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6987753 No.6987753 [Reply] [Original]

What's with pseudo-intellectuals and an attraction to Marxism?

It never seems to be STEM people, either.

My guess is that people who really understand Math already have their "super tough knowledge" validation.

So people who are confused by a 100 level Calc For Business Majors course get frustrated and try to get their own "super smart stuff" validation by piling obscurantism on their actually really simple meaning and we get Marxism and post-modernism.

The lack of understanding in math works as a lubricant since their system of ideas won't be bogged down in actually having to be logically consistent.

Does this sound correct?

>> No.6987758

I'd chalk it up more to a lack of understanding of economics.

The Labor Theory of Value is the equivalent of Miasma theory after all.

>> No.6987760

>>6987758
That applies to the economic side, but Marxism (at least today with neo-Marxism) encompasses every aspect of existence.

>> No.6987769

>>6987753
>It never seems to be STEM people, either.
I like how you just slid that in there and then adopted it as an axiom

Good thinking, shows initiative. I like that.

>> No.6987776

Atheists have to fill the void that theists fill with God. Marxists are just people who chose the Gospel of Karl.

>> No.6987777

TROLL HARDER, FAGGOT

>> No.6987778

>Does this sound correct?
No

Even accepting the ungrounded assertion that people who have difficulty with science and mathematics invariably pursue humanities fields, there is no reason to single out Marxism rather than any other political philosophy or economic philosophy considering that your average physics undergrad is better suited to analyzing market data than any free-market ideologue.

I mean, Einstein was a socialist and he knew more mathematics than most mathematics grad students ever will.

>sweeping generalizations with no logical or empirical basis
are you sure you aren't the one who is confused by freshman calculus? Apply yourself, pal.

>> No.6987781

>>6987778
>your average physics undergrad is better suited to analyzing market data than any free-market ideologue.
Do you really believe that?

>> No.6987782

>>6987769
>first pseudo-intellectual, look-at-me post
>it's a tripfag
filtered :^)

>> No.6987793

>>6987778
Einstein wasn't a Marxist. That's what this thread is about, pseudo-intellectual. Try Reddit if you're trying to impress people with the supposed sophistication of your internet persona.

>> No.6987799

>>6987778
>W-why single out Marxism? Y-you can't do that!
Nah. It's fine to single out ideologies when you want to ask specific questions about them.

>> No.6987808

>>6987793
>>6987799

What are you trying to get out of this?

>> No.6987809

>>6987782
Just kill me right now

>> No.6987813

>>6987781
No I just said it to be asked if I believed it.
>>6987793
>advocated planned economy, disparaged capitalists, supported Lenin, and published in Monthly Review
enjoy your hair-splitting if it makes you feel better pal.
>>6987799
Not when it relies on assumptions that are widely applicable and attempts to draw conclusions about a particular ideology based on widely applicable assumptions. It's implicit bias and ends up saying nothing about Marxism.

>> No.6987820

>>6987753
Marxism is far from obscure or terribly inconsistent, at least its core literature. It is outdated, though. I'd say it's not a form of validation, but a search for a system that fits their previous inclinations.
Plenty developments have surpassed marxist understanding in many fields, so the college marxist thing is often just a phase for most people.

>> No.6987824

>>6987808
Someone asked a question about mediocre pseudo-intellectuals being attracted to Marxism. You responded like a mediocre pseudo-intellectual.

>> No.6987844

>>6987808
I'm trying to make Marxists upset. It isn't hard. You just have to disagree with them a little bit.

>> No.6987860

Great thread OP, it wouldn't be /lit/ without the daily troll-Marxists post.

>> No.6987864

Well a lot of people on STEM have that better than you attitude so is logical that they wouldn't want something like marxism that strives for equality

>> No.6987878
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6987878

Basically rich/smart people don't want communism because they'll make less money and poor/dumb people think they'll make more money under communist rule.

>> No.6987902
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6987902

Marxism is for contrarians and teenagers who have never read philosophy.

>> No.6987933

>>6987878
you realize that image is photoshopped and therefore not funny, right?

