Sunday, 17 June 2007

Marx Towers over Spencer

In death, at least, his grave does.  In response to Jodi's remark about Marx's grave being across from Spencer's, I wrote:

Actually, it's Marx whose grave is opposite Spencer's (as Spencer was the far more influential contemporary figure). It appears to be the other way around because that's not where Marx was originally buried. He was initially buried down the hill and across the way, in an obscure corner of Highgate. In the '50s, a group of Marxists pooled their funds, dug him up, and had him moved to the posh section of the graveyard, up there with Spencer, George Eliot, Michael Faraday, &c. His monument is so much bigger, well, because those who moved him wanted to make a statement. (As did the various people who have tried to blow it up.)

Here's a stunning photograph of the looming bust of Marx (found here):

22388446marxsgravepbase

I note this to remind myself of its usefulness as an anecdote, if not in the Jack London chapter, then in my general introduction.  It neatly captures the belated, artificial elevation of Marx over Spencer as the foremost thinker of the late nineteenth century, but allows for the introduction of grand historical irony, inasmuch as Spencer wasn't the free market advocate most now consider him.  Terrible sentence, that is, but not an altogether terrible idea. 

Jun 17, 2007 9:26:12 PM | Academia, Books, Dissertation, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Literary Theory, Literature

4 Comments

Kerry Wendt

Ironically, all I could think of was this Marks and Spencer.

Posted by: Kerry Wendt | Sunday, 17 June 2007 at 11:27 PM

The Necromancer

The powerful specter of Spencer still haunts...

Posted by: The Necromancer | Monday, 18 June 2007 at 08:29 AM

Karl Steel

Sort of deplorable that the(se) Marxists thought the way to honor Marx was to move him to the posh section. Pretty retrograde thinking.

Posted by: Karl Steel | Monday, 18 June 2007 at 09:20 AM

iain

Moving Marx's grave?

...just another communist plot

(sorry - couldn't resist)

Posted by: iain | Wednesday, 20 June 2007 at 03:26 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
Note to Self: Remain on Henry James' Good Side James' description of "Vernon Lee" (Violet Paget), as transcribed by Edith Wharton: The long lean face of a starved horse, large and intelligent eyes not wholly devoid of obliquity, a flabby pendulous nose covered with cutaneous scabs, an underhung jaw revealing a dental display of really deplorable character, and on her head, my dear boy, from nine to thirteen hairs. Have I plugged the Lee biography enough yet?
PREVIOUS POST
Brief Review of Michael Moore's Sicko (updated) I should be working, but I can't stop thinking about Sicko, Michael Moore's new film, which (last night, but not this morning) could be viewed in its entirety here. (I link because it says that the video may become available again. I doubt it. I did download it, however, and will share it, so long as you have some server space to spare.) Why can't I stop thinking about it? Because it embodies everything that infuriates me about Moore. Before I say why, let me outline what it does well. It is devastating as propaganda. Only someone who's been denied coverage because doctors and lawyers quibble over the difference between "cured" and "in remission" can believe in this cause as I strongly as I do. Which cause is that? Socialized Medicine We already have socialist programs in America: police and fire departments, public schools, libraries, &c. Moore points out that just because they're not called socialist doesn't mean they're not socialist in spirit. They are. With the exception of talk surrounding home-schooling and vouchers, no one is calling for a return to the days of private armies. (Not that they don't exist, only that there's no outcry that our military is too inefficient to get the job done, and that it'd be better if privatized.) Long Lines, Poor Care Moore does a fantastic job debunking the central myth of socialized medicine: that it leads interminable waits for routine procedures, and that even when performed, they are not up to American standards. As anyone who's ever known a Canadian or British citizen living in the US has long known, they find the quality of care in the United States abominable. They complain about the long waits for simple procedures—not in the hospitals themselves, but for insurance authorization, statements of coverage, and then the interminable ex post facto wrangling about the procedures covered. That all takes time, which Americans conveniently forget when convincing themselves of the superiority of our system. As for the quality of care, while there's an argument to be made that advances in medical care require profit incentive, there's no argument that for 99 percent of all problems, adequate treatments exist. Better is better, you'll get no argument from me there, but I doubt medical researchers will stop their work if it suddenly becomes only extremely as opposed to obscenely profitable. (As Moore documents in the case of a British M.D. who only drives one fancy car, lives in a house which only costs one million dollars, and only has one high definition television.) Treatment of 9/11 Survivors and First-Responders Most outside of New York are unaware that many private individuals rushed to the Twin Towers on 9/11. They were not N.Y.P.D. or F.D.N.Y., they were medical professionals, or from police and firefighters from New Jersey, who answered the dispatchers' calls for any and all trained personnel to respond. And they did. As you may or may not know, almost everyone who worked on the pile in the hours,...

Scott Eric Kaufman

The Typepad Team

Search

Become a Fan

My Other Accounts

Recent Comments