The American Spectator’s own Paul Kengor has brought decades of expertise on Karl Marx and communism to Dr. Jordan Peterson’s educational Peterson Academy platform in a new eight-part lecture series, The Dark Side of Marxism.
The course grew out of Kengor’s June 2024 appearance on The Dr. Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, during which they discussed the dark life, writings, and ideas of Karl Marx. During that conversation, Peterson told Kengor that he was preparing to launch an online academy and wanted someone who could speak directly about what Kengor calls the “dark, diabolical side of Karl Marx and Marxism.” (RELATED: Who Made It Into the ‘Hall of Evil’?)
“I was so pleased when the Peterson Academy folks asked me to do this series,” Kengor said. “This is material that badly needs to be known, and knowing the power of Peterson’s reach, I knew we could make an impact.”
Peterson Academy was founded out of Peterson’s frustration with the ideological conformity and exorbitant costs of today’s higher education. The academy seeks to provide an alternative to modern academia by bringing together experts from a wide range of academic and professional fields to teach accessible, affordable courses. Kengor’s course adds a detailed account of Marxism and communism to that growing catalogue. (RELATED: To Hell With Karl Marx)
The course was filmed before a live audience in Scottsdale, Arizona. Kengor praised the academy’s “first-rate group of professionals” and described its facilities as “a very impressive studio … They used multiple cameras — more than I’ve faced in major TV studios.”
The series examines Marxism not merely as an abstract political or economic theory, but as an ideology with a long and bloody mark on modern history. Kengor begins with Karl Marx’s disordered life, writings, and lifelong fascination with the devil before tracing the development of Marxist thought and the spread of communism through Bolshevism and the Soviet Comintern. Later lectures examine communist rule outside of Russia under Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.
The course also covers the history of American communism and the pivotal roles of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II in ending the Cold War. Kengor examines the human cost of Marxist ideas put into practice, including the more than 100 million deaths attributed to communist regimes around the world.
The Dark Side of Marxism may be the first of several lecture series Kengor produces with Peterson Academy, as discussions are already underway about what subject he might tackle next.
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