[Nomentatus]

Camouflage. I well remember a real Chinese Marxist dropped into a supposedly Marxist-dominated academic department here a few decades ago who was astounded. How they could reconcile all being wine collectors and snobs with their trumpeted socialist views he asked me? The answer is that their progressive views masked very regressive and antisocial behavior in general, and that was quite purposeful.

[UncleMeat]

Marxism as an analysis technique and as a political philosophy are totally different. This is not surprising.

[gt_]

Please cite something or elaborate. This is a fair statement, but it's hardly an excuse in this context. I think you are stretching the meaning here. Marxism is not an ambiguous term.

[Obi_Juan_Kenobi]

Academic Marxism - or "Marxist Critique" - is really better referred to as dialectical materialism, historical materialism, or even more generally as Hegelian dialectics.

The political philosophies, namely socialism and communism, are a product of such thinking, but are not the same.

For instance, many feminists make heavy use of dialectics and are considered Marxist critique, but may not identify with e.g. communism.

[TillE]

Marx was first and foremost an analyst of class in history, and capitalism. That's Marxist analysis, which can be largely divorced from specific communist implications.

[gt_]

That makes sense. I question assuming that self-identified "marxists" are merely analysts of class and capitalism.

These things are necessarily correlated and I'm not sure the necessity of drawing the line. Why not just use another term?

It seems to me we are making a rhetorical space for bourjois marxists. Why?

[spaceseaman]

> It seems to me we are making a rhetorical space for bourjois marxists. Why?

??? Academically they're interesting questions to ask? Have you ever taken a class on Marxist critical theory or Marxist feminism or ...

A "marxist" is someone who uses Marx's method of analyzing class and capitalism to talk about whatever they want. One specific example is a Marxist critical theorist I know who likes to discuss the way class and capitalism as Marx discussed them arise in philosophical interpretations of modern literature.

Marxism is a political philosophy - one that has a lot of negative connotation in the United States due to its ties to communism, but Marxism is just philosophy so of course we'd want a space where academics can talk philosophy.

See this comment for a better explanation https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15512846

[gt_]

I think you're explaining yourself clearly, and of I know this is a common way of treating marxism in academia. I know you were taught it this way, as was I. But, I think it is suspicious nonetheless. Reading Marx makes me wonder why we arrived at objectifying and extermalizing his work like this. If we are thinking of Marx's work and his 'philosophy', we are critiquing class and capitalism. If we are critiquing class and capitalism, we are foolish to think our critiques are only worthy when applied to others. Of course, this point could hardly be more apparent than in the faculty's current predicaments. Marxist theory would have illuminated the trajectory many years ago had they the wits to apply the thought to their own situation. I don't feel very sorry for them myself. I've got my student loans to pay off and my university faculty members could never seem to care much less. When I was in school, talking about my student loan problems was looked down on as 'showing my class.'

[Nomentatus]

They didn't make such a distinction - it would have lessened the camouflage.

[programmarchy]

The elitism is something I've noticed, but espousing socialist views is purposeful to what end?

My best guess is that the behavior is an unconscious projection due to underlying narcissistic tendencies of people who are put on an intellectual pedastal...

I suppose it could be camouflage for being an asshole but that just seems too exhausting to be sustainable. And if they don't genuinely hold those beliefs, then what do they actually believe?