The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:52 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:12 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:06 am
The link is very simple: how many of the above were Marxists? Answer: all of them. The insane project of establishing a Marxist state is behind all the major Socialist blunders of the last century, and even those of this century.

...not according to Marx's own writings.

Marx was dead long before they did their dirty work, so it's not even possible that Marx mentioned Stalin or Mao, or the rest of that nasty bunch. What they did, they did because of his ideas, which they tried to implement after he was already knowing better, in the place he earned for himself by being such a horrible person.

Check the timeline. And while you're at it, do read one of those biographies.

Yeah, unlike the saintly capitalists who used child labor and wage slavery to immiserate the workers in their respective countries--Marx was "a horrible person". But we'll blame Marx for what followed because that way we can justify unlimited propertarianism. Billionaires must love you. In between kissing God's ass for favor, you kiss the asses of the uber-wealthy. Christianity in a nutshell.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:29 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:25 am You still can't give an adequate reply to your own assertions that Marx was responsible.

They were all Marxists.

Marx, in spite of all his faults - not anywhere as extreme as you insist from pure malice

Read a biography. Then you'll know better. What you're saying shows you don't even know the first thing about Marx.

Once again, tell me about the biography that made you know better? Maybe I'll read it, but I first have to know about it. So what is it?

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:32 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:29 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:25 am You still can't give an adequate reply to your own assertions that Marx was responsible.

They were all Marxists.

Marx, in spite of all his faults - not anywhere as extreme as you insist from pure malice

Read a biography. Then you'll know better. What you're saying shows you don't even know the first thing about Marx.

Once again, tell me about the biography that made you know better? Maybe I'll read it, but I first have to know about it. So what is it?

No, I'll let you pick. You despise anything that is Christian. I want you to find something you think is trustworthy, because I'm just that confident you'll find the same facts. Go to it. Inform yourself. You'll find out.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 4:17 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:32 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:29 am
They were all Marxists.

Read a biography. Then you'll know better. What you're saying shows you don't even know the first thing about Marx.

Once again, tell me about the biography that made you know better? Maybe I'll read it, but I first have to know about it. So what is it?

No, I'll let you pick. You despise anything that is Christian. I want you to find something you think is trustworthy, because I'm just that confident you'll find the same facts. Go to it. Inform yourself. You'll find out.

Whether I despise anything that's Christian again has nothing to do with it. I wanted to know what bio or bios you read of Marx that made you think the way you do. Most people, I believe, would consider that a fair request, in fact, an obligatory one. I've read multiple articles and essays none of which have ever concluded what you conclude about Marx. So I need to know specifically what you've read which reverses everything I read.

Can you manage to do that or not?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 4:17 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:32 am Once again, tell me about the biography that made you know better? Maybe I'll read it, but I first have to know about it. So what is it?

No, I'll let you pick. You despise anything that is Christian. I want you to find something you think is trustworthy, because I'm just that confident you'll find the same facts. Go to it. Inform yourself. You'll find out.

LOL. Here’s Manny doing his ludicrous trick of putting the onus on his opponent to find the evidence that shows they are wrong and he is right. Intellectual honesty is the essential prerequisite for all philosophical inquiry. Manny has none. He doesn’t belong here.

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 4:44 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 4:17 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 3:32 am

Once again, tell me about the biography that made you know better? Maybe I'll read it, but I first have to know about it. So what is it?

No, I'll let you pick. You despise anything that is Christian. I want you to find something you think is trustworthy, because I'm just that confident you'll find the same facts. Go to it. Inform yourself. You'll find out.

Whether I despise anything that's Christian again has nothing to do with it. I wanted to know what bio or bios you read of Marx that made you think the way you do. Most people, I believe, would consider that a fair request, in fact, an obligatory one.

No, most people would advise you to do your own search, wherein you'll find out exactly the facts that I've been telling you, and so instead of misguidedly being angry with me, you'll be independently confirmed in the truth.

