Was Karl Marx the most evil man ever?

[Spikey]

Auto correct not correcting to Lenin is a right wing conspiracy

 

[straw man]

About the closest I've come to reading Marx is reading a very good book review written by Christopher Hitchens from Arguably, which I think is produced in full here.

If you are looking for an irony of history, you will find it not in the fact that Marx was underpaid by an American newspaper, but in the fact that he and Engels considered Russia the great bastion of reaction and America the great potential nurse of liberty and equality.

This is to say, I'm fairly ignorant. Like many other 'isms, I have a slightly shameful lack of a grasp of the philosophical essence of Marxism, though I like dot points and Ausage's look vaguely as per my understanding.

Since I'm quoting Hitchens anyway, here's another one that likens adherance to Marxism to religious faith and as always, is critical of dogmatism.

When I was a Marxist, I did not hold my opinions as a matter of faith but I did have the conviction that a sort of unified field theory might have been discovered. The concept of historical and dialectical materialism was not an absolute and it did not have any supernatural element, but it did have its messianic element in the idea that an ultimate moment might arrive, and it most certainly had its martyrs and saints and doctrinaires and (after a while) its mutually excommunicating rival papacies. It also had its schisms and inquisitions and heresy hunts.
...
And he (Trotsky) certainly had a sense—expressed in his emotional essay Literature and Revolution—of the unquenchable yearning of the poor and oppressed to rise above the strictly material world and to achieve something transcendent. For a good part of my life, I had a share in this idea that I have not yet quite abandoned. But there came a time when I could not protect myself, and indeed did not wish to protect myself, from the onslaught of reality. Marxism, I conceded, had its intellectual and philosophical and ethical glories, but they were in the past. Something of the heroic period might perhaps be retained, but the fact had to be faced: there was no longer any guide to the future. In addition, the very concept of a total solution had led to the most appalling human sacrifices, and to the invention of excuses for them. Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic. What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees? Infallibility? Thus, dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined—as I hope—I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking.

 

[straw man]

There's no way Marx is more evil than Stalin or even Linen, let alone outside figures

I've always had an intense hatred for blankets. Give the bastards a good kicking every night.

I was given a linen shirt that's unwearable because it just cannot, will not, be ironed smooth. Probably the most evil shirt ever.

 

[straw man]

As to the thread title, it's much like blaming Jesus for all of the great evils committed in his name over the last two millenia (and ignoring the good).

 

[Burgey]

I was given a linen shirt that's unwearable because it just cannot, will not, be ironed smooth. Probably the most evil shirt ever.

But that's the whole point of linen ffs. The fact it creases so easily is just the cost of class (not class warfare in this instance, just class).

 

[straw man]

But that's the whole point of linen ffs. The fact it creases so easily is just the cost of class (not class warfare in this instance, just class).

Yeah well you Linenists would say that coming from a dialectical shirt materialist point of view

 

[Spikey]

When the revolution comes, I'll be going for the head of mr fancy boy and his ****ing iron first

 

[Spark]

So to answer Spark's question, I've not read any Marx but my understanding is that his key philosophical points were:

• Humanity should be viewed through a prism of social, racial, religious and cultural (class) groupings
• Civilisation is the interplay of power dynamics between these groups
• Those who own the means of production are engaged in oppression against the working class

Correct me if I'm wrong or missed anything.

I don't know about "most evil", but the above combination of ideas are dangerous because they're both intoxicating/enticing and infinitely destructive when followed through. There's a reason you can in this day and age see people unironically saying "Marx was right" despite him being a primary influence on the majority of the modern history's most brutal regimes.

Eh, this isn't really accurate. It's what's modern day Marxists say, but it's not what Marx actually wrote about. His point wasn't that capitalists are engaged in conscious oppression, it was that the capitalist system is irrational and oppressive and enslaved everyone to its will, capitalist and worker alike. But it's pretty easy to conclude "oppression" from his core theory of surface value. It's a much more complex and frankly thought-through theory than modern far-left advocates make it look.

Edit: ignore the bolding, idk why I did that

 

[Zinzan]

I thought Donald Trump was the most evil man ever

Indeed. Incidentally, always amazed me that the late great Christopher Hitchens was a self-confessed Marxist in his younger days. Amazing how some people's political views evolve over time.

 

[Spikey]

Why does zorax have an alt

 

[Black_Warrior]

The answer to questions like "is he the most ________ ever" is usually "No."

 

[Furball]

Thanks for that insight.

 

[cpr]

Pretty sure we can put Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt up there.

 

[silentstriker]

No, he wasn't, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with him.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Marx was incorrect about virtually everything he predicted which sort of gave his supporters - your Lenins, Stalins and Maos - the ability to interpret his philosophy to their own individual factors. He predicted for instance that the most advanced industrial countries - Britain, America or Northern Germany - would go communist first. What happened was agrarian countries like Russia and China having communist revolutions.

 

[silentstriker]

Being wrong doesn't make you evil. He didn't kill millions of people - that's on Stalin.

 

[Munificent_Fool]

Don't think Marx was an evil man, let alone the most evil. He got a lot wrong, but he got a shitload right as well.

 

[Spikey]

have we considered that the most evil man is............................. man itself


and jono

 

[Burgey]

James Hird.

 

[Dan]

Nup. Nothing on Yasmin.