Especially when online leftists throw around "idealism" as a meaningless label to dismiss ideas, and claim to be "materialists" themselves. Same vibes as "facts don't care about your feeling." They actually don't even use the correct definition of the word, using it to mean either idealists as in naive and unrealistic, or as in driven by ideals(yeah Im driven by material only, no ideas).
Engels was the first one who proposed the two camps of idealism and materialism. Later the vulgar "dialectical materialism" of Stalin turned this into a rigid division and unfortunately it caught on. In the end, intelligent idealism is still better than dumb materialism.
EDIT: This post actually shows how hopeless some self proclaimed leftists are, completely ignorant about PHILOSOPHY of all things. Is it really too much to ask to read a single page of Marx, and not parrot some other reactionary philosopher? Absolutely pathetic.
You should really stop posting good takes with this username.
Or don’t, it’s funny either way.
Who the fuck is driven by only ideals? Didn't you just propose the dumbest idealism of all? That human beings could possibly be driven exclusively by "ideals". Go read a book lmao, the idealism marx and engels discussed has doesn't even have anything to do with "driven by ideals", it is about philosophies that elevates human subjectivity above the material world
Locking this thread because of your needless aggression and toxicity throughout. Consider this a warning. Insulting everyone's intelligence is not how you have a discussion.
I think the dichotomy is present in Marx, and arguably Hegel. And even Stalin acknowleges that HistMat is itself an idealist form.
The mistake many leftists make is forgetting the second step of Material Reality -> Ideas -> Material Reality.
I'd also doubt that intelligent idealism is less bad than, say, logical positivism. You can at least in principle argue your way into realising positivism is impossible.
You can't always do that with a sophisticated idealist philosophy.
phil 101 students have a better understanding of philosophy than you do jesus christ
Popper?? What's next, Hayek and Ayn Rand? You're actually so full of shit lmao
Bizarre associations? Popper was very close to Hayek and literally said that he learnt the most from Hayek than anyone else. Besides if you have any critical thinking skill you would be able to see the futility of analytic philosophers like Popper and Kuhn coming up with stupid shit like fallibility. Their "philosophy" directly leads to the maintenance of the status quo and technocratic capitalism as the end of history.
and to think that you had the audacity to tell me to read the german ideology, you are as much a marxist as jordan peterson is
Idealism is when you disagree with me, and materialism is when you won't so much as take out the garbage because “the material conditions aren't right, yet”.
Read books, develop ideas, act on those ideas, repeat. Your ideas don't need a perfect and unassailable scientific foundation to be useful, and nobody shits out a perfectly coherent theory of power on the first try.
omg you can name a book marx and engels wrote, so proud of you! yet you have still failed to make your point about what idealism and materialism actually are and why they are important and essential distinctions
Idealism: When libs think that the way to "make things better" is to magically change how everyone thinks because akshually "action follows thought" thus if you all have the correct beliefs then reality will magically follow suit. This completely disregards how socioeconomic systems/material realities incentivize (ie. "do this or you starve lol") certain behaviors over others, and even changing how people think is impossible.
Dialectical materialism: (according to former libertarian small business owner, now anarchist small business owner, Noncompete): Acknowledging that the above is kindergarten level nonsense compared to the assertion that external material reality influences human thoughts, and due to our "conscious will"(?), we are thus able to in turn influence external material conditions, which then influence us, and so on and so on...
Engels was the first to propose this? I thought this was a long standing debate in western philosophy since it began
