Skiing with Marx (and Slavoj Žižek)
The arrogance of ignorance (and the “imbecilic stupidity” of Marx and Žižek)
I planned this post about Marxist economics applied to the management of a ski resort for about two years. I was finally pushed to do it by this point made by
a few weeks ago:“The worst thing about winter is the pressure to go out and participate in the imbecilic rituals called “winter sports.” It is difficult for me to imagine something more stupid. Think about skiing: is it not the closest human equivalent you can get to a hamster running on a wheel? You climb (or are dragged) to the top of a hill – why? To come back down on your skis… Wouldn’t it be better to simply stay down and read a good book?”
(emphasis mine)
What is truly stupid and imbecilic is passing judgment on something that you know absolutely nothing about, but there is nothing surprising about such imbecility demonstrated by a Marxist.
The purposeful ignorance of reality is so foundational to Marxism that it is literally engraved on its founder’s tombstone.
I learned to ski when I was fifty from my wife who skied all her life. It did not take me long to get seriously hooked on it. It is a source of amusement amongst my friends how you cannot wipe the grin off my face the first day of every season being out on the slopes. I just love it that much.
It is on the top of the list of things that make me happy.
Those who ski could understand the pure joy of moving down the hill with the controlled speed of gravity. Speed and gravity that YOU control. Just think about that! You are controlling one of the most elemental forces of the universe! Taking in for good measure, consideration for the surface, the temperature, the terrain and all the people around you.
Unlike the hamster-wheel that
imagines, the beauty of skiing is its almost infinite variability. The reality and prospect of never-ending learning and improvement. Skiing is constantly challenging yourself. For more speed, for more experience for ever greater challenges to meet and overcome. Even on a same hill, no two runs are the same. With every skier in front of you, the conditions change.I am writing this in Killington, Vermont in the morning of our fifth and last day. It snowed all night and will keep snowing all day, up to a foot of fresh powder. It is Sunday, so the hill will be quite full. By noon, we’ll be skiing moguls wherever we go. After two days of fast cruising, we’ll have a hard-working day of burning muscles.
= = = =
…and indeed we did. We finished the day completely exhausted. It was great, because it was real. Skiing can be seen as a microcosm of life. It can be full of joy, but also of dangers and hardship. There is almost no limit to how far you can push yourself and what you get out of it is directly proportional to what you put in. Let me say it again: you are controlling the forces of nature and making yourself better every step (turn) of the way.
I like the community, the shop-talk with strangers and the trash-talk with friends. What was most interesting about Killington was the preponderance of the dedicated/hard-core skiers on the slopes. People who are willing to drive 5-600kms to get on the best hill on the East Coast.
We drove 850kms to get there. It wasn’t cheap either. It cost about 1,500 Canadian dollars per person for the 5 days, without spending a penny on food in the lodges. We brought our own to save.
One could expect even the imbeciles to ponder the question why are people doing it? Could it be possible that they are getting something out of it that outsiders just cannot understand?
The best part of this particular trip for me was that we had with us my wife, who is still recovering from the real cancer. She skied four days with us, only sitting out the most difficult last one. Skiing with us for her meant to feel normal. There were moments, she said, when she forgot that she was sick.
I could go on talking about skiing for pages; about the joy, the character building, the skills it teaches; about the (over a dozen) hills I skied, about the evolution of my abilities; about kiting on skis; about the mistakes I made and learned from and so on, but this post is not about skiing.
It is about the arrogant, ignorant, ‘imbecilic’ ‘stupidity’ of Marx and his modern-day acolytes.
I do not know or care much about Žižek, but if I could give him an advice, it would be this:
It is ok to be ignorant, but it is not very smart to advertise it. Even less so to build a world-view and judgements on it. If you are an arrogant ass, there is always a risk that you may run into another arrogant ass, who can expose your ‘imbecilic stupidity’.
If you insist on being an arrogant ass, you should try to pick a subject that you are not so obviously ignorant about. “Wouldn’t it be better” - to try skiing instead?
Žižek’s attitude is a perfect example of the idea that is on Marx’s grave:
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways - the point, however, is to change it”
You do not need to understand the world, you only need to change it. It is no accident that all communist experiences are ending in disaster. They were trying to change the world without understanding it.
In my post “A pinch of communism” I tried to expose the ‘imbecilic stupidity’ of Marxist economics, but any time I go to ski, I have to wonder how is it possible that there are still people in the world who consider Marx relevant. He did not have a single idea that withstood the test of time.
Yet, there are still University courses taught on it. One must wonder why.
The example I used in my pinch of communism post was still talking about labour, product and consumer, none of which makes much sense in the context of a ski resort, especially in considering the price and value of the ‘product’ however we define it.
Which is an excellent question: What is the product? Access to the hill? The facilities? The lifts? The grooming of the trails? The patrol?
The moment we start to think about it, or ANY aspect of it, we have to realize that there is absolutely no way to quantify the value of a unit of labour in relation to the ‘product’ sold (again, however we define it).
