Word: visions
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Nevertheless, Marxist influence is still potent, especially where men find themselves in situations somehow analogous to those that surrounded Marx in the Europe of five generations ago. Leaving aside the uses of Marxism within the Communist-ruled countries, groups especially susceptible to the vision today include the peoples of less advanced countries now experiencing early stages of modernization, and certain unassimilated groups (for example, radical U.S. blacks) in advanced countries. Equally susceptible are intellectuals and youth...
...Marxist vision attracts many members of this mixed bag may be explained by a quick look back at Marx's Europe of the 1840s, which in today's parlance would be called a "developing area." Its social structure was crumbling under the impact of science and industrialization. Three attitudes toward change were fairly clearly defined: 1) conservative, 2) progressive or, as it was called, "liberal," and 3) revolutionary. Then, as now, thoroughgoing reactionaries were hard to find; nobody seriously tried to restore the pre-industrial Europe. But there were many clingers, people who fought rearguard actions, defending...
Thus, a key element in the Marxist vision was his effort to channel the anarchistic spirit so that it would be in favor of industrialism but opposed to the capitalists. His intellectual support of the new order fused with his passionate sense of justice to shape a way of being that was simultaneously on the side of progress and in revolt against its present villains who controlled both government and the means of production. This ambivalent way of dealing with the stress of rapid social change retains its appeal for many men today...
...rebellious youth in the advanced countries shows little sign of swallowing Marxism whole, but the Marxist vision does have its strong appeal to the alienated young. An Italian observer, the critic Nicola Chiaramonte, believes that Marxist influence has grown among Italian youth, even though the Communist Party has been losing young members. "Marx isn't very highly regarded as a thinker," Chiaramonte says, "but as a father image he is very much present. The older generation of Marxists remains influenced by Marxist thought, the last philosophy with a consistent system. But youth is moved by Marx's call...
...Will the Vision Go Away...