Marxist(s)???

This is a response to the increasing ignorance of, and increased appeal to the ad hominem misappropriation of the terms: Marxist and Marxism which has become the new fallacy of contemporary United Statesian politics and social life. Although there are countless examples, the most recent demonstration of this problem (involving Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons) can be found here: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/odonnell-calls-coons-a-marxist-during-senate-debate/?hp
Not only can Republicans (and I'd say Democrats too) not define Marxism, I'd bet half the people who also point this fact out, yet do not claim themselves to be Marxist, cannot do it either.

1. Marxism as a blanket term used to describe all socio-politico-economic and cultural philosophies is, even when restricted to the work of Marx alone, a highly complex theory. So much so, that it remains extraordinarily insurmountable a task to criticize it in any way without giving it serious study which hardly anyone (perhaps except scholars of Marxism) actually do.

2. There isn't just "one" so-called "Marxism." - And to use the term "socialism," well, the same goes for that, of which Marxism is one form... (PS- Fascism and Nazism can only hold a thin margin of a "socialist" label in that the economic theory on which that which they (mis)appropriated was Syndicalism.

3. Throwing out the "M-word" is purely a scare-tactic because, in the majority of uneducated United Statesian minds, Marxism = Stalinism = Totalitarianism = Authoritarianism = no "freedom" (whatever that is) = no "liberty" (whatever that is) = some loaded BS notion of "the government taking care of everyone," etc. Yet, the whole catawampus mud-bog of incredulity rests on a general intellectual laziness that refuses to challenge all socio-political categories and systems of structuration.

4. This whole smoke-cloud which is absent of intellectual sincerity or accuracy, but full of the misappropriation of terms and categories, as well as ad hominem attacks, exists in a vacuum despairingly vacant of actual Marxists. This point simply goes to demonstrate the multiplicity of fallaciousness. How bad of a Red Herring must there be when the most direct object of ridicule (Marxists) is nowhere ever present. Hell, even in the current world of philosophy, it is most difficult to find a Marxist—the closest we might have to one being Slavoj Zizek, and even this is sketchy.

5. Finally, and not to berate the proverbial catchphrase so quintessential of laissez-faire, the “bottom-line” is that this is (to use the Marxist term) ideology in its purest and most culturally detrimental form – that no one is doing anything about anything. This, like practically every other facet of our world, is merely a distraction! We are distracted from asking important philosophical questions about society, about the economic structure, about politics, about theoretical categories such as “freedom,” “liberty,” etc., that we take at face value and inevitably take for granted because we are always-already lead by a condition of presupposition. We aren’t working forward or backward, we are a cultural stalemate bent solely on reproducing the same nightmarish simulacrum ad infinitum.

What's your justification for ethics other than hegemony?

Consider this: for sake of the question or argument, let's assume that there is no God (I'm not sure who believes and who doesn't). Let's also assume that logic is inherently limited, i.e. that ultimately logic can only provide a structure of rules by which we judge certain sets of propositions as either true or false, deductive or inductive, valid or invalid, etc. But systems of logic (one of the reasons logic is plural and not singular) are not only limited, but they formulate the objects, questions, and rules of their very inquiries. In other words, any statement can be justified or countered depending on the argumentation. We might even suggest, as Wittgenstein, that ethical statements are nonsense. Next we might go the route with moral responsibility. One question that would emerge is: where does the notion of responsibility come from? Another: in that moral responsibility presupposes a "transcendent" i.e. pre-social/pre-linguistic, and non-determined agency (which is another problem in-itself) but assume the position for the moment, from whence does the "moral agent" derive her/his choices? How/where does she/he get the idea of duty, responsibility; and how does she/he make decisions as to what behavior constitutes a moral choice, and fulfills the obligations? -- If we've suspended religious systems as our original guiding principle, then perhaps one might appeal to the society in which one lives. But the next question would then shift to the issue of moral relativism (not to be confused with nihilism which will the concluding problematic in this line of questioning). We might agree that "our," e.g. United Statesian, or Western notions of ethics are suitable for us, and in that ethical standards and practices vary from time to time and place to place, that no one system is better or worse than another (who are we to judge?). The bottom line being that all societies have some conception of ethics.
To this I would add, and conclude, with the question of how any given society orchestrates its system of ethics? How are the standards, practices, rules, obligations, etc., encoded and enforced? - In other words, is it not that the mechanisms of power in each and every society are the sites of the emergence of any of the ethical standards and practices in question? - We might say we would not kill another human being for whatever reason, but what if a reason arrived? We tend to have a form of relativism ourselves in that it's moral acceptable (even obligatory) to send soldiers to kill and/or be killed, it's moral acceptable  (even obligatory) to execute those deemed according to a level of criminality to be deserving of just punishment. Yet, if the social structure at work denies certain benefits, basic  needs, etc., to those of the lowest classes, etc., we are still living according to a deontological paradigm. - Even beyond those presumed "common" grounds of morality such as prohibitions against killing, raping, stealing, etc., what about all the so-called "minor" morals? For example, what determines the moral certitude of all of our social justice issues, etc? - Is it not statutory institutions, policy-makers, juridical, religious, educational, bureaucratic, and other authorities? - Thus we arrive at the site of where my questioning begins: The 5th CEN BCE Sophist philosopher Thrasymachus is noted as saying, “Listen—I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.” (i.e. "might makes right") Or, in my language, ethics and morality is decided by the deployment of the various mechanisms of power and those discourses associated with power. (I used the term "hegemony" less in the Gramscian sense than just a term to denote power and domination in general). So my philosophical problem rests on arriving at nihilism -- that there simply is no ultimate meaning, purpose, or justification for ethics (or anything else for that matter). But in that I, like most of us, am constituted as a moral subject, (perhaps for no other reason - who knows?) find this conclusion a bit unsettling, although simultaneously the most liberating of all possibilities. -- Here's a thought experiment from the recent movie Shudder Island: the warden in the film asks the main character, "If I bite into your eye right now, what would you do to stop me before you went blind?" - To say it another way (without appealing to a Hobbesian universe), when all the societal categories and proclivities are stripped away and, again as the warden in the movie asks, there's nothing standing between you or I and a meal but another being, where is any absolute ethics, or any justification for such?