Dr. Seuss and Philosophy - Jacob M. Held [21]
Nietzsche offers a perspective, one the reader has to come to through a transformative movement. Nietzsche offers us a style for living. Simply put, pessimism leaves a bad taste in Nietzsche’s mouth and a foul smell in the air. As a prescription for life it fails due to its sheer ugliness. But affirmation is much more florid. “To ‘give style’ to one’s character—a great and rare art.”19
Although Nietzsche doesn’t offer us arguments in the traditional sense, he is attempting to persuade us. How successful he is depends on the receptivity of the reader. Some will find this approach flawed or perhaps even fraudulent. After all, aren’t philosophers supposed to offer irrefutable arguments premised on absolute, objective truths? But Nietzsche chooses to venture into dangerous waters chartless and free to create novel answers and new approaches that are ready to be taken up by those who are ready for him. Such an adventurous and playful approach to life requires a strong and free spirit, one that is rare and must be cultivated. Nietzsche declares, “I place this new tablet over you: become hard!”20 In this life a strong yet playful constitution is needed, and a nice big bat helps, too.
CHAPTER THREE
Gertrude McFuzz Should’ve
Read Marx, or Sneetches
of the World Unite
Jacob M. Held
Pairing Dr. Seuss and Karl Marx (1818–1883) is risky. Doing so associates Dr. Seuss, beloved children’s author, with the specter of Marxism. This is problematic because some people might find such a combination infelicitous, not because Dr. Seuss and Marx are incompatible but because most people have a built in knee-jerk hostile reaction toward all things Marxist. Unfortunately, this reaction is not the result of being well informed on the topic; it’s probably because of the exact opposite. But I am going to use Seuss to explain and illustrate Marx and Marxism. My motivation is that I both like irritating people and think that several themes in several of Seuss’s works are illustrative of an important aspect of Marxism. I am going to focus on one paramount aspect of Marxism: alienation. My goal is modest. I plan simply to explain the humanism of Marxism by offering an account of alienation; what it is, its causes, and why it’s bad. But alienation as a phenomenon needs to be put into context, and the context is the capitalist mode of production.
You Capitalist Old Once-ler Man You!
Even if you’ve never picked up a political philosophy textbook or read a sentence of Marx you know one thing already: Karl Marx didn’t like capitalism. Why? Short answer: He was morally opposed to the capitalist way of distributing property since it seemed fundamentally inhumane. Long answer: Keep reading!
Capitalism is an economic system. It’s a way to distribute property. As a distributive paradigm it’s designed by people and implemented by states. Capitalism is not a law of nature or rule of the universe; it’s one among many ways to distribute resources. Societies decide to be capitalist. They may do so because they think it’s highly productive, efficient, or just. But they choose to be capitalist, and this choice is reflective of that society’s values. So what is it they chose to be when they decide to be capitalists?
First, capitalism is a way of distributing property, specifically the “means of production”; that is, the factories and manufacturing sites where all goods are made. For example, the Once-ler owns the means of production of Thneeds. He owns the factory, equipment, land the factory sits on, the Truffula tufts, and even his relatives’ labor. The Once-ler is a capitalist, and understanding his relation to his factory, employees, and society will help us understand capitalism.
The Once-ler owns his Thneed factory. He has invested his own time, money, labor, and ingenuity into building and biggering his factory until it’s productive and profitable. The Once-ler opened