Radio Lux Lucet #20 | Karl Marx at 200

Luke's Lucid is on the air. Welcome. Thanks for joining me today. I'm your host Steve Matthews. This is episode number 20 and today we're gonna be talking about of all people Karl Marx. Yes and you're probably saying yourself.

Well Steve I thought this was supposed to be a Christian radio show. And what are you talking about this awful Karl Marx fellow. Well Karl Marx whether we like him or not. And he's certainly not not one of my favorite people.

But whether we like him or not he's a pretty significant figure. And he's been in the news quite a bit here this past week maybe you've seen some things on this Karl Marx. This is actually the 200th anniversary of his his birth.

It was reading through something here. This is a actually from an article in Encyclopedia Britannica and it says that Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5th 1818 in Trier Rhine province Prussia so he was from northern Germany and he died on March 14th 1883 in London England.

Now Karl Marx lived I guess it was over the last 30 years of his life he lived in England. So that's he he spent quite a bit of time in in Great Britain and living in London. And he's best known as as the author for the the Communist Manifesto and also for his later work called Das Kapital or or simply capital and and it was in that work together with his co-author Friedrich Engels that Marx laid out the the basic tenets of of communism.

A few other interesting points about Karl Marx is that he was the oldest surviving boy of nine children so he came from a pretty big family. His father's name was Heinrich and he was a successful lawyer.

His mother's name was Henrietta she was from Holland. Both his parents were Jewish and according to this article in the Encyclopedia Britannica they descended from a long line of rabbis. But the article goes on to also say this it says about a year before Karl was born his father was baptized in the evangelical established church and also that Karl was baptized when he was six years old.

So both his father and Karl himself were both baptized into the into the the the the Protestant Church. That's very interesting. I didn't know that until I was actually reading through this this piece in an Encyclopedia Britannica the article it goes on to talk about that Marx was educated.

He went to high school at Trier from 1830 to 1835 and it makes the point it says that Marx's writings during this period that is referring to his time in high school exhibited a spirit of Christian devotion and a longing for self-sacrifice on behalf of humanity.

Well when he went off to college I think he that's when he really became really turned to atheism but at least there was a time there that it seems to have been some some Christian influence in his life when when he was a young man.

Karl Marx's 200th Birthday and His Early Life

So all this brings me in to talk a little bit about Karl Marx's 200th birthday. This that was celebrated here this week it's interesting there's a a an article and this is from ABC news. It has the following headline says Karl Marx's hometown unveils giant bronze statue of philosopher on philosophers 200th birthday.

So this is big it's about an eight foot tall larger-than-life statue of Karl Marx which was a gift of from the from the the government of China the communist government of China. You know a lot of times I don't think that we in the West maybe necessarily always talk about the you know the the communist government of China.

You know there's a lot of manufacturing goes on in China. There's a lot of things that are borrowed from the capital from capitalism that go on in China. So it's not in some ways it's not communism of the say the Soviet Union variety or the Eastern European variety that that took place during the Cold War.

Nevertheless it is a communist government. It's a it's a government that that is very open in its advocacy of Charles Darwin. I think the current president of China she he mentioned his speech that you know the Karl Marx was one of the really great thinkers of the age.

Well I wouldn't say that he was a great thinker in the sense he was a good thinker. He certainly was a very influential thinker. And and I don't think anyone can deny that whether or not we we actually like what Karl Marx had to say.

The ABC News article is is pretty much straight down the middle. It doesn't appear to take sides one way or the other. However I want to read you a couple of examples of newspapers that do that now. This is an article.

The Guardian's Celebration of Marx and the Critique of Capitalism

It's from the Guardian. The Guardian is a newspaper from from Great Britain and it's it's very leftist and it has a headline on it. It says two centuries on Karl Marx feels more revolutionary than ever.

That's by a fellow named Stuart Jeffries. And Jeffries goes on to write the other day I stood at the grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery. Karl Marx is buried in London. It's in North London wondering if he has anything to say to us today 200 years after his birth on May 5th 1818 workers of all lands unite reads the tombstone.

But they haven't. The solitary the solidarity of exploited which Marx took to be necessary to end capitalism scarcely exists. And Stuart Jeffries goes on to lament the fact that even in China you know the world's biggest socially socialist society that even China you know it supplies capitalist enterprises with cheap labor that undercuts other workers around the world.

