Editor’s Note: Ordinarily My Turn submissions are limited to one per person per month, but the rule is being waived to allow someone to address a My Turn that directly named the writer in a timely manner.
By Alexander B. Dolitsky
This is a response to Eric Kueffner’s My Turn titled “Recent criticism of white privilege misses the mark” published in Juneau Empire on Aug. 21, 2020, regarding my article entitled “Neo-Marxism and utopian socialism in America today” published in Juneau Empire on Aug. 14, 2020.
I clearly explained my position on “white privilege” in two essays published in Juneau Empire on July 14 and 21. Nevertheless, in addition to my recent essays, I want to emphasize that the privilege many hard-working people have enjoyed in our country is because they applied themselves diligently regardless of their color, gender, ethnicity or race. Today, in America, opportunity is available to nearly everyone. Maybe that was not so true decades ago but it certainly is true in the U.S. today. However, for people who either want hand-outs for free or to provide hand-outs for free, it is difficult for them to understand that personal success and accomplishments are much more rewarding than charity.
In this essay, I will mostly confine my response to the essential aspects of the Marxist ideological dogma and its relevance to the “white privilege” doctrine. For more specific information on this subject, read Toby Young’s article titled, “No need to plead guilty: The fashionable doctrine of ‘white privilege’ is fatally undermined by the facts,” published in the journal The Critic in December of 2019.
Marxists define Marxism as a system of philosophical, economic and socio-political views that make up the worldview of the working class and the revolutionary transformation of the world, the socio-economic development of society, and human moral behavior and set of beliefs. It is also a method for the revolutionary movement of the working class toward a destruction of the capitalist free enterprise and market economic system and, subsequently, a creation of the socialist society with its command/controlled economy, abolishment of privately-owned commercial property, discouragement of religion, strict and blatant intellectual censorship and centralized form of government.
In short, Marxism is a radical revolutionary teaching for the working class around the world at all stages of their supposed movement for peace, freedom, equality and a “better life” under socialism. This Marxist ideology and teaching clearly resembles, even by admission of their followers, the progressive socialist rhetoric of BLM, today’s ANTIFA, “white privilege” and “systemic racism.”
Historically, however, Marxist revolutionary theory has never achieved its practical and ultimate success by replacing one social class with another. In fact, every socialist country has proven to be a remarkable socio-economic failure. These include the former Soviet Union, East European countries, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mongolia, Laos, Vietnam and North Korea. As Charles Murray, a prominent American sociologist, in his book “Coming Apart” stated: “Changing the new upper class by force majeure [greater force] won’t work and isn’t a good idea in any case. The new upper class will change only if its members decide that it is in the interest of themselves and of their families to change. And possibly also because they decide it is in the interest of the country they love.”
It’s imperative that in a free democratic society someone is voicing an opposition to the current neo-Marxist groupthink movement in our country, including an opposition to the Kueffner-like convoluted defense of “white privilege” doctrine. Sadly, radical neo-Marxists don’t really want to discuss anything of substance. Rather, they are just soap-boxing to anyone who will listen to their “bumper sticker” narrative, namely: “white privilege,” “Black Lives Matter,” “systemic racism,” “structural racism” and today’s “ANTIFA.”
It’s really amazing how this groupthink has permeated our culture, especially among those who consider themselves to be well educated, knowledgeable and intelligent. There will be no discussion with this groupthink — just bickering and diatribes. Indeed, there are many similarities between today’s reality with the absurd “reality” of the dystopia of George Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” History was a big part of Orwell’s novel — Big Brother had no tolerance for any history other than what Big Brother said.
My essays and ideas, at least, cause a reasonable person to pause for thought and maybe cause some to reconsider their political views. Indeed, all Americans should exercise our constitutional freedoms, peaceful expression of thought, and constitutional voting rights instead of destroying historic monuments and both public and private properties, rioting and violent protests.
• Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an adjunct assistant professor of Russian studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; social studies instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center from 1990 to present. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
