/lit/ - Literature

bumping because .......because i put a modicum of effort into my post

>>Marx inspired Stalin, Stalin = Bad so Marx = Bad etc

But of course. When Marxist principles are enacted, leaders like Stalin are what you get. Or perhaps Pol Pot. With a little Robert Mugabe on the side. Shit always floats to the top.

What do you expect from someone writing for the Telegraph about Hobsbawm really?

As for the Flanders' doc it was far too basic and contradicted itself too many times. Someone from the Adam Smith institute said that wages had risen consistently and then about 10 minutes later people talked about how wages in the UK and US had stagnated. It said a few times that Marx didn't create a vision for a socialist utopia so hopefully anyone with a modicum of sense would see that you can't label all communism marxism etc etc.

What it did do was present Marx's writing as perhaps a legitimate tool to be used to understand capitalism. Of course you had those on the other side saying how all of Marx's writing was trash. For instance one talking head saying how Marx didn't understand the profit motive and then a few minutes later Flanders explains how Marx saw what the profit motive could do.

Hobsbawn was a fucking monster and the fact that he wasn't universally reviled shows the spectacular extent of double-think that goes on in the minds of the left.

>>3026513

She's quite fuckable though, I think.

stupid sexy flanders

>>3026573
>When Marxist principles
which principles?
and by that I mean it explicitly... which prescriptive principles actually espoused by marx... not someone that claimed to be speaking for him

>What is it about Karl Marx, that when journalists introduce him into their broadcasts they do a completely terrible job of it?
Bourgeois ideologists keep trying to kill him. Since they've been at it for decades, it plainly isn't working.

Ignatieff then asked: "In 1934, millions of people are dying in the Soviet experiment. If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that time? To your commitment? To being a Communist?"

Hobsbawm answered: "This is a sort of academic question to which an answer is simply not possible. Erm ... I don't actually know that it has any bearing on the history that I have written. If I were to give you a retrospective answer which is not the answer of a historian, I would have said, `Probably not.'"

Ignatieff asked: "Why?"

Hobsbawm explained: "Because in a period in which, as you might say, mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing. Now the point is, looking back as an historian, I would say that the sacrifices made by the Russian people were probably only marginally worthwhile. The sacrifices were enormous, they were excessive by almost any standard and excessively great. But I'm looking back at it now and I'm saying that because it turns out that the Soviet Union was not the beginning of the world revolution. Had it been, I'm not sure."

Ignatieff then said: "What that comes down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified?"

Hobsbawm immediately said: "Yes."

>>3026610
baww

>>3026610
Of course, Ignatieff agrees with him, since he seems to have no problem with how his cultural projects have flourished, giving him a world where -he- lives comfortably.

>>3026610

Barbarism: A User’s Guide
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20108-07/Eric%20Hobsbawm.htm


amnesty international lecture 1994

perhaps a more representative snippet of Hobsbawm's life work

>>3026573
people who don't understand what Lenninism and the Vanguard Party are and the influence these things had on all communist states should not make such stupid comments.

People who don't know Marx actually said very little about Communisn or 'Communist principles need to shut up and let the grown ups talk

>>3026641
What the fuck does that mean?

>>3026656
Read up on Indian famines during the British reign.

>>3026660
read up on my dick

>>3026660
British imperialism was marxism?

>>3026664
hey fella
i got b& for telling someone to 'suck my dick' yesterday.
As a newly reformed contributer to /lit/ I feel the need to tell you to watch your mouth buddy

>>3026670
As someone who can spell, I feel the need to tell you to fuck off.

>>3026667
As a bourgeois liberal, Ignatieff is just as responsible for the crimes of imperialism as Hobsbawn is of Stalinism's. Of course, Ignatieff is more directly responsible for his support of American neo-imperialism in Iraq.

>>3026672
well that was substantive

>>3026675
Read what you just wrote. Attempt to use logic on it. When you understand why what you wrote makes no sense whatsoever, delete your post and try again. That was a pathetic attempt.

>>3026670

This is the second thread where I've seen you whining about it.

Butthurt much?

>>3026684
Do you mean Ignatieff isn't responsible for something that happened before he was born? On the contrary, his crime in taking up bourgeois liberalism fully aware of its past is greater than Hobsbawn's, who didn't know what was happening in the Soviet Union.

