MARXISM AND MIT

ENLIGHTENMENT IN AN MIT DORM!

Some of you--not that many--I know I see the stats-- may be wondering after reading the  blog entry on MIT and Marxism-- what is the connection?

OK wait for it.  It all started at those weekly mixers at MIT. 
One boy kept asking  me to dance and then he showed up  one weekend at my dorm. And I had to meet him in the Visitors Parlour--no men  in the residence hall.  Then we went  to a few events together at MIT.

 One day I was  visiting him at his dorm room at MIT that he shared with an upperclassman.
 Both of them were Math majors and brilliant. Of course, being me, I carried  on about  all sorts of things that I probably knew  very little about.  I seemed to irritate  John's roommate--let's call him MAX
.
So on this particular day John and I were talking about Marxism and I declared that  Marx  was wrong because he did not understand  human nature. 
Max tuned  into our conversation and asked --
What do you know about human nature?

That we are too selfish to give up the profit motive, I said.

Do you think that is what Marx called for- that we give up the profit motive?
I don't know--did he"

That would be metaphysics. Norma, have you ever heard of evolution?
Of course, and I  think it is  a true theory.

So do you think that only animals  evolve? The human animals have never changed.

No, I know that pre-historic man and  modern man are different.
Do you think that evolution  has stopped? Do you think that human development has reached its apex with Norma and human society political organization has peaked with the USA??
Have you ever read the Communist Manifesto?

No--I think it is on the index--

When I said those words, Max jumped from his desk chair to the floor where  I was sitting with John and  he said:
 I am going to read the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO  to you right now and end your ignorance.

 He told John to hold me down as I struggled to  get up and he  sat on my legs and  began reading--

"A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.

II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself."


HE READ THE  ENTIRE  MANIFESTO TO ME
And  when I calmed down and started to listen, I heard interesting and well-reasoned  points that I could  only agree with.  

And I began to realize that my college education so far  was not education but indoctrination. 
AND  A GREAT SHIFT IN MY THINKING HAD TAKEN A SHAPE  THAT WOULD LEAD ME TO LEAVE EMMANUEL COLLEGE IN THE MIDDLE OF MY JUNIOR YEAR.
All thanks to John and his room-mate whose real name I cannot even remember but whose lessons I will never forget.