Exploring (mostly Cultural) Marxism in today's Left

I empathise entirely with your inability to read Das Kapital. I didn't get far in it either, and I sometimes suspect that nobody has ever actually read it all the way through. Maybe one enthusiastic student of Marxism-Leninism in 1970s Moscow struggled to end, but I'm dubious about that.The Communist Manifesto, however, is actually quite short and not very difficult, and you can find it easy online - I actually found an audiobook version on Youtube (didn't listen far, but I'm not filled with confidence in the narrator given that he mispronounced Engels' first name). If you're just confused by the references to 19th century politics I'd be happy to explain some of the bits that you don't get.It only has four chapters - really only three, since the fourth is simply a brief call to arms. We can take them one by one.The first chapter is an explanation of Marx and Engels' views on the history of society*. It basically outlines that they see history as different economic classes struggling for their own interests (not always consciously).The society of their day they see as dominated by the bourgeois class (capitalists, basically); which developed out of the townspeople of the Middle Ages and had, over the course of centuries, destroyed feudal society and absolute monarchy; remaking society in its own bourgeois image. Modern representative democracy (by which they meant 19th century republics and constitutional monarchies, which were in many ways not what we would consider modern, representative democracies) was society organised to defend and promote the interests of the bourgeoisie.Bourgeois society, by its internationalisation; its technological modernisation and its search for new markets was eliminating all of the old social classes ("the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant"), but in doing so was preparing it's own destruction (in M&E's view). All of society except a small elite was being turned into one the same thing - the common industrial worker. But this meant that the ruling class were no longer facing a whole bunch of different classes with different interests - they had instead created one unified class consisting of the overwhelming majority of the world's population, who all had the same interests.As this class began to realise it's shared interest and united it would do away with the bourgeoisie. And, unlike previous social changes, the newly dominant class would not be a small minority group establishing society in it's own image. It would be the whole mass of society who now shared one class consciousness, and communist utopia would ensue.Now, there's much in here that is important for later Marxist thought. Here we have the basics on which dialectical materialism is based; and the brief discussion of capitalism's internal contradictions and inevitable crises is pretty much the main 'Marxist' part of contemporary economist who describe themselves as Marxist. I'm not sure if any of this if what you're seeking though.Let me know if you're interested in Chapter 2.*At least, Marx and Engels wrote it. It's presented as the conclusions of an international conference of Communist parties.Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

Hi Faith, I think the 'ch' at the end should not sound as in 'chase', but like in 'loch' - though a bit harder. I seem to remember that at least one of the regulars speaks German, so hopefully they can correct if I'm wrong. It strikes me that much of your criticism here is not really aimed at Marxism, since it applies much more widely. You could say the same about any ideology - you gave the example of Islam; but remember that one Solzhenitsyn's own examples was Christianity.Of course, you will tell us that 'Christians' who justify inhumanity with Christianity are not True Christians. But, as you yourself just pointed out, anti-Stalin Marxists will tell us that Stalin and his ilk were not True Marxists. I'm not seeing a difference. Well, based on what Marx and Engels wrote they clearly did not believe future generations would have different oppressors, since they saw the class struggle of their day as the culmination of it all - the class struggle to end all class struggles.Now clearly they were wrong, and later Marxists have tried to develop their ideas to explain this. But I kind of get the impression from your posts that you see Marxism as the source, if maybe indirect, of any thinking in terms of oppressed and oppressors, but that's clearly silly. These are pretty basic ideas that long predate Marxism.I found myself thinking of Thomas Stamford Raffles in his account of the history of Java. This may seems like an obscure reference, but it came to ind for two reasons - firstly because it was published a few years before Karl Marx was born, so you can't even blame indirect influence; and secondly because Raffles' thinking on economics and political rights seems to be a perfect example of the 'bourgeois ideology' Marx was criticising.In his history, Raffles talks about oppressed and oppressors all the time. He discusses the oppression of the Chinese by the Malays; and he discusses at great length the oppression of the Javans by the Dutch colonial administration. When you get to this point it becomes a bit hard to communicate; since you no longer seem to be using words in the same way as I do or, for that matter, living in the same reality. Marxism has nothing to do with people getting annoyed when you declare that Islam is a murderous, evil ideology dedicated to a demon god. Let me know, since funnily enough most of Chapter Two is written in the form of a response to 'bourgeois 'criticisms that communism is all about undermining human values, fairness and goodness.

That's like saying Christianity did not become a major world religion. They claimed it did, but what they did was nothing like Christianity.Now you might be right that the behaviour of most Christian churches and self-professed Christians differs from your favoured interpretation of Christ's teachings. We tend to demur when people say that therefore the Catholic Church is not Christian, though,

The description dates from the Middle Ages. Wikipedia has a nice 16th century woodcut depicting the idea: The idea that Marxism actually comes from Satanism is risible. All you've presented is wild accusations by a priest who'd been persecuted by communists. Marx told stories to his children about a witch who'd sold his soul to the devil, and he was not always a communist. This is not even circumstantial evidence. Wurmbrand was not always a Christian - he was a Jew and later a Communist.This is no longer trying to understand Marxism and it's influence on the modern left. This is a willful refusal to understand; instead opting for a childish fairytale in which those whose ideas you find distasteful are not only wrong - they are the conscious agents of Evil. It's easier than trying to actually understand the complexities of the world, but it won't lead to any insights.

