An Anthropology of Marxism: A Final Analysis with Steven Osuna

Comments · 7

• TU

  @tumes · 6 months ago

  Great work comrades. <br><br>I think my main takeaway from reading this text is that I need to re-read Socialism Utopian and Scientific, which was very formative for me, easily my favorite Engels text, because when I read it I took it as Engels saying that scientific socialism does come from the tradition of previous socialist movements but the scientific need was to get away from metaphysical abstraction that could only be induced and controlled by a moral persuasion steeped in absolute truth. This position was inspiring to me as someone who needed this kind grounding as I found metaphysical thinking increasingly dejecting and never had answers for the material problems I faced, and I became increasingly more nihilistic. But when I read the text to me Engels gave those earlier movements lots of respect, even where he might have had some of that tough talk here and there, I always saw it as a continuum from reading that text. &nbsp;<br><br>I do appreciate that Robinson felt the need to give us a more robust understanding of those earlier socialisms, I do think understanding these traditions are powerful and need to be seriously studied, I can get down with concept of the socialist impulse being in many ways pre-capitalist (which I do believe is still in line with Marxism) and I do truly embrace the point that a certain dogmatic atheism can arrive in Marxist traditions and as atheist I do my best to clock that as I can, but same time I also always get concerned with the absolute truth problem an idealist approach can have (and this doesn&apos;t only have to fall at the feet of religion, I know idealist atheists haha), but for my speed Robinson doesn&apos;t really address this absolute truth problem Marx and Engels uncover, and often doesn&apos;t really address Marx or Engels core concerns in a robust enough manner, its a bit reductive, Robinson rather looked to frame what he sees as the inadequacies of Marxism, and thats his choice, but for me this keeps it from a truly robust project. Like an interesting example, and I wonder if Robinson ever reviewed this film, but in Ousmane Sembene&apos;s Emitai he has a very Engels like critique of African communal religion and their inability to deal with the imperialist world because they still relied on metaphysical beliefs and not a scientific analysis. But Sembene, like how I read Engels doesn&apos;t admonish them, he just says they are not adequate for the worlds problems, but they are part of African peoples history and must be respected while also heavily critiqued. Sembene got and gets a lot of flack for it, but of course I think he is fundamentally correct on all grounds <br><br>But this was excellent stretch for me, and I appreciate the guidance, and the conversation. Truly appreciate it!

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• SL

  @Slonzl · 6 months ago

  Very interesting thank you comrades🙏🌹🙏🌹

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• JA

  @jaredaball · 6 months ago

  And is it true Engels was himself deeply religious?

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• CH

  @charlenegraham1923 · 1 month ago

  The farmers have been the real revolutionaries because they don&apos;t live in the fishbowls of the working class. Farmers have an autonomy, a sense of solidarity (because they&apos;ve been living communally for generations), an independence, like mountain people, that allows them to hold out longer. Without farmers and mountain people, you have no revolution. Think about the American civil war; West Virginia was simply excused from the whole thing because it was impossible to force people in the Appalachian mountains to fight if they didn&apos;t want to. Those who did volunteer and changed their minds simply went home. And who, exactly, is going to come for them?

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• ET

  @etspiritus · 6 months ago

  ❤✊🏽✌🏽💚

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