(226) Neela

Unwise Marxism: I noted that wisdom has longevity—it’s to do with discernment, perception, and nature—so, for example, Christ and Hitler are connected to wisdom since despite their apparent losses they have won in the long-term, being at the centre of two religions (in the meantime, their opponents—many more intelligent people—have faded from sight). Yet Marxism seems to still be with us—so is Marxism wise? The answer is no. This is because “Marxism” is not really with us anymore—there was a recognisable “Marxism” in 1905, 1955, and 1985; but that Marxism—“the” Marxism—is no longer with us. Marxism is dead.

What is with us is a selection of Marxisant ideas and ideas that have merged with progressive liberalism, particularly around the 1960s. What has survived in Marxism is, in fact, its Hegelianism—Marx didn’t really develop an original thought system; he just took, in a rather Pharisaical and Jewish move, a pre-existent philosophy and inverted it. He made Hegel’s ideas about economics and not about spirit—sunk them down into matter. Marx started as a “left Hegelian” and it is “left Hegelianism” that is really with us today, not the Marxist apparatus of proles, immiseration, and surplus value.

As Schopenhauer observed: Hegelianism is like a mental disease—once you start to think in a Hegelian way you apply it to everything, your beefsteak, for example, should be well-done even though you want it rare because when you push anything to its absolute limits it is a dialectical “law” that it will turn into its opposite (that might be true for certain mental operations, as in enantiodromia, but it’s not necessarily a natural law). Hegelianism is a “mental disease” because it’s a Hermetic philosophy based on the kabbalah—it’s based on old esoteric wisdom that claims to explain everything; so, naturally, that which survives of Marxism is Hegelian in nature—and this is what we find among the Marxisant today, Hegelian dialectical games with the trans and immigrants.