To Lester DeKoster and his article on his criticisms of Marxism from a conservative point of view and Marx’s belief in a utopia consisting of a classless. This appeared in the Acton blog.
The constant problem that Conservatives demonstrate is that their view of the present is determined solely by the past. The evaluation of Marx and Marxism is just one example as well as their responses to wealth disparity and economic exploitation, gun control, and climate change. Generally speaking, the conservative mantra is that all problems could be solved by correctly implementing what has already been learned from tradition. This is why, when discussing gun control, many conservatives promote the idea that what is needed to head off our problems with gun violence is the proper implementation of current gun control laws or having society return to holding traditional values rather than the introduction of new laws.
Take the above analysis of Marxism. The writer of the article, Lester DeKoster, paints Marxism as a monolith as if those who followed Marx have never added to or deviated from what Marx taught. Thus, it seems, that DeKoster seems to suggest that all Marxists believe the same thing. But History, a favorite subject of DeKoster, begs to differ. We have significant differences between Socialism and Communism (see http://www.businessdictionary.com/article/1030/communism-vs-socialism-d1412/ ), we have differences between Marxists in and around the time of the Russian Revolution (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm ), and, as Ezequiel Adamovsky has pointed out in his book entitled Anti-Capitalism (see https://books.google.com/books/about/Anti_Capitalism.html?id=WZrbehZVb0EC), there are significant differences between the Leftists of yesteryear with today's Leftists. Or one can read Mikhail Gorbachev's book, The New Russia and see how Gorbachev embraces Lenin while denouncing Stalin and praisesKhrushchev for denouncing Stalin as well. But then listen to Noam Chomsky as he describes why Lenin could not be considered a Socialist from the Marxist tradition (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsC0q3CO6lM&t=850s ).
Or you have Marxists like the economist Richard Wolff, who speaks favorably of what he calls German Capitalism, which is really a hybrid between Capitalism and Marxism. For in Germany, you have codetermination laws that give workers a real voice on the running of the company as workers almost achieve equal power on the supervisory board of any company that exceeds 2,000 employees (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aznS1LvxXmo ). He still called the setup Capitalism in the video, but this model has been called a hybrid at times.
But not only that, there seems to be an absence of fair criticism of its chief rival: Capitalism, which like Marxism, is not a monolith. Here we should compare one of Martin Luther King's criticisms of Capitalism with Marx's materialism noted by DeKoster (see http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/aahistory/Pilgrimage.pdf ):
that capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism.
Or take the claim that Marxism preaches how we can reach a utopia. Not all Marxists promote such an idea. On the other hand, those Capitalists who believe that their ideology cannot learn from or be surpassed by other ideologies have implied that their ideology produces a relative utopia. And conservatives, with their heavy reliance on tradition and their own set of ideologies are naturally inclined to be insular and thus are set against learning from those outside their group.
But perhaps one of the biggest criticisms that can be made of the above article is that while DeKoster criticizes Marx's view and use of History, he never gives any specifics regarding where Marx was wrong. Certainly some of Marx's solutions to the problem he saw were deficient, but his analysis of Capitalism has correctly observed the exploitation of workers which is an inherent part of Capitalism. But those conservative ideologues who are committed to Capitalism have reason not to acknowledge any of the contributions Marx made because Marx had his own faults and made errors. Why? Because Marx lies outside of their traditions and challenged them.
What DeKoster did in writing about Marxism was to criticize some of what Marx believed without taking note of the deviations from Marx some of his believers took and thus the multiple variations of today's Marxism. In addition, DeKoster offers no criticism of Capitalism, even today's Capitalism. If one accepted that Marx had contributions to make, one would think DeKoster would provide such criticisms. Instead, today's Marxism is described and criticized only as DeKoster understood Marx and his implied acceptance of Capitalism without realizing that today's Capitalism is not the same kind of Capitalism that brought the US egalitarian growth after WW II. Thus, DeKoster has not really provided a fair criticism of Marxism. Instead, it seems that he is content on trying to discredit it lest anyone would use what Marx taught to challenge the economic system of the status quo.
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April 6
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost showing a person at a downhill meeting complaining that gun control measures considered after a shooting incident ignore the concerns and rights of the law-abiding citizen. This was posted in Heidelblog
If one takes the gun owner's statements consistently enough, then we should allow any law-abiding citizen to own any weapon they want until they break the law. But what if their first breaking of the law involves using one of the weapons our laws allowed them to own. What if that person's first breaking of the law involved the use of a fully automatic weapon, and RPG, a bazooka, a tank, or something more powerful? The YouTube shooter passed a criminal background check when purchasing her gun. And while the Fox and Friends hosts suggested that it's liberals who are the perpetrators in mass shootings, the ADL reports that more terrorist attacks committed in the US are performed by right-wing white males.
American conservatism's problems consist of its overemphasis on the individual to the denial of any externals and the sole use of conservative traditions and the past to both analyze other groups and understand and solve today's problems. The conservative approach to gun control fits that MO nearly perfectly. We don't need to change the laws, many conservatives say, we need to both change people to accept conservative ideas and allow the individual to arm themselves to the hilt so that the individual can respond to an active shooter. But considering the fact that many guns used in crimes are stolen or are illegally purchased, the mere availability of such weapons to the law-abiding public puts everyone at risk.
And we should consider how too many conservatives are making the false association between more gun control laws and the elimination of 2nd Amendment rights ignores the reality that the vast majority who want more gun control laws accept the 2nd Amendment. One only needs to read the manifesto of the Parkland high school students to realize that (see https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2018/mar/23/parkland-students-manifesto-americas-gun-laws )
The game changer that conservatives seem not to understand is that as advancing technology makes us more powerful, it also makes us more vulnerable. That is as true with internet and computer technology as it is with weapons. And why the conservative approach to gun control is posted on a Christian blog without posting any nonconservative counterpoints gives evidence to the allegation that religiously conservative Christianity is too tied at the hip to political conservatism.
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April 7
To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that draws from a radio broadcast discussion with Chris Gordon. The discussion revolved around distinguishing Christianity and liberal theology. This appeared in Heidelblog.
There are really two concerns that religiously conservative American Christians have with liberal theology: its theology and its political leanings. Regarding the latter, many of those leanings can be shared by Christian Fundamentalists especially since some of the Scriptures seem to express the same concerns.
One of the basic theological tenets of many liberal theologians is that reality can be reduced to what is physical. Another basic theological tenet of many liberal theologians is a denial of the exclusive claims made about the Gospel if not the leaning toward universalism. From these two tenets comes a moralism that sometimes sees no need for God's mercy and grace brought by the Gospel because there is no situation that demands it.
One of the errors conservative Christianity can make about liberal theology is to assume that it has nothing to teach us. That includes liberal theology's moral concerns. Since both the holding of those moral concerns are independent of the need to believe in the Gospel and that religiously conservative Christians hold to moral concerns of their own, what religiously conservative Christians really teach when it claims that liberal theology has nothing to teach us is that we should embrace all-or-nothing thinking: that because we correctly find fault with liberal theology's refusal to acknowledge the supernatural and/or our need for God's grace and mercy found in Christ, that we have nothing to learn from anything else that liberal theology teaches.
There is a karma from religiously conservative Christianity's all-or-nothing approach to liberal theology. That karma produces the same all-or-nothing rejection of religiously conservative Christianity and similar embrace of liberal theology when conservative Christians become disillusioned with religiously conservative Christianity for whatever reason.
