Determinism

[R]

i believe what you're describing, joe, could be called the religion of
marxism.   marx had sense enough to say he wasn't a marxist.    the marxist
fanatics dogmatically picking over Marx's writings, like so many medieval
scholars nitpicking biblical interpretations, renders the life,
intelligence and vitality of marx into a dead, useless lump of words.

by the way, does anyone care to comment on Marx's anti-Semitism?   or have
i missed that discussion?

R

----- Original Message -----
From: Joe R. Golowka
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 11:33 AM
Subject: Re: Determinism


> Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 01:44:15 -0700
> From: "R" <rhisiart at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re:  Determinism
>
> Marx's historical determinism spoils the whole marxist thing for me;
> economics, social interaction and life isn't that simple or preordained.
> determinism is not intellectually honest, only rigorous since it's harder
> to lie to oneself than to tell the truth.   unless you're ari fleischer.
>
> I wonder what would be an example from Marx of this sort of thing?

This obsession with 'what Marx said' is one of the weaknesses of Marxism.
Marxists have a tendency
to see Marx as a sort of prophet
whose writings comprise a perfect materialist 'revelation' that can be used
to answer all of today's
questions.  If you read Marxist literature they're constantly referencing
things Marx said to support
their position and criticizing other Marxists for "revising" Marx or
"distorting" his works.  Many
people on this list have done similar things.  It doesn't really matter
what Marx thought about this
idea or that idea, it matters whether or not that idea is valid or not.  So
what if Marx said X, just
cause he said something doesn't make it true.  He died a long time ago, get
over it.  This treating
Marx's writings as some sort of holy revelation gives Marxism a sort of
pseudo-religious quality.  In
practice Marxists often 'interpret' Marx so he says what they want him to
say, just as most
Christians 'interpret' the bible so it says what they want it to say.  Any
ism named after a person
is inherently dogmatic and inhibits freethought, to one degree or another.
I prefer to think for
myself instead of follow some old dead guy.

Joe

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American
president would have to be
hanged."  - Noam Chomsky

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