Marxist intellectuals

[jstrodel]

I am writing this as someone who has a philosophy background and I wonder the degree to which Marxism can be reconciled with the academic culture that gave it rise. Marxism tends to be very fast to quench dissent and creates its own rules and norms and exists outside of other intellectual categorization. I believe that Karl Popper called Marxism psuedoscience.

Also, as serious thinkers, how can you put forward an idea and than use state power to ensure that it will go unchallenged. How can this be made consistent with the scientific method - actually, it is the exact opposite. Don't you feel very small when you do this?

Also, as a prospective intellectual who wants to consider Marxism seriously, how can I possibly feel like a real man if I know that my beliefs are being supported by political power rather than reason? This is not intended to be an insult, isn't the acceptance of a dogma by authorities a sign of servility? I would feel if I was made to do this like I was inadequate, a person who was fearful of the state.

I don't fear anything. I would die right now for my beliefs. Why should I fear the government of the Soviet Union and care about their censorship efforts? Why should I take it seriously? Why shouldn't I fail to see the authority of their beliefs and try to overthrow the government.

I would kill a man for what I know to be true, but I won't kill a man for psuedo-science.


How can you all, as Marxists, and as men, feel comfortable submitting to authority that rest on the authority of a man? Doesn't that make you feel like you doing something sexually degrading? Like you are a servant of man?

I find all nationalism to be almost like a sexual pervsion. How can anyone love what is human and tainted? I do not love America, I would never die for America, but I would die for what I believe.

Why should I die for Marxism?

[jstrodel]

Isn't the acceptance of yielding yourself as a love slave to a coercive, psuedo-scientific system sort of allowing yourself to be sodomized? How as men can you not kill those who would sodomize you before you would bend over towards the influence of a forced and intentionally veiled lover?

[Leftsolidarity]

How can you all, as Marxists, and as men, feel comfortable submitting to authority that rest on the authority of a man? Doesn't that make you feel like you doing something sexually degrading? Like you are a servant of man?

We're not all Marxists nor are we all men. Your post is strange and seems rather sexist and homophobic.

I would probably write a more proper response if your post wasn't so odd and if you didn't already come to the forum talking about how evil Marxism was ,and that you parted with leftism, I would take your statement about trying to take it seriously as truth. I don't, though.

[Zealot]

Your premise assumes that Marxism is pseudoscience and you've made wild conclusions based off of that without even backing up your premise. You also seem to have a phobia of sodomy.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Yeah marxism isn't a "science" don't need popper to tell you that
But I mean w/e
Also, what do you mean by "philosophical background"? A degree? Systematic readings of Rothbard?
Nobody even needs to deal with the rest of your argument it has very little to do with either marxism or philosophy.

How can anyone love what is human and tainted?

But this is pretty fucked up.

[Narcissus]

I am writing this as someone who has a philosophy background and I wonder the degree to which Marxism can be reconciled with the academic culture that gave it rise. Marxism tends to be very fast to quench dissent and creates its own rules and norms and exists outside of other intellectual categorization. I believe that Karl Popper called Marxism psuedoscience.

Also, as serious thinkers, how can you put forward an idea and than use state power to ensure that it will go unchallenged. How can this be made consistent with the scientific method - actually, it is the exact opposite. Don't you feel very small when you do this?

Also, as a prospective intellectual who wants to consider Marxism seriously, how can I possibly feel like a real man if I know that my beliefs are being supported by political power rather than reason? This is not intended to be an insult, isn't the acceptance of a dogma by authorities a sign of servility? I would feel if I was made to do this like I was inadequate, a person who was fearful of the state.

I don't fear anything. I would die right now for my beliefs. Why should I fear the government of the Soviet Union and care about their censorship efforts? Why should I take it seriously? Why shouldn't I fail to see the authority of their beliefs and try to overthrow the government.

I would kill a man for what I know to be true, but I won't kill a man for psuedo-science.


How can you all, as Marxists, and as men, feel comfortable submitting to authority that rest on the authority of a man? Doesn't that make you feel like you doing something sexually degrading? Like you are a servant of man?

I find all nationalism to be almost like a sexual pervsion. How can anyone love what is human and tainted? I do not love America, I would never die for America, but I would die for what I believe.

