I FINISHED THE ANIMATIC
Hell’s Coming With Me: or, alternatively Stop Calling Jimmy a Toy
this is a post about being right about capitalism. would that, if it were true, make him not right about capitalism
but also uh.
The "Marx hated Jews" thing comes from the fact that he wrote an essay titled "On The Jewish Question."
That phrasing raises alarm bells because we associate the term "The Jewish Question" with Nazis, but it was just the way issues like this were phrased within these philosophical circles. And honestly even beyond that it's more of a translation convention than anything else. You could just as easily have translated that title as "Regarding the Matter of Jews."
The essay is actually a response to another philosopher named Bauer, who claimed that Jews would only be liberated if they stopped being Jewish, because true emancipation requires secularism. The essays Marx is responding to are blatantly antisemitic, even by late-19th century standards. Bauer was arguing that Jews who wanted liberation from oppression were basically asking for "special privileges," (in an argument that bears some similarity to modern concepts of "reverse racism") and implying that Jews aren't even oppressed because they control the economy.
Marx's "On The Jewish Question" is basically him saying Bauer is dumb and wrong and antisemitic, and he's being deeply sarcastic for most of the essay.
He does so by throwing Bauer's antisemitism back in his face, by using a series of antisemitic arguments about how the real religion of the Jew is money and huckstering, and so if you want to abolish Judaism, you'd have to abolish economic exploitation. He's responding directly to Bauer's use of antisemitic tropes about how Jews control the economy. He's using Bauer's own antisemitic framework to prove Bauer wrong.
This also goes back to the conflict between Marx and the rest of the Young Hegelians (which Bauer was). He was constantly criticizing them for being too idealistic and abstract, rather than focusing on material realities. His argument here was "You're framing 'the Jewish Question' as if it's a theological problem, but it's not. It's a political and economic one." Because he was Karl Marx and that was his whole thing.
I really don't understand how anyone reads this essay as anything but sarcasm. I get that some of it is probably lost in translation, but the context makes it really clear that Marx is making fun of Bauer. The idea of Jews giving up their religion would have been deeply personal to Marx. He would have understood exactly what it meant for Jews to give up their religion, and how that was an act of oppression rather than liberation from it. Also, Marx and Bauer had already split by the time this essay was written, and they kind of hated each other. Marx wrote a lot of responses to/criticisms of Bauer, and he called Bauer a "right wing fanatic" multiple times.
Like, what's actually more likely here?
Option 1: Karl Marx, a Jewish man, wrote one essay that is totally at odds with all his other analysis on the nature of oppression to be rabidly antisemitic and then basically never discussed the subject again?
Option 2: Karl Marx, a Jewish man and a well-known lover of pettiness and drama, wrote an incredibly sarcastic essay making fun of a raging antisemite that he already he didn't like?
I like this addition. Funny how capitalism, antisemitism and right to exist just hasn’t changed in the last 200 years since this German economist’s time.
That passage about the Suez Canal wasn't written by Marx, it was written by a Marxist economist named David Harvey in 2003. And that's kinda the whole point that people who say 'Marx failed to predict _______' are missing, isn't it? As Mao put it,
'When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a "prophet" but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalisation of mystical notion as that of "prophecy" ever enters our minds.'
Yes, a lot of what he said about capitalism in the 1800s is still relevant today, sometimes in ways one might not expect, because we still live under capitalism. But you could easily say that Marx (and Engels) failed to predict the Russian Revolution, failed to predict that the first socialist state in history (that lasted more than a few weeks, anyway) was established in what was then the Russian Empire, just as easily as you could say he 'failed to predict' anything else. But the people who carried out that revolution, and who established that state, or any other socialist state in history, didn't think see it that way. Because the point is not that he got everything right, but that the analytical methods that he developed, dialectical and historical materialism, are correct, and lead to a correct understanding of what forces shape societies, and only by using those methods could the revolutionaries understand their situation, succeed in overthrowing their oppressors, and establish socialism.
The part about Marx's supposed antisemitism is more or less correct though, it's a ridiculous, willful misunderstanding based in total ignorance of history, and anyone who repeats it is either themselves antisemitic or is willing to listen to antisemites, yes even if they are Jewish.
Last couple additions are all correct, just adding though that during the Cold War anticommunists liked to selectively quote that essay in a bad faith effort to smear Marx as antisemitic. Somewhere I have a copy of a 1950s reprint of the essay with the parts that sound worst out of context bolded and underlined, so if you skim through it you get the opposite impression of what Marx intended. So basically people who go "wasn't Marx an antisemite though? 🤔" are (whether they know if or not) trying to sell you on lukewarm propaganda from 50 years ago.
so uh. this is what the author of The Care And Keeping Of You looks like.
I can literally see my copy of that book from where i’m sitting right now, and i hope that she knows how helpful that book was
I'm a survivor of the terror attacks who lived 4 blocks east of the World Trade Center. I lost my home that day, spent years homeless and destitute, and I carry a Zadroga Act diagnosis of 9/11-connected PTSD. If anyone who's doing this RP needs character coaching or if you need help with authentic scenarios, I'm available for consulting services at reasonable rates. DM me here or leave your number on the men's room wall at any leather bar and it'll get to me in 24 hours. Happy 9/11 y'all, and remember fireworks are unsafe and illegal in most jurisdictions.
i have an idea for a minecraft mod that adds more variations to the hoglin based on their spawning location
click for better quality!
i am just playing so much minecraft these days and i am obsessed with the nether and hogs so have this
tell me what y'all think!
Have you ever met someone with the same surname as you (who you aren't related to)
Yes
Yes, but not in person (celebrity or online)
No
it's complicated
A hungry Spider made a web
Of thread so very fine,
Your tiny fingers scarce could feel
The little slender line.
-Aunt Effie's Rhymes for Little Children
Recently, I've been working on a shawl inspired by Annabelle Cane. Yesterday, I finally finished and blocked it.
This shawl would not be here without @saintbleeding, whose writing and encouragement made me go crazier about Ms. Cane than ever before.
(ID: Four images of a circular white shawl. In the first image, a white lace shawl is draped on a hydrangea bush. The shawl is circular and has a simple lace pattern of spokes spiraling outwards intersecting with concentric circles, reminiscent of a spiderweb.
In the second image, the same shawl is being worn by the creator, a white freckled person wearing black clothing who is facing the camera. The photo shows them from the chin to the knees, hands clasped at their front. The shawl has been folded at the top edge and draped around their shoulders. The bottom of the shawl is drifting in the breeze and illuminated by afternoon light.
In the third image, the same person is wearing the shawl, with their back to the camera and arms spread. Again, the shawl is drifting in the breeze and catching the light.
In the fourth image, the same person is walking away from the camera, arms spread to showcase the shawl. The camera angle shows more of the background, a fenced in backyard with a cherry tree and blue sky. There is a spider emoji obscuring the person's face. End ID.)