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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29463 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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"Jefferson was racist, ergo a bad person and all of his works are now discredited."

Except that Robinson's leftist wagon fort never applies the same standard to Marx, or Engels, or Che Guevara, or any other leftist revolutionary who ever expressed racist views. I find it regrettable that Rufo seemingly never made that point.

Robinson has said plenty of negative things about Marx and his ideas, which upset the folks at Jacobin. I didn't read his book so I don't know how much of his argument relies on "bad person ergo" but figured this trivia was worth pointing out

From the review, Robinson appears to have tarred Marx as an authoritarian (a position which Jacobin might not champion, but is willing to tolerate if it leads to a better world state), not as a supporter of racism, bigotry or anti-semitism (ideologies which Jacobin wouldn't support, even if they would bring socialism closer). Would have interesting to see him confront anti-Slavic and anti-Jewish sentiment pervading the writings of early socialists.

Googling I discovered that Robinson argues against Marx being an anti-semite, confirming that he only scours the history for prejudice, if it advances his ideology. If facts would bury his intellectual forefathers, they instead are buried.

Rufo knows that's a trap because, if pressed, Robinson would obviously disavow Marx's racism but merely say he "had some interesting ideas about labor relations" or something. Rufo, on the other hand, wants to defend some kind of constitutional originalism where the founding fathers were uniquely capable sages whose instructions must still be followed today.

merely say he "had some interesting ideas about labor relations" or something

I argue it'd be relatively easy to press him on this. Surely his ideological investment in Marxism goes further than that.

the founding fathers were uniquely capable sages

Does Rufo actually go that far? I'm not familiar with his work so I don't know.

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