Why should I die for Marxism?

OK, Noixon is severely confused - I've tried explaining to him before that Humans aren't all that great but to no avail.

Marxism is about equality and justice - the only people who must submit to authority are the bourgeoisie - and that authority is the dictatorship of the proletariat - the dictatorship of the majority. Justice.

The slave owners will be punished when the slaves free themselves.

State power? No, it is about the power of the people. No hierarchy - true democracy.

I really can't believe that you have actually read any Marx.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

What's wrong with 'sodomy'? From what I hear, it's hot.

Also, you're a horrible troll. 1/10.

[jstrodel]

I am not a troll. Do you think I am writing what I am writing because I want attention? I lost years of my life to the left's psuedo-science, and psuedo-philosophy.

I apologize to everyone if I was not more clear. Let me restate my original point:

I believe the government is not worthy of fearing unless its policies are justifiable. Government authority should only be accepted if it is placed on some justifiable level. The policies of every single Communist nation have been to build an ideology and establish it by limiting free speech.

I see the Communist as being a coward. I am not trying to troll. I am an intellectual. I see my duty as an intellectual to be set free by knowing the truth, and to set others free.

When I see the Communists, they do not seem like real intellectuals to me. Learning is a deeply romantic process. How can you have a romance with a doctrine that is forced upon you?

I feel such a deep fire in my soul, such an unquenachable thirst in my spirit, to know truth and establish righteousness, to wed myself to what is God, and conceive children in the knowledge of what is Holy.

I see my belief, my ideaology, as a deeply personal, romantic love. I love God like I would love my wife, if I was married. I would easily die for what I believe.

The love of one's God is above all other loves, it is erotic. That is why I used sexual imagery.

When you apply the language of love to Communism, it is more like rape. Or sodomy. I will avoid the homosexuality debate because that is against the forums rules. But when you look at the way the Communist state functions, the Communist party hacks are like rape victims. They do not have the choice to say no.

To be a Communist is to be in a forced marriage with Communism. How is the Communist who accepts his forced religion not a coward?

I guess I see love also in some way comes out of a clear perception. The one that I love, I know, and love with no dissimulation. I know what he is like, God is beautiful.God is holy. I have seen thousands of images showing me God's bright shining light. I love God out of a choice to be married to him.

The Communists have no choice but to marry Communism. They worship a veiled lover, the Communist worships a belief system that is man made, and that does not even meet its own internal epistemological standards. It is not scientific, Marx's theories about revolution where supposed to predict a revolution in England, but instead one came in Russia. Karl Popper proved that Communism was psuedo-science and Communism has been discredited outside the world of punk rock and youthful rebellion (and China).

How can you, as Communists, accept to worship something that is obviously political propaganda? Don't you feel like a 16 year old kid who is being sat down by the police and manipulated into believing something that is false? How can you accept the state's role in coercing people to be Communists?

Thank you for considering my thoughts.

[jstrodel]

Since it is against the forums rules to consider discussion of sodomy, please consider my references for sodomy to refer to rape.

That is what the Soviet Union was, it was a country that raped everyone that was a part of it. The Soviet Union forcibly sodomized all the people under its brutal rule. It raped everyone with its propaganda and lies.

Isn't this a problem?

[o well this is ok I guess]

I believe the government is not worthy of fearing unless its policies are justifiable. Government authority should only be accepted if it is placed on some justifiable level. The policies of every single Communist nation have been to build an ideology and establish it by limiting free speech.

This is why no one here is taking you seriously as an "intellectual"
cmon man troll better

[jstrodel]

Marxism is about equality and justice - the only people who must submit to authority are the bourgeoisie - and that authority is the dictatorship of the proletariat - the dictatorship of the majority. Justice.

State power? No, it is about the power of the people. No hierarchy - true democracy.

I really can't believe that you have actually read any Marx.

Narcissus, this has never occurred, and never will occur. What has occurred is that millions of people have been enslaved by Communism. Where has there ever been an establishment similar to the one you envision.

I feel so badly for you, watching you type. I used to be so idealistic like you. So gullible, so ready to believe the left-wing propaganda press and so willing to consider anything else the "corporate media". I love you, I care about you personally, that is why I am writing this.

