A life time ago I lost a friend to Objectivist philosophy. Not wanting to lose said friend, I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged to try and figure out why he was acting like an asshole all of a sudden.
I took a couple points of psychic damage in the process, but at least I can stand my own when offering counter arguments against their edgy philosophies.
What are some other works that it would be handy to be knowledgeable of the next time a philosophical edge lord tries to quote me into a corner?
I’m looking to be more well informed in conversation.
I’ve forced myself to read Mein Kampf, Atlas Shrugged, Imperialism by Lenin and various other political works from various philosophies. Do these count?
I’ve found many of them to be dry at best and abhorrent at worst (thanks Hitler).
None of them have changed my mind in drastic ways but have helped me understand the viewpoints of people I talk to.
Mein Kampf is notoriously just not a good text in any way, even when ignoring the abhorrent views. It’s an unhinged shapeless rant. It’s pretty funny to see the wikipedia page quoting translators comments about how poorly-written the original is. Of course, neo-Nazis insist that any faithful translation is a [communist/Jewish/pick one] trick to make them look bad.
Yeah, it just read like the angry rantings of a man left alone with hateful thoughts for too long. I can’t speak to the quality of German in it and I’m certain some translations make his writings seem academic but they all just fall flat if you take a few hours to read up on economics and policy in Europe around the time he wrote the book.
Just the angry rants of some dude who feels like he isn’t getting what he deserves. Some things never change. We just have podcasts for that now.
Kudos for reading Imperialism, I consider it one of the most important works for understanding the state of the world today. It can be a bit dry, but Lenin’s writing really makes up for it.
I figured I had to give it a fair shake and use it as a companion to Kapital. While I found Marx’s writing to be strongly focused on the philosophy I couldn’t help but shake the feeling throughout Imperialism that Lenin was trying to sell the reader something.
Which makes sense to me as it was published in pamphlets and the likes leading into the revolution.
Though that unshakeable feeling never went away it did confirm a lot of my feelings and thoughts on globalisation, wealth consolidation and so on.
Lenin didn’t get a faithful customer out of me but his writing certainly helped me understand some of my more authoritarian comrades. I don’t have to agree with people completely to stand beside them.
In Imperialism, Lenin is specifically trying to outline the primary contradiction in the world as he saw it as it evolved from Marx’s era, as an explanation for why Revolution hadn’t yet occured in developed Capitalist countries as Marx had initially thought. Rather than the most developed countries, Imperialism causes revolution to happen in the Global South. This came with a whole host of new questions, but those aren’t going to be answered in Imperialism. Instead, you’ll find discussion of revolutionary strategy in The State and Revolution, as well as What is to be Done?
As for “authoritarianism,” the standard Marxist stance can largely be found in Engels’ On Authority, which is a very quick read. I would also recommend Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti if you want to really understand Marxist movements and why the vast majority of Marxists support them, even if they aren’t utopian wonderlands. You don’t have to agree, but you’ll have a much better understanding of your Marxist comrades that way.
Thank you, this is exactly the stuff I’m looking for.
Thanks!
How did you find Rand’s take on relativism?
I’m quite young so I can only compare it to a few things. It felt to me to just be overwhelmingly “Fuck you, I got mine.” Which is… Interesting to say the least when you build your empire on the back of the workers.
I’m curious about that book ever since reading “The Book Thief” (about 65% in). But it also feels odd and betrayal to read it for some reason.
To be completely honest I don’t think Mein Kampf is worth the read and any other derivative that follow it are just worse takes like “The Turner Diaries”.
Turns out ethno-fascists don’t have anything to back them up except fear and hatred so their fiction tends to fall flat.