James Lindsay on Gramsci
I highly recommend this video for anyone who wonders how we got to our current situation vis a vis the left. Answer: it was not an accident.
As with all videos that are basically talks, if you get impatient – as I often do – I suggest listening to the audio speeded up somewhat. If you click on “settings” you will see various choices for that:
Ah. The Left’s culture war — succeeding only as the Right abandons its own culture war.
I’m not asserting cause and effect, but I’m not denying a connection, either. That would be too hazardous.
James Lindsay is always worth reading (or listening to), and he is to be commended for having chosen his current path instead of a safe academic career (he has a PhD in math). One might also recall that the father of our superbly-qualified Secretary of Transportation (hired purely for his expertise in roads, rail, air travel, etc) was a Maltese academic expert on the Italo-Albanian/Sardinian revolutionary imprisoned by Mussolini.
one wonders what would have happened if mussolini had executed gramsci, much suffering would have been averted, specially if he had not been able to smuggle his notes out of the country,
Reading Irresistible Revolution by James Lohmeier, suggested from Legalinsurrection.com. also diving into the beginning of Communism
I read some years ago and have remarked here that Gramsci was killed by Mussolini. But it was a slow in-prison death of neglect of an already unhealthy man, not an execution. Perhaps by design.
As to smuggling Gramsci’s notes out of Italy, that shows that communists are everywhere. But yes, it has had disastrous consequences, especially since much of his thinking has been adopted by American Democrats.
“Liberalism takes every argument as charitably as possible”. Really James? Christian Nationalism? Catholic Integralism?
A bit of self awareness would help. But then, that is impossible for liberals.
At c. 18min, he seems to contradict himself. He says that Marx “really” meant seizing the means of production for the Party and for people like himself, not for the proletariat. But this is what Lindsay had earlier said was Lenin’s modification of Marx.
Which is it?
While I don’t deny he sometimes has value, IMO Lindsay is overrated. He also seems to ignore the difference between Gramsci’s view of cultural hegemony as conscious in effect, and the more orthodox Marxist (Hegelian?) view that it underlies people’s though.
Listened to this yesterday and through the weekend been reading a book inspired by Lindsey, Matthew Lohmeier Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s goal of Conquest & Unmaking of the American Military
A few more of this will be in very bad shape.
well lenin realized that the proletariat couldn’t be trusted to make the right choices, so a vanguard, an elite had to make them for them, this fits into dubois’s notion of a talented tenth, of course marxism was really intended for a fully industrialized capitalist state like germany or france, not a feudal monarchy like Russia, but those are the breaks,
after Russia fell to largely self inflicted wounds, they had tried for revolutions in the periphery notably in Germany and Hungary, the last took for a while, until a Hapsburg admiral Horthy, deposed Bela Kun,
Lenin learned from the social revolutionaries, you could not succeed only through direct action, although you can make an impact see Fanya Kaplans story, but it takes propaganda and other tools to seize the commanding heights
because Guevara succeeded in Cuba, in part through direct action, other imitators like Bill Ayers thought you could do the same,
here’s an interesting twist,
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii102/articles/antonio-gramsci-jnr-my-grandfather
So far as I can see, actual communist countries such as the USSR, Mao’s China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. began by promising financial equality. Jobs for all, state run businesses that eschew profits, state provided housing, free education, free medical care, etc. What they all devolved into is a kind of medieval, feudal society with the elite (nobility) at the top and the lower-class masses all equal – equally miserable and desperate.
China still calls themselves Communists. However, they have evolved into a fascist model where businesses are allowed to be privately held but are closely tied to the state.
They have an elite that runs the country and people are not financially equal. There’s a growing middle class and a lot of poor people. I think the Chinese saw the failure of the Sovit model and changed to this new model. We don’t yet know how this “experiment” will turn out. Things are not as rosy in China as the ChiComs would have you believe.
The dreams of an egalitarian society seem to
never die out. IIMO though, the vanguard of these movements are primarily moved more by the desire for power and control than any dreams for strict equality of outcomes.
If we continue along our present path, I can envision this country becoming a feudal society, which will be called “socialism.” When you look at California and the hollowing out of its middle class, you are getting a state composed mostly of the very rich and the poor – a feudal model. Unfortunately, other states are on that path.
Lenin, Gramsci, and other leftist intellectuals believed a wonderful egalitarian society could be established. And they mapped plans for how to get there. They never realized the vast evil their intellectual dreams would sow.
Their names belong on the long list of historical villains. Their ideas should be marked as failed and abandoned forever.
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“Lenin, Gramsci, and other leftist intellectuals believed a wonderful egalitarian society could be established.”
Really? Was this their sincerest goal?
“Really? Was this their sincerest goal?”
No. It wasn’t their goal at all. Their one and only goal was to be In Charge. This is true of all Leftists. All that other talk is just shine for the rubes.
People are complex. I don’t doubt that even Stalin had moments of compassion, but the problem is that his monstrous side was sustained by arrogance, vaulting ambition, envy, etc.; all the evils that the Left necessarily justifies in order to continue being Leftists.
Timeless Lewis quote:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
” I don’t doubt that even Stalin had moments of compassion”
One of the more horrific images from WWII is from near the end of the war. Hitler was reviewing teenage soldiers, really boys, in Berlin as the Red Army is approaching. As he passes one of the younger looking ones, his hand caresses the boy’s cheek making it obvious that he understood that he was sending children off to war.
Johann Amadeus Metesky:
And not just sending them off to war. Sending them off to war in a totally lost cause that was obviously lost.
Johann, do you have any link to a copy of that photo or film clip? It would be interesting to see. I wouldn’t have thought the Austrian corporal capable of such a human gesture toward the end.
Neo, how come only some of your comments as blog owner get the delineated rectangle around them? Do you have to be logged in as admin when commenting to get that?
Philip Sells:
I think that when I comment from my phone, it doesn’t get the special box because I’m not signed into the back end of the blog.
A comment by murphy300 from Insty’s site:
“It’s 2023 and self-proclaimed Nazis have pretty much been banished from polite society. Why is it any different for self-proclaimed Marxists? Marxists have a body count 15-20 times that of the Nazis. Why is any kind of Marxism tolerated at all?”
This!
Every time you debate Marxism and its evils, this should be inserted into the argument.