The Berlin Wall

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Forty Two
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Forty Two » Fri Apr 20, 2018 12:54 pm

mistermack wrote:It will always be possible to argue "ah but that's not true Marxism", no matter what example you look at.

The idea that it's shit because it's not 100 percent is a bit like political homeopathy. It's a fallacy.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is shit because society ruled in that way appears patently miserable and awful. That's why it had to be a means to the end of ushering in full communism. Only, nobody knows what full communism would look like, and even Marx and Engels never explained it. So, it is like homeopathy itself. It's just an empty promise of nothing.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Forty Two » Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:06 pm

rainbow wrote:
Forty Two wrote: But, my only point to even talk about what I've read is that when people call me a "retard" or suggest that I don't approve of communism because I'm too stupid to have understood what Marx was saying is rreally rather silly.
You've demonstrated time and time again that you're not able to grasp the difference between the Marxian concept of "Communism", and Marxist-Lenninist Realpolitik.

Try harder.
Meh - that's just another way of saying "go do your research." It would be like me not trying to explain my view on it, but instead just declaring that you "time and again" are not able to grasp Marx's ideas, and so you need to try harder. Since you've never tried to substantively contribute to this conversation and include your ideas, it can just be assumed you don't know what you're talking about.

Discussion boards are for discussion, and for people to contribute what they know, not insult others and tell them to research what the other person knows or doesn't know. All of us get things right and wrong to some extent, and presumably all of us can contribute references, citations, and viewpoints on these issues that may be more or less valuable or inciteful. If you have an idea to contribute, please do, but coming here and saying "If you don't already know, I'm certainly not going to tell you..." is a tactic that should be reserved for upset spouses whose anniversary dates have been forgotten.

Do you grasp the difference between the Marxian concept of "communism" and Marxist-Leninist Realpolitik? Then why don't you explain it briefly, or link to something that does (provide a citation)? Oh, that's right, I don't deserve your input here, because I've proven time and time again that I already can't grasp the difference. See how dumb that sounds? Oh, Forty Two - since you don't understand my viewpoint here, and you don't know the key facts and distinctions that I know, I'm just going to tell you to go try harder. That's what discussion forums are for, right?

Heck, maybe you're right. Maybe I don't get the distinction between conceptual Marxian communism, and Marxist Leninist Realpolitik. I'm game. Enlighten me. Oh, wait, no - I'll just try to imagine what you're viewpoint is on this, and I'll go out and hunt down source material and citation to establish the distinction you are talking about -- then I'll keep coming back here and posting updates until I finally write what you would write if you were to briefly summarize your view on it. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 2:39 pm

Marxist theory (whatever the funk that is) was a reaction to it's time and should, imo, be read within it's historical context. I don't know of any reasonable, mainstream Western political party who embrace Marxist theory other than in the most vague and general of senses, that being; that those whose time and energy the prevailing social, political, and economic order is built upon should have their contribution to it acknowledged and be treated fairly by it. This principle forms the basis of social democracy.

All political arguments are moral arguments, as they necessarily deal in shoulds and should nots, oughts and ought nots, musts and must nots. However, if we take two apparently contrasting and opposing schools of socio-political-economic thought, say Marxism and Randianism, and address ourselves to those who believe in the advocacy of each as undeniably true in root and explication, and the best and only reliable system to which any (and every) reasonable society can aspire, we can see they are different only in detail rather than intent - which is not to say that those details are not important and significant.

Both schools of thought champion their outlook on the basis of the normative nature of their moral claims, on the basis of their adoption being the best possible of all systems, that each operate both in the best interests of society and in the best interest of the individual, and as such that any and all other frameworks are necessarily wrong.

For the Marxist human dignity is essentially debased, enslaved, and forsaken in all forms of human social practice that primarily conceptualise the human being as an abstract entity which primarily exists as a discrete being separate from society, whereas for the Randist human dignity is debased, enslaved, and forsaken in all form of human social practice that conceptualise the human being as primarily existing as a component part of the social body. Both are wrong in as much as humans exist both as individual entities and social components within communities, and in as much as both couch their moral claims in terms of what all but their own perspectives deny and oppose.

All I am saying here is that the underlying moral virtues and failings of opposing views have more in common than each would admit to in the other, that the battle ground of political discourse is the detail rather than moral intent, that as individuals and as members of society we are far more united and have far more in common with each other (politically, and/or in any other way) than the things which seemingly divide us, and that the mere imposition of certain and/or particular structural measures cannot begin to pave our proposed roads to freedom without acknowledging our fundamental commonalities.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by DRSB » Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:42 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:
For the Marxist human dignity is essentially debased, enslaved, and forsaken in all forms of human social practice that primarily conceptualise the human being as an abstract entity which primarily exists as a discrete being separate from society, whereas for the Randist human dignity is debased, enslaved, and forsaken in all form of human social practice that conceptualise the human being as primarily existing as a component part of the social body.
Not true. For Marx “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”

― Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:43 pm

That's what I said :D
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by DRSB » Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:54 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:That's what I said :D
The objective was to give the context for the human greatness to flourish.
This is what attracted so many artists of the Avantgarde to the cause: to create new materials, new forms, new clothes for the new people, it was all about newness.

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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:59 pm

Indeed. But one does not need Marx, or Rand, to live that way :tup:
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by DRSB » Fri Apr 20, 2018 5:01 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:Indeed. But one does not need Marx, or Rand, to live that way :tup:
Especially, one does not need any dictatorships, albeit proletarian.

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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by JimC » Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:50 pm

To me one of the keys to whether I can value a political program is the degree to which it insists that the ends justify the means. In its pure form, this derives from a fanatical belief that the political system in question is so perfect, and its establishment so vital, that violence, oppression and rigid control of others is always justified if it assists the program. Other political programs may have traces of this tendency, too, but it did seem to reach an apogee in both the Nazi and Soviet systems...
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:53 pm

Somebody will sweep in shortly to point out that Hitler was a socialist... :coffee:
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Hermit » Fri Apr 20, 2018 10:21 pm

Brian Peacock wrote:Somebody will sweep in shortly to point out that Hitler was a socialist... :coffee:
...to be followed by someone pointing out that Stalin was not.
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by mistermack » Sat Apr 21, 2018 4:59 pm

What people seem to be missing here is that Adolf Hitler was in fact a socialist.

Unlike Stalin.
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Scot Dutchy » Sat Apr 21, 2018 5:04 pm

Adolf a socialist? :funny:
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Svartalf » Sat Apr 21, 2018 7:50 pm

Well, he headed the National SOCIALIST Germpan Workers' Party...
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Re: The Berlin Wall

Post by Rum » Sat Apr 21, 2018 8:40 pm

National Socialism was not remotely 'socialist' or communist for that matter. Jesus H Christ. On that basis the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was presumably a flourishing democracy??

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