>>3026703
OK you're completely retarded so let's take this step by step.

1. I have absolutely no clue why you are talking about Ignatieff at all. Guy did an interview, that's it. If Ignatieff turned out to be a mass murderer that actively pursued policies to starve innocent Indian babies, he would still be irrelevant to the point. Ignatieffs character and/or crimes have no implication whatsoever on how we should view Hobsbawn.

2. Comparing the directed mass murders of Stalin to the famines in India is utterly absurd and nonsensical. There are no lines to be drawn here, no useful analogies.

3. Even if we ignore the above, Ignatieff never tried to defend whatever historical crimes you imagine the British were guilty of (guess what, food shortages aren't a British invention; there were famines that killed similar amounts of people in the subcontinent before British rule). Hobsbawn on the other hand says that the Stalinist crimes were justifiable in his eyes.

>>3026684
Do you see the red colored numbers in each comment? That means that the person is commenting some something said in that comment post (each post having a number). Click it and it'll take you to the post in question. Often you'll find the comment you just went to has yet ANOTHER red number in it. If you follow these until there aren't any more, you might find that there's a conversation going on.

Since you're struggling with this I'll just tell you that you're responding to something. See, earlier, someone posted a conversation that a person named Ignatieff had with a person named Hobsbawn. Ignatieff said that Hobsbawn is a bad man because a few of his ideas are similar to those of people who killed people. The smart people in this thread are telling you that Ignatieff is being 'hypocritical', which basically means that he (Ignatieff) is saying not to do something even though he himself is doing it and has no intentions of not doing it.

So, if you 'attempt to use logic on it', you will 'understands why what you wrote makes no sense whatsoever,' and you make wish to 'delete your post and try again'. After all, it was a 'pathetic attempt' on your part.

:)

>>3026721
>Ignatieff said that Hobsbawn is a bad man

[citation needed]

And even if Ignatieff was a hypocrite that doesn't mean Hobsbawn and Stalin weren't bloodthirsty, evil, monsters.

>>3026723
You really don't know what's going on in this thread.

hobsbawm hobsbawm hobsbawm hobsbawm
in the popular swing of things he is a greater historian than schama, ferguson and that dick with the glasses who does history on Chanell 4 (in the uk)in regards to pre ww2, European history.

In the academic world I think he is strongest in his analysis of nationalism and traditions/culture.

Anybody with an interest in post 17th century history would do well to read him regardless of what their political affiliations. I can't emphasize this enough.
If you find yourself ideologically opposed to someone there is a good deal to be gained from reading them.... at least you can cast your convictions in firmer foundations. know your enemy.

It is sad that he passed as he had a great mind, as anybody who actually read his work will confirm.

Part of me hopes that in the passing of "Marxists", and in the diminishements of the influence of ACTUAL marxists in european academia there will be a lessening of hostility to european academic work in regards to economics, history and politics in america (inb4 blah blah blah post-structuralists/modernists they really have no footing).

I'd also like to highlight hobsbawms work in promoting enlightenment values before people denigrate him by cherry-picking parts of his archive where he (as he would freely acknowledge) misspoke many years ago , before people knew what was going on , about the atrocities in the ussr etc.

RIP in peace eric


as to what this thread is actually about......... i dunno . false consciousness

>>3026726
No you fucking faggot. You made a claim.

You said, and I quote:

>Ignatieff said that Hobsbawn is a bad man

SHOW ME WHERE THIS HAPPENED

You're making up shit in your mind and then telling me I don't know what's going on in this thread.

>>3026719
1. Ignatieff is taking up a position of moral superiority in relation to Hobsbawn.

2. Britain was importing massive amounts of food from India while the people starved. At least part of the blame for the famines lay in their economic policies. See the book Late Victorian Holocausts.