So do it. I'm not afraid of the truth: why are you?

Meanwhile, here is just a taste of Marx's poetry. Let's hear from the man himself what was going on in his brain:

From: "Invocation of One in Despair"

So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of Destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!

On myself revenge I'll proudly wreak,
On that being, that enthroned Lord,
Make my strength a patchwork of what's weak,
Leave my better self without reward!

I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark-- superstitious dread,
For its Marshall--blackest agony...


or again...

From: "The Fiddler"

"How so! I plunge, plunge wihout fail
My blood-black sabre into your soul.
That art God neither wants nor wists,
It leaps to the brain from Hell's black mists.

"Till heart's bewitched, till senses reel:
With Satan I have struck my deal.
He chalks the signs, beats time for me,
I play the death march fast and free."

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:26 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 4:44 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 4:17 am
No, I'll let you pick. You despise anything that is Christian. I want you to find something you think is trustworthy, because I'm just that confident you'll find the same facts. Go to it. Inform yourself. You'll find out.

Whether I despise anything that's Christian again has nothing to do with it. I wanted to know what bio or bios you read of Marx that made you think the way you do. Most people, I believe, would consider that a fair request, in fact, an obligatory one.

No, most people would advise you to do your own search, wherein you'll find out exactly the facts that I've been telling you, and so instead of misguidedly being angry with me, you'll be independently confirmed in the truth.

So do it. I'm not afraid of the truth: why are you?

Since you're not afraid of the truth, and I, supposedly am ignorant of it, what keeps you from passing some of it on proving your point? This is after all, still a philosophy site...I think!? It's common to expect someone who makes assertions contrary to consensus to provide some evidence. So far you provided nothing except read his bio. How would I know which specific ones to read which substantiate your claim?

So, where are the facts you've been telling me about whose veracity I'm asked to discover on my own to confirm the facts you've been telling me about? Notice any circularity?

What is absolutely true and clear to anyone with half a brain is that you are - on all counts - a truly miserable failure as a thinker and a person with zero integrity, casting nothing but malignant aspersions on those you don't like, who are usually those who criticized your religion for what it really is.

On a philosophy site, anyone as decrepitly dishonest, hateful and hypocritical as you've proven yourself to be countless times and still allowed to continue, no-longer lives up to its description. If I get banned for saying so, then all I can say is, it's time to look for different lodgings.

When you get challenged to submit evidence you renege completely, not because you want to, but because you're unable to.

To the question "where's the beef", you offer nothing but mustard on one's beefburger with the demand it's up to the requestor to add the beef.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:26 pmMeanwhile, here is just a taste of Marx's poetry. Let's hear from the man himself what was going on in his brain:

From: "Invocation of One in Despair"

So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of Destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!

On myself revenge I'll proudly wreak,
On that being, that enthroned Lord,
Make my strength a patchwork of what's weak,
Leave my better self without reward!

I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark-- superstitious dread,
For its Marshall--blackest agony...


or again...

From: "The Fiddler"

"How so! I plunge, plunge wihout fail
My blood-black sabre into your soul.
That art God neither wants nor wists,
It leaps to the brain from Hell's black mists.

"Till heart's bewitched, till senses reel:
With Satan I have struck my deal.
He chalks the signs, beats time for me,
I play the death march fast and free."

...proving what? That Marx is an evil person! Is this your proof that Marx is responsible for 120 million deaths?

Even some great poets have written god defiant poems.

Seriously! Is there anyone more warped, perverse and ultimately pathetic than you on this site!

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 2:30 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:26 pmMeanwhile, here is just a taste of Marx's poetry. Let's hear from the man himself what was going on in his brain:

From: "Invocation of One in Despair"

So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of Destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!

On myself revenge I'll proudly wreak,
On that being, that enthroned Lord,
Make my strength a patchwork of what's weak,
Leave my better self without reward!

