"What We Are Not Embarrassed by" by Will Wilkinson

[John Day]

Will Wilkinson, a libertarian writer I like and respect, recently wrote on his blog about how Marxists are still accepted by the intellectual community despite the overwhelming evidence showing Marxism as a destructive ideology. Unfortunately, Wilkinson fails to mention that it's bad premises that make a bad philosophy and that its victims are only the final result.

Here is a good debate proposition: It ought to be less embarrassing to have been influenced by Ayn Rand than by Karl Marx.

The most powerful way to argue the affirmative is to compare the number of human beings murdered by the devotees of each. That line of attack ought to be decisive, but I’m afraid it won’t get you far with the multitude of highly-self-regarded thinkers influenced by Karl Marx. Fact is, commitment to some kind of socialism and fluency in the jargon of Marxism used to be mandatory for serious intellectuals. And there’s something glamorous in the very idea of the intellectual. Even for those of us who came of age after 1989, Marxism, like cigarettes, remains linked by association to the idea of the intellectual, and so, like cigarettes, shares in the intellectual’s glamour. I don’t know if cigarettes or Marxism have killed more people, but it’s pretty clear cigarettes are more actively stigmatized. Marxists, neo-Marxists, crypto-Marxists, post-Marxists, etc. have an enduring influence on intellectual fashion. So it is not only possible proudly to confess Marx’s influence on one’s thought, but it remains possible in some quarters to impress by doing so. It ought to be embarrassing, but it isn’t. Being a bit of a Marxist is like having a closet full of pirate blouses but never having to worry.

Why am I thinking about this? Because I ran across this N+1 blog post by Benjamin Kunkel about a recently departed Marxist historian named Giovanni Arrighi. I had never heard of Giovanni Arrighi. Should I be embarrassed about this? I’m not, though I’m willing to be convinced. Kunkel seems impressed with himself for being impressed with Arrighi. I wonder whether this should be a source of embarrassment for Kunkel. Knowing nothing about Arrighi I can’t be sure, but I can suspect. Here is something Kunkel says:

Not the least way that Marxism is opposed to capitalism is in its relationship to time. Capitalist culture approaches a pure instantaneousness: no future, no past. Marxism, by contrast, is a discipline of deep memory and long anticipation. It situates the effervescent eternity of our current way of life in the long sequence of the modes of production, from hunter-gathering, to early agriculture, through slave society, feudalism, the notorious “Oriental despotism,” and our own capitalism as, over four centuries, it has swamped the globe.

Do you understand the point of contrasting actually-existing economic culture to a doctrine? Neither do I. Standard, non-Marxist economic history is not only better history, but equally sweeping. Should we therefore say that the New Institutionalist school of economic history, for example, “is opposed to capitalism in its relationship to time”? Not if we don’t want to sound silly.

Here’s another thing Kunkel says:

People in the rich countries live longer today than ever before, even as the lifespans of our ideas, our feelings, our commitments, our fashions, our jobs, and the objects with which we surround ourselves shrink and shrink. One lives one’s long life in a cloud of mayflies.

Perhaps the fear of marrying a mayfly, of being a mayfly, explains Kunkel’s enthusiasm for intellectual vintage. Whatever else Marxism may be (”a discipline of deep memory and long anticipation”!), it’s not a mayfly. Like other time-tested creeds, Marxism is safer than having perishable ideas of one’s own. Unlike most other time-tested creeds, it’s not embarrassing in Brooklyn, whether or not it should be.

I'll close this with one of my favorite exchanges in We The Living:

"I know what you're going to say, You're going to say, as so many of our enemies do, that you admire our ideals, but loathe our methods."

"I loathe your ideals."

"Why?"

"For one reason, mainly, chiefly and eternally, no matter how much your Party promises to accomplish, no matter what paradise it plans to bring mankind. Whatever your other claims may be, there's one you can't avoid, one that will turn your paradise into the most unspeakable hell: your claim that man must live for the state."

[Chris Grieb]

No one in public life could call themselves a fascist or a National Socialist but you can still call yourselves a Marxist. You can't express the slightest sympathy with Joe McCarthy but you can be a Marxist.

