"A seed of violence, perhaps?"

[Carl Remick]

>From a review of Marshall Berman’s “Adventures in Marxism” by Douglas A. 
Sylva, in yesterday’s NY Times Book Review:  “But the most striking element 
of this book is what is left unexamined: the dreadful history of Communism. 
Berman never truly considers whether, since so many different people in so 
many different countries have killed in Marx's name, there might be some 
connection between the theory and the practice, a seed of violence, perhaps, 
within Marx's own thought. Because of this omission, these essays, though 
erudite and entertaining, seem more like advocacy than argumentation.”

Of course, to state the obvious, precisely the same point could be made 
about the “many different people in so many different countries [who] have 
killed in” the name of Christ or Muhammad.

The larger problem is, is every Great Idea about the human condition doomed 
to be misunderstood and misapplied?  Does this very question push us in 
(perish the thought) a postmodernist direction about the unreliability of 
language?

Carl

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