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Fred J. McCall wrote:
>> communist or a right wing 'Cold Warrior'?
Brian K. Yoder responded:
> When dd I ever call myself "right wing"? (Look! Here's a positive claim
> of mine: I'm not "right wing". I'm an Objectivist.)
You heard the codeword, Fred. Bail out now. :)
Might as well be talking to a Maoist or Jesus Freak.
>> Read Marx and get back to me.
> I have read a fair amount of Marx.
Why do I doubt the sincerity of this? I have never met one single Randian
that actually read Marx, just _discussions_ of Marx from slanted writers.
(Hell, the same goes with "Marxists". I've met dozens of so-called Marxists
who have never read Marx, just other people's (very slanted) interpretations
of what he said. I guess in one way we can thank Karl for being such a dense
writer, difficult to read, since it makes it easier to weed-out the bullshit
artists that infest the political landscape, from the far left to the far
right.)
> I reject a great many of his fundamental premises....
But not all, huh? Which do you not reject? :)
> (not the least of which are his Hegelian epistemology, polylogism, his
> practice of studying social relationships STARTING at at the level of
> social classes rather than by examining the natuer of the individual peole
> involved....
And this statement provides the proof you are merely regurgitating what
you've ingested from your Randian books on Marx.
Nowhere does Marx say one STARTS at the level of social classes -- that is
crude, undialectical Marxism.
The dialectical process would mean the babe born into the world
simultaneously affects and is affected by the world around it -- including
human society. It is a very complex, inter-active process.
Vulgar thought conceives of the babe as completely a product of its
environment, or, reciprocally, completely divorced from its environment,
developing entirely by individual will.
Since it is a dialectical process, Marx suggested one has to look
dispassionately at the world into which the babe is born to understand the
process of its individual being.
Human society is made up of many distinct, moving parts, and where, therein,
a child is born, will present different influences on the formation of its
individual being -- likewise, the child will increasingly influence that
part of society through living, through its "self".
Nor is it some crude expression like (a) genes + (b) environment = (c) human
being. It's far closer to chaos theory, the butterfly effect, etc., the web
of life is endless in detail.
> WHy not look out there are the world, see who claims to be a communist, see
> what they have in common, see what everyone else says is a "communist" and
> see what they are refering to, and associate the word with its real world
> referents (and a definition that fits the evidence).
Better still, why not use big-C Communists and little-c communists? Just
like Americans do with Democrats and democrats. (Or as with Libertarians and
libertarians...)
The distinction is similar. After all, being a "democrat" is a lofty
concept, involving the best of human political ideals (when taken in its
purest form, of course); being a Democrat is a foul concept, involving the
worst of human political ideals -- party rule, limited citizen co-operation,
etc.
Everyone will admit a true individually-empowered democracy, devoid of
central oppression and control, is a difficult goal -- but just because the
so-called democracies have been pretty bleak, one doesn't give up on the
loftier goal and simply "settle" for wallowing in the Democratic muck.
> Perhaps you should just use the term "Marxism" to refer to the kind of
> system you (and Marx) have defined rather than trying to trying to rewrite
> the history of communist movements in the 20th century.
This is a very valid point. But I'd suggest you take it even further because
"Marxism" is oft a crock of shit too, bearing little resemblance to anything
Karl Marx wrote. This is why you often see a increasing distinction made
between "Marxist" thinking and "Marxian" thinking.
I'd venture that this need for distinction is due to the movement of
Marx/Engels complete-package ideas through time and space -- dialectical
movement, if you will. American individualist-style "Marxists" want to get
away from Russian Marxism (Lenin/Stalinism/whatever you term it) and all the
baggage it picked up through the historical crises Russia has suffered. The
Russian Communist "babe" was born into a very distinctive environment: 1917
war-torn, impoverished, chaotic Russia.
By trying to run Marx's anti-statist, ultra-democratic conception through the
richer economies of the West would yield a vastly different dialetical
movement than running them through the impoverishment of post-World War I
Russia. Poverty breeds division of spoils, breeds enforcement and brutality,
breeds a police state, etc. Stalin had more to do with Russia's economic
despair than the ideas of a little German boy born on the Rhine.
Ken.
--
"Don't HATE the media... | K.K.Campbell
beCOME the media!" --*-- <zodiac@io.org>
- J. Biafra | . . . . cum grano salis
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