The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ptarmigan on July 02, 2021, 09:05:01 PM
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Should Karl Marx Be Canceled?
https://www.econlib.org/should-karl-marx-be-canceled/
There are good arguments to the effect that nobody should be “canceled”; but if somebody should, it would be Karl Marx. For all we know, he was a bigot and a racist who even used the N-word, something worse for the current dominant culture than what many did who were canceled or will soon be. One of economist Walter Williams’s columns was titled “The Ugly Racism of Karl Marx.”
The main economic argument against the cancel culture is that of John Stuart Mill in On Liberty: freedom of speech is necessary in the search for any sort of truth. Not only do mobs historically and literally lynch unpopular individuals, but the fear of the mob also reduces the incentives to look for the truth and turns many people into wimps. Anybody can make youth errors but they are easily forgivable when the author later changes his mind; he should certainly not be punished simply for having been wrong (assuming he did not physically lynch anybody).
It is true that free speech does not—or should not—allow one to shout what he wants in somebody else’s living room or on a platform that belongs to somebody else. But we can still forcefully argue that the owners of private “speakers’ corners” should not be intimidated by witch-hunting mobs, especially when these mobs, as they nearly always do, are asking for the support of the government’s armed agents. The universities where the woke-cancel culture thrives do not belong to the wokes. And certainly, the state should not subsidize activism and speech against free speech.
Karl Marx is a racist and anti-Jewish.
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The Ugly Racism of Karl Marx
https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/05/10/ugly-racism-karl-marx/
May Day celebrations were held all across the fruited plain, with leftist radicals and unionists worshipping the ideals of communism.
Communism is an ideology calling for government control over our lives. It was created by Karl Marx, who—along with his collaborator, Friedrich Engels—wrote a pamphlet called “Manifesto of the Communist Party.”
In 1867, Marx wrote the first volume of “Das Kapital.” The second and third volumes were published posthumously, edited by Engels.
Few people who call themselves Marxists have ever even bothered to read “Das Kapital.” If one did read it, he would see that people who call themselves Marxists have little in common with Marx.
Communism has killed hundreds of millions. Karl Marx is an avowed racist.
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The short answer is no.
Karl Marx, as evil as he was, should not be "canceled".
Neither should Nietzsche, Hegel, or Kant. Or Machiavelli, Pascal, Tocqueville, or Schopenhauer.
All of those thinkers provide an insight into the development of man and of history.
Free men and women should be free to read, reason, and think about those who have gone before, as vile as they may be.
I've read Mein Kampf in its original German. Staggering now, but to the average German in post-Weimar Republic Germany, definitely not so vile. Somebody had to be blamed - it might as well be the Jews, and the French, and the Brits, and the Americans, and the . . .