Here’s the truth: Capitalism and Communism are two sides of the same coin, the coin of materialism. There is no recognition of the transcendent-both see humans simply as pieces of meat to be molded into whichever dogma they see fit. There is no recognition of the soul.

Also, in both ideologies, there is no sense of BALANCE. Both are inevitably totalitarian. Furthermore, Communists don’t explain how the fuck the proletariat is supposed to be somehow more benevolent when they have power.

There is a fine line between having strong convictions and giving in to dogma. Communism is just one example of a failed dogma. Capitalism is another. So is being a Republican, or Democrat, or whatever the fuck “party” you choose.

With that, I’m leaving this place. I don’t have anything personal against any of you. Mike, you’ve been a great friend. The rest of you, take care.

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“Marxism is not lifeless dogma, not a completed, ready-made immutable doctrine, but a living guide to action” -Lenin[/quote]

sigh

..

I chatted with him on instant messenger, but I am really too busy to chat that often. I also think Dhalgren chatted with him over instant messenger.

I found him to be pretty sharp, so I'm not sure why he had a sudden turn

I really do wish him the best

Any lessons to be taken? I don't know.....

Stay in touch.

You are talking religion, which is fine. I am always up for that. But not in a discussion group about auto mechanics - or politics.

I agree that both Socialism and Capitalism fail pretty miserably as belief systems. Most things - maybe all things - do.

its interesting because it seems to me that Allen took a rather hard turn here, and I'm not 100% sure why.

Too bad hes not sticking around, becuase I'd like to at least hear why the dramatic shift. Or maybe its not a shift and I just misread what he was saying before.

sometimes it seems harder than it should be to sustain conversations

Recently, I'm kinda excited because I think I finally think I understand a metaphor Anax used a while ago. Thought I understood it, but somehow I was missing the obvious. But honestly, sometimes these things take me years so I don't feel too bad haha..

If the entire society is a single class and that single class is based upon social equality and there is no private property, etc., then where does "benevolence" develop as an issue?
A lot of times a person will try to envision a society or social setting and become frustrated because her ability to "envision" is often limited to what is already known. That is not a put down, at all, it is common and to be expected. That is one of the reasons all the more senior folks around here will almost always insist that we don't have any idea about what is coming next - only that something is coming and it would be very good if it was good for the working class, who constitute the prohibitive majority of all people on earth. Everyone gets frustrated and maybe the young especially. Don't sweat it. Keep reading, keep learning, keep thinking, keep talking. Evaluate everything - and I mean everything - for yourself; it takes time and is often a bitch, but it is absolutely required - no exceptions.

Soul is okay, but I really prefer rock...

It may be a "generational thing", I don't know, but that "chat" thing was not for me. Also, I have thought that some folks tend to want to join something, to be part of an entity of some sort. We have not got anything like that in this country yet and when we do the government will try to kill it. When someone is looking for salvation, offering them a hammer and sickle is usually not going to satisfy. I like Allen and wish him well, but no one here "failed" him. I mean, my "Commie Zap Gun" doesn't work nearly as well as I have been led to believe...

Is there a rock n roll icon?

Also from above, the one big thing I like about Fichte is that he frames the issue as society generating self-consciousness. Thats a pretty heavy revelation, and also gets right to the core of most of the "objections" to socialism that we field.

The answer to this bitch or that bitch is that the individual ain't the Subject and, as Anax mentioned recently, it ain't so easy to define "individual" in light of German idealism (which culminates in Hegel's Geist..basically its taking the perspective of the hive to analyze and define the worker bee rather than the opposite which is not really posssible without just making stuff up to fill in all the holes you end up with..such as "altruism")

"failed" was the wrong word, I was just thinking that he seemed like he had a real appetite for discussion and we may not have filled the bill in that department (or, its equally possible, we would've went around in the same circles we've waltzed around so many times already). A few times he posed questions that were kind of theoretical and abstract to the point that it seemed like it was going to be too much effort to "unpack" it all and engender more confusion than it would dispel.

Kid,

I am taking a philosophy class, that's why. I'm learning logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory.

