[cmrdporcupine]

Whenever I go reading about these people and this ideology and community it reminds me a lot of the various Trotskyist or other far left sects and personalities I encountered when I was younger. Similar dramas and egos and personality quirks and strident philosophical emissions, ideologically-focused groups built around persons/personalities. Often involving sexual relationships and dubious power dynamics. Just from, y'know, 180 degree philosophical positions.

Maybe it was a product of her original linguistic/cultural extraction, but when I read Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" as a teen it reminded me very much of Stalinist or Trotskyite tracts I encountered around the same time. Different positions, same tone of absolute certainty and similar polemical flourishes.

All of which to say, it all strikes me as more theological than philosophical.

[sevensor]

> it reminds me a lot of the various Trotskyist or other far left sects and personalities

I think she never stopped being a child of the Russian Revolution. It was the formative event of her youth.

[Barrin92]

>it reminds me a lot of the various Trotskyist or other far left sects and personalities I encountered when I was younger.

because that is exactly what it is. Rand idolized and worshipped great men and industrialists the way the Soviets taught you too, except through an American funhouse mirror.

Her individualism wasn't an authentic lived inner freedom of for example Tolstoy (in a religious way) or Stirner (in an atheist way) but simply worship of individuality and particular individuals. It's why it made for a fantastic mass movement and fandom of sorts.

[Pixelbrick]

Too right. Never trust someone who thinks they have all the answers.

[lukan]

"All of which to say, it all strikes me as more theological than philosophical."

Oh yes, when marxists debate about the interpretation of the holy words of the manifest and how dictatorship is not bad, if only the right people with the right ideological mindset are in charge, then it always annoyed me, that they claim to be rational scientists.

[cmrdporcupine]

I mean, I'm a Marxist, and I don't say those things.

[lukan]

That would be a good start for a debate then.

(But maybe not the right place and I don't have my arguments at hand, has been a while that I engaged with marxists)

[cmrdporcupine]

It is incredibly hard to separate three things, perceptually, before even having a discussion with anybody about these topics, so I rarely try.

1. Marx and -- various political-economic thinkers who came after him inspired by him -- who were analysts of capitalism and modern society. Maybe also dabbling in prescriptive aspects -- but a lot less than laymen would think. Just full on boring economics or political philosophy concerned with analyzing the present, not describing any future.

2. Eastern bloc & Maoist "Marxist-Leninism", Stalinism, or whatever which became official state ideology in eastern bloc countries with simplifications of some of the above along with a series of rationalizations for the "way things were" in the USSR and related countries. Usually mangling some form of #1 to do that.

3. Various Marxist political action/groups/parties/sects which merged varying aspects of #1 and #2 along with whatever else, in various combinations and permutations, to intervene in politics at either an activist level or in political parties, or armed groups etc.

Especially people who grew up in the eastern bloc definitely perceive I think a lot more correspondence between #1 and #2 than I'd personally say is valid. A whole educational industry was built around it there for the purpose of ideological legitimation of some Really Bad Stuff. With some of that leaking into the west, too.

And I don't feel it's really a "no true Scotsman" type of statement to say that either. Marx himself had little to say about the future, and just a lot to say about the present (which is still our present). What #2 said about themselves doesn't bear much resemblance to #1 because it wasn't actually the concern of Marx or many of the thinkers who came after. They were critics of capitalism, not prophets attempting to come up with recipes to be used as justification by Slavic autocrats for crimes against humanity...

[lukan]

Hm, being born in a stalinist country I definitely encountered more of the Stalinisit interpretations and ideology and they are definitely religion like.

But I also did met various other marxists and I did read some of Marx books, or rather some pages.

And I do remember him speaking of the utopian future. And also the part where he thinks, concentration camps for the enemies of the proletariat (everyone who does not want to have his property taken) will likely be necessary.

So gulags would not be a Stalin invention then.

(I think I read that in some of the letter exchanges with Engels, will look up)

[lukan]

In general, marxists ideas have been tried in many places, east, west, north and south and they all turned out in a dictatorship as far as I am aware.

My standard question would be to ask, what would you do different, then all the previous experiements?

[hannasanarion]

I think they're just trying to inform you that you're painting with a broader brush than you might realize.

There are lots of flavors of Marxism out there, the one you're describing is often called "Orthodox Marxism" or the closely related "Marxism-Leninism".

It's now considered pretty outdated, with most of Marxist thought having moved on to less rigid modes of conceptualizing history and geopolitics, like Western Marxism (Frankfurt School), Autonomist Marxism, Eco-Marxism, Libertarian Marxism, Structural Marxism, etc.

There is a reason that "leftist infighting" is a century-old meme. Leftism is fundamentally a political movement grounded in moral philosophy, but since moral philosophy is an unsolved and likely unsolvable field, fractionalism is guaranteed.

[Ray20]

>It's now considered pretty outdated, with most of Marxist thought having moved on to less rigid modes of conceptualizing history and geopolitics, like Western Marxism (Frankfurt School), Autonomist Marxism, Eco-Marxism, Libertarian Marxism, Structural Marxism, etc.

I think that's not true. It is incorrect to compare the practice of Marxism-Leninism, and it's philosophy formed with such practice, with purely imaginary pink-glass-self-reflection fantasy.

Let them seize power in somewhat large country and hold it for at least a couple of decades - and then say how these movements are "less rigid". Or compare the voiced fantasies with Lenin's pre-revolutionary fantasies (remembering that they were practical enough to seize power and push it's philosophy on half of the planet), if you really want to show the difference between them and outdating of the latter.

[mapontosevenths]

I think this is an astute observation. Taking any extreme position will inevitably put someone in the position where they find it difficult or impossible to live up to their own ideals. At the far ends of the spectrum everything starts to look alike.

Ayn Rand herself died while collecting Social Security and Medicare.

[Ray20]

I don’t see any contradiction or failure to follow own ideals here.

It's like blaming a slave who believes that slavery shouldn't exist, for eating his master's food.

[cmrdporcupine]

I mean, I dislike Rand's outlook passionately but I would not hold it against her to withdraw from a system she paid into or from living in the framework of society she lived in, even if she resented it.

[stevenAthompson]

She wanted to let the disabled starve or beg on street corners so she'd have a tiny fraction more wealth to fritter away. We don't owe her the benefit of the doubt.

[olalonde]

I think that’s a misrepresentation of her views. She opposed self-sacrifice but she wasn’t against charity. She supported it when it came from a genuine personal desire to help others (as opposed to a moral duty).

[InsideOutSanta]

>She wanted to let the disabled starve or beg on street corners so she'd have a tiny fraction more wealth

>She opposed self-sacrifice but she wasn’t against charity. She supported it when it came from a genuine personal desire to help others (as opposed to a moral duty).

These do not seem like contradictory statements. They are just different ways of phrasing the same concept: There is no moral duty to help others, and if people can't get somebody to desire to help them, they deserve to die.

[olalonde]

Phrasing is important though.

"She wanted to let kids die from accidental drownings so she'd be able to have a pool."

vs

"She wanted pools to be legal."

[stevenAthompson]

You are half-right. She did say that it should be left to charity, but that of course implies that when nobody gives the street corner beggar money they will starve.

[kbelder]

The question then becomes, whose money are you going to take against their will and give to the beggar?

And you may believe that this would be a greater good, and a proper role of government... different people may think differently about that, and discussions can be held. Don't gloss over the fact, though, that the only alternatives to voluntary charity are either no charity or involuntary charity.