Karl Marx's ideas have been responsible for the deaths of about 100 million people (and counting), yet they still seem to be granted plenty of airtime at our universities.
> Karl Marx's ideas have been responsible for the deaths of about 100 million people (and counting), yet they still seem to be granted plenty of airtime at our universities.
Karl Marx's economic ideas are part of history. Isn't airtime at universities based on what has influenced people and shaped the world, whether good or bad? Learning what went wrong in history is a feature, not a bug. Hitler gets plenty of airtime too, and unlike Marx, he was actually and directly responsible for millions of deaths.
"The countries associated with some Marxist nations have led political opponents to blame Marx for millions of deaths,[259] but the fidelity of these varied revolutionaries, leaders and parties to Marx's work is highly contested and rejected by many Marxists.[260] It is now common to distinguish between the legacy and influence of Marx specifically and the legacy and influence of those who shaped his ideas for political purposes.[261]"
Marx wrote books, and he died in 1883. The split between Marxists/Trotskyists/Stalinists is well-documented, and reading Das Kapital, you'll see it takes as much of a twisted mind to go from his ideas to Stalin as it takes to get from the bible to the Westboro Baptist Church.
Kissinger was an active politician, and he's criticised not so much for his ideas as his actions. I seem to remember that quite a few people during the Charlottesville brouhaha were keen to insist that people should be judged by their actions.
There's also a difference between a study of Marx/Kissinger, and attending an event that has them as guests. A famous speaker's attendance is an honour for the host, but it also honours the speaker. I'm sure there are scores of left-leaning researchers and students who have read Kissinger's work or studied his actions while being highly critical of him.
The obvious example is that it's just as common to read Hitler's book and speeches as it is to read Marx when studying history.
> The obvious example is that it's just as common to read Hitler's book and speeches as it is to read Marx when studying history.
I'm sorry, that is not "obvious" at all. It's trivial to name dozens of academics who are self-admitted Marxists, and who give Marxist ideas fulsome praise in the classroom. They outnumber self-admitted Nazi academics by thousands to one, at a minimum (I can't think of even one example of the latter, off-hand, but I suppose there might be one or two out there).
There is a difference between ideas and people who put those ideas into practice. Marx was just a writer. Lenin or Stalin—I don’t think you can respectfully disagree about them.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (whose government routinely murdered gay people, among other nasty behaviors) gave a speech at Columbia University. While the speech was (rightly) protested, he was not shouted down, nor was he forced to flee from a violent mob.
Karl Marx's economic ideas are part of history. Isn't airtime at universities based on what has influenced people and shaped the world, whether good or bad? Learning what went wrong in history is a feature, not a bug. Hitler gets plenty of airtime too, and unlike Marx, he was actually and directly responsible for millions of deaths.
"The countries associated with some Marxist nations have led political opponents to blame Marx for millions of deaths,[259] but the fidelity of these varied revolutionaries, leaders and parties to Marx's work is highly contested and rejected by many Marxists.[260] It is now common to distinguish between the legacy and influence of Marx specifically and the legacy and influence of those who shaped his ideas for political purposes.[261]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#Legacy