Frankly, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew when it comes to Marxism. So I'll return and reexamine it once I get deeper into philosophy and especially when I improve my critical thinking skills.

I'm always willing to learn. A few years ago I was an Obama fanatic. I'm going through a transitional stage in my life right now, and 10 years down the road I may feel that Marxism is the answer.

Best to you,

Allen

I know the writer of the OP, sort of, through the Internet and emails. At OET there was a gross invasion and exploitation of his privacy. So he's into spirituality now. Nothing wrong with that, IMO, it's natural. But I really like him. And he has a valid point about materialism, whether you agree with him or not. Me, I don't know why the universe works, and am arrogant enough to believe that nobody else does, either, so I'm agnostic. I've seen so many scientific theories on that subject come and go I am unwilling to just accept what the best and the brightest say anymore.

Still, I like Allen. I hope he comes back.

and lord knows we all went through the ringer at OET (including that incorrigible Chlamor)...

he can come back when he's ready to talk more.

We all bit off more than we can chew - well, most of us I think. There has also been this weird transitional period over the last 6 months - a lull, a shift. That phase is just about over now.

It might help to think of Marxism as a very useful and powerful tool for finding answers, rather than as the answer.

You should know that the people here don't share any beliefs or creed, so you aren't missing anything or failing to get the right moves. I think people try to join the team here, and then can't figure out exactly what the requirements are, or the secret handshake or whatever and then get angry or give up in frustration. Anaxarchos said once that what we share is a commitment to the terms for the discussion. We didn't start with a shared belief or doctrine or set of ideas about the content of the discussion.

Also, this group was under horrendous assault starting about a year ago. Newly boarding passengers may look at the ship with all of the holes in the hull and the mast half shot off, and then at the surly unkempt crew - with missing teeth, tattoos all over their bodies, missing limbs and bones in their noses - and justifiably wonder if this is quite the scenic cruise they had in mind when they signed on LOL.

You have contributed a lot to the group, and are always welcome. You don't have to join, and you don't have to quit.

I argue with my Jesuit friends on this. They reject Marx, because "it is materialism." Of course it is. Where they make their mistake is in thinking that we believe in materialism - as though we worship rocks or something. Their approach - that practice follows rules and rules follow doctrine and doctrine follows belief - makes for some bad politics, and they have been completely captured by extreme reactionary demagogues. But it also makes for bad theology. "Belief" - really feelings and prejudices - becomes cover for absolutely any sort of thinking and behavior, and there is no discipline or rigor to their thinking. They assume that everyone else is operating from belief - they can't hear anything except in terms of competing belief systems. Certainty and truth for them is the absence of anything that challenges their bias and prejudices.

By the way, Allen took a serious hit for the team over there and has my respect.

Benevolence - the urge to do good - has absolutely nothing to do with anything because it is so fuzzy. It could be said that for humans as social animals, benevolence is as common and routine as breathing. So it is a "good" thing, but you wouldn't base an approach to solving social and political problems on deep breathing exercises. Actually, no doubt someone somewhere is doing exactly that LOL. And selling the book and the DVD. And holding seminars and workshops.

to many belief systems. Lay down the law as far as presuppositions go. Exclude any presuppositions that don't agree or may disagree. Anyone who espouses opposing presuppositions is either a heretic or insane. This is very important, for in any logical argument, if the presuppostions are taken for granted, the argument is indisputable and infallible IF those presuppositions are acknowledged as fact so long as the argument that follows is logical.

In your reply to one of my posts, Two Americas(sounds very John Edwards to me; is it? If so, I liked it enough to support him before his cock imploded), you posted a list of common fallacies. All of them are attempts to set the presuppositions for political debate; presuppositions that if followed to their logical conclusion justify the domination of all human beings by capitalism, or, if you will allow me to use a moral term, unadulterated greed.

I was using the Two Americas theme, and passed it along to Edwards staffers before he started using it. Now I can't live it down LOL. I also had this idea about how politicians can score a little nookie on the side when they are out on the campaign trail. Hope they didn't pass that one along. I was just joking around.

