A little while back, I read a newspaper obituary of Frederic Jameson, an old man and, it was claimed, a great and famous literary critic, and a Marxist. That obituary didn’t go into much depth about his Marxism, but a recent article in the libertarian publication Reason did. It seems that the late Mr. Jameson not only had complaints about the various faults and injustices of our current society, as a great many people do, but was a dyed in the wool Marxist true believer, and an authoritarian with plans for how the government ought to take over all aspects of life.

I wonder how much this spilled over into his literary criticism. On the one hand, a man can be a capable critic, astronomer, cellist, linguist, microbiologist, or what have you despite having appalling political views or believing in a repugnant religion (Marxism can arguably be classified as a religion). On the other hand, a warped view of life, while it need not interfere with specifically technical expertise, is likely to burden someone’s ability to understand and sympathize with human beings, and to appreciate literature which either controverts his views, or is simply not concerned with what he regards as important.

Here, I should confess that I used to hold views much like those of the late Comrade Jameson, and that someone with the capacity to be so mistaken, and so misanthropic, should be cautious of judging others too harshly. Fortunately, I outgrew my hard left views young; I held them when I was twelve and thirteen years old.