What legitimately socialist country? Are you referring to the one where “Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics” is the law of the land, perhaps?
so dead-set on isolating and crushing China?
It’s a complete mystery, I tell you… why would the US want to crush it’s most powerful imperialist rival? You know… the one that helped the US push the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan back in the 80s?
Furthermore, why is it that liberals and fascists can more or less be trusted to reliably communicate
Lol!
Liberals can be trusted when they pretend that liberalism is compatible with democracy? Fascists can be trusted when they pretend to be doing something in the interests of nationalism?
Again… lol.
Why is it that the communists are understood as inherently duplicitous?
History, perhaps?
because communists rely on the masses
Oh, yeah… they rely on the “masses,” all right. I guess the Gulags existed to keep them “reliable,” eh?
they can’t trick the masses into believing one thing, then implement another;
You mean that exact thing all the (supposedly) “Actually Existing Socialist” countries have been doing since their inception to one degree or the other?
The fundamental cleavage between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism
There would only be a point to this if we were discussing liberalism. But it’s not liberals brigading this post, is it now?
I’ll just ignore your other remarks because they’re reductive and show that you simply didn’t read my comment (as you confirmed in your other reply)
Liberals can be trusted when they pretend that liberalism is compatible with democracy? Fascists can be trusted when they pretend to be doing something in the interests of nationalism?
No, those are the contradictions in their ideologies. I know that they’re contradictory and they get spun around in circles when they try to figure out those contradictions. That’s why I’m not a liberal or a fascist. But when you read liberal and fascist texts, they don’t really hide their motivation. The liberal wants the victory of freedom over backwardness and enlightenment over dogmatism. The fascist wants the victory of the will and the ubermensch over the rabble. They don’t really obscure those motivations, they’re clearly spelled out and intelligible. I’m asking you why it is that when communists state exactly what they are motivated by, they are the ones that actually mean the opposite.
Lol! To those with institutionalised power ideology is not a science, tankie. It’s art. It’s not contradiction - it’s merely the paint they work with. You know… institutionalised power? That thing you tankies are only comfortable talking about as long as it’s only liberals and fascists that have it?
The liberal wants the victory of freedom over backwardness and enlightenment over dogmatism.
Do we live on the same planet? The one on which I live liberals want whatever it is that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer - and that is pretty much it. And yes… everything they say and do is designed to obfuscate that.
Perhaps we should investigate why it is that you have such a hard time seeing that - I sincerely doubt it’s purely due to naivety.
You’re conflating ideologues and pragmatists. John Locke and Stuart Mill vs. Actually Existing Liberalism. Kamala Harris believes in nothing, I’m honestly not concerned about what goes on behind those eyes, but it helps to know what the people who do believe in something that are setting the tone for where the state is headed are talking about. FWIW I think the most relevant people to look into for that end are the neoreactionaries, people like Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. It seems like Thiel and other billionaires currently setting the course for how America will deal with its waning hegemony are following in that model.
I’m very familiar with the postmodern condition and how power wields hegemony to make reality what it will, what this means for people that are in danger of being defined out of existence and exterminated. That’s an important thing to understand and criticize.
Look, obviously institutional political power and the state are things that naturally lend themselves to oppression. “While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.” Are MLs usually a bit annoyed to argue about this point a lot? Yeah, because when someone who hasn’t read Lenin but is familiar with that quote gets in an argument like this, they start to make a lot of claims like “Lenin just wanted to make his own dictatorship to replace the Tsar” or something similar to that. You start to argue that, actually, it would’ve been best for nothing to have happened because all attempts at seizing power are inherently corrupt and reactionary. I don’t have a lot of patience for that, and I’m not even really an ML personally, I just think that it’s a very privileged position to have that because all states are oppressive the workers ought to just nobly stop having a state at all.
I think it’s pretty funny that you’ve just become openly anti-intellectual, though. There’s now multiple subthreads where you’ve disgracefully taken on the most stereotypical image of an anarchist telling the adults that bed time (good epistemology) is fascist. If you can’t be arsed to read through an argument, what (if not arrogance) makes you feel the need to refute it?
What’s a good argument, then? Citing Orwell and Arendt? Fangirling over slave-owning Greek lesbians on Tumblr? What’s the rhetorical magnum opus of the online-anarchist cultural milieu?
It’s not just her racism, which was really horrible even for the time, it’s the way that she was a zealously driven anticommunist to the point that she had to use her racism to justify why the “totalitarianism” she observed in the commonalities between the USSR and Nazi Germany didn’t also describe Western liberal countries. Spoiler alert: every crime you can accuse the USSR of committing was done an order of magnitude more by the British Empire.
I trace back the infantile anti-authoritarian arguments of today to Arendt. The fantasy of the Orientals being subhumans that just have to submit themselves to an authoritarian government, as opposed to our free and democratic Western governments, is incredibly pervasive even in the left.
