Anyone who wishes to develop a truly independent view of the world must learn to recognize and adopt useful ideas from wherever they find them, even if the source of those ideas also holds other ideas which are not accepted.

     The mind police often try to engage in wholesale demonization of certain sources of information, so that the public will reject every idea that comes from a forbidden source without examining the individual ideas on a case-by-case basis. Once the desired prejudice has taken hold, many people will automatically reject all ideas that come from the forbidden source.

     The classic example of this is the demonization of communism/Marxism/socialism. See, there are already readers who are turning off their minds, just from my use of those words, even before they find out what I am going to say about this topic. The demonization relating to those topics runs very deep indeed.

     For those who have been inculcated with the desired mind-set, it works just like classical conditioning worked for Pavlov’s dogs. Say a forbidden word like “Marxism,” and the conditioned subject starts slathering at the mouth.

     We have seen a recent example of an attempt to use this conditioned response here in Alaska. An oil industry front group called “Alaska’s Future” ran an ad purporting to quote Karl Marx as saying that the only way to kill capitalism is “taxes, taxes, taxes.” The oil industry was apparently hoping that the public’s Pavlovian response to Karl Marx would help them avoid higher taxes on their current record high windfall profits.

     The effort seems to have backfired to some extent, because Marx never said any such thing, and that fact has now been widely publicized. But if Marx had made the inane remark that was attributed to him, the ad would probably have been a significant help to the oil industry. It might end up being a help anyway.

     No single source of ideas is completely devoid of the truth, any more than any single source of ideas has a lock on the complete truth. If you want to find the truth, you need to look at ideas on their merits, and not just blindly screen out all ideas that come from a forbidden source.

     I have some fundamental criticisms of the ideas of Karl Marx, but I also recognize that there are some extremely powerful and useful ideas in his writings. One of my favorite analytical tools from Marx was paraphrased by Watergate deep throat W. Mark Felt, when he advised reporter Bob Woodward to “follow the money.” If you want to find out who is responsible for a particular action, you need to find out who benefits from it financially. This is an important tool in contemporary Marxist analysis, and arises out of Marx’s philosophy based on historical materialism.

     As the second in command at the FBI, Mr. Felt was certainly not a Marxist, but he did recognized the value of that analytical tool. In fact, law enforcement agencies around the world put a great deal of effort into tracing cash flows and money laundering by various targets of their investigations. Those efforts are a testament to the power and utility of the very Marxist idea that financial relationships explain a great deal about human behavior.

     Demonization and name-calling are devices used to control the spread of ideas. Many people allow themselves to be manipulated by those techniques, and even internalize wholesale prejudices into their belief systems. Those who wish to reach their own conclusions, instead of being manipulated by others, need to learn to look at the merits of ideas, and not just at the labels that have been applied to them.

     It is not always easy to do, but I prefer to reject Pavlov’s demons, and make use of good ideas from wherever I find them.

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