I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark-- superstitious dread,
For its Marshall--blackest agony...


or again...

From: "The Fiddler"

"How so! I plunge, plunge wihout fail
My blood-black sabre into your soul.
That art God neither wants nor wists,
It leaps to the brain from Hell's black mists.

"Till heart's bewitched, till senses reel:
With Satan I have struck my deal.
He chalks the signs, beats time for me,
I play the death march fast and free."

...proving what? That Marx is an evil person! Is this your proof that Marx is responsible for 120 million deaths?

No. I'm just opening up a crack in your hardline worship of Marx, so you realize how truly deranged he was. His own father called him a "devil," in fact. The guy was a genuine sociopath.

If I said, "Read this biographer..." or "Read that one..." you'd just say, "You're being selective; that biographer is one voice, and biased." But you cannot do that if you select the biography.

Just go and read a biography, and you'll find out the rest. I'm so confident of that, that I don't even have to tell you which one to read. You'll see it.

IC -- do you know what "ad hominem" means?
If you want to argue Marx's ideas shitty, don;t bother telling us what a shitty person he was.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 3:06 pm IC -- do you know what "ad hominem" means?

Absolutely. It means that criticizing somebody's character is not a legitimate way of criticizing their argument -- but with a vitally important caveat that we must never forget. The ad hom is a fallacy unless their character is brought up as a basis for their argument...which happened in this case, of course.

More than one person here has told me Socialism is "compassionate" and "empathetic." So that raises some questions in itself. But others have even supposed Marx was a great humanitarian, out for the good of all...and that belief certainly comes in for scrutiny.

Marx himself self-presented as nothing less than somebody who could lead humanity to a "higher" humanity, "Socialist Man." He promised he could point the way to a utopia called "the Triumph of the Proletariat." And he evinced a whole lot of love for the workers and a purpose of advancing the cause of humanity. He aimed at being a liberator, a spokesperson for the oppressed, a shining beacon for "workers of the world" to "unite." That's quite a role he claimed for himself.

So it's perfectly in court for us to ask, "Mr. Marx, just how well did your wonderful theory work out for you? Did it make you more humane, more generous to workers, a higher form of human life? Or did it make you nasty, selfish, cruel, indolent and vicious? Before we believe the man that he can lead us to glory, we should just take a look at what he really knew about being a decent human being, should we not?

Now, if you still want to believe his theory, you can. But you have to swim upstream against not only the reality of what his worldview made Marx into, but what trying to implement his ideas made other men inclined to do. And then the case is pretty damning, on all fronts.

The ad hominem has been brought in by others, and by Marx himself, not by me. I merely point out that it doesn't work out well for him.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 2:10 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 2:30 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2026 2:26 pmMeanwhile, here is just a taste of Marx's poetry. Let's hear from the man himself what was going on in his brain:

From: "Invocation of One in Despair"

So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of Destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!

On myself revenge I'll proudly wreak,
On that being, that enthroned Lord,
Make my strength a patchwork of what's weak,
Leave my better self without reward!

I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark-- superstitious dread,
For its Marshall--blackest agony...


or again...

From: "The Fiddler"

"How so! I plunge, plunge wihout fail
My blood-black sabre into your soul.
That art God neither wants nor wists,
It leaps to the brain from Hell's black mists.

"Till heart's bewitched, till senses reel:
With Satan I have struck my deal.
He chalks the signs, beats time for me,
I play the death march fast and free."

...proving what? That Marx is an evil person! Is this your proof that Marx is responsible for 120 million deaths?

No. I'm just opening up a crack in your hardline worship of Marx, so you realize how truly deranged he was.

I don't "hardline worship" anyone...not a single human as you do Jesus for example. It's beyond obvious, you can't come up with a single biographer who would substantiate your demented opinion of Marx or Nietzsche or anyone who questions the integrity of the bible. If a biographer were to endorse your view of Marx, he would lose all credibility and likely his reputation.