What legitimately socialist country? Are you referring to the one where “Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics” is the law of the land, perhaps?
It’s a complete mystery, I tell you… why would the US want to crush it’s most powerful imperialist rival? You know… the one that helped the US push the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan back in the 80s?
Lol!
Liberals can be trusted when they pretend that liberalism is compatible with democracy? Fascists can be trusted when they pretend to be doing something in the interests of nationalism?
Again… lol.
History, perhaps?
Oh, yeah… they rely on the “masses,” all right. I guess the Gulags existed to keep them “reliable,” eh?
You mean that exact thing all the (supposedly) “Actually Existing Socialist” countries have been doing since their inception to one degree or the other?
There would only be a point to this if we were discussing liberalism. But it’s not liberals brigading this post, is it now?
I’ll just ignore your other remarks because they’re reductive and show that you simply didn’t read my comment (as you confirmed in your other reply)
No, those are the contradictions in their ideologies. I know that they’re contradictory and they get spun around in circles when they try to figure out those contradictions. That’s why I’m not a liberal or a fascist. But when you read liberal and fascist texts, they don’t really hide their motivation. The liberal wants the victory of freedom over backwardness and enlightenment over dogmatism. The fascist wants the victory of the will and the ubermensch over the rabble. They don’t really obscure those motivations, they’re clearly spelled out and intelligible. I’m asking you why it is that when communists state exactly what they are motivated by, they are the ones that actually mean the opposite.
Lol! To those with institutionalised power ideology is not a science, tankie. It’s art. It’s not contradiction - it’s merely the paint they work with. You know… institutionalised power? That thing you tankies are only comfortable talking about as long as it’s only liberals and fascists that have it?
Do we live on the same planet? The one on which I live liberals want whatever it is that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer - and that is pretty much it. And yes… everything they say and do is designed to obfuscate that.
Perhaps we should investigate why it is that you have such a hard time seeing that - I sincerely doubt it’s purely due to naivety.
So no, tankie… you are not the only one.
Does that make you feel better?
You’re conflating ideologues and pragmatists. John Locke and Stuart Mill vs. Actually Existing Liberalism. Kamala Harris believes in nothing, I’m honestly not concerned about what goes on behind those eyes, but it helps to know what the people who do believe in something that are setting the tone for where the state is headed are talking about. FWIW I think the most relevant people to look into for that end are the neoreactionaries, people like Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin. It seems like Thiel and other billionaires currently setting the course for how America will deal with its waning hegemony are following in that model.
I’m very familiar with the postmodern condition and how power wields hegemony to make reality what it will, what this means for people that are in danger of being defined out of existence and exterminated. That’s an important thing to understand and criticize.
Look, obviously institutional political power and the state are things that naturally lend themselves to oppression. “While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.” Are MLs usually a bit annoyed to argue about this point a lot? Yeah, because when someone who hasn’t read Lenin but is familiar with that quote gets in an argument like this, they start to make a lot of claims like “Lenin just wanted to make his own dictatorship to replace the Tsar” or something similar to that. You start to argue that, actually, it would’ve been best for nothing to have happened because all attempts at seizing power are inherently corrupt and reactionary. I don’t have a lot of patience for that, and I’m not even really an ML personally, I just think that it’s a very privileged position to have that because all states are oppressive the workers ought to just nobly stop having a state at all.
Did you read my comment, or did you just skim over it looking for phrases to reply to with a dictionary of cheap gotchas?
If you want my undivided attention, tankie, you should have a word with your fellow tankies about the brigade you launched on this post.
I think it’s pretty funny that you’ve just become openly anti-intellectual, though. There’s now multiple subthreads where you’ve disgracefully taken on the most stereotypical image of an anarchist telling the adults that bed time (good epistemology) is fascist. If you can’t be arsed to read through an argument, what (if not arrogance) makes you feel the need to refute it?
You call the shit you tankies spout “arguments?”
What’s a good argument, then? Citing Orwell and Arendt? Fangirling over slave-owning Greek lesbians on Tumblr? What’s the rhetorical magnum opus of the online-anarchist cultural milieu?
I know you tankies are sore at Orwell for calling out your realpoliticking horseshit… but what is your problem with Arendt now?
Racism, you complete blockhead. She was a horrendous racist.
It was a serious question, tankie - I’ve never read much of Arendt’s work.
(also true of Orwell)
It’s not just her racism, which was really horrible even for the time, it’s the way that she was a zealously driven anticommunist to the point that she had to use her racism to justify why the “totalitarianism” she observed in the commonalities between the USSR and Nazi Germany didn’t also describe Western liberal countries. Spoiler alert: every crime you can accuse the USSR of committing was done an order of magnitude more by the British Empire.
I trace back the infantile anti-authoritarian arguments of today to Arendt. The fantasy of the Orientals being subhumans that just have to submit themselves to an authoritarian government, as opposed to our free and democratic Western governments, is incredibly pervasive even in the left.
Maybe read the essay I cited!