>> No.6987941

>>6987844
Anybody who considers themselves a Marxist, Platonist, Hegelian, Lacanian, and what not immediately takes a position that can be easily argued against, precisely because they've grounded themselves in that position indefinitely, and to retract from it invalidates the entirety of their presence in dialogue.

Often young people easily attach themselves to a specific philosopher or movement without being ready to defend their stance or even fully comprehend the breadth of their, and the opposition's, argument.

So no Marxist or Heideggerian is 'right' rather taking the position, either for argument or for the foundation of your entire philosophy (if you're actually smart enough to start writing publishable essays and literature) requires a necessary inward step where you sort of already accept that "you're wrong" and thus you drum up the case in defense of your, and by effect person/subject of inquisition (if you're writing on Kant, you must be ready to refute every single one of Kant's points and see him as an enemy) while simultaneously taking the needed detriment to your integrity, in a sense that you lose a bit of yourself in the dialectical so that the ideas of the person you're studying can be reflected through your ideas, and thus you yourself have created the conditions to synthetically form your own opinion, and the same happens in dialogue between another person, you accept that you're wrong inwardly, while simultaneously knowing that the ideas of the person (for Marx the ideas I find the most attractive is the use of force to change history, the fact that philosophers must act as active social critics and commentators, and basic ideas on disproportionate wealth inequality [especially in his era of hyper-capitalism where the effects were more obvious than they are here in the West today]) are what are important and needed to be spoken about.

Use philosophers as vehicles, but never explicitly tell someone that or you'll derail the conversation. It's a very fine line to walk.

t. not a Marxist, just think every philosopher has something good to say, and by extension when we wish to have nice dialogue, we must be willing to put ourselves in the role of subservient to the intellectual or movement we wish to learn from

>> No.6987943

Because STEM fields aren't concerned with what Marxism addresses. STEM isn't concerned with whether or not material conditions create ideas or vice-versa.

But history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology are. In these fields, Marxism is a popular frame of reference (though others exist). Certainly economics has its share of Marxists, too, but econ is pretty corrupt. One need only compare the relative pay of econ professors to learn they are bourgeois puppets.

>> No.6988167

>>6987753
>What's with pseudo-intellectuals and an attraction to Marxism?

People tend to hold beliefs that they can relate to. It has less to do with the ideology itself and more with personal identity.

I used to have an obnoxious friend who never explicitly said he was Marxist but quoted Marx once: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Never mind the fact that Marx wasn't the first person who said it. My friend thought it meant that making people go through hell is because of good intentions when the real meaning is the opposite. He was anti-intellectual to the point where he didn't realize he had a reading comprehension problem, didn't double check facts, and believed only in his own interpretations.

>> No.6988206

Mostly-libertarian here, should I into Marxism? I just want to read some opposing views.

>> No.6988318

>>6988206
The Communist Manifesto can be read in an hour.
Download it and see if it's your cup of tea.

>> No.6988350

Do you people really think that you are going to discourage people reading Marxism with those high-school arguments? Do you really think anybody stopped being a Marxist because you think you btfo them by saying "STEM answers everything in life just check my 30k starting"?

>hurr durrr Marxism if or dumb people! Smartness be only for science-men, they smart because of maths and science-magic!!!!!

Or is it just shitposting for amusement?

>> No.6988366

>>6987943
>Because STEM fields aren't concerned with what Marxism addresses. STEM isn't concerned with whether or not material conditions create ideas or vice-versa.
Historical Materialism is not concerned with whether or not material conditions create ideas or vice-verse either. You're thinking of the debate between vulgar idealists (Berkeley) and vulgar materialists (de la Mettrie) in the 17th and 18th centuries. Voltaire concerns himself of word-play of this sort (while trying to be humorous) in his dictionnaire philosophique.
Just like Psychoanalysis or Social Darwinism, Dialectical Materialism was an attempt to reconcile Materialism and Idealism.
And it so just happens that the approach of Marx provides quite convincing answers to some of the riddles in history and views you might find odd these days.
As for STEM - what is STEM? Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics. As thinkers go Karl Marx IS pretty STEM.
>>6988206
find a different board for a question like this. /r/criticaltheory may for example provide you with an answer that will sound fine to a 21st century American. With "fine" I mean it won't make you choke on your hamburger while shouting something on "the Jews".

