RealClearReligion’s Nicholas G. Hahn III recently talked to Acton President Fr. Robert Sirico about Obama, Marx, and Jane Fonda:
RCR: Why didn’t Jane Fonda and others in your generation follow you to the Right?
Robert Sirico: There are a lot of them that are not Leftist anymore. I know a lot of people in my generation who were at those things and are much more conservative today — not quite philosophically, but certainly wouldn’t identify with the Left. Now, why are some of them still stuck? When you’re in that ethos and the whole culture moves and if you didn’t have a fixed point, you move with it. When you’re formed in your ideas, it’s a whole hermeneutic. It’s a whole way that you approach the world. And when, for instance, you approach the world with a zero-sum presumption, I think it’s very explanatory. Marx gives you a view of the world that is plausible. It’s not completely absurd to think that the person who owns the means of production is wealthy because of another’s poverty. It’s plausible. It sounds right. It’s only when you understand the broader context, then it becomes more complex. Traditional, classical, free market ideas are far more complex — and counterintuitive.
