To deny that Karl Marx was, at times, a startlingly original thinker, would be nutty. To deny that he was, in many respects, one of the most lethal of a long line of millenarian preachers, is to embrace ignorance. And to deny that his work inspired the death of maybe one hundred million victims is something altogether more sinister. Marx may or may not have anticipated the scale of the slaughter to come, but he understood perfectly well that mass murder was part of the package.
Given where the world now is, and given where the growing cultural hegemony (© Antonio Gramsci, Marxist) of the left now is, it is, I suppose, unsurprising, if disgusting, that the two-hundredth anniversary of Marx’s birth, which fell on May 5, has been marked quite so reverentially.
Even so, it was a touch disappointing to see Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the EU Commission, attend ceremonies in Trier, Germany (Marx’s hometown) celebrating the bicentennial of a man whose teachings had inspired so much misery, not least in many countries that are now part of the EU. Juncker’s presence in Trier was an insult directed at their past, another kick at the corpses of their dead. I hope the people of Eastern Europe were paying attention: If they needed any reminder of the contempt with which Brussels regards them, this was not a bad effort.
The ceremonies, incidentally, included the unveiling of a large statue of Marx donated by the Chinese dictatorship.
The sculpture of Marx has proved somewhat controversial but Jean-Claude Juncker spoke in positive terms about him.
“Karl Marx was a philosopher, who thought into the future had creative aspirations,” he said.
“Today he stands for things, which he is not responsible for and which he didn’t cause, because many of the things he wrote down were redrafted into the opposite.”
Remember that whitewash the next time the EU starts preaching about ‘European values’.
And then there’s Danielle Corcione in Teen Vogue (!) explaining Everything You Should Know About Karl Marx.
Teens are told how his writings have “inspired social movements in Soviet Russia, China, Cuba, Argentina, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and more.”
“Social movements”.
Corcione asks how “can teens learn the legacy of Marx’s ideas and how they’re relevant to the current political climate? Teen Vogue chatted with two educators about how they apply these concepts to current events in the classroom.”
I think you can guess how those conversations went.