Invader Zim]

I do not recall reading any such material personally, however it would not shock me if it were true.

Undoubtedly Engels, while a very progressive man, was a product of his time. Expecting him to have the same opinions as modern leftists is ridiculous. You must remember that at this time, homosexuality was totally unacceptable, and even prisonable in countries where today it is socialy accepted (even if not by everybody).

[Poum_1936]

Perhaps you could give us qoutes?

Marx was a womanizer in his youth. No one is perfect. Even Prodhoun was quite sexist. I agree, that to expect older revolutionaries such as the afore mentioned individuals to have the same standards as modern leftists is ridiculous. People are products of their own times.

Who knows, maybe in the future some idea we may hold now could be considered reactionary in the future.

[Black Dagger]

Prodhoun was sexist, no doubt Marx and Engels had their own prejudices.
However, there prejudices are irrelevant to US, what is relevant is their 'good' ideas. The idea of a 'perfect' Marx/Engels/etc is only important to people considered with the 'cult of personality', any serious communist should be smart enough to realise that no human is 'perfect', and that we must take the best ideas of everybody, their 'bad' ideas are just that, bad, and should be ignored. Just because Engels may or may not have been homophobic (as a product of his era, he probably was), doesn't make any of his writings and analysis any more useful/important, it just means (suprise) he was not perfect.

[bolshevik butcher]

But marx talked about freeing woman from the imprisonment of the modern fmaily and sexism didn't he?

[OleMarxco]

Yeah, well, it's easy to talk the talk when you don't have to walk the walk, just symbolically defend them :rolleyes:


I have read quotes from Engels that looked homophobic.
Right. Now you won't care to share them with us, now won't you? :D

[bolshevik butcher]

On the hompohbic thing, he may well have been but given the time i think that this is excusable.

[Black Dagger]

On the hompohbic thing, he may well have been but given the time i think that this is excusable.

It's not 'excusable', i can appreciate his historical context, but there's no reason why he should be 'excused', but like i said, it's largely irrelevant since marxism isn't a homophobic ideology.

[bolshevik butcher]

yeh i suppose, but what i mean is that it's not relevant to engles' writings.

[OleMarxco]

Surely he might have been a "man of his time" and have been raised to think homosexuals are BAD (because of Capitalism, AGAIN, since homosexuals "don't produce people" to work for them! Utter bullshit of course.) but he was a consent adult and could've made up his mind that just as they went against Capitalism and decided it was BAD, that Homosexuals being BAD was a fabrication by the BURGEOUISE and decided they were, atleast not GOOD, but OKAY! But perhaps he was afraid of being shunned by his fellow "Capitalists" ( :rolleyes: ) as if he weren't already....

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

I think that it is true that no man is perfect, and that Engels was a product of the society he lived in. However, Communists have to recognize that throughout much of the history of the International Communist Movement- even among genuinely revolutionary Communists- there has been a tendency to look down upon homosexuality and see it as "bourgeois decadence". Even in the genuinely-socialist USSR from 1917-1956, homosexuality was discouraged by the Party and at certain times even criminalized.

So while we should uphold the legacy of Marx and Engels, we shouldn't do so dogmatically, obviously.

[codyvo]

Originally posted by Clenched [email protected] 15 2005, 11:17 AM
On the hompohbic thing, he may well have been but given the time i think that this is excusable.
Although his views were acceptable and widely agreeable at the time, this doesn't excuse his behavior. His other beliefs shouldn't be disregarded but he was still a bigot. To excuse him of this would be like excusing slaveowners or any other historical bigot for their beliefs, which is wrong.

[Reuben]

is there any point to this thread? Just to clarify Marxists do not call themselves marxists ecause they think that Marx and Engels were ideal people. We call ourselves marxists because we identify with the particular pjhilosophythat marx/engels formulated in their political works

[SpeCtrE]

All I know it that Engles was 'Progressive' enough for his time. I wouldn't even dream of comparing him to todays Leftists on such issues like Sexism, homophoebia , and Racism.