When someone who does not believe in God refers to Satan in a poem, they're probably doing so with a different intent than someone who believes that Satan is a really existing thing.I don't intend to waste much time on discussing whether various long dead people were only pretending to be atheists as part of a secret Satanic plot, but I am suspicious of Wurmbrand's scholarship after reading this: I just reread the Communist manifesto for this thread; so I could see that this is clearly not a quote from that book. I thought at first it might be a made up quote; and in a sense it is. Usually when you have a quote with a (...) in the middle, it just means you've cut something out of the middle of a quote to save space, or because it wasn't relevant. In this case, however, what he's done is take a quote from the Communist Manifesto, and then after the ellipse follow with a quote from an editorial in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung written a year afterwards.To put the latter quote in context, the editorial was written during the revolutions of 1848 - a few days after the bombardment and capture of Vienna. The imperial government was at that time executing the leaders of a democratic revolution; having just successfully besieged its own capital. The second quote is not, as it appears, a full sentence. The full sentence is a follows (the 'June and October events' refer to the violent suppression of an uprising in Paris and the bombardment of Vienna, respectively).

quote:

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The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.

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Now, I'm not trying to defend violent revolution here; but if you want to understand what someone said; you should read what they said - not a dishonest smear piece.And with that intention I'll get round to Chapter 2 soon!

Of course there's class hatred in Marxism. The very foundations of Marxism are based on the fact that an antagonism of interests between two classes is the most important aspect of modern society, and that the road to true freedom and progress lies in the fight against the bourgeoisie and the ultimate abolition of their class and all it stands for.Now, you can say that this is simply a rational analysis of class relations and has nothing to do with class hatred. But if you did we'd take you as seriously as those who rant about the dangers of Islam and then claim they're just doing calm analysis rather than being Islamophobic.

Bit of misunderstanding. I thought it should be pronounced with a hard 'ch', but apparently the guy on Youtube knows German orthography better than me.

Was that an intentional joke?

I happen to have spent my entire life living in Europe, so I know you're talking bullshit. As should you, as I've pointed it out before. In a previous discussion of media bias I mentioned the fact that the chief editors of the largest TV news station in this country were taped advising their reporters that they had to present refugees in a negative light and try to convince everyone that Muslims were a danger to Europe; or they could not expect to keep their jobs.To look elsewhere in Europe, here's how the largest selling newspaper in the UK covers immigration and Muslims: One of their columnists offered this PC opinion. Of course, their coverage is positively Frankfurt school compared to the second biggest paper.: The idea that "few want to risk saying anything against their "immigrants" and "refugees."' is absurd. Lots of people in Europe are happy to rant endlessly about evil Muslim immigrants, and do so with little prompting.

And other European leaders and people say different things. The Prime Minister of Hungary enjoys loudly expressing his view that Islam is incompatible with European civilisation, that it is impossible for Muslims to integrate and that we should not allow Muslims into Europe. Clearly there is no sinister force preventing people from speaking their minds on the topic.Have you paused to consider that the leaders and ordinary people who do not talk about Islam and Muslims in the same way as you do so simply because they don't agree with your view of things? Because we don't all think the same. I am not terrified into silence and inactivity by hate-mongers ranting about me betraying Europe; and more than they are terrified into silence and inactivity when I refer to them as hatemongers and Islamophobes. Idiot says something stupid. What's your point?

I believe what Jon is referring to is the idea that modern thinkers who complain about 'cultural Marxism' are the ideological heirs of Nazi's in the 30s who complained about 'Kulturbolschewismus' - cultural Bolshevism. Cultural Bolshevism was all a plot orchestrated by liberal intellectuals and artists to erode the time-honoured traditions of German culture and abolish respect for accepted norms, in order to pave the way for political Bolshevism. The idea is discussed in Mein Kampf; where Hitler is thinking specifically of the field of artistic culture as being the thin end of the Bolshevist wedge destroying society.

quote:

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In this connection attention must be drawn once again to the want of courage
displayed by one section of our people, namely, by those who, in virtue of their
education and position, ought to have felt themselves obliged to take up a firm
stand against this outrage on our culture. But they refrained from offering
serious resistance and surrendered to what they considered the inevitable. This
abdication of theirs was due, however, to sheer funk lest the apostles of
Bolshevist art might raise a rumpus; for those apostles always violently attacked
everyone who was not ready to recognize them as the choice spirits of artistic
creation, and they tried to strangle all opposition by saying that it was the
product of Philistine and backwater minds.

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I realise I never got round to writing any more about Marx - I got distracted, sorry. Need to go and reread the Manifesto!