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I had to think of how to pose this question. It's kind of tough. I've read Beyond Good and Evil, the Genealogy of Morality, Twilight of the Idols by Nietzsche. I've read Marx's Communist Manifesto. I've read several of the essays by Freud along with his work Civilization and it's Discontents. I have opinions of all their writings from reading them.
My sense of Nietzsche is that the allure of Nietzsche is that he is easy to read but the only thing you can understand reading Nietzsche is Nietzsche himself. For me, Marx misinterprets the writings of Hegel--grossly--and essentially twists Hegel's History of the World to argue his conception of how history will unfold. The sense I get from Freud is that he is a punitive sort who is preoccupied with his own fantasies. Also, as another bias against Freud at a used book store I found his seminal work on how to make cocaine.
These were all German thinkers of the nineteenth to early twentieth century. Whether directly by their writing or whether they were a reflection of the German Zeitgeist, it is not surprising to me we ended up fighting two World Wars against the Germans. Then when the Communist Manifesto was adopted by the Russians we fought a Cold War until the eighties. With Freud it seems like he was benign but I wonder how many countless, "patients," went through his treatment and were never helped but what is worse is he is the father of Cocain which the world struggles to contain to this day.
So, would the world be a better place without Nietzsche, Marx and Freud?
Unequivocally unanswerable...it's tantalizing to ponder things like this, but the proposed answers will never ever ever ever do the complexity of the world justice.
They were not the only people who professed those ideas. But they were the ones who could articulate them in a way that publishers considered print-worthy. If they hadn't given us all a chance to explore those ideas, somebody else would have, and they would have been just as persuasive. You can't hide an idea that is taking fruit in the minds of men. Each of them was influenced by a previous or contemporaneous thinker, whose works they read and discussed and elaborated on. For Nietzsche, it was Schopenhauer and Wagner. For Marx, his friend Engels. For Freud, it was Charcot and Breuer. They didn't just wake up one morning and create a philosophy out of whole cloth, that never would have gained currency without them.
Furthermore, you have yet to prove them wrong or their ideas harmful. Go to any mental hospital and see the faiilures of modern therapists and clinicians who, in 2014, are proved no more gifted or helpful than Freud. You have no level playing field on which you can point to a failure of Marxism, which could not compete from a starting point of poverty against the vested wealth of capital and its weapons of mass destruction. People whose minds have been freed to relate to Nietzsche are not so dismissing of him -- is it the free mind you object to, the mind free to contemplate him and Marx and Freud?
They were not the only people who professed those ideas. But they were the ones who could articulate them in a way that publishers considered print-worthy. If they hadn't given us all a chance to explore those ideas, somebody else would have, and they would have been just as persuasive. You can't hide an idea that is taking fruit in the minds of men. Each of them was influenced by a previous or contemporaneous thinker, whose works they read and discussed and elaborated on. For Nietzsche, it was Schopenhauer and Wagner. For Marx, his friend Engels. For Freud, it was Charcot and Breuer. They didn't just wake up one morning and create a philosophy out of whole cloth, that never would have gained currency without them.
Furthermore, you have yet to prove them wrong or their ideas harmful. Go to any mental hospital and see the faiilures of modern therapists and clinicians who, in 2014, are proved no more gifted or helpful than Freud. You have no level playing field on which you can point to a failure of Marxism, which could not compete from a starting point of poverty against the vested wealth of capital and its weapons of mass destruction. People whose minds have been freed to relate to Nietzsche are not so dismissing of him -- is it the free mind you object to, the mind free to contemplate him and Marx and Freud?
All good points and very valid, thank you for responding. Hmmmm...how should I respond. This is going to be tricky.
Well, I will start with Marx. It's been a while since I have read the Communist Manifesto and I don't currently own a copy. The sense I got from Marx is the natural course of Capitalism is to end in Communism. Now, it's a natural course and not something forced. Meaning that even had Marx not written the Communist Manifesto ever, had Marx not existed, according to his own theory Capitalism would eventually progress to Communism. An oversimplification of his argument is that part of this is due to the alienation of labor as part of industrialization. An example would be a factory where workers assemble cars. Instead of one worker assembling an entire car and according to Marx actualizing his will, each worker is instead relegated to plugging in a screw as a car goes down the factory line thus being alienated from his work. There's more to it but at the fundamental this is kind of what leads to a sense of dissatisfaction with labor.
My response to Marx though is that industrialization and Capitalism are not the same thing. Industrialization, instead, is part of the development of economy and not the ending point. So we start with agrarian, then you get something feudal, then get industrialized, then you get what the majority of the First world has which is a service sector economy. I'm missing points in the development of an Economy but essentially if there is an evolution, as Marx supposes, it is one from Industrial to Service not Capital to Communist. So for example, it is not surprising to me the an impure Communist Country--by impure I mean one that is not truly Communist but has only elements of Communism--China is developing better now that it has a manufacturing sector. In the same sense, that after World War II America's boom is attributed to Manufacturing.