>> No.6988380

>>6987753
your some kind of autistic engineer type arent you

>> No.6988446

>be wrong, want something no one's going to accept like 13 million people ruling the whole world

>hmm let me devise a method of sounding like i'm right

>> No.6988463

>>6987776
Christposters are the only thing more cancerous than marxposters. End yourself.

>> No.6988472

>>6987813
>average physics student
>better at econometrics than an econometrician
That's a pretty nice meme you've got there, stemlord.

>> No.6988488

>>6988350
You're right. Nothing posted on this thread will discourage people from reading about Marxism, just like you can't stop a gay man from having gay sex. People attracted to Marxist philosophy will have a natural affinity towards it.

>> No.6988490

>>6988206

The following is a selection of writings to obtain a rudimentary theoretical understanding of Marxism to a complete beginner. Only the last three are longer than around 30 pages. Read in order from top to bottom.

''The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism'' by Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/mar/x01.htm

''Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism'' by Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/index.htm

''Theses on Feuerbach'' by Marx
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm

''Principles of Communism'' by Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

''The Communist Manifesto'' by Marx & Engels
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

''Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'' by Marx
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

''Socialism: Utopian and Scientific'' by Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/

''Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy'' by Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/

''State and Revolution'' by Lenin
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

''Three Component Parts'' and ''Exposition of Marxism'' are articles written by Lenin that will give you a rough introduction to Marxist philosophy. ''Principles'' is an early draft of the ''Manifesto''. I recommend reading it first. The MIA pdf for the ''Communist Manifesto'' I linked contains the various prefaces in the various translations; in one, Engels outright concedes that the demands in the ''Manifesto'' were outdated a mere mere decades after it was first published, and that it was very much a period piece. Lenin's Granat Brothers' Encyclopedia entry contains the key chapters from the ''Preface to the Contribution'', but there's no harm in reading it. You don't have to read the whole ''Contribution'', just the ''Preface,'' but no-one is stopping you from reading the whole thing. ''Utopian and Scientific'' is taken from paragraphs within the ''anti-Duhring'' and ''Ludwig Feuerbach'' is inspired by ''The German Ideology''. In ''State and Revolution'' Lenin details the Marxist conception of the state and iss required reading (alongside the ''Manifesto'') for every self-proclaimed socialist.


If you want to get into Marxian econ, you start with Wage-labour and Capital, and Value Price and Profit. The problem with Critique of Political Economy is not just thats its really huge, but also because Marx employes a dialectical method that will confuse non-dialectical thinkers. For that I recommend Ollman's books on dialectics (start with Dance). If you do want to get into Capital, you may want to read Engels's summary of Capital, the Contribution, and the anti-Duhring.

>> No.6990707

Marxism, like all philosophies and ideologies, can be argued against and refuted in some form. Parts of Marxism are relevant, just as parts of Platonism are relevant. You're best off looking at everything and mashing together the best ideas.

>> No.6990713

>>6987941
You sound like a Hegelian

>> No.6990721

Tbh stem fags, while smart, are often entirely cucked by capitalist ideology.

Science for the sake of knowledge is like 1% of science if that. The rest is producing for companies new shit to sell and new patent's etc.

It's funny because then people turn around and ask why NASA and CERN doing get more gov funding.

Like lol

>> No.6990724

>>6987941
I like you.

>> No.6990758

>>6990721
You describe mostle engineers and lobby-funded researchers.

The guys that rely mostly on state grants sing a different song. (Not to say they are all that scrupulous. You get more bling from publishing several papers than actually putting good work out there.)

>> No.6990764

>>6990758
*mostly
Holy shit. I almost mispelled it as "mostle" just now.

>> No.6990798

>>6990758
Yeah agreed. But they clearly become more socialist as they see the need for gov funding. And tbh most major patents started as gov funded, Chomsky had some work on how shit capitalism and entrepreneurship really is at scientific progress

>> No.6992208

>>6987753
Marxism is an elaborate justification of violent property theft and tyranny. Of course the bent are attracted to it.