A Free Left Blog

This is the third part of a four-part essay applying the ideas of Karl Popper to ideologies that have secured particular social power in our contemporary world. Part I presents a context in which Popper has been widely misappropriated by the right, and argues that he should be reclaimed by the liberal-left – not least because he was liberal and of the left . Part II builds up the substance of his critique of Hegelian and Marxist ideologies and explores how contemporary political Islamism is largely based on these theories. Part III here explores the rise of ideological feminism, with a particular focus on Laurie Penny’s writings and the strong feminist movement within the Labour Party. As Islamism takes the Muslim, feminism takes the woman as a centre of importance and basis for political action. There is nothing wrong with this; indeed there is nothing necessarily wrong with politicising any identity group. It is clearly necessary in situations where we...

This is the second part of a four-part essay applying the ideas of Karl Popper to the ideologies that have secured particular social power in our contemporary world . Part I preceding this introduced the context, in which Popper has been widely misappropriated by the right, and neglected by the left - wrongly, because he was liberal, and his sympathies were with the left. This second part of the essay gets into his critique of Hegelian and Marxist ideologies and explores how contemporary political Islamism is largely based on these theories. ‘Historicism’ is the term under which Karl Popper lumped all ideologies of history, from those of Plato and Aristotle through to Hegel and Marx, political communism and Nazism. For Popper, historicist social theories were those that claimed to understand the progression of history, and thereby reliably predict the future. What Marx did wrong in his view was not to make predictions that turned out to be wrong, but to claim scien...

This is the first part of a four-part essay applying the powerful critiques of Karl Popper to contemporary ideologies which have gained significant social power – focusing in particular on Islamism and ideological forms of feminism (those forms which have become dominant in left-wing politics). This first part engages with the way Popper has been mistakenly appropriated by the free market right, and makes the case that he should be adopted by the liberal-left, not least because he was liberal and of the left. “ The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity. There are, however, influential social philosophies which hold the opposite view .” ~ Karl Popper If guilt comes with association then on the left you do not get much guiltier than receiving Margaret Thatcher’s seal of approval. This is the fate of Karl Popper; perhaps the best critic of authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies there has been, yet somehow associated...