Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 7:38 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 7:34 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 7:09 pm
It's a minor inconvenience compared with terrorism like Isis , Taliban, and Al Qaeda.
It may be futile to demonstrate against a law like for instance the new UK terrorism law, but I'd be very afraid of the new police powers. I am surprised at you Martin quite honestly.
I daresay there were many people who were alienated by Gandhi's or Mandela's peaceful protests.

Attacking a military base is not peaceful. Gandhi's was. Mandela's wasn't.

(a) Then is peaceful protest a spectrum?
(b) The old country loses some credibility when its defences include silencing such of its people who do free speech, and free assembly.

(c) Armed police threatened to arrest Kent protester for holding Palestinian flag
(d) Officers accused Laura Murton who also had a sign saying

Are these things done on Albion's shore

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 6:42 pm Men are always instinctively good unless they are corrupted or unhealthy.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 6:51 pm Maybe toss the Holy Babel in the trash and try something else.

Whither is fled the visionary gleam ?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream ?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 11:10 pm

Whither is fled the visionary gleam ?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream ?

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 6:42 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 2:15 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 10:57 am

No, everyone who is lost is a victim of circumstances.

When a man or woman chooses something, he or she is no victim. He or she is the cause.

If a man does not know that danger then good people should tell him of it, for his own safety and the safety of others.

I could not agree more. It is precisely why there is a sacred duty on all Christians to share their faith…that if the hearer is willing, the choice will be clear. This is why Jesus repeated, many times, the phrase, “He who has ears, let him hear.” He provided that message of the danger and of the deliverance with absolute clarity: but it was the disposition of the hearer that was going to determine the outcome.

For instance, think of the millions of Germans who were exploited by Hitler and his Nazis. The German people who said after 1945 ,that they did not know what was going on chose not to know because at the time they were deliberately misled.

And yet, so many of them saw the trains of helpless victims being shipped to their deaths, or lived in the precincts of the 44,000 prison, forced labour and concentration camps that Germany established and ran. How plausible, then, is it to think that the Germans were all mere victims of a very clever campaign of misinformation?

There is always cause for men to choose what they choose.

But that cause is often found in their volition, their nature, their wills. As John wrote, “The Light has come into the world, but men preferred darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” So the message, the warning was there: but men looked at their evil options, and preferred those. And that speaks to the dark character of human nature.

Incidentally, you’ll find that this is the greatest failure of Socialism: that it is founded on a belief that if we only engineer the right social situations, men will be instinctively good. This belief has never been justified anytime in history, nor by any social rearrangement. In fact, the opposite has proved true, and true in 100% of the cases. What happens when men try to engineer the right social situations is that not only are the people found to be too corrupt to make the idealistic system work, but even the aspiring engineers themselves are so corrupt (for there are no specially naturally-righteous and trustworthy people who cannot be corrupted) that Socialism dissolves into totalitarianism every time.

That’s about the most confirmable fact in all of human history: that human beings fail to live up to their aspirations, because they cannot resist the opportunity to seize some advantage, or because they’re driven by spite and envy, or because they’re simply being too lazy to make the effort to sustain a good project for long. Meanwhile, our various democracies have turned out to be just as flawed, but blessed with a better sense of what to expect from human nature — to anticipate the failure, and so to distribute power in such a way that though it remains accessible to the people in some measure, it cannot be so tightly concentrated in the hands of the corrupt. Term limits, distribution of responsibilities, constitutions, votes and such distribute power in such a way that it is difficult — perhaps not impossible, but certainly much more problematic — for an autocratic group to seize all the reins of power and brutalize the people for their own gain.

Not so when Big Government becomes the practice, of course. For Big Government always demands more and more power, and the dropping of every limitation, so it can force its self-serving projects forward without the inconvenience of consulting the public or caring for their protestations.

And this explains the old aphorism about democracy: that it’s the worst form of government except for every other form. It’s not perfect, but it’s always better than the alternatives because of its more realistic view of human nature.

Men are always instinctively good unless they are corrupted or unhealthy.

"Big government" Immanuel , is not a product of socialism .

