manianviews

Why I always would say that I am not a "believer" of Marxist ideas?         At the outset I must confess that I only have a simple and basic understanding of Marxist principles. I am no way qualified to write exhaustive critique on Marxist school of thought. I make this attempt to highlight the areas of Marxism where I do have major differences in my limited understanding. This article is meant only to enhance my knowledge on the subject. Not to downgrade or belittle or to find faults in it.         Majority of "believers" of today's Marxists  are people who fell into Marxism controlled organisations due to some circumstances in their lives. They also may have been attracted to it due to personality of some charismatic leaders.  Some might be into it because of their association with Marxists dominated trade unions and some might be due to benefits which they received at some point. Many of them do not think beyond the belief system...

Gandhi and Karl Marx - A New Perspective - Akeel Pilgrami essay      It is a known fact that both Gandhi and Karl Marx are seen as poles apart. Marxist scholars and Gandhians meet nowhere according to common understanding. There are those who are adamant that there can be no convergence point between these two.       However, there are points where both these agree in certain areas in the opinion of Philosopher and Columbia University professor Akeel Bilgramy. Although superficially there are no similarities, Akeel Pilgramy tries to establish similarities through certain interpretations.        Left-wing scholars in India and around the world have harsh criticisms of Gandhi on the one side and they also insist that serious, original left leanings should be dug out of his writings and actions to bring forth more debates.  Pilgramy says that Gandhi had no understanding of class, like many other philosophers, thinks that Gandhi's ...

Artificial intelligence and the Left         Recently I attended LIC employees Association's divisional level conference at Thanjavur. In the conference an interesting topic was raised by Kalapiran, a State level office bearer of Tamil nadu progressive writers  association. in his address to the delegates session of the conference he was talking about artificial intelligence popularly known as AI. Surprisingly for a declared leftist  and a communist sympathizer he spoke somewhat positively on the development.        Some people are of the opinion that communists always oppose any new development and they will be highlighting only the negative consequences of such new development . They always fail to see the possibilities of positive outcomes.         I remember asking Dr Thomas Issac in another state level conference, one of CPM party's economic idealogues, about the impact of AI on the labour and employmen...

Spectrum of Left      We were discussing politics in a family function some months ago. One of the persons in the casual chat was a district level RSS funtionary. As I am a known left sympathizer,  the rss guy tried to provoke me by strongly criticizing the Marxism based parties' activities and movements. I didn't fall for the trap. I said though I have left leanings as a trade union functionary, I won't blindly defend all that the left parties do nor do I fully subscribe to Marxist ideas. My support is only a qualified one and I further said that I was entitled to difference of opinion on some of the conventional left views or policies. One of the participants then said that there are many shades of left - or spectrum of left views among people. It provoked me to attempt this write up on the left thinking.       Debate with fundamentalists       And in the discussion I unambiguously told that, yes, I have some differing view p...

    Out of tens (or hundreds) of biographies which were written on Mahatma Gandhiji's life Louis Fischer's "The Life of Mahatma Gandhi" takes a very special place. Arguably it is considered by many as the best and most authentic of all the life accounts of the great man.      I recently read the Louis Fischer's book . I think it would have been reviewed umpteen times by many since the time it was published in the year 1956. Here I am going to write on issues which I could see as new or contrary to general understanding.      Many believe that the Civil disobedience movement which Gandhiji successfully launched against the British was largely inspired by American poet and writer Henry David Thoreau's book on Civil rights movement.  But it was refuted by Gandhi himself in his writings. The civil disobedience movement was launched in the year 1930 and only after the launch he came to know of Thoreau's essay on the subject much later. But Thoreau...