Please use your head. Consider the debates between empiricist and rationalist philosophers - what is the source of knowledge, does knowledge come only from a priori speculation or must it be proved. Of course, it must be proved. Knowledge requires pragmatic justification, anyone can prove anything to anyone on paper, especially if that person is under 25.

I have read the Manifesto. I was never a Marxist.

[jstrodel]

This is why no one here is taking you seriously as an "intellectual"
cmon man troll better

Troll better? What are you talking about? Are you crazy? Are you so decieved that you believe that you are free to speak your mind in Communist China or Soviet Russia? Marxism is the most authoritarian force on the earth.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Troll better? What are you talking about? Are you crazy? Are you so decieved that you believe that you are free to speak your mind in Communist China or Soviet Russia? Marxism is the most authoritarian force on the earth.

Cmon man all this shit your spewing would be immediately shut down in any serious setting. All you're doing is aying "NO MARXISM IS THE DEVIL" with a smattering of insults for good measure, rather than any actual demonstration.
You're just putting your effort into sounding like an "intellectual", rather than doing the actual work of the intelligentsia.

[jstrodel]

Your premise assumes that Marxism is pseudoscience and you've made wild conclusions based off of that without even backing up your premise. You also seem to have a phobia of sodomy.

Consider the reference to sodomy as "rape". The Soviet Union raped its people.

Red Godfather, none of Marx's predictions have come true. But Marxism is not based on falsifiable predictions, it is based on political propaganda. When Marxist predictions do not come true, such as the revolution happening in first in Britian, Marxists do not scrap the theory. Look up Karl Popper. Marxism is a discredited theory, the only people that really take it seriously are humanities professors. The whole Communist world is in 3rd world hell, meanwhile the capitalist world is profiting.

Marxists don't care about things like that. They care about Marxism.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Are you so decieved that you believe that you are free to speak your mind in Communist China or Soviet Russia? Marxism is the most authoritarian force on the earth.

THOSE COUNTRIES WERE NOT MARXIST, COMMUNIST, NOR SOCIALIST

But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class – that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.

- Rosa Luxemburg

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Istrodel, you may want to engage more with Marx and Marxist thinkers before you dismiss it as a "pseudo science". You admit that you have only read The Manifesto. Read The German Ideology,The Holy Family, An Introduction to A Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, the 1840s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts,The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon and The Civil War in France, and Wage Labor and Capital. This will give you a good understanding of the Marxist method.Especially read the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts",. This is a deeply humanistic writing of surpassing alienation and humanity fully attaining its "species being".

It seems you are relying on bits of a high school or college caricature of Marxism.

There are not and never have been "communist countries".Stalin was shit but then the preceding Romanoff dynasty, in which 70% of the Russian population were semi-slaves, was also shit.Hitler was far worse shit. We need to understand the material causes of history, not retreat into a flaccid moralism.

I would also submit that the Russian people were "raped" under Yeltsin, during a time in which the economy and the living standards of the population collapsed.Half the population fell below the poverty level,the mortality rate skyrocketed, Russian society literally collapsed, while a tiny group of oligarchs became massively wealthy.This was spurred on by Bill Clinton, the Swedish economist Anders Aslund and Jeffrey Sachs.The Russian Orthox Church acted as cheerleaders.

[vanukar]

Consider the reference to sodomy as "rape". The Soviet Union raped its people.

Red Godfather, none of Marx's predictions have come true. But Marxism is not based on falsifiable predictions, it is based on political propaganda. When Marxist predictions do not come true, such as the revolution happening in first in Britian, Marxists do not scrap the theory. Look up Karl Popper. Marxism is a discredited theory, the only people that really take it seriously are humanities professors. The whole Communist world is in 3rd world hell, meanwhile the capitalist world is profiting.

Marxists don't care about things like that. They care about Marxism.

Maybe you should actually look into Marx a little bit before throwing out these ridiculous claims. The guy wrote thousands of pages talking about the contradictions of capitalism. Also, almost all Marxists can apply it to present-day situations and do care about what's going on at the present.

You're making an ass out of yourself.

[Narcissus]

Narcissus, this has never occurred, and never will occur. What has occurred is that millions of people have been enslaved by Communism. Where has there ever been an establishment similar to the one you envision.

