PoliticalChic
Diamond Member
The world would not be in such a snarl
Had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl
Irving Berlin.
Perhaps the most significant political figure in the world in the last several centuries....born this date.
Karl Marx
GERMAN PHILOSOPHER
BORNMay 5, 1818
Trier, Germany
(Birthday tomorrow)
DIEDMarch 14, 1883 (aged 64)
London, England
To many on the Left, Karl Marx was the messiah, well before Democrats named Hussein as their latest messiah.
Having just finished historian Paul Johnson's book, "Intellectuals," I will provide a tutorial on the life of this evil iconoclast.
The Most Deadly Intellectual
The only way not to guess the name from the title would be if one had no knowledge of the 20 century.
1.āKARL MARX has had more impact on actual events, as well minds of men and women, than any other intellectual in modern times. The reason for this is not primarily the attraction of his concepts and methodology, though both have a strong appeal to unrigorous minds, but the fact that his philosophy has been institutionalized in two of the worldās largest countries, Russia and China, and their many satellites.
ā¦ the kind of personal dictatorship he envisaged for himself (as we shall see) was actually carried into effect, with incalculable consequences for mankind, by his three most important followers, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, all of whom, in this respect, were faithful Marxists.ā Paul Johnson, āIntellectualsā
2. Just as The Enlightenment led to the French Revolution, with the mistaken view that embracing science necessitated abolishing religion, Marxism became popular with the mistaken view that it was based on science.
For a general audience, science was magic, and it would allow man to not just understand the universe, but to control it.
3. And a particular branch of science carried Marxism over the finish line!
One of the first readers of 'On the Origin of Species' was Friedrich Engels, then living in Manchester. He wrote to Karl Marx: "Darwin, by the way, whom Iām reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect."
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Marx-Engels Collected Works" , vol. 40, p. 441.
Teleology is the idea that nature, or history, actually has a purpose, a design. Most theology presupposes a teleology
Marx, backed by Darwin and Freud, changed the world.....and not for the better.
4. āMarx was a child of his time, the mid-nineteenth century, and Marxism was a characteristic nineteenth-century philosophy in that it claimed to be scientific. āScientificā was Marxās strongest expression of approval, which he habitually used to distinguish himself from his many enemies. He and his work were āscientificā; they were not. He felt he had found a scientific explanation of human behaviour in history akin to Darwinās theory of evolution. The notion that Marxism is a science, in a way that no other philosophy ever has been or could be, is implanted in the public doctrine of the states his followers founded, so that it colours the teaching of all subjects in their schools and universities.
This has spilled over into the non- Marxist world, for intellectuals, especially academics, are fascinated by power, and the identification of Marxism with massive physical authority has tempted many teachers to admit Marxist āscienceā to their own disciplines, especially such inexact or quasi-exact subjects as economics, sociology, history and geography. No doubt if Hitler, rather than Stalin, had won the struggle for Central and Eastern Europe in 1941-45, and so imposed his will on a great part of the world, Nazi doctrines which also claimed to be scientific, such as its race-theory, would have been given an academic gloss and penetrated universities throughout the world. But military victory ensured that Marxist, rather than Nazi, science would prevail.ā Johnson, Op. Cit.
The result has been both disastrous, ā¦..and ongoing.
Had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl
Irving Berlin.
Perhaps the most significant political figure in the world in the last several centuries....born this date.
Karl Marx
GERMAN PHILOSOPHER
BORNMay 5, 1818
Trier, Germany
(Birthday tomorrow)
DIEDMarch 14, 1883 (aged 64)
London, England
To many on the Left, Karl Marx was the messiah, well before Democrats named Hussein as their latest messiah.
Having just finished historian Paul Johnson's book, "Intellectuals," I will provide a tutorial on the life of this evil iconoclast.
The Most Deadly Intellectual
The only way not to guess the name from the title would be if one had no knowledge of the 20 century.
1.āKARL MARX has had more impact on actual events, as well minds of men and women, than any other intellectual in modern times. The reason for this is not primarily the attraction of his concepts and methodology, though both have a strong appeal to unrigorous minds, but the fact that his philosophy has been institutionalized in two of the worldās largest countries, Russia and China, and their many satellites.
ā¦ the kind of personal dictatorship he envisaged for himself (as we shall see) was actually carried into effect, with incalculable consequences for mankind, by his three most important followers, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, all of whom, in this respect, were faithful Marxists.ā Paul Johnson, āIntellectualsā
2. Just as The Enlightenment led to the French Revolution, with the mistaken view that embracing science necessitated abolishing religion, Marxism became popular with the mistaken view that it was based on science.
For a general audience, science was magic, and it would allow man to not just understand the universe, but to control it.
3. And a particular branch of science carried Marxism over the finish line!
One of the first readers of 'On the Origin of Species' was Friedrich Engels, then living in Manchester. He wrote to Karl Marx: "Darwin, by the way, whom Iām reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done. Never before has so grandiose an attempt been made to demonstrate historical evolution in Nature, and certainly never to such good effect."
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Marx-Engels Collected Works" , vol. 40, p. 441.
Teleology is the idea that nature, or history, actually has a purpose, a design. Most theology presupposes a teleology
Marx, backed by Darwin and Freud, changed the world.....and not for the better.
4. āMarx was a child of his time, the mid-nineteenth century, and Marxism was a characteristic nineteenth-century philosophy in that it claimed to be scientific. āScientificā was Marxās strongest expression of approval, which he habitually used to distinguish himself from his many enemies. He and his work were āscientificā; they were not. He felt he had found a scientific explanation of human behaviour in history akin to Darwinās theory of evolution. The notion that Marxism is a science, in a way that no other philosophy ever has been or could be, is implanted in the public doctrine of the states his followers founded, so that it colours the teaching of all subjects in their schools and universities.
This has spilled over into the non- Marxist world, for intellectuals, especially academics, are fascinated by power, and the identification of Marxism with massive physical authority has tempted many teachers to admit Marxist āscienceā to their own disciplines, especially such inexact or quasi-exact subjects as economics, sociology, history and geography. No doubt if Hitler, rather than Stalin, had won the struggle for Central and Eastern Europe in 1941-45, and so imposed his will on a great part of the world, Nazi doctrines which also claimed to be scientific, such as its race-theory, would have been given an academic gloss and penetrated universities throughout the world. But military victory ensured that Marxist, rather than Nazi, science would prevail.ā Johnson, Op. Cit.
The result has been both disastrous, ā¦..and ongoing.
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