So Stuart Jeffries is very upset. He doesn't like the fact that that capitalism still exists at all even if it exists in in in really very damaged for me that's kind of interesting. A lot of people you know they blame the current problems in the world on capitalism.

Well there really isn't. A whole lot of capitalism is actually out there even in in the United States. I mean people look to the United States as this bastion of capitalism. But it really isn't it. We have a very mixed system in the United States.

Our system is probably closer to fascism than it is to to actual capitalism and I don't want to go down that rabbit trail too far today but but what we have in the United States and really what we have in the you know the so-called capitalist West it's not just the United States it's really any other any of the other countries in the West as well what we have is not capitalism.

It's it's it's really some form or another of a fascism. But a lot of people think it's capitalism and that's that's a big problem right there because it tends to to confuse them and when they see things go wrong they they tend to blame it on capitalism rather than blaming it where the putting the blame where it should be which is is on big government.

So that was the that was the the Guardian. The Guardian thinks that the Karl Marx is pretty awesome. There was another article and I wanted to share this with you. It has a headline that reads don't celebrate Karl Marx his communism has a death count in the millions.

Marxism, Fascism, and the Death Toll of Communism

Now this article is by James Bovard and it's a pretty good article. James Bovard is a is a libertarian now. I'm not a libertarian but I was a libertarian at one time. It's I don't believe that the Christians can consistently be libertarians.

And again that's kind of a rabbit trail I don't want to go on today. I think that'd be something to be very interesting to explore at another time. However a lot of what libertarians right I certainly can't appreciate.

And James Bovard has been a very consistent defender over the years of limited government of capitalism. And of course those are things that as a Christian I very much believe in. And he's quite a good writer and I'll just read you a short portion of what he had to say here he said.

Saturday marks 200 years since the birth of Karl Marx and tributes are arising out around the around the globe in a New York Times tribute headlined happy birthday Karl Marx. You were right. Philosophy professor Jason Barker declared that quote educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement with Marx's basic thesis and quote on the flaws of capitalism.

But this is true only if quote educated liberal opinion and quote simply does not care about tyranny. So yeah I mean Karl Marx. It's kind of interesting. Karl Marx wanted to to free the working classes.

In order to free the working classes what he wanted to do was was increase government power which I think on the on the surface of it seems pretty contradictory wouldn't you say. Here's what what Bovard writes he says quote Marxist assumed that vastly increasing government power was the key to liberating humanity.

Glorifying command and control was the flip side of demonizing prices and profits but all powerful regimes quickly became ends in themselves. In 1932 Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin decreed the death penalty for any theft of state property as millions of Ukrainians were starving due to the brutal collectivization of farms.

Even children poaching a few years of corn could be shot. Well yeah that doesn't exactly seem like the workers paradise now does it. But some people think that Karl Marx was great and they like his rhetoric about you know about freeing the working class.

But they they don't want to recognize the extreme violence. That was really right on the surface. I don't even want to say implied it was actually right on the surface in in a lot of his writings. So that was James Baldwin and I'd encourage you to read his article.

It's as I said I think it's it's quite good. It's called don't celebrate Karl Marx. His common communism has a death count in the millions that was published again in USA Today which is a kind of a mainstream.

I was actually surprised that they published this. That's a pretty mainstream type of a publication and I'm pleasantly surprised that they they would run that that op-ed by by James Bovard. Now what I want to do here in a couple minutes is actually want to read to you a section out of the Communist Manifesto.

But just to assuage you as I said I'm not trying to to make communists out of you far from it. In fact I want to inoculate you against communism. Communism is not Christianity. Christianity is not communism.

The two systems are not compatible. As a Christian I reject communism and I would encourage if if you are a Christian to read your Bibles and to to really consider whether you know it's possible to follow the dictates of Karl Marx and to get those ideas out of the pages of Scripture.

I don't think you can do it. In fact I would say you can't do it. You can't do it. But here's a some people would object to reading Karl Marx. Some people would say well if you read Karl Marx and if you understand Karl Marx and you're a communist.

