From: Boris.Vidovic-AT-sea.fi
Subject: VS: PLC: Marxist Propaganda
Date:   Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:11:39 +0300


I have been following this discussion with a smile on my lips. Since I
lived for 30 years in a country whose government called itself
communist, Marxist and (when in a good mood and wanting to score some
global PR points) socialist, I might have more experience with the
subject than the rest of the people on the list.

So, as a straight male film theorist coming from a middle class
background and having a degree in philosophy and comparative literature,
and a person who always considered himself to be a leftist and Marxist,
it's really nice to see the difference between 'my' Marxism and the
variety one can find in the countries that never smelled the sweet smell
of Marxism in action. And mind you, the country I lived in was often
cited as an example of a successful implementation of Marxist ideas, a
country where civil liberties were recognised and respected. At least in
theory.

As a Marxist, I could never agree with the government of my country. One
of the reasons is probably the fact that no one in my (or any other)
'Marxist' government ever read what Marx had actually written. Marxism
is for me (as other Marxist philosophers have taught me) first of all a
method of analysing social and political issues. The global picture
offered by Marxism is valid, but the details are often out of date, out
of touch with the reality or simply wrong. 

Another problem is the question of making a single philosophy a basis
for practical political action. So when Troy writes:

my only point is that every time Marx's philosophy is put into practice,
it ends up brutal. 

I would add: every time any philosophy is put into practice, it ends up
brutal. Try to put Plato's philosophy into practice and you'll get a
perfect fascist state. Does that mean that Plato should have known
better or that his works shouldn't be read at all? Of course not.
Philosophy is ment to be read sum grano salis, not as an instruction for
use. Of course, in such an 'application' of a philosophy it is always
matter of using it for one's own ends. But just as it would be absurd to
accuse Nietzsche for Nazism, it is just as absurd accusing Marx for
Stalinism - although some Nietzsche's and Marx's statements could be
understood as supporting Hitler's and Stalin's ends.


Boris Vidovic


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