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Commies and Nazis!

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  • Commies and Nazis!

    The Prevalence of Marxism in Academia

    Overall, Marxism is a tiny minority faith. Just 3% of professors accept the label. The share rises to 5% in the humanities. The shocker, though, is that as recently as 2006, about 18% of social scientists self-identified as Marxists.

    https://www.econlib.org/archives/201...valence_1.html
    Now imagine if these percentages were neo-Nazis rather than Commies? We would be rending our garments! Those professors would be fired. Yet Communism in the last century was arguably more brutal and murderous than Fascism. Why do they get a pass?
    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

  • #2
    Originally posted by seer View Post

    Now imagine if these percentages were neo-Nazis rather than Commies? We would be rending our garments! Those professors would be fired. Yet Communism in the last century was arguably more brutal and murderous than Fascism. Why do they get a pass?
    A debatable contention when considering historic Christian atrocities [including towards other Christians] and of course the murderous regimes of various RW and/or fascist governments of the twentieth century.
    "It ain't necessarily so
    The things that you're liable
    To read in the Bible
    It ain't necessarily so
    ."

    Sportin' Life
    Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

      A debatable contention when considering historic Christian atrocities [including towards other Christians] and of course the murderous regimes of various RW and/or fascist governments of the twentieth century.
      Nothing I said is debatable. Communists get a pass in academia, even though they were as brutal, if not more so, than Nazis. Why do they get a pass? Neo-Nazis certainly would not...
      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

        A debatable contention when considering historic Christian atrocities [including towards other Christians] and of course the murderous regimes of various RW and/or fascist governments of the twentieth century.
        Well, Chairman Mao was responsible for between 15-55 million deaths (or even 80 million) just on his own revolution and mismanagement.
        Stalin, was responsible for between 30 and 40 million deaths.
        There's North Korea's on-going perpetual nightmare.

        So...it's really not so much a comparison of numbers as it is just acknowledging an evil ideology that decimates lives when it pops up.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post

          So...it's really not so much a comparison of numbers as it is just acknowledging an evil ideology that decimates lives when it pops up.
          So why would self avowed Commie professors be given a pass that a neo-Nazi could never receive?

          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by seer View Post

            So why would self avowed Commie professors be given a pass that a neo-Nazi could never receive?
            Likely because the liberal idealogues have a no-true-scotsman belief in communism. i.e. "communism is good, but there's never been a 'true' communist government, so people who support it are not inherently bad"

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post

              Well, Chairman Mao was responsible for between 15-55 million deaths (or even 80 million) just on his own revolution and mismanagement.
              Stalin, was responsible for between 30 and 40 million deaths.
              There's North Korea's on-going perpetual nightmare.

              So...it's really not so much a comparison of numbers as it is just acknowledging an evil ideology that decimates lives when it pops up.
              And not to be forgotten, the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

              I'm always still in trouble again

              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by CivilDiscourse View Post

                Likely because the liberal idealogues have a no-true-scotsman belief in communism. i.e. "communism is good, but there's never been a 'true' communist government, so people who support it are not inherently bad"
                And what if one made the same argument for Fascism? It is a glaring double standard...
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by seer View Post

                  And what if one made the same argument for Fascism? It is a glaring double standard...
                  Of course it is. Same with "whitewashing" and "racebending".

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                    And not to be forgotten, the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
                    Another million there.

                    It is estimated that from 1975 to 1979, under the leadership of Pol Pot, the government caused the deaths of more than one million people from forced labour, starvation, disease, torture, or execution while carrying out a program of radical social and agricultural reforms.


                    https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pol-Pot

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Ronson View Post

                      Another million there.
                      Yet Communists are still welcome in our universities...
                      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        If you are judging ideologies based on what has been done in their name, then you can't condemn communism or fascism without condemning capitalism and Christianity. You should instead judge ideologies based on their intrinsic morality. The famine resulting from the Great Leap Forward is not in any way an intrinsic goal of communism, just like the Spanish colonization of the Americas is not in any way an intrinsic goal of Christianity. Fascism's intrinsic characteristics are inherently immoral.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by seer View Post
                          So why would self avowed Commie professors
                          They're not self-avowed Commies, they said in the survey they were Marxist. In the social sciences, Marxism refers to a way of analyzing how different groups in society interact. Professors writing papers about how social groups interact probably has zero to do with what you think of when you say "Communism".

                          There's no reason to think that these self-avowed Marxists would regard themselves as Commies or tick such a box in a survey if it were given to them.

                          Personally I think Marxist social analysis often has a lot of value as an analytical tool, and I think communism is a bad joke.
                          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by seer View Post

                            Nothing I said is debatable. Communists get a pass in academia, even though they were as brutal, if not more so, than Nazis. Why do they get a pass? Neo-Nazis certainly would not...
                            Caplan has his own proverbial axe to grind on this. However, the entire and rather brief article is as follows:

                            As the Iron Curtain crumbled, people often joked, “Marxism is dead everywhere – except American universities.” The stereotype of the Marxist professor runs deep. But is this stereotype grounded in statistical fact? Here are the results from a 2006 nationally representative survey of American professors. The survey asked if the professor considered himself “radical,” “political activist,” or “Marxist.” Survey says:



                            Overall, Marxism is a tiny minority faith. Just 3% of professors accept the label. The share rises to 5% in the humanities. The shocker, though, is that as recently as 2006, about 18% of social scientists self-identified as Marxists.