Well that's not really true. And I want to bring bring Gordon Clark into the discussion here just for a moment. Gordon Clark wrote a book it's called Faith and Saving Faith and I would if you haven't read it yet it's I would really encourage you to read it.

It's not a long book. It's actually a very slim book. I I think the edition that I have is it's I'm pretty sure it's well under a hundred pages. It's the kind of thing that you can sit down and read without without spending too much time on.

I know that you know Gordon Clark is maybe an author has some very dense material but a lot of what he says in there I think is relatively straightforward maybe compared to some of the other books that he wrote basically what he argues in Faith and Saving Faith is this he says that faith whether it's of a secular variety or whether it's of a Christian variety is basically from a psychological standpoint it's it's the same thing in that in this respect in that it consists in two parts.

There are two you you can take the idea of faith and you can break it down into two parts or maybe elements. Maybe we could call them that two elements to faith and here are the elements number one understanding and number two is agreement.

And if you wanted to to put his his teaching on on faith if you wanted to put it maybe into a formal way of speaking you would say this Gordon Clark taught and he taught correctly by the way I agree with Gordon Clark.

I think he was was spot-on on what he said. What Gordon Clark would say is that faith is assent to an understood proposition or to put it more simply in order to have faith you have to number one understand what someone is saying and number two you have to agree with him.

So you have to have understanding and you have to have agreement. So for instance when when you sit down to read Karl Marx you can read Karl Marx you can read the Communist Manifesto and you can understand it.

But simply understanding the Communist Manifesto does not make you a Marxist. You only are a Marxist if you understand the Communist Manifesto and if you agree with the Communist Manifesto so you have to understand and you have to agree with it.

So as Christians we shouldn't be afraid of studying the things such as Karl Marx. There's that there's a verse I don't have it in front of me here but where where the the Apostle Paul warns his readers you know don't be cheated by philosophy.

And a lot of times Christians have this idea that the way that you avoid being cheated by philosophy is not to study it at all. You know I don't want to get cheated by philosophy. I don't want to get cheated by Karl Marx.

So I'm not gonna ever read Karl Marx or ever talk about Karl Marx or ever think about Karl Marx. Well the problem is that we live in a world that is as popular by people who do read Karl Marx and who do think about Karl Marx and who do understand Karl Marx and who do agree with Karl Marx.

And if we don't have at least an understanding of what Karl Marx said how are we going to be able to talk to those people. Another aspect of this of it is this how are we going to protect ourselves from the from being influenced by them.

I have a paragraph here and this is actually taken from a an essay by John Robbins. It's called molding men and I think that he actually states this particular issue. He states it very very well and and he talks about how some people discourage students.

He was talking to this the particular context this was a Christian College and that there were were some speakers that were were encouraging people you know not to study and and to avoid you know particularly studying studying secular philosophy.

And he said that these these these many says they urge students to avoid studying philosophy. This is John Robbins I'll just put quotes around his quote. They he's talking about some of these these speakers on Christian colleges they urge students to avoid studying philosophy.

But the study of philosophy is the second way of recognizing counterfeits. When banks train tellers they have them study genuine bills but they also show them some counterfeits so that the tellers can see the differences between the fakes and the real bills.

The study of secular philosophy is very rewarding if only for that reason by seeing where Plato Aristotle and Marx made their mistakes perhaps you can avoid the same mistakes and understand the scripture better.

Ironically is those who are not familiar with secular philosophy who are most influenced by it because they do not recognize secular ideas when they appear in the media the churches and in their own minds end quote.

So that was that was John Robbins talking about the importance of Christian studying secular philosophers and he used that idea of a bank teller. Right. I mean you know unless you've actually held you know say a real $20 bill and then maybe seen a really good fake copy and held it in your hand and looked at it it might be easy to be fooled.

You know if somebody makes a really good copy and there are some people that can make some really good counterfeits you might get fooled by it but if you've had a chance to study the counterfeit to feel it to see what it looks like to see how it how what it feels like to compare it to the real genuine article it's going to enable you to to spot the fake when you're out there and you're in the process of doing your job as a teller.

And it's the same thing as Christians you know by by reading and studying and understanding not agreeing with but understanding some a writer such as Karl Marx it's a way of inoculating ourselves against the really one of the the most influential thinkers of the past of the past hundred fifty two hundred years.