3. He said the crimes would have been justified if they had truly created a better world. They didn't.

>>3026686
Yeah
Im angry.
i freely admit it
who wouldn't be?
I didn't post child porn or post off-topic.
some guy was being a fucktard so i told him to suck my dick
It was an appropriate response
what of it?

also you, like me, spend way too much time lurking here

>>3026730
Alright, listen. >>3026734 has done a simple outline for you. Ignatieff plainly states (as you do) that his opinions are atrocious because his opinions ("Marxism") have lead to deaths of millions. What Ignatieff and yourself are being bombastically ignorant about is that "capitalism" has caused the deaths of billions, and the death toll hasn't stopped yet. Ignatieff lives a comfortable life carved in the blood, toil, and murder of foreign indigenous and native poor. Not just the food theft in India, but the imperialist and industrial takeover of the entire fucking world.

So, if Hobsbawm is A HORRIBLE MONSTER ZOMG for being a marxist that hasn't explicitly stated that he'd still support communism even if he knew that the murdering carried out by the Soviets would take place, Ignatieff is moreso a monster for deliberately profiting off a system HE KNOWS is gruesome and bloodthirsty.

They call this is pot calling the kettle black, except in this case the kettle is only gray.

>>3026742
*hasn't > has

>Capitalism is responsible for monsoon failures
>Capitalism is not responsible for growth in agricultural productivity and ending famine in the developed world
>Communism is not responsible for the genocides that have occurred under every notable Communist leader or starvation in the contemporary DPRK
Leftists, everyone

>>3026785
Good job reading the thread.

What the fuck does this have to do with literature?

>>3026803
That is literally what you've been spouting.

>>3026816
Hobsbawn was a writer, so this is about as relevant as the threads about DFW eating kittens.

>>3026742
>Ignatieff plainly states (as you do) that his opinions are atrocious because his opinions ("Marxism") have lead to deaths of millions.

Where? Show me where this happens. Copy and paste the text where you see this.

>>3026742
>"capitalism" has caused the deaths of billions

>>3026832
>he's never been to Africa, central America, India or east Asia

For all the "growth" that's happening in 1st world countries, 10 third worlders are being ground into dirt

>>3026836
But growth in industry and agriculture in the Third World has been great ever since they embraced capitalism.

>>3026836
East Asia is doing great. The rest are generally as far away from capitalism as you can get today.

Oh wait you mean the evil white man is using capitalism in his own country to magically oppress them.

Right.

STOP SMOKING WEED AND READ SOME FUCKING ECONOMIC TEXTBOOKS YOU WILLFULLY IGNORANT RETARDED ZEALOT

>>3026839
heroin is also really great until you can't find a source for it

>>3026847
Work is also really great until you can't find a job.

Therefore no one should work.

Leftist logic

>>3026598
And she has been fucked, too, I bet, and fucked and fucked and fucked. Getting to the top in journalism, it's all in the breasts.

>>3026839

>>3026856
>participating in a system that degrades everyone who participates in it

>living standards are going up slowly, that means capitalism is ethical

you neolibs are a guffaw and a half

I'm going to go smoke a cig
i will delete this thread when I get back
I was going to launch an ultimatum " say something substantial or else...." but.... but....but... I don't think this will happen.
I accept that my first post wasn't wonderful .....but that makes deleting the thread easier.
I should've known /lit/ would be /lit//

Let's face it what is called "capitalism" must be evil, because it would include all of the Western nations to the present today and the crimes of slavery and so forth, The only question is whether 'capitalism' exists as merely a possible system, or whether it is just the only system, the natural state of affairs. If it exists as simply one possibility among many, then how do you prove that? How do you prove that capitalism is not eternal? That feudalism [and whatever came before?] are not just different stages of "capitalism", which is perhaps the biggest generality ever invented, and perhaps the most meaningless.

Most of the anti-communists, I assume, would take the perspective that capitalism is simply the natural state of affairs, and that therefore all of its crimes are attributable to nature, and not to man who has supposedly created a system called 'capitalism' - although Marx himself, I believe, never anywhere posits that capitalism is a choice - to him it is inevitable, and so the moral responsibility sloughs off as capitalism re-submerges itself in the face of nature.

Yeah the 3rd world is doing great under capitalism - with Asian Values, which is sort of fascism btw.

nobody outside of academia, committed marxists, and literati understand marxism.
so... uk media? methinks too busy attending networking cocktails to read Capital. fuck, i haven't read capital (but then i don't pretend to understand marxism)

>>3026893
>slavery didn't exist before capitalism
whut?

oh and i just flipped through this thread, fuck your faces amerifats

>>3026904
One might more rightly say that capitalists abolished slavery and Marxists re-instated it.

