One of the ugliest comments on the state of British culture I have ever seen

[fpb]

The BBC is running a poll on the country's favourite philosophers. Marx is ahead by a mile, followed by Hume.

Comments

[purple-mirie.livejournal.com]

Marx? *shakes head in disbelief* So many thinkers to choose from, yet they chose Marx.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If anything, I hate Hume more. I regard him as a fraud and as an enemy of human happiness. So yes, pretty depressing.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

If I were in the UK, I would nominate Ron Jeremy just to piss people off. Or Samantha Fox. Or Shane Warne.

Marx? Hume?

[thepreciouss.livejournal.com]

Good Lord, and I hold Brits to such a high standard...

though I think some Americans would probably do worse by not knowing a single philosopher, unless prompted

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have noticed a lot of Britons I know tend to err on the side of, well, you know... Same goes for a lot of French and Germans and Spaniards and Dutch I know, too. And Mexicans. And Americans.

Alas... The pendulum is swinging that way, it seems.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You would think that historical failure on a monumental scale might teach people something. Marx' philosophy failed in practice, consistently, because of internal contradictions acutely pointed out by Popper among others. Yet it seems that the time of his translation to the monuments of the past is not yet. And the result is the predominance in the Western academic world of a way of thinking that simply does not work - call it Political Correctness or call it whatever you like.

Mind you, PC is to the age of real Marxism what comedy is to tragedy. Marxism represented a determined attempt to alter the very soul of man, which is why its secret police forces were so ruthless. The task they were charged with was not merely to get rid of enemies, but to reshape their will and intellect so that they come to agree with the mind of the Party - whatever it was at the time. The result was seen in the terrible show trials of the thirties.

PC also aims to reshape the soul of man - by petty bullying and inconvenience. It is a kind of spiritual tyranny without the courage of its convinctions. I guess one, at least, of Marx' axioms does from time to time recur: History tends to repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

All I can add to that would be...

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

"Alas... too true."

(Re: your post and comment to my comment: Well put, by the way.)

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

You know, now I think of it, I know a whole bunch of people in my country who would list Shane Warne as the most important philosopher, completely without irony or sarcasm.

Which is stupid, because he is clearly the dumbest man alive.