Any true biography attempts to analyze the whole individual. All, you ever managed according to the inconceivably stupid, brain-dead cultist traditions you believe and belong to, is demonize and condemn to the uttermost anyone who doesn't conform to your maniacal religious beliefs based on your hardline worship of the Bible which only featherheads still regard as unquestionable.

You make absolute statements without being able to prove any of them or even provide a low installment of probability for it; All your responses prove that to perfection.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 2:10 pmThe guy was a genuine sociopath.

With all your insane hatreds saturating your brain which questions nothing but asserts profusely in unequivocal terms what you regard as fixed and irrefutable, I'm beginning to think you're more likely to be one.

What's certain beyond any reasonable doubt, you don't belong on a philosophy forum...any philosophy forum that's serious on the subject.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 10:11 pm
Marx himself self-presented as nothing less than somebody who could lead humanity to a "higher" humanity, "Socialist Man." He promised he could point the way to a utopia called "the Triumph of the Proletariat." And he evinced a whole lot of love for the workers and a purpose of advancing the cause of humanity. He aimed at being a liberator, a spokesperson for the oppressed, a shining beacon for "workers of the world" to "unite." That's quite a role he claimed for himself.

Did Marx represent himself as nothing less than somebody who could lead humanity to a "higher" humanity, "Socialist Man."

Not exactly. Marx did argue that capitalism deformed human life and that communism would create a more fully developed, freer kind of person, but he did not present himself as a prophet or as someone personally destined to lead humanity into a superior “Socialist Man.”

## What Marx actually claimed

Marx’s own language is about historical development, class struggle, and the transformation of social relations, not about his own authority to elevate humanity. In later Marxist interpretation, especially in writers like Erich Fromm, this becomes the idea of a more humane, “socialist” or fully realized human being, but that is an interpretation of Marx rather than a self-portrait by Marx himself.

## The stronger version of the claim

If the claim is that Marx thought communism would produce a **higher type of human being**, that is broadly fair. But if the claim is that Marx represented himself as the leader who would personally usher in that being, that goes beyond what the sources support.

## Bottom line

So the best answer is: Marx saw communism as enabling a higher form of human development, but he did not represent himself as a messianic leader of “Socialist Man.”

Did marx think of his theories as leading to utopia

No—Marx generally did not think of his own theory as utopian. He explicitly criticized “utopian socialism” and presented his work as a scientific analysis of historical development leading to communism rather than an idealized blueprint for a perfect society.

That said, many later readers argue that Marx’s vision still contains utopian elements, especially in its picture of a classless society and the eventual “withering away” of the state. So the cleanest answer is: Marx rejected utopianism in method, but his end goal could still look utopian in retrospect.

...still the prince of deceivers!

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 11:51 pm you can't come up with a single biographer

You mean, you won't. You don't want to know the truth.

If you did, you'd read a biography. I have. Several. Why won't you?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2026 3:38 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 11:51 pm you can't come up with a single biographer

You mean, you won't. You don't want to know the truth.

If you did, you'd read a biography. I have. Several. Why won't you?

If I pick one it may not tell me the truth. So why don't you pick one of the several you read which tells you the truth correcting my view of Marx? One would think you'd be quite happy to do so. Who so adamant in holding back. This is a philosophy forum, isn't it?

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2026 4:07 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2026 3:38 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2026 11:51 pm you can't come up with a single biographer

You mean, you won't. You don't want to know the truth.

If you did, you'd read a biography. I have. Several. Why won't you?

If I pick one it may not tell me the truth.

You don't even trust yourself to select a suitably secular one you would respect? Well, there's no chance something I pick will be acceptable to you, then.

I've already corrected your view on Marx. You didn't want to hear it. You wouldn't even check out the facts on it. So I can't help you. Apparently, you refuse to be convinced...not just by me, but even by secular sources you approve yourself.

That's a tactic I can't beat. So continue as you are, I guess.