Determinism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>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

You are not "thinking for yourself" here, as what you wrote above 
simply reproduces an old charge that "Marxism is a secular religion." 
In fact, the charge that "X is a secular religion with its own dogma" 
must be at least as old as conservative reactions against modern 
revolutions in the age of the Enlightenment.  Here's an example from 
Edmund Burke: "It [the French Revolution] is a revolution of doctrine 
and theoretic dogma.  It has a much greater resemblance to those 
changes which have been made upon religious grounds in which a spirit 
of proselytism makes an essential part" ("Thoughts on French 
Affairs," 1791).  In short, your rhetoric is stuck on the right in 
the 18th century!
-- 
Yoshie

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