>>3026904
I didn't say that.

Capitalist media performs a hit-job on Marxist intellectual
>BUT WHY? WHY THIS HAPPEN? WHY THEY NO UNDERSTAND MARXISM AND PRESENT FAIR AND BALANCED TAKE ON IT?

that's you, OP, that's what you're doing. if you literally can't understand why journalists in any basically capitalist country would do this, i don't know what to say. it's completely clear why this happens: because Marxism is hostile to the class interests of journalists and the owners of media, and so media is inclined to be hostile and uncomprehending towards Marxism. i'm not even a Marxist but this seems pretty straightforward

>>3026909
Only if one refuses to speak of wage slavery.

>>3026916
>wage slavery
Pffft

Yes, if you're just going to laze around all day you aren't going to be guaranteed subsistence. What a horrible system, Stalin for President!

>>3026513
The problem isn't with right wing critics of Marxism and Marx—see Leszek Kolakowski. The problem is with the quality of UK journalists. I'm a Marxist by the way, and there are cogent—if incorrect on the whole—scholarly criticisms of the Marxist theoretical and praxical project. Expecting to find such from journalists is like expecting a mule to give a call to prayer, and now you're stuck with an ass up your minaret.

>>3026917
That's hardly what the abolition of wage slavery would mean - people lazing around.

>Expecting to find such from journalists is like expecting a mule to give a call to prayer, and now you're stuck with an ass up your minaret.

I'm drunk as fuck... ... .. . but I hope you never stop posting, /lit/ really needs more like you.
you're wonderful and I hope your life is roses.

bamp

>>3026909
>Clearly every abused baby and every kicked puppy is done so by Marx himself, but capitalism is the immaculate Good Word and has nothing to do with the cannibalization of humanity, its culture, and its environment

>>3026968
>>3026968
My life is as sour and vile as my invective. When life gives you Lemonaide critique it for seawater. Yes I am an academic.

>>3027079
i dont understand what you are alluding to
pleases expand
brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>>3027079
Genocide, cultural destruction, ethnic cleansing, and environmental destruction in the Soviet Union alone far surpass anything that occurred under capitalism, and that's just the stuff they did on purpose.

And of course capitalism has many great things to show for itself, including the conditions for the comfort and ease the victims of your insane ideas never got to experience. If the same could be said for Marxism...

>>3027091
oh fuck.
i hope this is not true
i like you
i can barely type...... seriously
fuck
i was gooing to get puizza. but cant functipn

i still think you are fucking awwesome... i hope you sleep well
g'night

>>3027095
reads like a hamster dry-humping a VHS

>>3027095
>actually believing this shit in any year ever
Very soon you're going to -really- get knocked down from your middle-class stool, and you're not going to find a lot of solace from this shit that you've swallowed down so easily. Donald Trump will still be shitting in gold toilets while you're sipping down your pride with your soup in the homeless shelter, assuming they even let you in.

>>3027110
When the revolution comes I assume?

>>3027115
>Doesn't have the first fucking clue
Romney, why are you on 4chan?

>Hobsbawm dead.
>Gellner long dead.
>Anderson in his late 70s.
>Smith still alive.

These are dark times for modernists.

>>3027095
>Genocide, cultural destruction, ethnic cleansing, and environmental destruction in the Soviet Union alone far surpass anything that occurred under capitalism, and that's just the stuff they did on purpose.

Citation needed.

>>3026729
This. Hobsbawm's ability to masterfully weave in his sources well laying out a really detailed but also very broad narrative about the materialist economic and demographic factors that have been behind developments in the West changed the way I looked at a lot of things.

His economic social analysis really just sets the standard for me in some ways. Another great, great author in this tradition is Hanna Batatu, a historian of Iraq.

bump

Why is it okay to be a communist but not a national socialist?

>>3027832
>nazis
>socialists

>>3028125
Next you'll tell us Mussolini wasn't a communist either...

>>3028423

>>3028426
I've seriously seen some retard hippies actually try to deny it...

>>3028437
Look at this fucker. Look at him and laugh.