                            Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, the authors of the study, hasten to say, “Move along, nothing to see here.”
                            [S]elf-identified Marxists are rare in academe today. The highest proportion of Marxist academics can be found in the social sciences, and there they represent less than 18 percent of all professors (among the social science fields for which we can issue discipline-specific estimates, sociology contains the most Marxists, at 25.5 percent).

                            In contrast, I urge you to rubberneck. If 18% of biologists believed in creationism, that would be a big deal. Why? Because creationism is nonsense. Similarly, if 18% of social scientists believe in Marxism, that too is a big deal. Why? Because Marxism is nonsense. Furthermore, if 18% of a discipline fully embrace a body of nonsense, there is also probably a large bloc of nonsense sympathizers – people who won’t swallow the nonsense whole, but nevertheless see great value in it. Suppose, plausibly, that there is one fellow traveler for every true believer. That would bring the share of abject intellectual corruption to fully 35% – and 51% in sociology.

                            I suspect that Marxists’ share has fallen since 2006. But it makes me wonder: When precisely did American academia hit “peak Marxism” – and how high was the peak?


                            Caplan considers Marxism to be "nonsense" along with Creationism but others might point to other ideologies and consider them to be likewise nonsense. Yet I suspect those ideologies would not receive the same opprobrium.

                            Some of the replies were also interesting.

                            Jameson
                            Mar 31 2015 at 10:56am
                            In this context, what does “radical” mean?


                            Tom West
                            Mar 31 2015 at 11:14am
                            They asked about Marxism, not communism.

                            It’s a whole lot easier to call oneself a Marxist, which is sort of a platonic ideal that can never be achieved, than to call oneself a communist, which has a nasty track record.

                            I’d bet that most self-identified Marxists would feel it’s as responsible for the horrors of communism as self-identified capitalists feel that capitalism is responsible for American slavery and the near-genocide of North American aboriginals.

                            CMOT
                            Mar 31 2015 at 12:29pm
                            A working defination of what I’d describe as the “Marxian penumbra” is needed. There must be many academics who would never identify as Marxists but whose ethics, belief system, and professional vocabulary are so suffused with Marxism that they are indistinguishable from them.

                            I know athiests who reject any notion of having a personal religious identity but whose ethics, belief system, and moral vocabulary are so informed by Christianity that they are indistinguishable from Christians.

                            English Professor
                            Mar 31 2015 at 12:14pm
                            This sort of polling misses an important issue. In my department, only one or two members explicitly identify themselves as Marxists, but the majority of faculty are sympathetic to the social critique arising from the Frankfurt School. Many outside academia call this sort of thing “cultural Marxism.” You can’t do modern critical theory or what is called “cultural studies” without being sympathetic to Adorno, Horkheimer, and Foucault. So, no, most English professors will not tell you they’re Marxists, but their intellectual lives and often their scholarship are deeply committed to a “critique” of capitalism.

                            Chris Wegener
                            Mar 31 2015 at 12:26pm
                            How about Austrian Economist?

                            Economic thought is valid no matter what the source. Marx had many original and valid critiques as well solid economic analysis. Has his understanding been refined and extended, yes.

                            Was he in anyway responsible for the Russian revolution or the horrendous crimes of Joseph Stalin, no. Nor are any who call themselves communists since Russia was never in any sense a communist country.

                            It was and remains an oligarchy.



                            And I rather liked this final comment:

                            Rousseau
                            Apr 19 2015 at 8:18pm
                            I honestly can’t understand how a professor within the social sciences like Caplan has the audacity to callously dismiss Marx by referencing a review of a 100 page summary of Marxist thought. The fact that Caplan can compare Marxism (as a theoretical framework) to creationism is indicative of the state of American academia. A European academic would face serious reprecussions for disregarding the principle of charity.
                            [

                            All spelling mistakes are the authors' own.


                            "It ain't necessarily so
                            The things that you're liable
                            To read in the Bible
                            It ain't necessarily so
                            ."

                            Sportin' Life
                            Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                              They're not self-avowed Commies, they said in the survey they were Marxist. In the social sciences, Marxism refers to a way of analyzing how different groups in society interact. Professors writing papers about how social groups interact probably has zero to do with what you think of when you say "Communism".

                              There's no reason to think that these self-avowed Marxists would regard themselves as Commies or tick such a box in a survey if it were given to them.

                              Personally I think Marxist social analysis often has a lot of value as an analytical tool, and I think communism is a bad joke.
                              That is nonsense, Marxism in practice always ends up in Communism and totalitarianism. Personal property rights and personal freedom is lost. Never mind the shed blood it took to get various populations to conform and kowtow. Unless you have counter examples. Hell you can say that Fascism is merely a way to organize a society. And every Marxist professor knows what the theory looks like in practice. So spare me...
                              Last edited by seer; 09-21-2022, 05:26 AM.
                              Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                              Comment

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