<< Have you ever talked with mainstream newspaper and/or magazine
journalists? Such massive ignorance is entirely believable. Standard
issue, I'm tempted to say. >>
Case in point, dealing with Marxism, not anarchsim. Chicago Trib columnist praising capitalism the other day wrote, it took Marx many turgid volumes to even begin to define socialism, but the basic ideas of capitslim can be explained in 15 minutes. It would not have taken a lot of effort to find out that Marx's many volumes were an attempt to get a grip on capitalism, that he eschewed any definition or other exploration of socialism, and that he was, incidentally, not turgid but an exceptionally fine writer, if not a literary master on the order of Nietzsche or Heine, at least one one the level (in German prose) of Lessing or Klopstock.
The reporter might have buzzed Dan Brudney at the U of C philosophy dept or Charles Mills at UIC if going to Palgrave, the Enclopaedia of Philosophy, or the net was too much trouble, but he didn't. He preferred the cheap and ignorant shot. Now, here's an interesting contrast. I have a late 40's Life magazine full of Cold War craziness ("Lenin, the Evil Genius who launched Glogab Red Threat!"), but iut has a long, dense, thoughtful, and reasonably respectable (if politely hostile) article on Marx that tracks views that might plausibly be attributed to him, discusses them intelligently, and offers serious objectiosn to them, obviously written by someone who had read and thought about Marx. This was in Life, the picture magazine. What do you make of that?
--jks