I passed through Trier, Germany, mostly to see the Porta Nigra. But Trier is also the birthplace of one K. Marx, and this year is the 200th anniversary of his birth.
The city is full of celebratory signage and knick-knacks, but for me one item captured the event best. I give you me and mini Marx:
I like the symbolic red to capture his blood-soaked legacy. (Or maybe the red means something else.)
There’s also this wrapped statue of Marx, which is scheduled for unveiling soon, though I kinda like it just the way it is.
Related: My other posts about Marx and Marxism.
Do you think for the modern far-left “Marxism” comes first or identity politics? While certainly Marxism, fascism, and idpol (left or right) share a “warrior” philosophy that fetishizes the world being a zero-sum conflict between groups I suspect for the modern far-left the collectivism, utopianism and anger at modern civilization/politics comes first and the Marxism and even postmodernism can just be useful backup tools to propel their actual main vehicle, “intersectional” styled group conflict. In other words if they found it expedient to drop postmodernism and even Marxism in order to advance zero-sum identitarian analysis even further I think they would and it wouldn’t be hard for them to do.
Do you agree or do you think that once you remove Marxist and postmodernist influences the modern far-left basically would cease to exist (until it’s rebuilt built from scratch with a completely different analysis)? As far as I can tell Identitarian analysis’ greatest strength and weakness is in its vaguity, cut off one philosophical argument head and two come back.
I agree. Though I think for any given individual the philosophical-psychological route can be unique. There’s not one necessary path to that set of conclusions.