It's because socialism and communism appeals on an intellectual level. It's utopianism, and utopia is appealing because it's an ideal world where everything is perfect. The problem is that these same intellectuals forget that utopia by definition is impossible. They are more concerned with pie in the sky idealism than down to earth practicality, because the idea of utopia is more appealing to them than the drudgery of real life. And because they have the benefit of more education (not necessarily GOOD education mind you, just more of it) they falsely believe that that gives them sole discretionary power to determine what ideas are good and what are bad, and so they dismiss out of hand any idea that does not come from them or their contemporaries as being the product of an uneducated mind.
Worse, they continue to think this even when the things they speak of are entirely outside their area of education. As a current day example a man or woman with a degree in gender studies will happily lecture on the environmental "dangers" of fracking and oil drilling while ignoring the experience and counter arguments of a less educated blue-collar worker that has actually done the job of of fracking and oil drilling.
Point blank, they're not interested in practical reality, they want their idealist paradise, and socialism/communism is the utopian ideal that appeals most strongly to them. The problem is that utopia is both impractical and impossible and they don't care, because in their minds it's their "job" to make the impossible possible. And as long as the people paying the consequences for their hubris happen out of their sight, they won't give a damn, and they'll brush off all historical examples of failure of socialism and communism as if those things "weren't real communism". Which is technically true, because real communism is utopianism, which is literally impossible. The problem that they ignore isn't that all those deaths happened because "that wasn't real communism", it's that all those deaths happened because people were faithfully trying to implement "real communism". And real communism cannot work, ever, and they refuse to acknowledge it.
Like I said in another thread, Marx was writing nonsense with his theories, you'd need a model of human being that never existed for it to work. He theorized that communism will 'evolve" from abuse of capitalism, which has never actually happened, socialist and communist states have all been forced upon people, usually violently. Marx was utterly full of shit, as was Engels.
It's because socialism and communism appeals on an intellectual level. It's utopianism, and utopia is appealing because it's an ideal world where everything is perfect. The problem is that these same intellectuals forget that utopia by definition is impossible. They are more concerned with pie in the sky idealism than down to earth practicality, because the idea of utopia is more appealing to them than the drudgery of real life. And because they have the benefit of more education (not necessarily GOOD education mind you, just more of it) they falsely believe that that gives them sole discretionary power to determine what ideas are good and what are bad, and so they dismiss out of hand any idea that does not come from them or their contemporaries as being the product of an uneducated mind.
Worse, they continue to think this even when the things they speak of are entirely outside their area of education. As a current day example a man or woman with a degree in gender studies will happily lecture on the environmental "dangers" of fracking and oil drilling while ignoring the experience and counter arguments of a less educated blue-collar worker that has actually done the job of of fracking and oil drilling.
Point blank, they're not interested in practical reality, they want their idealist paradise, and socialism/communism is the utopian ideal that appeals most strongly to them. The problem is that utopia is both impractical and impossible and they don't care, because in their minds it's their "job" to make the impossible possible. And as long as the people paying the consequences for their hubris happen out of their sight, they won't give a damn, and they'll brush off all historical examples of failure of socialism and communism as if those things "weren't real communism". Which is technically true, because real communism is utopianism, which is literally impossible. The problem that they ignore isn't that all those deaths happened because "that wasn't real communism", it's that all those deaths happened because people were faithfully trying to implement "real communism". And real communism cannot work, ever, and they refuse to acknowledge it.
Like I said in another thread, Marx was writing nonsense with his theories, you'd need a model of human being that never existed for it to work. He theorized that communism will 'evolve" from abuse of capitalism, which has never actually happened, socialist and communist states have all been forced upon people, usually violently. Marx was utterly full of shit, as was Engels.