Exploring (mostly Cultural) Marxism in today's Left

I apologize if this is getting off the intended topic.A very interesting work on the history of Marxism as a philosophy is Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution by Leszek Kołakowski.Kołakowski was a Polish dissident. He was trained as a philosopher under the communist regime, but became disaffected and emigrated to the West.Very brief summary of the book (basically what I got out of it):In the 19th century Marxism was a very intellectually active philosophic activity, with several very different strands in various countries at various times.Lenin, though, was pretty humorless and unimaginative, and using his prestige as the only (at the time) successful leader of a Marxist revolution and the resources at his command as the leader of a nation, he managed to largely marginalize and eliminate all the different schools of though except his relatively dull and uninteresting one.It is a very interesting work if you are fascinated by the history of ideas like I am.A couple of drawbacks: he doesn't talk about Maoism or other forms of communism since his own experience was with the European schools. Also, he wrote the book in the 1970s, so there isn't anything about Marxism after the collapse of the USSR.One warning if anyone wants to try to read it: the first chapter is a bit of a slog. To put Marxism in the context of European philosophy, he gives a summary of the history of European philosophy starting with Plato. It gets pretty deep into metaphysics (he was trained as a philosopher, after all!) and I had a lot of trouble following a lot of it. But I found the rest of the book worth it. It was this book that, more than anything, pointed out to me that although I call myself a socialist, I am definitely not a Marxist.Your mileage may vary, though.

And then you include a whole paragraph about Islam that is itself an example of sophomoric reductionism.Just sayin'.- Which is also the criticism that I have with the contemporary rightwing in the US.- Like Trump's? Like the current Republican majority of Congress? Like when you go on about how awful the Leftists are, and how the media and the courts are in thrall to them? It appears that almost every comment you post here is all about good guys vs bad guys.-Personally, I agree that a "sophomoric reduction" of almost every issue as a black and white conflict between good and evil in which no quarter can be given, that is a pretty unfortunate, often dangerous, view to take. However, your side doesn't seem to rise above this sort of thing, either.

Answer: A citizen of a democratic republic who has every right to try to advocate for policies I believe is in the best interests of my fellow members of the commonwealth and to vote for those representatives who will try to enact those policies (or at least work out a suitable compromise with the representatives of those who disagree with me).In fact, if I were to ask you who do you think you are to obstruct those changes or to effect changes in the other direction, I would expect you to give the same answer.

And yet there are people who would treat every individual Muslim the same, as if the all have the exact same beliefs, as if they are all dangerous, as if none of them have any positive contributions to make. That is what I object to.- Just to be clear, having an ideology is not itself good or bad. An ideology is a set of ideas and principles about what is right and wrong and about how people behave that helps guide a person in deciding whether to support particular social programs.Do you have a set of general principles that helps guide you in deciding whether specific actions are right or wrong? That is an ideology. Do you have a set of general principles about what a government should do and what should be prohibited to it? That is an ideology.That's not to say a there aren't specific ideologies that are bad, or that there aren't people so committed to their beliefs that they refuse to compromise on anything or to admit it's possible they might be wrong; I'm saying that most of us work under some sort of ideology whether or not we want to use that particular word to describe it.I just wanted to say this because a lot of people use "ideology" to mean "fanatics who believe stuff I don't like".- This I agree with.Long ago, conservatism was a coherent political theory (actually a set of closely related ideologies); one I disagreed with, but at least there were clearly articulated beliefs and principles with which one could argue.Today, though, US conservatives are just a bunch of people who are angry. Angry about the way their lives are turning out. Angry at the society they see around them. Angry at the changes in this country that they resent.Some of this anger is justified; some isn't. But most Americans who call themselves conservative don't really have a coherent explanation of what's actually wrong and what should be the corrections.Instead, all they have is a long list of stuff they don't like that they just label "Marxist", "liberal", or "Leftist".Today's American conservatives do not understand the world in which they live, nor do they have any kind of framework which could enable them to make consistent, logical changes in their lives. So they are reduced to reacting blindly to the incomprehensible forces pushing them about.

Yeah, that chart seems to be base on the idea that "left/right" is the same thing as "liberal/conservative", which is the same thing as "democracy/authoritarianism".Oh, and that all of these are just different labels for "stuff I like/stuff I don't like".

Why? What you just wrote pretty much sums up everything you've been saying all along.

Capitalism is about individuals owning businesses ("the means of production") and paying other people wages to work for them.Which Republicans don't believe in private ownership?- "Not necessarily"? Marxism is about (among other things) eliminating private ownership of capital and putting the means of production under the control of the workers.Which Democrats specifically want to eliminate privately owned capital?- I'm sure everyone already knows this, but just to make sure, not all socialists are Marxists. So "Marxism versus Capitalism" isn't the dichotomy since it doesn't include a lot of other stuff.I realize that this thread is specifically about Marxism, but I thought this needed to be said.

I have to ask:Can anyone identify the painting and artist in the pre-click video link? If I were to watch the video, would it tell me? Added by edit:I found it. It's by Edvard Munch. The painting is Madonna.Sorry for the off-topic, but the style was so familiar and it was a case of the name of the artist being on the tip of my tongue. Annoying me to no end, it was.Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

Did you mean diabolically ineffective? 'Cause I'd have to actually work at it to avoid hearing the rightwing's screeds against Muslims and immigrants and Satanist/Marxist/feminist/political correctness.If the censorship was "diabolically effective", then the only way you'd get any right wing news is by passing back and forth USB drives with the rightwing samizdat as your church group met in secret in a basement.