I mean there's a lot of Marxism that's out there in in one form or another and it's important that we be able to recognize it and to be able to critique it now I mentioned that there's a lot of Marxism out there and I wanted to read from you this is just a very small section of the Communist Manifesto.

The Communist Manifesto very famously has ten planks. You know in Christianity we have the Ten Commandments. Well in in Marxism there are the the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto. I'm going to read through these for you and and maybe just briefly comment on them and I think you might be surprised how many of these ten planks of the Communist Manifesto are actually prevalent and in set up and and in ingrained into our society.

Certainly here in the United States and and I think you could also say that throughout the supposedly capitalist Western world. So here we go just reading through this this is the beginning of it. This is Ingalls writing says these measures will be of course different in different countries.

Nevertheless in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable. Number one abolition of property and land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. Now you know the there's a tremendous amount of violence implied in that.

But what what communism is all about is it's all about putting the means of production in the hands of of the government. The the private citizen is not supposed to own the means of production in Marxism.

You can own your own pair of shoes and you know your own shirt and things like that. But you can't own the store in which those are sold. You can't own the factory that makes the shirts. You can't own the farms that that say you know that grow the you know I don't know flax or or whatever it is.

You know whatever you use whatever material that it's used say for shirts or making clothing. You can't have any of those things. You can't own farms. You can't own factories. You can't own stores. You can't own the means of production.

You can own your own like I say your own toothbrush or maybe your own pair of shoes or something like that. And and of course you know we haven't totally abolished private property in in the West and the supposedly capitalist West but we have slapped on it very high taxes and lots and lots of regulations.

In fact I kind of want to I want to pause on that because my the very first time I ever had any communication with John Robbins it was interesting. I wrote him an email and this goes back. Oh I'd say about 15 and now it goes back to maybe around the year 2000 about 18 years ago 18 20 years ago somewhere in that range.

I don't have the email anymore. I'm really upset that I don't have that. But for all that I do remember very well what the contents of the email were. And what I did is I wrote him this email and I asked him I said what's the difference between fascism and communism.

What's the difference between these two. Because it wasn't clear to me I mean they both seem like pretty totalitarian systems pretty oppressive systems and and they were very hostile to one another. You know fascist and communists you know famously have have hated one another for a long time but yet it seemed to me that a lot awful lot that they had an awful lot in common too.

Well so I asked I asked John Robbins his question and he wrote back to me and he said well the the main difference is that in communism the state owns the means of production. In the fascist system the state doesn't own the means of production but they regulate and subsidize everything.

So you know the the factory owner and a fascist system can still own this factory but the government tells you how to run everything whereas in the communist system the state owns the factory. And you know if you own the factory before the communists took over.

Well that's just too bad because you're gonna lose it and the state's gonna take over. So the the fascist let you let you own the factory but you you don't have a lot of say in terms of what's actually done with it whereas the communists just take it from you outright.

So that's the difference between those two systems. And and I thought it was interesting to the way the way that John closed that email back to me he said we have a lot more fascism than we do communism in this country.

It's talking about the United States and that's true. So you know. Yeah right now you know the government hasn't come in and taken everybody's property. But when you think about the massive amount of controls and in regulation and taxes that we all have to deal with in virtually every facet of our lives you realize that that we don't have a capitalist system.

It's more of a fascist system where everything is controlled from from on high someplace. So yeah that was the first plank in the communist of the Communist Manifesto the second plank is this. And you're like this a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Well do we have that in the United States. Well we it hasn't been too long since we since tax day. What was that April 17th this year 2018. And yes we do have a heavy and a program and a graduated income tax the more money you make the the greater hunk the greater the percentage the government takes out of takes from you.

I think I read someplace where the bottom 50 of wage earners don't pay any income tax at all or something to that degree. And the more money you make the the bigger the chunk that the government demands out of your hide.

So that's that's certainly something that we have here in the United States that began with the establishment of the IRS in was it was it 1914 I want to say the income tax maybe went into effect and in around 1914 1915 I don't know the exact year but it was right around that time.

And and of course when you think of all not not just the the cost in terms of taxes but how much time we spend on that. And my goodness let's say it's a huge burden to be born. And of course the United States is not alone in that.

