Appreciate your work. Very concise. Helps explain complex ideas in relatively understandable terms. It’s complimentary to actually reading the philosophical material.
Respectfully, you misunderstood the Stalin quote. He was asked if he was happy to be at the Berlin train station by a US ambassador meeting the Soviet delegation. To which Stalin responded with your mentioned quote. Historians view it one of two ways: it was either a joke (possible since Stalin had a sense of humor, but his mental health was in decline at this point due to the war so do with that what you will) or it was a comment of annoyance given the circumstances that the USSR was “sharing” victory with the West when they lost comparatively more soldiers and were absolutely devastated by fighting on the eastern front. This is why people say “the USSR won WWII”. 2/3 of the male birth cohort did not survive the war, they lost almost 26 million people, etc. Stalin was a well read history buff, so it is likley he was refering to the fact that Alexander chased Napoleon all the way to Paris and no one had the audacity to “share” the victory with him, but the USSR, devastated by the war and fighting the majority of it, did. Common mistake. Non-historians and society in general are very accustomed to misunderstanding Soviet history, but ESPECIALLY any and everything Stalin has said or done. Just wanted to point that out since it is interesting. - Soviet Historian
Also the notion that stalin was charismatic and giving people a false semblance of hope essentially luring people into communist ideology is ahistorical and contradicts previous descriptions of him as a dictator who was known as one of the worst mass murderers, etc. etc. Especially with the fact that Camus himself opposed Soviet structure for these perceived reasons! And Stalin notoriously was not charismatic. Ironically, he often sat quietly and was last to speak which could be rather imposing. He was generally reserved, but his comrades felt he was a genuinely intelligent man whose word was law because it was typically, in their eyes, the best synthesis of the respective issue. Its really quite ironic how such a reserved man became so popular to the point he had to speak out against his own personality cult 😭
@@Julia-gl7zu Also Stalin was more concerned that Russia not be invaded again as it has historically been rather than because of imperialistic ambitions.
@stevenwest To you good sir, I thank. You have created a masterful collection of philosophical and historical detail. I thoroughly enjoy listening to your podcast. As a Psychology major, it is important to tie philosophy into what we practice, and through your tireless efforts, you have made, what is often a conspicuous display of tweed wearing snobbery, into a relatable and graspable framework; still rich and lucid as it ought to be, yet without all the nonsense. You are instrumental.
A bit weird to fram the whole thing in such a capitalist and american way, when they were both marxists, of some description. Maybe it was just to make it more udnerstandable to modern audiences, but I found it pretty weird. idk
certainly. i find that most people just have a fundamental misunderstanding of marxism (and the Soviet Union) which often leads to these oddly framed discussions. doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on him since idk what else he has said on the topic, but it is a very common misconception
Great analysis of Camus and Satre, however you do not understand why capitalism is not ever allowed to "flourish" on its own. We've tried that and it leads to monopolies.
As much as I admire Camus (I've read all he wrote), our heroes have feet of clay. Philosophy is just that. And then there is life .... "The Fall" and Francine tell a different story. A nice summary of this famous discord.
Because they imposed a SHOULD BE to humanity. They saw the working class as the good nice people being "opressed" by the evil, but they did not realize that good and evil is a human IDEAL. All humanity struggles for is MORE CONSUMPTION: this was why redistribution was central to them. But what is redistribution? the opossite to meritocracy. And what is meritocracy? both "equality" and "meritocracy" theories are nothing more that the way different classes defend their "right" to consume more. They didn't see that. They didnt see that the "poor opressed worker" was equally ambitious to those the capitalist who opressed them, and that everyone, if granted a wish, would have desired to be a capitalist. They invented an IDEAL man, with "class consciouness", with disregard from "self interest", completely and altruisctly focus on the "general good", even despite their own sake. If THAT isnt idealistc, then i dont know what idealistic means.
