An evil influence
Monday, October 01, 2012
Eric Hobsbawm dies, aged 95 | Books | guardian.co.uk.
When friends doubted my assertion that Britain's establishment is more Marxist than Russia's ever was, Hobsbawn was always the name I mentioned. If you were educated in a British school or read history at a British university, you have almost certainly studied from one of his texts. If you have read British newspapers, listened to or viewed BBC programmes you have encountered his pervasive influence.
When friends doubted my assertion that Britain's establishment is more Marxist than Russia's ever was, Hobsbawn was always the name I mentioned. If you were educated in a British school or read history at a British university, you have almost certainly studied from one of his texts. If you have read British newspapers, listened to or viewed BBC programmes you have encountered his pervasive influence.
He became a fellow of the British Academy in 1978 and was awarded the companion of honour in 1998.
What kind of country gives its highest honours to a man dedicated to the destruction of its free society? To the destruction of the economic system that made it capable of sustaining him in a life of contemplation? A man who supported the Soviet Union even after it crushed the Hungarian Uprising? A man who remained a member of the British Communist Party until its collapse - long after all with any decency had resigned? A man so monumentally misguided as to support to his end an ideology that had led directly to the slaughter of millions and the impoverishment of billions?
You tell me.
This reminds me Star Wars and the dark side. What will a man do to gain the highest amount of power. Will he do wrong and unethical things? That is what the dark side is suppose to represent.
Posted by: Mike | Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 09:18 PM
Not at all. Instead of revolutionary change it has been achieved incrementally, though it probably started prior to 1950's.
Gramsci counseled his side to begin a “long march through the institutions,” by which he meant the capture of the cinema, theater, schools, universities, seminaries, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and courts.
Review these institutions and try to argue they have not become thoroughly infested with leftist (not to exclude Marxist) dogma.
The establishment merely parrot what they hear around them.
Posted by: Cascadian | Wednesday, October 03, 2012 at 05:50 AM
When the Libertarian Alliance, many years past now, had some money saved up by its fellas, and ran "The Alternative Bookshop in Floral Street, Covent Garden WC2, London, we used to have a shelf section called "REMAINDERED FICTION". It contained any Marxist-Leninist/Maoist (whatevere that is) stuff, and other stuff, such as "Mein Kampf" when some passing pedestrian had a copy of it and wanted to just get rid of the thing, believeing that we were "right wing".
Sometimes we got 10p for a title, sometimes we just had to put everything in the bin every so often and start again, as space was at a premium.
Posted by: David Davis | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 at 01:33 PM
Just finished writing to a few people about him: "Good riddance."
Posted by: james higham | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 at 11:38 AM
Yes-and no!
Posted by: MickC | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 at 11:32 AM
A stupid country? Maybe a blind one?
But for the UK if you dig into it, it seems like that has been going on since the 1950s. Something that looks like very gradual lever pulling towards deconstruction.
Now I sound all conspiracy-ist...
Posted by: Moggsy | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 at 08:48 AM
No doubt a good buddy of Rajani Palme Dutt and definitely admired by the Millipedes and Kinnock...
So, you know where they're coming from... eh?
Stalin's cold blooded wholesale savagery towards his own excused and explained away? I don't know - but I suppose I have to find out.
Posted by: TomO | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 at 01:17 AM
I will tell you what kind of country; a country infested with Fabian "enemies within the gates".
Posted by: Roger Thornhill | Monday, October 01, 2012 at 11:19 PM
A very brilliant writer. A sad loss to us all
Posted by: Anonymous | Monday, October 01, 2012 at 06:04 PM
When Marx's economic work was smashed to pieces by actual, proper economists, all the little Marxists ran away and hid in other, softer, social sciences, working their poison into the wells of knowledge.
As someone who reads a lot of history books, I try to avoid any by Marxist writers - what's the point? Even if they are not intentionally dishonest, they will be fitting the facts into a false framework.
So, if you are in one of the second-hand bookshops in Charing Cross Road, and you hear another customer swearing to himself in the social sciences section, muttering how all the books are written by f***ing communists, it could be me.
Posted by: Richard Carey | Monday, October 01, 2012 at 03:02 PM