Overthrow

 If one takes a course on 19th century philosophy or reads a majority of commentaries on the topic, one will come across the assertion that it was Nietzsche who first, in the modern era, pronounced the death of God and saw clearly the problematics this creates for European man and his conception of himself, for morality and meaning, for man's understanding of his place in the universe. This assertion that it was Nietzsche who first grappled with this concept rests either on an ignorance of the history of philosophy or its intentional distortion. Either way, the claim that Nietzsche was really the first to think this problem through is factually not true. It is true Nietzsche made this remark, and that he thought about its implications, but it is not true that he was the first. The latter is an oversimplification and distortion, and it serves to bolster the flattering picture of Nietzsche as a profoundly original thinker who picked himself up by his own bootstraps. As to whether thi...

 Here is a passage from Hegel's philosophy of religion, in which one can see where Marxism found its inspiration for its atheism and naturalism, and also perhaps where the idea of a logical derivation of the state or capital came from: "Knowledge so far aims at that which *is*, and the *necessity* of it, and apprehends this in the relation of cause and effect, reason and result, power and manifestation; in the relation of the Universal, of the species and the individual existing things which are included in the sphere of contingency. Knowledge, science, in this manner places the manifold material in mutual relations, takes away from it the contingency which it has through its immediacy, and while contemplating the relations which belong to the wealth of finite phenomena, encloses the world of finiteness in itself so as to form a system of the universe, of such a kind that knowledge requires nothing for this system outside of the system itself. For what a thing is, what it is i...

This is probably the most widespread attitude when it comes to politics. Leftists, especially, have some grandiose ideas about themselves and what they demand of others. They love to think of themselves as chess masters or grand strategists, and they're convinced that if people would just listen to their strategies about success-- well, then they'd be successful. And that, in and of itself, is what matters. Their grand imperative for success is always the monotone utterance: "Unity now! Onward into battle now! Send it!"  This is deadly. It's no secret that communist organizations aren't exactly thriving mass organizations, nor is it true that "the masses" or even just the workers are basically already revolutionary and just need a spark to guide them to complete their "historical mission", and yet leftists think it's wise to jump to their slaughter rather than take stock of where they actually stand and what tasks make the most sense.  ...

  “Why is the concept of “freedom” not appropriate for a society in which I can live ‘free’ from rule and exploitation?” The contradiction between freedom and communism lies in the absoluteness of the individual will expressed in the concept of freedom.  The absoluteness of the will is the way in which private property owners relate to each other. The individual will counts absolutely, it has freedom to dispose over its own property, and excludes all others from its property. Its sociality comes to it as an unconscious force of nature. This absoluteness of the individual will, which inevitably stands against members of society, cannot exist in communism, because in communism production is carried out collectively with the means of production held in common and the product is also consumed by all. Accordingly, the labor of the individual will exists as a part of the total social will. On the one hand, as a part of this, it determines it; on the other hand, however, it also rela...

A critique of university relativism (Translation of https://www.gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/wahrheit-gibts-nicht-das-kann-doch-wohl-nicht-wahr-sein/) The bourgeois humanities: against arbitrariness and objectivity at the same time In addition to the hope of better career prospects, scientific interest plays a role for some prospective students in their decision to go to university and in their choice of subject. What they have learned at school or acquired privately is not enough; they want to deepen their knowledge, have unanswered questions that they want to pursue in more detail. One person has always been enthusiastic about geophysics and perhaps associates his studies with the hope of being able to help people in the event of a tsunami using early warning systems. The same applies to the anti-fascist who expects a sociology degree to provide better answers to the question of why fascist ideas simply refuse to die out. But even those who have chosen the subject purely for career r...

 Translation of: https://www.gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/rot-massentod/ On the debate about the Black Book of Communism Even before it was published, it caused a sensation. In France, of course, such a book is a different story: there, the communists are in the government and have always been a recognized part of the nation. There was a communist-socialist counter-culture, which was eliminated in Germany when the Nazis came to power. And of course it is also about the Resistance, the French resistance to which the French Republic refers and which also included communists. In Germany, therefore, it is also about something else: on the one hand, the GDR is to be portrayed once again as evil, evil, evil, Honecker = Stalin = Pol-Pot. On the other hand, it is about the permissibility of Marxist social criticism in general.  However, pointing out the interest of the editor and the discussants is not a refutation of the book's arguments. Because even a political opponent with the wo...