I use the above term to describe a certain segment of the population who proclaim themselves to be Marxists (although, you can fill in the blank: Vicarious Communist; Vicarious Fidelistas, etc…) all the while living in a free society where individual thought and expression are a mainstay. These Vicarious Marxists are usually university professors or librarians or activists – just to name a few – who find it unbelievable that most of us cannot see the absolute beauty, the absolute perfection, the absolute utopian society that Marxism could bring. All the while, of course, living in a free society and never, of course, having had the “pleasure” of living under Marxist rule.
The irony is that these Vicarious Marxists pride themselves as being free thinkers and thus are absolutely certain that their ideology is THE ideology to cure all of mankind’s ills, not realizing, or, better yet, incapable of accepting the fact that free thought and free expression are the enemy of the Marxist State. The individual with a right to think freely and express himself freely is the one factor that undermines the totalitarian control necessary as the basis of Marxism.
Marxism, communism, socialism all have one predominant fact in common: it is all about control and power. And it is not only about power over what you can do or where you can live or what you can eat, it’s about the power to control what you think. The power to control what you believe. The power to control what you can say.
You will find no better example of Vicarious Marxism than in this post at Dean’s World where a certain professor at UCLA took umbrage with Dean’s exposing the reality of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and mobilized his fellow Marxists to quickly and unapologetically harrass, intimidate, threaten and even get him fired. (Make sure to read the “marxmail” link as well as Dean’s take down.) Because that’s what Vicarious Marxists do. They live in a society where they are free to express their ideological beliefs while suppressing, through whatever means possible, the contradicting beliefs of others.
The hypocrisy of these Vicarious Marxists is blinding and their self-imposed inanity is beyond measure. For the Vicarious Marxist, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but they never have cojones to jump over it.
Update: Via Scott G: Religious Vicarious Marxists.
What is just as sick is that these vicarious marxists will defend their own like Ward Churchill despite the swill he preaches about. But you simply decide to tell the truth about one of their religious icons, then the speaker of the truth should be fired.
I wonder if Marx himself could ever have imagined how his philosophical treatise which was written in the context of the 19th century would result in the deaths of millions of people. But to these vicarious come mierdas, the deaths of millions is justified and of course, it is all Bush’s fault.
Vicarious marxists, that’s a good term. I think there are a lot of vicarious environmentalists out there too: the kind of people who fly on private jets to give global warming presentations, or those who promote renewable energy, except when it obstructs the view at their seashore compound.
Of course, Communism SOUNDS pretty — if you live on a college campus. But in practice, well… we all know the sad story.
But I completely agree with you 100% about Marxism and mind control. You said: “The individual with a right to think freely and express himself freely is the one factor that undermines the totalitarian control necessary as the basis of Marxism.”
That’s why, in my previous post about Cindy Sheehan, I argued that as Americans, and as a free society, we should tolerate her opinion, even though we disagree with it.
Marxists and other totalitarians are all about censorship. America, and other democracies, are based on the principle of freedom of speech.
Free speech means that sometimes we will have to listen to crazy people expressing unpopular views, or stupid people expressing popular but ignorant views.
This is the price we pay for free speech… but in the end, Cindy Sheehan will never live in Venezuela, nobody ever moves to Cuba to live… because after all is said and done, this is a better place to live. Deep down, even the Trust-Fund Communists and Vicarious Marxists know that.
These marxist pigs love to love to speak about the “greatness” of communism and the creation of the “classless society” yet, they prefer to live in the capitalistic world. They venture into the marxist world of Cuba for maybe two, three weeks of Sun, Music, Fun and Sex which they can pay for with capitalistic Dollars.They Have very little contact with the Cuban people who can not visit the same beaches nor Hotels that these idiots play and live at.They do not see Cubans shopping atthe the special State Stores only for use by these Dollar marxist Then they fly home to once again praising thier PIMP castro and make really for next years vist.
Dave with all due respect, I see no reason to display tolerance towards those who espouse an ideology that’s responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths. No person anywhere should tolerate such evil.
It just burns me that this Peter McLaren idiot is sucking up my California tax dollars as well as very many other crack pots in our UC system.
I don’t mind paying taxes for higher education that benefits society, but this is bullshit.