So on tonight's show, in a segment on tea party opposition to net neutrality, Keith Olbermann, in response to his guest's assertion that Glenn Beck talks about net neutrality as some sort of Marxist plot, tosses out the impromptu line: "To the Marxists: Marx is dead and was a lousy thinker."
My first thought: where the hell did that come from? My second thought: is Mr. Olbermann fully cognizant of what he's saying or is he just being a glib, knee-jerk anti-communist? Anti-communists have accused Marx of being many things--an evil fanatic, a dangerous utopian, a tyrannical partisan--but rarely has he been described as a "lousy thinker."
I would like to offer a reminder and a challenge to Mr. Olbermann. I would remind Mr. Olbermann that merely disagreeing with a person's ideas does not make your ideas sound and the other person's ideas lousy. The proper way to determine the soundness of an idea is through investigation and argument. And it is in this spirit that I'd like to challenge Mr. Olbermann and other anti-Marxists to come here and debate Marx's ideas. What exactly makes Marx a lousy thinker? Is it because atrocities were committed by people claiming inspiration from Marx? But then don't we also have have to condemn Adam Smith as a lousy thinker because his ideas inspired the U.S.-backed coup in Chile? Or the U.S.-backed coup in Iran? Or the overthrow of the elected government of Nicaragua? Or the Great Depression, in which millions of people worldwide starved? Or this current Great Recession, in which millions more worldwide will starve? If we're going to be consistent then surely Smith must be held accountable as much as Marx. But I know Mr. Olbermann fancies himself an intellectual and recognizes that to blame Karl Marx for Stalin is as absurd as blaming Adam Smith for Augusto Pinochet. (Another reminder to Mr. Olbermann: those people in Chile that were tortured and murdered by Pinochet, the ones you felt such a pious regard for, were by and large Marxists. That you, Man of Towering Intellect, wouldn't know that strikes me as unlikely. So I'll just chalk it up to a strategy of pure deception. [psst...put The Battle of Chile in your Netflix queue for a great overview.])
Now, if Mr. Olbermann's objection to Marx does not stem from atrocities committed in his name, but rather from a genuine conviction that Marx was indeed a man of low intellect and a sub-standard ability to think (try not to laugh, fellow lovers of intellectual history!), then he should come on here and actually construct precise arguments as to why this is the case. To glibly spout off about one of the most important and influential thinkers in world history strikes me as a typical case of good 'ol American know-nothingism.
As Chairman Mao put it (uh oh, Keith, what would your bosses say?!), "No investigation, no right to speak."