The most essential part of the ‘product’ (the ability to ski) is the weather. If it does not cooperate, there is no skiing, no skiers, no income. It is very much like the Zen Buddhist question: ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’
Enormous amounts of money can be spent on improving conditions, some of which will be labour, but the connection will be indirect. Killington, for example, spent a lot of money on improving the hill by building tunnels in the intersections of blue and black runs to make them safer. Does that make patrons more likely to go there? Absolutely. Can any of it be explained by the labour theory of value? Absolutely not.
Many of the hills we are going to, are replacing visual or scanned passes with RFIDs embedded in passes and read by gates when accessing the lifts. At the same time, ticket purchases are going on-line, updating the passes without the need for human (labour) intervention. How does THAT picture into the labour theory of value?
I could continue with the examples and illustrations, but I’m sure you could too, so let’s get back to the problems with Marxism.
Running a business and making decisions in it is a complex affair. It cannot be reduced to the archaic, primitive ideas of Marx, who understood even less about the economy and running a business than Žižek understands about skiing.
The question than is: why are we still talking about Marx?
It must be something other than his economic theories. I suggest that it is his radical political utopianism. Marx was not a scientist or a scholar, just an angry revolutionary advocating violence.
“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.” (Marx)
If you wish to understand him better, you should read the third chapter of Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals.
Classic Marxism is dead. There is no value in it.
Definitely none of the ‘surplus’ kind 😊
The only things that hold the modern ‘Marxist’ movement together is the violent revolutionary fervor and the idea that reality does not matter;
only our will to change it does.
Marx is just the symbol of this very old idea, the worship of power.
Over knowledge, understanding, wisdom, cooperation and peace…….
Further reading (from me)
I encourage you to check them both, especially the exchange in the second one with the link to a short video in the end.
Why Marxism is also full of references on Marxism
Worthwhile reading (from Others)
Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky: Johnson, Paul
AskProfWolff: What is the Labour Theory of Value?
The first two are essential, the third is just pitiful, but short and educational
I read "How I found Freedom in an Unfree World" back in the mid-1970s, and I am part way through reading it again. The one thing I had remembered about it was that it takes a government to surrender. Then the invader can take over the administration of the country. Otherwise they would need to station soldiers on every corner, where they could be picked of by citizens with guns. A very expensive proposition.
By Freedom, Harry Brown means he freedom to choose and do whatever makes you HAPPY. It is obvious that skiing makes you happy. and you are fortunate to have accumulated the resources that allow you to enjoy travelling to one of the best hills and skiing for five (count 'em, 5) days.
I hadn't thought about Marxists not understanding reality. But it makes sense. They think Utopia can be achieved by the force of government! They refuse to see the reality that this strategy has failed whereveri has been tried. Unfortunately, they have switched from revolution to infiltration and subversion and are leading us down the socialist path to communism.
First I have to say I admire that you are writing from a perspective of real experience living in a communist country, something which academics and others cannot understand no matter the amount of honest contemplation or dedicated theoretical research. There is no substitute for the real.
I once lived with a Polish friend, a fellow student, who had a deep engrained hatred for Marx, Bolshevism, Communism, etc. to the point that he would become so enraged at the mentioning of these systems of political thought that you could not reason with him. I have noticed a deep emotional resentment towards Marxist theory, and believe I understand why as much as I am able through the medium of imaginative curiosity. I cannot help but notice though that these feelings are always of an anecdotal sort and they don’t really take any ‘Marxism’ or ‘Communist’ theory into account; it is mostly just an expression of justifiable grievance aimed at a corrupt, inefficient, and unusually brutal system of governance. ‘Marxism’ always acts as a proverbial scapegoat for political frustration.
A glance through any world history book will demonstrate how cruel and unusual regimes are nothing new under the sun, but that the paradoxical rhetoric and soul-deafening logic of Sino-Soviet Communism (particularly towards the very people it espoused to save) raises legitimate tautological concerns regarding the traditions of historical materialism.
Thanks to the landmark literary contribution of folks like Solzhenitsyn though, the West all but fell out of fantasy with Communism after the horrors of the Gulags and the state writ large were revealed to the world. He even writes about how the work they were doing was supposed to be a glorious renewal of society, but really it was just a slow painful march towards death.
The point I am stressing here, and elsewhere, is not that I am a supporter of Communism or a die-hard proponent of Marxist theory. I just stand for the truth. The only actual self proclaimed communist I know is Zizek, and even then I take everything he says with a grain of salt (like the skiing comment). It is that by having such an emotional attachment to the political identity of Marxism/Communism, you are closing yourself off from the important truths that it deals with. Again, it would be like eschewing the moral value and importance of the Ten Commandments because of The Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, etc.
Just because ruthless power brokers cloaked their murderous actions under the guise of political idealism does nothing to take away from the original meaning of the document.
Do not read what others have wrote about Marx, Smith, Ricardo, etc.
Read them for yourself and then pass judgement. You may find more truth than you would care to admit, especially as someone economically inclined as per your previous writings.
And if you cannot bring yourself to read/understand them, then you should pass over in silence what you cannot comprehend.