/lit/ - Literature

>>23023847
Just read Main Currents of Marxism. No one should post about Marx or Marxism on /lit/ until they've first read it. If you have any Marx or Marxism question the first answer is read Kolakowski.

>>22980180
She was a naive fanatic. She had an absolute confidence in historical materialism as a law of history, and all that was needed was to rise up and implement what was inevitable and achieve communism. The workers, as dictated by the laws of history, would automatically join the revolution once sparked, and all it would take to achieve this obvious and inevitable happening was to not doubt or be cowardly, but to simply do, and it would simply happen. Marx had discovered an iron law of history, history simply would happen.

See Main Currents of Marxism by Kolakowski. She was equally naive fanatic on ecomomics, she believed she had discovered a basic mathematical error in capitalism that would mean it would automatically and inevitably collapse in the very near future. Like her naive and premature launching of a doomed revolt, no one could talk her out of it, an iron law of economics had been discovered.

>>22591156
De Sade is very important as libertine, Rousseauean, and republican thinker. But really OP should simply read Kolakowski.

>>21582477

>Mill, Berlin, etc.
>obviously, true liberals. but the former distinguished between higher and lower ends, and the latter distinguished between negative liberty and positive liberty
>Marx
>was a true liberal. criticized the bourgeoisie for pursuing only limited emancipation. Marx wanted true freedom: naturally, economically, and socially.
>Gentile
>was a true liberal. criticized Western democracies for not promoting positive liberty. sought to unite all elements of the community through the state.
So, what is liberty, then? What are we supposed to direct our freedom towards? Is all expression of freedom good? What if I become too free, i.e. too powerful?

Is this the open secret of secular political philosophy, that it seeks to make life meaningless (Marxism), has an unstable end (fascism), or that it tries to take the best of both worlds but it only works if we lower our expectations and soften our horizons (liberalism)?