From where I stand, when violence and ideological destruction happens outside the developed world, why it often becomes framed as a regrettable but acceptable cost of protecting the “right” ideology. This begins to resemble a form of hipocritical moral hierarchy.
I agree that this is a thing that happens and it must be frustrating when you are from such parts of the world. But note that I didn’t do this in my comment.
Also, my impression is that many Westerners these days are not particularly attached to defending the actions of their countries in the past. On the contrary, a lot of people are readily willing to discuss these things or even harbor negative sentiments towards their country for past sins. I’m originally from Switzerland, so there isn’t that much controversial history there—apart from spineless/soulless opportunism during WW2 and in the banking system—but even among Americans, my sense is that many of them will totally agree with you that America did terrible things in the name of anti-communism. Simultaneously, you’re probably right that most people (me included) don’t know much about what happened in Indonesia (say) because it was far away. (And yeah, it probably plays a role as well that it doesn’t fit simple historical narratives or doesn’t portray the West in the best way, but I think that was more of an issue at the time when these events were happening, since it shaped how the American press talked about it back then, and more recent (and more neutral/two-sided) discussions is naturally a niche interest because most people live in the present.
FWIW, I’ve long had the book “The Cold War: A World History” by Odd Arne Westad physically on my reading list and I expect I will learn more about the dangers of non-Marxist ideologies from reading that than by reading Marxist literature directly. Reading your reply, it reads a bit as though you think the following is a sound inference: “What happened in Indonesia during the Cold War in the name of anti-communism was atrocious, therefore it’s worth reading Marxist literature to better understand the dangers of ‘liberalism’ (or what people try to sell as liberalism, even if it involves empowering terrible dictators).” But this obviously isn’t sound. I’d rather learn more about the dangers of witch hunts and overreactions from good historians than by reading Marxist literature.
I understand that you’re skeptical of my dismissal of Marxist literature since I haven’t read much of it. At the same time, you didn’t really reply to my point about its atrocious track record, so I feel like I have said more than enough to put the burden back on you to convince us that these texts are worth reading in the context of David Althaus et al’s post.
I don’t think the inference is “Indonesia happened, therefore one must adopt Marxism,” or even that Marxist literature is uniquely authoritative. My point is narrower.
If the concern is ideological fanaticism, then understanding the internal logic of influential ideologies seems like a reasonable starting point. Reading historians who describe outcomes is valuable, but it is different from engaging with the conceptual frameworks that shaped how people understood the world in the first place. Marx matters here not because he must be agreed with, but because his ideas shaped large parts of twentieth-century political imagination, including the reactions against them.
To me, this is closer to studying something at its source. If one wants to understand a disease, it helps to examine the organism itself rather than only reading accounts of its effects. Marxist thinkers, in that sense, are part of the intellectual laboratory of modern ideology, just as liberal or conservative thought is.
I also don’t think this needs to be framed as Marxist literature versus good history. Historians like Odd Arne Westad are valuable because they reconstruct events: who acted, under what constraints, with what consequences.
Social theory, however, serves a different purpose. It asks why certain ideas became convincing in the first place, what assumptions about human nature or society they carried, how they defined concepts like progress, justice, or rationality, and how those assumptions structured perception before decisions were even made. It helps explain why intelligent, enlightened people could sincerely believe they were acting morally while producing destructive outcomes. In other words, history tells us what happened and how; theory tries to explain how certain ways of thinking made those outcomes intelligible or even necessary to the actors involved.
Fun fact: Marx wrote something literally titled “The German Ideology” — and despite the title, it is not about fascism.
I agree that this is a thing that happens and it must be frustrating when you are from such parts of the world. But note that I didn’t do this in my comment.
Also, my impression is that many Westerners these days are not particularly attached to defending the actions of their countries in the past. On the contrary, a lot of people are readily willing to discuss these things or even harbor negative sentiments towards their country for past sins. I’m originally from Switzerland, so there isn’t that much controversial history there—apart from spineless/soulless opportunism during WW2 and in the banking system—but even among Americans, my sense is that many of them will totally agree with you that America did terrible things in the name of anti-communism. Simultaneously, you’re probably right that most people (me included) don’t know much about what happened in Indonesia (say) because it was far away. (And yeah, it probably plays a role as well that it doesn’t fit simple historical narratives or doesn’t portray the West in the best way, but I think that was more of an issue at the time when these events were happening, since it shaped how the American press talked about it back then, and more recent (and more neutral/two-sided) discussions is naturally a niche interest because most people live in the present.
FWIW, I’ve long had the book “The Cold War: A World History” by Odd Arne Westad physically on my reading list and I expect I will learn more about the dangers of non-Marxist ideologies from reading that than by reading Marxist literature directly. Reading your reply, it reads a bit as though you think the following is a sound inference: “What happened in Indonesia during the Cold War in the name of anti-communism was atrocious, therefore it’s worth reading Marxist literature to better understand the dangers of ‘liberalism’ (or what people try to sell as liberalism, even if it involves empowering terrible dictators).” But this obviously isn’t sound. I’d rather learn more about the dangers of witch hunts and overreactions from good historians than by reading Marxist literature.
I understand that you’re skeptical of my dismissal of Marxist literature since I haven’t read much of it. At the same time, you didn’t really reply to my point about its atrocious track record, so I feel like I have said more than enough to put the burden back on you to convince us that these texts are worth reading in the context of David Althaus et al’s post.
I don’t think the inference is “Indonesia happened, therefore one must adopt Marxism,” or even that Marxist literature is uniquely authoritative. My point is narrower.
If the concern is ideological fanaticism, then understanding the internal logic of influential ideologies seems like a reasonable starting point. Reading historians who describe outcomes is valuable, but it is different from engaging with the conceptual frameworks that shaped how people understood the world in the first place. Marx matters here not because he must be agreed with, but because his ideas shaped large parts of twentieth-century political imagination, including the reactions against them.
To me, this is closer to studying something at its source. If one wants to understand a disease, it helps to examine the organism itself rather than only reading accounts of its effects. Marxist thinkers, in that sense, are part of the intellectual laboratory of modern ideology, just as liberal or conservative thought is.
I also don’t think this needs to be framed as Marxist literature versus good history. Historians like Odd Arne Westad are valuable because they reconstruct events: who acted, under what constraints, with what consequences.
Social theory, however, serves a different purpose. It asks why certain ideas became convincing in the first place, what assumptions about human nature or society they carried, how they defined concepts like progress, justice, or rationality, and how those assumptions structured perception before decisions were even made. It helps explain why intelligent, enlightened people could sincerely believe they were acting morally while producing destructive outcomes. In other words, history tells us what happened and how; theory tries to explain how certain ways of thinking made those outcomes intelligible or even necessary to the actors involved.
Fun fact: Marx wrote something literally titled “The German Ideology” — and despite the title, it is not about fascism.