Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Marx

  • What Explains the Left’s Toleration of Militant Islam?

    From 1789 on, a defining characteristic of the Left has been hostility to religion, especially in its institutionalized forms. This goes together with a commitment to such Enlightenment values as individual liberty, belief in reason, and equality, including equality among the races and between the sexes. Thus the last thing one would expect from the…

  • Michael Valle on Marxism-Leninism

    Our friend Mike provides us with an accurate overview of this pernicious Weltanshauung and rightly points out that it is by no means dead but (as I would put it) enjoys a healthy afterlife in those leftist seminaries called universities, but not only there: I am convinced that ML [Marxism-Leninism] is alive and well in…

  • The Politics of Impassibility

    This just over the transom:   I hope you don’t mind my seeking your help on an issue related to the history of philosophy. I and a few friends are have a disagreement re: the origin of belief in divine apatheia.   In Manana: Christian Theology from a Hispanic Perspective, Justo Gonzalez discusses the political motivations behind…

  • Michael Valle on Marxism-Leninism and Islamism

    There are four new philosophical-political posts at Mike Valle's infrequently updated weblog that I recommend. Start with Marxism-Leninism and Islamism and scroll up. Excerpts with some comments of mine: One thing that people got wrong with the communists, and they get wrong with the  Islamists, is that they think that people can’t really believe this…

  • The IQ Taboo and the Truth-Intolerant Left

    The Left is dangerous for a number of reasons with its disregard for truth being high on the list.  For the Left it is the 'narrative' that counts, the 'script,' the 'story,' whether true of false, that supports their agenda. An agenda is a list of things to do, and for an activist, Lenin's question, What…

  • Makers and Takers: “You Didn’t Build That!” Revisited

    Robert Paul Wolff writes, Every one of us comes into the world endowed with a material and cultural inheritance that we have not earned and can never justify.  There are no "takers" and "makers" in our society.  All of the takers are makers, and all of the makers are takers.  And quite often those who…

  • Muslim and Marxist

    Muslim: There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet.  Marxist: There is no God and Marx is his prophet.  (This is not a MavPhil original, but I cannot recall where I found this witticism.)

  • Marxist Utopianism Illustrated by a Passage from The German Ideology

    Here is a famous passage from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (ed. C. J. Arthur, New York: International Publishers, 1970, p. 53): . . . as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which…

  • Haiku Commentary on Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach

    The Marxist Nowhere Man Attempts to change What he does not understand.

  • Marx and Kierkegaard and Buddha: Comparative Notes

    Karl Marx in his Theses on Feuerbach protested that the philosophers have merely interpreted the world in various ways, when the point is to change it. (Die Philosophen haben die Welt verschieden interpretiert; aber es kommt darauf an, sie zu veraendern.) His century-mate, Soren Kierkegaard, at the opposite end of the political spectrum, but sharing…