[El_Revolucionario]

Engels had mocked a gay rights activist named Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Engels said that ulrichs was promoting a "gross unnatural vice" and "Really, it can only happen in Germany that such a no-good (as is Ulrichs) can transform lechery into a theory and invite us to 'enter.' "

[TC]

Originally posted by Black [email protected] 15 2005, 06:57 AM
The idea of a 'perfect' Marx/Engels/etc is only important to people considered with the 'cult of personality', any serious communist should be smart enough to realise that no human is 'perfect', and that we must take the best ideas of everybody, their 'bad' ideas are just that, bad, and should be ignored.
thats totally right

...but you know left commies/anarchists often appeal to Marx/Engels as counter points to later communists...like "Lenin did/thought such and such which goes against what (my unbiased, 100% correct interpretation of) what Marx said; he wasn't a real marxist!"

Which is also not disimilar from what the Maoist/Hoxhaist's do when they accuse later Marxist-Leninists of "revisionism."

The former types often accuse the later of making a 'cult of personality' around lenin or stalin and/or mao, but they do the same thing with marx and engels...why else would people even be asking this type of question?

[OleMarxco]

Originally posted by Mr. Mazenov
....even among genuinely revolutionary Communists- there has been a tendency to look down upon homosexuality and see it as "bourgeois decadence"....

It's more like Bein' Homophobic is of "BURGER-ouise decadence"! :D
'Cuz no-one want's to watch their FAVOURITE heroes of Anti-Capitalism...MARX AND ENGELS, to be filthy homophobes, NO!? :P

[Redmau5]

Originally posted by Andrei [email protected] 15 2005, 07:01 PM
Even in the genuinely-socialist USSR from 1917-1956, homosexuality was discouraged by the Party and at certain times even criminalized.


The USSR was never socialist, so it's no surprise that there was a certain level of homophobia. And homosexuality was only ever criminalised after Stalin came to power, not under Lenin.

[Clarksist]

Originally posted by Makaveli_05+May 17 2005, 09:41 PM--> (Makaveli_05 @ May 17 2005, 09:41 PM)
Andrei [email protected] 15 2005, 07:01 PM
Even in the genuinely-socialist USSR from 1917-1956, homosexuality was discouraged by the Party and at certain times even criminalized.


The USSR was never socialist, so it's no surprise that there was a certain level of homophobia. And homosexuality was only ever criminalised after Stalin came to power, not under Lenin. [/b]
Well in Cuba, there was (and still is) a very big machismo factor against homosexuality. I think that homophobia is definately, but the fact that Engels might have been homophobic doesn't carry over to me at all because I only care about his thoughts on the economy.

[danny android]

I'm pretty sure that i have read somewhere saying that engels himself was a homosexual.

[bezdomni]

I don't think that Marx and Engels really cared about the society of their times. They were probably the two most powerful critics of their society. Personally, I don't believe that homosexuality was a huge deal back then. People would live private lives and public lives...it would be acceptable for a person to be privately homosexual, but publicly it was abhorrent.

Marx and Engels never actually addressed the topic of homosexuality in depth through their writing, nor did they address many other important social events of their times...so certainly they wouldn't address anything about ours. Gay rights is a fairly recent fight.

I know that they were in favour of equal rights for women though and they were anti-slavery (so one would assume racism as well).

[lennonist-leninist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 04:09 AM
I do not recall reading any such material personally, however it would not shock me if it were true.

Undoubtedly Engels, while a very progressive man, was a product of his time. Expecting him to have the same opinions as modern leftists is ridiculous. You must remember that at this time, homosexuality was totally unacceptable, and even prisonable in countries where today it is socialy accepted (even if not by everybody).
exactly right it would be possable for engels to be homophobic. becuse in the time it was concederd i you wer homosexual you were looked down apon in socity.