Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Just got off the telephone with Harry Jaffa, one of the finest political philsophers the nation has ever produced--and the author of Crisis of the House Divided, incomparably the greatest study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates ever composed.
I had called to talk about Marx, hoping Harry would put Marx in the larger context of the nineteenth century. Instead Harry put Marx in the larger context of all of western civilization. "There are basically two parallel traditions in western political thought," Harry explained.
"One is Socratic. It holds that certain ideas are deeper than anything we can perceive with our senses--for that matter, it holds that we can only understand our sense perceptions by referring to these deeper ideas. The other is Epicurean. It holds that everything that exists is a mere construct of atoms. Do you know what 'atom' means? It comes from the Greek for 'uncut.' The atom was supposed to be uncut, indivisible, the smallest unit of matter. Of course by now the atom has been cut and recut into protons and neutrons and who knows what else. So much for the indivisibility of matter. But that's what Marx was. An Epicurean. A materialist."
Only Harry, now 93, possesses a mind so masterful and capacious that he is able to condescend to Karl Marx, one of the signal figures of the last two centuries, seeing Marx as just another bumbling, mistaken materialist.
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May '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Crisis of the House Divided is one of the most challenging and rewarding books I've ever picked up. One of the greatest pleasures of the brief time I spent doing work for The Claremont Institute was meeting Jaffa. What a mind.
Sep '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Well, a bumbling, dialectical, Hegelian materialist, but Harry Jaffa already knows that and I'm splitting hairs just to be, well, me.
Sep '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Never have met the man, but agree with your opinion on the man and the book.
Jul '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
I absolutely agree, while stipulating that Jaffa's "A New Birth of Freedom" comes close. These books aren't just about Lincoln and Civil War; they are about the meaning of America, and what it means to be American.
Jul '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
My favorite quote relating to Marx comes from his wife, Jenny, who said:
Edited on Oct 27, 2011 at 4:30pm“I wish that dear Karl could have spent more time acquiring capital instead of merely writing about it."
May '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
I would like to know *why* you were on the phone with Harry Jaffa. May I hope that there is something more to come?
Jul '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
My guess: Peter was calling an Unimpeachable Advisor to gain a definition of Marxism for the Cold War Book he's writing.
Dec '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
I still can't see the fascination with Marx.
In real science, when a scientist's predictions fail as badly as Marx's has, you don't keep talking about him as if he's intelligent.
Dec '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Underestimating the danger of Marxism is a very common thing especially for the generation that proceeded mine. Marx was more then just an Epicurean. He was a hardened Materialist Atheist Dogmatist. Hegel twisted Kant's ideas inside out (Kirkegaard was not wrong about Hegel) and Marx bastardized Hegel's already bastardized ideas.
What is more interesting to me is comparing Marx to Darwin/Galton. Darwin and his cousin Galton who created Eugenics were contemporaries of Marx. If you take Darwinian Theory and Dalton's together as one theory (very much true) and then compare to Marx you get a very simple result.
Both are hardened Materialist Atheist Dogmatists. Darwin/Galton justfies the Rich murdering the Poor. Marx justifies the Poor murdering the Rich. Seen in this light they are two halves of the same coin. It is only another 75 years until Hitler and Stalin fully extend the theories and start committing Mass Murder. This is a simple short explanation. Don't underestimate it's truth value.
May '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
One aspect of Marx's (and all Marxist) thought is the hatred of "bourgeois morality". Typically, that means the promotion of certain virtues associated with uprightness and respectability, and especially those that make the nuclear family possible. This hatred isn't quite universal among the hard left, but it comes close.
What does rage at marital fidelity and monogamy have to do with an economic theory, or even materialism generally? Please, someone explain this to me. Can't materialists see the insanely copious benefits of the nuclear family for prosperity and well-being of their precious masses on utilitarian grounds, if nothing else? Why is this so difficult to figure out?
Nincompoops.
Nov '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
It's funny, because I've been re-reading a bit of Marx lately -- instigated by my reading of David Schaefer's rich and devastating take-down of John Rawls -- the eminence grise of contemporary faculty lounge thinking -- wherein Schaefer makes many connections between Rawls and Marx.
The following thoughts by Jaffa on Marx -- taken from a private letter to Harvey Mansfield circa 1998, a copy of which was given to me (along with some other students) years ago by Harry Neumann -- has always loomed large in my mind. It's one of the most unsettling things I've ever read:
Karl Marx clearly saw that bourgeois immorality was only a half-way house to a “utopian state” in which there would be no forbidden pleasures, nor any reason for pleasures to be forbidden. It seems that, judged by this standard, present day America is closer to the ultimate communist ideal than was ever imagined by Lenin or Stalin.
For a larger context of the excerpt, see here.
For Mansfield's treatment of Machiavelli's play, The Madragola, to which Jaffa refers, see here.
Edited on Oct 27, 2011 at 8:04pmNov '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Fredösphere:
What does rage at marital fidelity and monogamy have to do with an economic theory, or even materialism generally?
