August/September 2019 lPhilosophy Now 43discussion or weak criticism of Marxism
is as absurd as an agreeable treatise on a
geocentric universe or the flat Earth. It
should be unequivocally condemned as
the anti-human dogma it is.
In his editorial, Grant Bartley set the
tone for the issue by commenting on that
well-known quotation attributed to Marx
but which he did not originate: “I still
think ‘From each according to his ability,
to each according to his needs’ is a great
social ideal, even if it sometimes seems
impractical in our corrupt cosmos.” What
makes the statement great, Mr Bartley?
What exactly would make it practical? It’s
a recipe for and a sanction of universal
larceny – one of the lesser perversions in
Marx’s dystopian doctrine.
Writers in Philosophy Now have
lamented the decline of philosophy in
contemporary society while ironically
advancing it further toward irrelevance.
MICHAEL H. D AVISON ,
AUTHOR OF AMERICA’SSUICIDE
DEAR EDITOR : In Issue 131, Karl Popper
is quoted as saying that ‘Marx failed’.
But Popper is wrong! The modern limit-
ing of the absolute power of the state and
market has mainly come about due to the
fears of the Victorian ruling class that not
reforming would fuel revolutionary
socialist movements. Ruling classes of the
world, unite in reducing the numbers
desperate for revolution! Strengthen lib-
eral democracy so you can enjoy your
wealth safe in your offshore tax havens!
JASON PALMER, K ENT
DEAR EDITOR: I enjoyed your features on
my (distant) relative Karl Marx in PN 131.
However, I’d like to suggest that despite
Professor Qvortrup’s assertion that
“Marx rarely dished out complements”,
that ‘Marx and Engels’ is in fact a com-
plement par excellence. He was, no doubt,
less forthcoming with compliments.
I would get out more, but I’m still
working my way through Das Kapital.
EZRIEL CARLEBACH , L ONDON
Panned Spiritism
DEAR EDITOR : Does Steve Taylor
(Issue 131) really expect anyone to take
his panspiritism seriously? Isn’t it
quackery? What quacks do, be they
medical, religious or psychological
quacks, is invent a set of metaphysical
concepts, imbue them with the magical
quality of being able to interact with
the physical world (for which there is
no evidence), and then present them to
the gullible as the answer to something
troubling. In this vein, Taylor claims
that in addition to our individual con-
sciousnesses there exists a ‘fundamental
consciousness’ that both generates mat-
ter and operates in matter. It gives
‘internal consciousness’ to living things,
but exists as an ‘external consciousness’
in things like rocks and rivers. It is sup-
posed to be an answer to the mind-body
problem and shed light on conscious-
ness. It does neither!
ROB WILKINS, P ERTH
p.s. You might ask Richard Dawkins to
comment on Taylor’s take on evolution.DEAR EDITOR: I have two questions for
Steve Taylor (PN Issue 131) regarding
his article ‘What is Panspiritism?’:
(1) Where is your evidence?, and
(2) What is panspiritism’s ultimate aim?
TERRY GRAPENTINE, A NKENY, IOWAOn Failing To Be Magnanimous
DEAR EDITOR: Raymond Tallis (‘On
Failing to be a Philosopher’, Issue 131)
claims that the vast majority of the pop-
ulation choose not to be philosophers. I
must disagree. Is there anyone who does
not give thought to what is right and
wrong and undertake activity in ethics?
In 2018, 5.7 million people visited just
one art gallery, the Tate Modern. Were
these people going for some other rea-
son than to explore aesthetics? Concerns
over ‘fake news’ exercise minds in the
field of epistemology.
I accept that the vast majority of peo-
ple do not use the technical language of
academic philosophy. Equally, I accept
that the names, let alone the ideas, of
great philosophers are relatively
unknown. But one of the great beauties
of philosophy is that anyone can partici-
pate profitably with little or no prepara-
tory knowledge. It would be rather elitist
to discount the philosophical activity of
most people because it’s quality did not
reach some arbitrary threshold.
MICHAEL SHAW , H UDDERSFIELDDEAR EDITOR: While empathetic with a
lot of Raymond Tallis’s ‘On Failing to be
a Philosopher’ (Issue 131), I’m confused
as to how he pinpoints the emergence of
‘post-truth’ politics to postmodernism,
and indicts it as the cause of such authori-
tarian manifestations as Trump. Half-truths, mythologies, and outright falsifica-
tions have been the tool of authoritarian
regimes since the beginning of civiliza-
tion. And these things were clearly at
work in the Nazi Party, which is what the
thinkers he attacks (being mainly French)
were basically responding to. I hope he’s
not going down the same path as Alan
Sokal and Jean Bricmont in Fashionable
Nonsense. As one critic of that book
pointed out, the authors’ dismissal of
Deleuze basically consisted of repeating
that they did not understand him. As
Barthes parodied in Mythologies: “I do
not understand; therefore, you are igno-
rant.” I have a little more respect for
Tallis’s intellect than that. My guess is
that he is taking what they say too liter-
ally. He, in his scientific mindset fails to
see these thinkers as inhabiting the no-
man’s land between science and litera-
ture, leaning towards literature. And I can
assure him that most people, even rela-
tivistic hippies, know better than to step
in front of a moving bus, regardless of
how much Baudrillard, Derrida or
Deleuze they read.
I bring this up, Dear Editor, not to
defy an established Philosophy Now icon,
but to address a misdirect. By focusing
on a group of thinkers who happened to
engage in a little conceptual play we are
distracted from our very real problems:
the dissemination of information via tech-
nology, and the slow erosion of editorial
authority that has resulted; the emergence
of an oligarchy via globalism; and the very
fact that you cannot have a handful of
people feasting at the table whilst every-
one else fights for the crumbs, and not
expect the problems we’re having.
D.E. T ARKINGTON , N EBRASKAEthical Chainsaws and Motorbikes
DEAR EDITOR: Philosophy will never die.
We can’t let those flat-minded, self-deny-
ing neuroscientists take away our interest
in life. You don’t have to have set foot in
an academy to philosophise. You don’t
need to have a PhD to have a symposium.
The mechanical and chemical determinist
is no fun at all. He, she or it can stay in
their hermetically-sealed, temperature
controlled lab peering down the micro-
scope of their fundamentals. We’ll be jug-
gling ethical chainsaws riding a Harley on
a existential highwire in or out of univer-
sity. Philosophy isn’t even sick.
KATE STEWART
BELLTHORPE, Q LD , A USTRALIALetters