Of the First World countries USA, England, Europe, Japan all have small manufacturing sectors but the crux of their economy is in Service. By Service I mean professions like lawyer, doctor, nurse, accountant, business and the various technology industries--this isn't meant to be comprehensive mind you. In all of these professions, the individual does actualize their will in the service they provide. So while Marx is correct of his criticism of industrialization, his ideas to a large extent are irrelevant now that we live in a primarily Service sector world. So, in a sense Capitalism can't evolve into Communism now.
Now, please, do not confuse me for a conservative or liberal or libertarian or Ayn Rand reader. Our country has problems, which if you go to CD-Politics both sides of the coin discuss them. However, what I posit are the problems Capitalism or are the problems Political? For example, I'm not an expert in Japan but Japan is another Capitalist country. Do they have the same problems as we do. I suspect not. I don't know if that is the case. I'm not holding Japan out as the ideal society, because I wouldn't want to live in Japan. I simply post it because if Capitalism was the problem then Japan would share the same American problems. In fact, if Marx is correct Capitalism evolves into Communism then I think the first country that would get there would be Japan.
They were not the only people who professed those ideas. But they were the ones who could articulate them in a way that publishers considered print-worthy. If they hadn't given us all a chance to explore those ideas, somebody else would have, and they would have been just as persuasive. You can't hide an idea that is taking fruit in the minds of men. Each of them was influenced by a previous or contemporaneous thinker, whose works they read and discussed and elaborated on. For Nietzsche, it was Schopenhauer and Wagner. For Marx, his friend Engels. For Freud, it was Charcot and Breuer. They didn't just wake up one morning and create a philosophy out of whole cloth, that never would have gained currency without them.
Furthermore, you have yet to prove them wrong or their ideas harmful. Go to any mental hospital and see the faiilures of modern therapists and clinicians who, in 2014, are proved no more gifted or helpful than Freud. You have no level playing field on which you can point to a failure of Marxism, which could not compete from a starting point of poverty against the vested wealth of capital and its weapons of mass destruction. People whose minds have been freed to relate to Nietzsche are not so dismissing of him -- is it the free mind you object to, the mind free to contemplate him and Marx and Freud?
The question is did they make a difference in the world? No. It's the ones you have never heard of who are the most cunning and clever. They say actions speak louder than words.
The question is did they make a difference in the world? No. It's the ones you have never heard of who are the most cunning and clever. They say actions speak louder than words.
No, I liked JTUR response because he is correct: these ideas don't come out of a vacuum. They were preceded by ideas, spoken about in the time, and these thinkers presented it in a publishable way. (That is a gross oversimplification of JTUR argument because there is more to it but I'm just making a point).
On your end, I don't entirely disagree with you. In fact, to be honest in philosophical circles some would see my question as a logical fallacy citing similar sentiments as yours. I can't remember the name of the fallacy but not everyone agrees with it being a fallacy.
On my end, I genuinely do believe ideas have influence. For example, it can be argued Freud started the business of psychology. That's huge. I don't entirely agree with it but it can be argued. I believe the entire term Communism either came from Marx or was popularized by Marx and you had nations describe themselves as such--USSR, China, Cuba...etc..Again, it may not be Communism as envisioned but nonetheless the idea is still incorporated into their system. With Nietzsche it gets trickier but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to find evidence his ideas were incorporated into Nazi ideaology. Again, the Nazi's could still have existed without him but in reading his works the sentiments are there.
OP, unfortunately, I have to agree with you.
Marxism gave birth to the biggest manslaughter in human history - occupation of Russian empire by communists and later USSR. With some 130 million killed. All under ideologocal slogans borrowed from idealistic writings of Mr Marx and Mr Engels, both very - contradictorily - successful fabricants.
Nietscheanism and theory of Uber Mensch is clear ideological foundation of the 3rd Reich. With whatever followed.
Freudism, like you said, is what it is. It gave "psychiatrists" a right to treat psyche, though none of them knows, what a human psyche really is.
Nietscheanism and theory of Uber Mensch is clear ideological foundation of the 3rd Reich.
So was anti-Marxism, which you profess.
You can't cherry-pick tyrants or madmen, and say that all -isms they were influenced by were, for that reason alone, irredeemably evil. Is everyone who likes Mickey Mouse evil, because Kim Jong-un likes Mickey Mouse?
I agree with you that communism is a flawed idea that will never work. However, people often have difficulty holding onto this idea while also realizing capitalism is also flawed and that it was in reaction to the flaws of capitalism that communism and socialism emerged. It's true capitalism can make society wealthier than the pure forms of the other two economic policies but there is also a built in mechanism within pure capitalism which makes a society increasingly unequal. These days, due to the fall of communism, if you only mention the problem of inequality, you are likely labeled a communist. Capitalism will not suffer another great fall until the discontented masses reach a critical mass like they did during the Industrial Revolution.
You picked three of my favorites, the world would be a worse place without them. Some ideas pry the lid off of reality, it doesn't make the ideas bad but they are powerful, dangerous and interesting. One has to stop and consider if the moral and intellectual evolution of the human race is ready for that idea, at that place in time.
Like Alfred Nobel's discovery of dynamite, or Albert Hofmann's "LSD, My Problem Child" - some ideas changed the world, and you can never put the genie back in the bottle.
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