Because according to Marx, "the fundamental act of the division of labor is the sexual act." See p. 59-60 of On Plato's Symposium by Leo Strauss.
Dec '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Robert Lux: .....For Mansfield's treatment of Machiavelli's play, The Madragola, to which Jaffa refers, see here. · Oct 27 at 7:54pm
Edited on Oct 27 at 08:04 pm
Sorry Robert and sorry Harvey Mansfield but I do not agree. Hitler made the trains run on time and killed the six million. He plunged the world into war killing another 50 million. It is not so important that the trains run on time or that the toilets flush automatically.
Harvey's analysis is the result of a trivial understanding of technology, science and morality. So sorry, Not!!!
Edited on Oct 27, 2011 at 9:14pmOct '11
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
I'm rather ashamed to admit Mr. Jaffa is a new find for me, what a delight!
Oct '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
With hatred being the operative word. Marx's error was not his belief, i.e., materialism per se, but the spirit in which he believed it. Epicurus was reportedly a fundamentally cheerful man who taught his disciples to be well-disposed toward life, the universe, and everything. He could not have contemplated overthrowing the social order, let alone doing so on the basis of a utopian fantasy.
Dichotomizing has claimed another victim, I'm afraid. I still look forward to reading Jaffa's books.
Oct '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
May I insert a thought that I know will rile a few. We live in a spiritual world, with physical manifestations. God vs. satan isn't a Sunday school lesson, it is the fundamental definition of this universe. Accept the foregoing, and you are left with the choosing of sides.
To choose God is to choose Life. Judeo-Christianity is the philosophical foundation for God's army to march by.
To choose satan is to choose death. Marxism is merely the philosophical foundation for satan's army to march by.
Now is always the time for choosing. Deuteronomy 31:19 "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live"
Jun '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
J. D. Fitzpatrick
With hatred being the operative word. Marx's error was not his belief, i.e., materialism per se, but the spirit in which he believed it. Epicurus was reportedly a fundamentally cheerful man who taught his disciples to be well-disposed toward life, the universe, and everything. He could not have contemplated overthrowing the social order, let alone doing so on the basis of a utopian fantasy.
Dichotomizing has claimed another victim, I'm afraid. I still look forward to reading Jaffa's books. · Oct 27 at 11:10pm
Marx's sexual freedom (especially as practiced by the early Communists) is the notion of an adolescent. Marx must have been sexually frustrated and dreams (why not this, too?) of a Utopia must include resolving this side of himself into removing the tension that God put into each of us.
My understanding of Epicurus is that he wanted people to embrace all of life and remove all fears. It is often attributed to him that he endorsed bacchanalia -- not true. He was more balanced than that.
May '10
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Epicurus lived a simple life with the aim of a community with ones friends to share both happiness and sorrow. The idea that Epicurus philosophy was an encouragement to sybaritic excess is incorrect, a fantasy constructed by those who like the debacuches with a coating of philosophical rationale.
You may not like materialism, but his advocay of reducing suffering and courage in the face of death are central to true Epicurean belief.
James Gawron I do not know how you get to slide in the accusation that Charles Darwin justfied the Rich killing the Poor. Victorian class consciousness did adopt Darwin's ideas to the social sphere, but I do not know of any explicit encouragement to mass murder by Darwin.
Darwin was a great scientist whose theory of evolution remains fundamental to understanding genetics, biology, and the origins of life on earth. Whether you consider a G-d(s) was involved in this process, does not invalidate the science.You may disagree with Darwin's self confessed agnosticism, but to lump him in with his half-cousin Galton eugenics, and the misanthropy of Marx, does not reflect the facts.
Edited on Oct 28, 2011 at 10:12amAug '11
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
I have not read Harry Jaffa, but from this account it seems to me that Marx's materialism was very different from Epicurus's atomistic materialism. Marx may have been a materialist, but his materialism seemed very different.
Is Jaffa saying that the world of philosophy is divided between materialists and idealists?
In his writings Marx generally used "materialism" either to contrast his theory of history with Hegelian idealism, or he used "materialism" to mean "economics." Marx was a reductionist reducing everything to class conflict. That was his notion of the science of history. Epicurus reduced everything to atoms and then put in swerve. Epicurus was both a natural philosopher and a proponent of an ethical way of life.
Socrates was forthrightly rather bored with any discussion of the natural world. His concern was ethics.
The mature Marx purports to be a scientist who rejects ethics except as an historical defined. If you scrape the surface, however, he certainly seemed to be enraged by injustice as defined by some ideal definition of injustice.
Clearly, I will have to check Jaffa out of the library.
Jan '11
Re: Harry Jaffa and Karl Marx
Not sure if I would call it boredom. In the Timaeus, he goes on and on endlessly about the natural world and how it came about. He just didn't see it as the most useful in teaching about the most important things.
Was it in the Phaedrus that he remarked that trees don't teach him anything?