Stephen Kotkin

I agree with that 100%.

But he's got an ideological approach to how to achieve that, which, to me, is completely foolish.

And if I were as smart as him,

How could he possibly hold that idea in his head?

But so ideology is pervasive.

It's pervasive, flying in the face of empirical reality.

We could give many examples.

I'm not picking on this guy in New York.

It's just a recent example.

I don't know him.

I've never met him.

Whatever.

Maybe there's a more complicated story there.

I'm just saying that we have to take ideology seriously because it's deep and it can be enduring even in the face of empirical reality.

Why is Marxism, Marxism-Leninism especially, so attractive to young people and to intellectuals?

Why?

We have this history, which is a bloody mess.

Millions of people die, and they die because of the enactment of this ideology.

How could people continue to adhere to an ideology like that during the murderous time period and even more after the murderous time period when we can look at it dispassionately?

Here's part of the answer.