You couldn’t want a better display of why government funding of the humanities should be abolished than comments in this thread.

Tristan says
“some of the right-wing commentators here seem to want … to trash the Humanities and Social Sciences all together.”

I didn’t say the humanities and social sciences should be abolished; I said government funding of them should be abolished.

Thus you have failed to distinguish:
• as a matter of political economy, between the existence of state and non-state action
• as a matter of logic, between A and not-A.

You’re displaying a failure to understand the basic distinction – between public and private control of the means of production - on which all of Marx’s thinking depends, and all of his devotees, and which all political debate is always about.

But how can Tristan – who discourses so learnedly about humanities and social sciences – be so dumb as not to understand its most basic concept? Perhaps it was an accident?

But no, it’s not an accident, because he does it again later:
“To say there is no place the humanity to reflect upon its condition”

I’m afraid this can only be explained by:
• stupidity
• dishonesty, or
• something else.

Which is it, Tristan?

PS It’s not about me being “infallible” (ad hom), it’s about the fact that you’re not making sense in your own terms.

Yebiga displays the same grade of error:

“What makes Marx revolutionary and unique was not his specific theories but the framing of an economic narrative which enables alternative economic theorems to be imagined.”

In other words even though Marx’s theory is wrong, it’s still useful as theory.

In other words, there’s no such thing as truth.

According to Yebiga’s theory, economics is nothing but telling stories: “narrative”.

But obviously, if an economic “theorem” is self-contradictory and fallacious, it’s worthless as theory – and we’ve already established that no-one including Yebiga can or will answer for Marx’s economic theory.

Chris
“When I tutored at unis, I always made it a point to begin the term by sharing my view that there is no right or wrong answer on the issues we are learning about.”

In other words, there’s no such thing as truth, logic or reality.

For example, if someone had said that full socialism – public ownership of the means of production – would make society more physically productive than capitalism, you would have said there’s no way that we can know whether that’s right or wrong?

Squeers and Killarney are also operating at the same level of complete confusion, double standards, and self-contradiction. Obviously if you use the term “right wing” to refer to:
1. totalitarian socialist dictatorships, AND
2. libertarian anarcho-capitalists,
then your theory is nothing but completely garbled nonsense.

All
Every single line that the leftists have written is riddled with these kinds of basic errors: endless circularity, defending Marx while contradicting him, contradicting themselves, vapid presumptions of moral superiority. When challenged they go straight to ad hominem, and meaningless slogans like “narrative”, “ideology” and “right wing”.

And always the underlying assumption: that the solution to every problem is greater concentration of arbitrary power in central government to violate people’s liberty and property rights: ever the path to the bliss of socialism.

When charged with being totalitarians they deny it, but when you ask by what principle people have a right to their property as against government, they go quiet. So they’re lying.

No-one can be as dumb as these people are pretending.

Marxism spreads this kind of blatant stupidity and dishonesty – there’s no such thing as truth - throughout the humanities and academia, and from there throughout the State and society.

As soon as you pinkos resile from a conclusion in favour of full socialism, as soon as you admit that the only thing stopping socialism from descending into genocide and mass starvation, is the dreaded – gasp! - individual and economic liberty that you fear and loathe, then you are contradicting yourself and Marx, and you no longer have any justification for *any* of your socialist premises. Got that?

* * *

If the true function of the humanities were to develop and spread understanding of the human condition, obviously theory that’s demonstrably wrong – and therefore all political socialism - would have no place in it.

But if the humanities function so that a group of privileged sycophants can live at everyone else’s expense, by making themselves useful to the most powerful group in society – the State - propagating open-ended justifications for their arbitrary exercise, and abuse, of power – then that has perfect explaining power, doesn’t it?

JKJ: If the true function of the humanities were to develop and spread understanding of the human condition,

The Humanities is dominated by a select group of elite people that, for all their studies of people as far back as Plato, Aristotle & Aquinas. Maybe Seneca or even Plutarch's, Symposiacs, or John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, or his Letter on Tolerance (ND, 46) (Reading is one of my hobbies.) have produced no visible or practical difference to how the ordinary common people or even the Ruling elite think about the world . (I know, Bad English. One single sentence.)

So, what direct influence does the Humanities have on the Ruling Elite? How do the Humanities directly affect the Man in the Street?

The Ruling Elite do what their Masters tell them to do. Even the PM is governed by his Parties Hidden Faces.

The Ordinary Man in the Street doesn't even know what Humanities are.

The people who study Humanities think of themselves, Smugly, as Elite. (Well I think so anyway, but it is a view shared by many Ordinary Men in the Street.)

Tell me, What gifts do Humanities bring to the table of practical reality & of what benefit is there for me or people like me?

If the true function of the humanities were to develop and spread understanding of the human condition then it has failed.

Dearest Jardine
One of the key fathers of 21st Century Capitalism , Joseph Schumpeter in his seminal work "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" praises Marx for the unique manner in which he attempts to frame the economic players and forces within Capitalism, however erroneous, he considers Marx to have made a unique and important Contribution.

I doubt you would find a single Economist today who does not hold Schumpeter with a degree of reverence.

I am a great believer in self education but we should expect you to have a basic familiarity with at least the ideas which inform the status quo and which you at least appear to defend.

Condemning Marx is a perfectly reasonable position but it would aid to our understanding, enjoyment and even agency should you bring some added knowledge to the discussion and temper the all too familiar and dull stereo typical harangue. It would perhaps be therapeutic for you to remind yourself that the cold war is over, both the USSR and China have surrendered their Marxist ideology. When I think of the terrors you must have experienced prior to 1989 and the collapse of the USSR, I filled with the deepest compassion for your condition.

A little familiarity with economic theorist would, I believe be invigorating. Otherwise, your contributions however emotionally sincere, can hardly possess their intended force.

The Humanities and Social Sciences need to go back to basics. If they concentrate on helping students develop critical thinking skills, writing skills, analytical skills, argumentative skills, and research skills, then it will be of use. Unfortunately, students are exposed, and perhaps indoctrinated, with a bunch of perspectives; usually left-wing "progressive" ones. The mistake the Humanities and Social Sciences have made is to conflate "progressive" views - radical opposition to capitalism, white males, Europe/Australia/America - with critical thinking.