Should We Study Ideologies We Don’t Like?

I have been criticized by some of my conservative friends for what they see as my obsession with Marxism. I am a conservative, but my reason for studying Karl Marx is not necessarily to endorse Marxism. I study Marx for the same reason I study Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Nietzsche, or Ayn Rand: because understanding influential ideas helps me understand history, economics, politics, and the modern world. Marx’s analysis of class conflict, alienation, and capitalism has shaped intellectual history whether one agrees with his conclusions or not. We have been talking about his ideas for over 180 years. His ideas, whether one likes them or not, are still center stage.

I agree that the historical record of Marxist governments is overwhelmingly negative. However, history is not an argument against studying an idea. I study Marx not because he was right, but because he profoundly influenced the modern world, and I need to understand why. If an idea is genuinely false, rigorous examination is the best way to expose its weaknesses. Dismissing it without examination is less intellectually satisfying than understanding it well enough to refute it, which seems to be quite prevalent on social media. Anyway, if you haven’t realized it by now, I’m interested in the time-tested theories we’ve been studying for thousands of years. I’m not interested in videos of people fighting in fast-food restaurants, people farting in Walmart, or nasty influencers who will soon be forgotten.

Most importantly, I’m always trying to find the common ground between disparate opinions. I’m not interested in fighting with or convincing people I’m right. My blog is not viral for this reason, but that’s not my goal. My true goal is to get people to put themselves in someone else’s shoes to understand why they feel the way they do, one person at a time.