I think pretty much every advanced Western nation has has a similar system to the the Internal Revenue Service. So that's number two have you progressed for graduated income tax. Number three abolition of all right of inheritance.

Well I mean we have death taxes right. So if somebody dies and they has a certain estate sometimes what's had what what has happened is people have actually had to to sell the farms or sell the businesses because they didn't have the cash to be able to pay the inheritance taxes when they when they receive the business you know the family business of the family farm now I think that there have been some changes in that over the past year in the the Trump administration I think reduced the the the death taxes.

But I mean death taxes really are something that that's very much in accord with Marxism. Well they don't call it a death tax. I know the death tax is what what people like me call it but they would call it an inheritance tax.

I guess somehow an inheritance tax sounds better than a death tax because you know they tax you all your life and then when you die then they they kick you again. But Karl Marx didn't didn't he wanted to get rid of inheritance.

That was the third plank. So the fourth plank is this confiscation of all property of all immigrants and rebels. So if you wanted to leave the country for instance if you didn't like the government well they just take your property.

Sorry. Yeah you can leave the country. But yeah you know every every last red cent that you've ever had. Well that you're gonna have to leave with us. So again this is is just really very totalitarian.

This is very heavy-handed big government and this is supposed to make free. You know that it's there was that that famous saying of the Nazis they said you know our bite mocked fry you know work makes free.

I think there was a sign over one of their concentration camps and people look at that and of course that was a you know that was a big bunch of propaganda and and that's very famously propaganda. But you know the idea that that somehow massive central government makes the workers free is is I think just as absurd as is that that saying of the Nazis.

So yeah so Karl Marx he wants to confiscate the property of all immigrants and rebels. Okay plank number five the central this is maybe my personal favorite here. Plank number five of the Communist Manifesto is that's kind of like one of those old David Letterman top ten list.

Right. Anyway this is number five on the Marx's greatest hits here. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank the state capital and an exclusive monopoly. Hmm. I wonder if we have anything like that United States.

Oh oh wait a minute. Oh I know I know I know I know the Federal Reserve. Yes the Federal Reserve is you know if I had to pick one institution that should be abolished it would be central banking. Now the Federal Reserve is just but one example of a central bank.

It's the the most prominent central bank in the world. It's the lead central bank as it issues the currency the US dollar which is the World's Reserve currency. But yes Karl Marx he loves central bankers.

Well central bankers have wrought enormous evil not just in this country but in in any country where they're present which is just about every country on the face of the earth. They have done enormous damage.

But these people Karl Marx thinks things are wonderful. Number six of the communist that plank of the communist manifesto centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

So you can't talk to one another and you can't move around unless it's under the the control of the state. Well that that doesn't exactly sound like a free society. Does it. And do we have things like that in in the United States.

Well I would argue very much that we do. You know you think about for instance the Federal Communication Commission the Federal Communication Commission the FCC for short I mean they regulate what goes out over the airwaves.

So you know television broadcasters radio broadcasters they all fall under the regulation of the FCC. And you know there's been a lot of people who have noticed in recent years that you know that the American press has really become pretty much the lapdog of the government.

Basically what they do is whatever talking points the government hands them. Well that they go out and repeat you know it's it's kind of like the old Soviet Pravda or something where where the the American press is sort of just the another organ of the state.

Now the press isn't owned by the government but they're controlled by the government. You know the the government holds over their heads these these broadcast licenses and I think that's one of the way that the government controls controls the mainstream media.

So we do have centralization of communication. And what about. What about transport. Well I mean we have things like the TSA I mean you can't get get on an airplane without being groped and there's all kinds of government regulations over various various types of transportation and and so it's you may maybe it's not gotten to the extreme that the Karl Marx would have liked to have seen.

But we certainly have a lot of government control over over communication and and over transportation over our ability to talk about things and our ability to move around. Number seven plank of the communist manifesto extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state they're bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

So you know once again you know we see here the idea of central planning. You know the the communist I remember this growing up from the Soviet Union days you know or back in the days of the evil Empire as as Ronald Reagan famously called it but but growing up and in seeing you know news about the Soviet Union I mean you often hear about things.