[Selene]

Chris:

Of course and that is because McCarthy was right and Marx was wrong. That is the dirty little secret.

What I am embarrassed about is that the concept of a proper "debate" topic could be debased to:

Resolved that: It ought to be less embarrassing to have been influenced by Ayn Rand than by Karl Marx.

"oughts" don't belong in debate propositions.

Resolved that: An individual should be less "embarrassed" to be influenced by Ayn Rand than Karl Marx.

The status quo being that Marx is the better more accepted philosopher/historical figure than Rand.

Still needs some work to be a formal debate proposition. Not happy by less and embarrassed, but those would need to be defined by the affirmative and the negative. As many a debater will discover, it's the definitions stupid! With due respects to James Carville.

Adam

[Christopher]

Yesterday I noticed some posters for Socialism on the walls of buildings in San Francisco. The posters said: Socialism, what is it, why we need it, and [something about the myths Republicans have us believe about it].

The only thing that prevented me from ripping it down was that at the bottom, it said (paraphrasing): Socialism is about diminishing inequality and discrimination. "Oh," I thought, "that would be ok if they thought of it like that and not like USSR."... but I didn't feel ok, and so I thought about it more as I walked around.

That was quite a trick that made me hesitate - comparing non-socialism to discrimination. Socialism/Capitalism and discrimination are separate arenas of topics. If they were the same, we would consider hiring stars for NFL versus amateurs as discriminatory. Today, I plan to ensure I walk by these posters again, for they have a place in the garbage can nearby. I'm tempted myself to join the meeting and condemn it, but that would unfortunately waste my time more than it would add value to it. Still, it is quite a sight to find a poster promoting Socialism. It was like seeing a flying car.

[Selene]

John:

Mark Levin made reference to Wilkerson's blog on Rand and Marx tonight on his radio show.

He is linking to his blog on his site: http://marklevinshow.com/home.asp

At the end of his analysis, his peroration on the point being advanced by Wilkerson, who he likes, consisted of asking the question:

Were more people killed by Karl Marx or Ayn Rand!

If you have never heard his voice, it it an arrogant, nasally, "Jewish" New York Lawyer voice and it delivered that line with dripping sarcasm.

Levin is one of the finest Constitutional thinkers and attorneys in the US, his book Liberty and Tyranny is brilliant and his Landmark Legal Foundation is remarkable with work

that resulted in a contempt citation against the government.

"Landmark's instigation in 2003, Federal District Judge Royce Lamberth held the EPA in contempt for destroying files in a FOIA case

Landmark had filed against the agency over last minute regulations promulgated in the final days of the previous administration.

That suit also resulted in the agency completely revamping its procedures for responding to FOIA requests as well as collecting

and preserving possibly responsive information to such requests."

http://www.landmarkl...topDefault.aspx

Adam

Edited August 27, 2009 by Selene

[anonrobt]

John:

Mark Levin made reference to Wilkerson's blog on Rand and Marx tonight on his radio show.

He is linking to his blog on his site: http://marklevinshow.com/home.asp

At the end of his analysis, his peroration on the point being advanced by Wilkerson, who he likes, consisted of asking the question:

Were more people killed by Karl Marx or Ayn Rand!

If you have never heard his voice, it it an arrogant, nasally, "Jewish" New York Lawyer voice and it delivered that line with dripping sarcasm.

Levin is one of the finest Constitutional thinkers and attorneys in the US, his book Liberty and Tyranny is brilliant and his Landmark Legal Foundation is remarkable with work

that resulted in a contempt citation against the government.

"Landmark's instigation in 2003, Federal District Judge Royce Lamberth held the EPA in contempt for destroying files in a FOIA case

Landmark had filed against the agency over last minute regulations promulgated in the final days of the previous administration.

That suit also resulted in the agency completely revamping its procedures for responding to FOIA requests as well as collecting

and preserving possibly responsive information to such requests."

http://www.landmarkl...topDefault.aspx

Adam

Interesting you saying Levin's book is 'brilliant', when the review in The New Individualist gives it thumbs dumb, as 'just huffery and puffery'...

[Selene]

Anonrobt:

I have not read the review. I do not have the issue.

I stand by my statement. I understand the audience that is was directed to.

Adam