I feel so badly for you, watching you type. I used to be so idealistic like you. So gullible, so ready to believe the left-wing propaganda press and so willing to consider anything else the "corporate media". I love you, I care about you personally, that is why I am writing this.

Please use your head. Consider the debates between empiricist and rationalist philosophers - what is the source of knowledge, does knowledge come only from a priori speculation or must it be proved. Of course, it must be proved. Knowledge requires pragmatic justification, anyone can prove anything to anyone on paper, especially if that person is under 25.

I have read the Manifesto. I was never a Marxist.

I really have to believe that I know more about philosophy than you do.
I mostly rid myself of societal conditioning long ago, and continue to do so every second that I live. When Descartes wrote about skepticism he was talking about me.

Your disgusting discrimination knows no bounds. We will gay away your pray.

[D-A-C]

Yeah marxism isn't a "science" don't need popper to tell you that
But I mean w/e
Also, what do you mean by "philosophical background"? A degree? Systematic readings of Rothbard?
Nobody even needs to deal with the rest of your argument it has very little to do with either marxism or philosophy.
But this is pretty fucked up.

That Marxism isn't a science isn't true ... i.e it is a science ... the science of social change.

Also, as someone who is less than a year a way from submitting a PhD based entirely upon Marxism that is an attempt to begin to create a 'science' for the study of the Media (and film in particular) I find your argument problematic lol.

Or as Darth Vadar might say ... "I find your lack of faith disturbing"

I am writing this as someone who has a philosophy background and I wonder the degree to which Marxism can be reconciled with the academic culture that gave it rise. Marxism tends to be very fast to quench dissent and creates its own rules and norms and exists outside of other intellectual categorization. I believe that Karl Popper called Marxism psuedoscience.

Also, as serious thinkers, how can you put forward an idea and than use state power to ensure that it will go unchallenged. How can this be made consistent with the scientific method - actually, it is the exact opposite. Don't you feel very small when you do this?

Also, as a prospective intellectual who wants to consider Marxism seriously, how can I possibly feel like a real man if I know that my beliefs are being supported by political power rather than reason? This is not intended to be an insult, isn't the acceptance of a dogma by authorities a sign of servility? I would feel if I was made to do this like I was inadequate, a person who was fearful of the state.

I don't fear anything. I would die right now for my beliefs. Why should I fear the government of the Soviet Union and care about their censorship efforts? Why should I take it seriously? Why shouldn't I fail to see the authority of their beliefs and try to overthrow the government.

I would kill a man for what I know to be true, but I won't kill a man for psuedo-science.


How can you all, as Marxists, and as men, feel comfortable submitting to authority that rest on the authority of a man? Doesn't that make you feel like you doing something sexually degrading? Like you are a servant of man?

I find all nationalism to be almost like a sexual pervsion. How can anyone love what is human and tainted? I do not love America, I would never die for America, but I would die for what I believe.

Why should I die for Marxism?

I actually don't know what your asking really tbh.

However Marxism is still an important theoretical discipline particularly within the social sciences of University departments, across Europe anyway.

Marxism isn't pseudo-science it's science.

It thoroughly analyses the history of the development of mankind and theorises the way in which it will transition to a better form of organization.

Again, I don't really know what your asking for, but...

If your worried about 'submitting to man' whatever that means, I recommend you read Structural Marxism which is defined by its rigourous Anti-Humanism. That basically means that it denies that there is an essence of that constitutes man or that the concept of man should be at the center of study.

Much in the same way Nietzsche pronounced the death of God, Structuralism and Marxist Structuralism pronounce the death of man.

Obviously not literally, but the death of man as the center of our understanding of the world in the same way the earth was banished as the center of the universe.

Anway, hope that helps somewhat.


Oh, and just to reiterate ... Marxism is very much a science and if you want to know more on why that is the case read the work of the French Marxist Louis Althusser, arguably one of the most influential Marxist thinkers of the 20th century.

[Hegemonicretribution]

I really have to believe that I know more about philosophy than you do.

Ah, then you will be familiar with argumentum ad verecundiam?

Seriously though, this thread is old. Are they even still posting?