I am pretty certain that Capitalism is not about greed. It is about domination and control. Greed puts it into the personal realm, subjective states of mind, and denies the social relationships which can be observed as objective reality. In fact, just about all of American politics ignores and denies the social relationships and arrangements. That is like talking about weather and ignoring and denying the atmosphere.

You can form political opposition to control and domination, but you cannot in opposition to greed. That is why people insist that it is about greed. That keeps us all busy trying to figure out how to reform man and his sinful fallen nature.

People do not dominate other people for the sake of amassing money, they amass money for the sake of dominating other people. In fact, when given a choice between losing money or losing control over others - and this plays out almost everyday in every workplace - the boss will always choose to lose the money.

What you say about beliefs is right, but may not go far enough. Since beliefs are subjective, a person can claim any action to be consistent with their beliefs, so there is no way to rely on them, no way to tell where they stand on anything. That is how we get "I believe in Jesus, and that is why I am stoning the adulteress." That is because "belief" in Jesus is purely subjective. It need have little or nothing to do with the reality of the thing supposedly believed. All critical analysis is precluded. We have no way of knowing what a person means when they say "I believe in Jesus."

Really good thoughts on that - we see it playing out in the current administration. So Obama is at the helm, people think they are voting in the next FDR, and all of a sudden everything is being privatized, medicare for all is off the table, etc... And it's undoubtedly Rahm's fault (wait, he's gone now). Or Gibbs. Or Biden. Or Duncan. Or Valerie "lifestyle choice" Jarrett. Obama couldn't possibly be steering the good ship Imperialism on his own - those other jokers must be influencing him and giving him bad advice. Or maybe it's Obama. Maybe he should be replaced too. If we could just replace all of them the ship would get back on course.

personal realm can make those things "personal lifestyle choices," so that when someone complains of being exploited and screwed by the system, the defenders of the system can say, "Well, you are where you are because of the choices YOU made. You deserve to be (insert: unemployed, homeless, impoverished, abused, etc here) because of what you did. Don't blame us, whiner."

You are also right that you can't politically oppose greed any more than a nation can wage war on a tactic.

And the Two Americas was YOUR idea? It was a good one. Impressive.

Way back in the day I got into the habit of calling staffers and politicians and talking politics with them. Every now and then I hear a politician say something and think "hey, that's mine." Not sure if Edwards got it from me, but I was having a heated discussion with one of his aides about Edwards being just another shill for the ruling class, about the haves versus the have-nots, and that there were two economies, two Americas, etc. right before he started using it. In my thinking, getting that theme in front of the public was a useful thing, aside from the candidacy or the partisan political nonsense. The politicians and staffers are just people. May as well argue with them as with anyone else.

point, that America IS divided. Between haves and have nots. Between the ruling corporate class and everyone else. Instead of between left and right, liberal and conservative. The two Americas theme demonstrated horizontal division between the classes, which is real, and vertical division between left and right and maybe center, which is not. I have said for decades that the vertical division allows the people on top to divide and rule the rest of us.

I have also been attacked from both "conservatives" and "liberals" for saying so and for advocating class warfare. When I point out that class warfare has been waged for years, decades, or centuries, usually by folks on top, they either call me crazy or socialist or communist, or just go away. By far the most vehement attacks come from self-described leftists.

Wonder how Maat's Prius is running, and if she still has that luxury box for the 49ers games.

I remember being required to participate in diversity training in a law firm I worked at in the 90's. When I asked why staff was being trained separately from attorneys the facilitators informed me that the attorneys "were more comfortable" with that approach. That did open up a pretty good discussion about class though, with people giving examples such as the attorney there on a weekend who called the police when he saw an African American guy in his hallway (hello, he's there working on the weekend in the Xerox department because YOU sent down copy jobs).

She seemed to be a lawyer, a social worker, a teacher, a nurse and gods know what else. Yeah, I hope she is still raking in the dough and keeping the "unfortunate" at arms length. It's hard to be "kind" and "progressive" when there are so many "icky" folks about...