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 4:56 am "I suggest this naive view of human nature is the biggest problem that turns Socialism toxic every time."

So the theory of Socialism is good... it's just that the people are messed up and can't do it?

promethean75 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 5:54 am Here's your prob. You'd be hard pressed to argue that nearly every minor and major social uprising for the last three hundred years didn't happen precisely for the reasons foreseen by Friedrich Marx and Karl Engels.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 21, 2025 6:02 am
No prob. Marx got everything wrong, especially about the future. That future has now become the past. History has already disproved him.

Yes, Karl Marx is still considered important, though his legacy is complex and his theories are met with both strong criticism and enduring influence. While the political and economic systems that were created in his name—such as those in the former Soviet Union—have largely been discredited, his analytical framework continues to be a vital tool for understanding contemporary issues.

Here's a breakdown of why Marx remains important today:

### 1. Enduring Critique of Capitalism

Many of Marx's core observations about capitalism continue to resonate in the 21st century.

* **Inequality and Exploitation:** Marx's analysis of class struggle, surplus value, and the exploitation of labor still provides a powerful lens for examining the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Contemporary issues like the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the precariousness of work in the "gig economy" are often viewed through a Marxist framework.
* **Economic Instability:** Marx saw capitalism as a system prone to internal crises. The global financial crisis of 2008, for example, prompted renewed interest in his theories, as they offer a way to understand how the pursuit of profit and the financialization of the economy can lead to systemic instability.
* **Alienation:** His concept of "alienation" describes how workers can feel disconnected from their labor, the products they create, and from each other. This idea is still used to discuss the psychological and social effects of modern work life, where people may feel powerless and detached from the purpose of their jobs.

### 2. Influence on Social Sciences and Humanities

Beyond economics, Marx's ideas have had a profound and lasting impact on multiple academic disciplines.

* **Sociology:** Marx is considered one of the founding fathers of modern sociology. His "conflict theory," which posits that society is in a state of perpetual struggle over limited resources, remains a foundational concept for understanding social change and power dynamics.
* **Political Science:** His work laid the groundwork for critical political economy and provides a framework for analyzing the relationship between economic systems and political power.
* **Other Disciplines:** His concepts have been adapted and used in fields ranging from critical theory and postcolonial studies to cultural studies and environmental studies. For instance, some scholars use Marxist ideas to critique the link between capitalist production and environmental degradation.

### 3. Impact on Political and Social Movements

While the revolutionary communism he envisioned has not been widely adopted in its pure form, his ideas continue to inspire a range of political and social movements.

* **Democratic Socialism and Social Democracy:** Many left-wing movements today, including democratic socialism, draw from Marx's critique of capitalism to advocate for policies like progressive taxation, strong social safety nets, and public ownership of key industries.
* **Social Justice Activism:** Concepts like class struggle and the analysis of systemic oppression have influenced movements advocating for racial, gender, and economic justice, providing a vocabulary and framework for critiquing deep-seated inequalities.

In summary, while the pure economic and political blueprint of Marxism has been widely critiqued and largely abandoned, Karl Marx's ideas remain a crucial point of reference. He is important not because his predictions came true in the way he expected, but because he provided a powerful and still-relevant set of tools for critically analyzing the complexities, contradictions, and inequalities inherent in capitalism.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 10:53 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Sun Jul 20, 2025 6:42 pm Men are always instinctively good unless they are corrupted or unhealthy.

Here, you are imposing a view, borne of ideology (I must suppose this) that you really cannot be certain is true.

Who can know how the fate and destiny of any man takes shape?

What we can say though is that in every (and generally speaking) religious interpretive model, attempts are made to describe how it is that an evil man takes shape in the world, or a good man.

For someone like you, structured within quite modern, mostly “science-based” interpretations, it cannot be else but random collisions in the environment that, somehow, turn someone to evilness.

I have a book: Explaining Hitler. The premise is so interesting. How can one explain the manifestation of evil in man? The man certainly ate a bad dumpling along the way …

… but the explanations, when attempted, all fall short. They ridicule themselves.