You know these five-year plans it seemed like the Russians were the Soviets were big into five-year plans and so you know all the the economic activity had be centrally planned out from from by the state.

Number eight of plank of the communist manifesto equal liabilities of all to labor establishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture. So you know once again you know the state is establishing armies.

You know it's not a matter of you know and I suppose you you would be drafted into these armies as well. You know you didn't. If you if you didn't want to be a farmer. Well maybe that was just too bad.

You know you it was off to the off to the fields with you regardless. And it kind of reminds me a little bit there there's a wonderful article was written by by John Robbins. I think it's it's called the Bible in the draft and I don't have have that article here in front of me but it's well worth reading.

It's out there in the Trinity Foundation it's called the Bible in the draft and he talks about how he what it is he is. He actually expounds first Samuel chapter 8. First Samuel chapter 8 you know it's where the people come to Samuel and they say we want a king we want to be like all the other nations and Samuel goes to God and and God tells Samuel go and tell the people this is going to be the behavior of the king.

If you get a king and Samuel goes through this this recites what the king is going to do. And the line that gets repeated by Samuel all the time is he will take he will take he will take he will take.

You know Samuel says he will will take the best of your fields he will take your servants he will take your sons he will take your daughters you know and and and and the best of your lands and etc etc etc and you know the king is going to take all of these things and that's really I think ties in kind of with that that plank number eight especially you know the idea the establishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture you know that that the government is going to take your son's going to take your daughters and press them into to force labor now.

That's that is not a biblical stance on but that's what the communists want to do. Plank number nine combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.

Yeah and again and it doesn't maybe say it explicitly here but of course this is all done from the top down. This is this is all centrally planned. And then the final one this is number 10. And maybe in some ways maybe this is the most important one you could probably make that argument number 10.

Drumroll please plank of the communist manifesto free education for all children in public schools abolition of children's factory labor in its present form combination of education with industrial production etc etc.

So the communists want the comments like the idea of free public education and of course in in the West that's that's exactly the way it is now. Of course obviously it's not free you know it's paid for by by very high taxes and it's run by the government.

But the communists want to want to get the kids early and they want to fill their minds with with communist propaganda. Now I can tell you you know I went to public school I grew up and I went to public school my whole life and I had to unlearn an awful lot and unlearn an awful lot there.

When I was growing up there wasn't homeschooling. I mean there are a lot of Christian parents and homeschool their kids now. But that was not the case when I was growing up. In fact I remember the first time I ever saw that.

I remember we had a new youth minister at my church and and they homeschooled their kids. And I saw that I was probably maybe a senior in high school at the time and I I thought well you know that's just weird now maybe some of you listening either homeschool your children or or maybe you yourself are homeschooled but you know this was back.

I'd you know it was maybe 35 years ago and the whole homeschool movement was really brand new at the time. I mean it just wasn't done. I mean either you went to public school or or you went to private school of some sort but you know homeschooling just simply did not exist now.

I've known many people since that time who have homeschooled their children and I from the results that I've seen I think it seems to work out very well and it doesn't surprise me at all that that it does work out but but that was something very new back then and you know there's an awful lot of just discouraging things that you you see in the world today.

But I guess maybe if I wanted to point the one that has been encouraging to me is it is to see how many people are actually doing this now. I mean I realize it's still a tiny tiny minority of people compared to those who educate their children in other ways.

But just the fact that it's out there and the fact that it does seem to have have grown over the decades is very encouraging to me. So anyway I hope that you've enjoyed some of this talk here this obviously we we just barely kind of scratched the surface on Karl Marx but I wanted to share a few things with you especially going through the Communist Manifesto and seeing just how many of of those ten planks really have been to some degree or another instituted in the supposedly free and the supposedly capitalist West.

And these are institutions you know talking about things like public schooling and and a graduated income tax and central banking. These things did not exist in the United States at its founding. These things did not exist now we take them almost as though somehow they've been there since time you know since you know ever since Adam or something like this.

But these things were never part of the American Republic from the beginning. But they've been things that have been brought about subsequent to Marx having written now I'm not going to say that Karl Marx is solely responsible for those institutions.

I'm sure that he is not but but he is certainly again one of the most influential thinkers of our time. And I think that some of the blame for those things can be laid on him. I don't think there's there's any question about that.