back to the beginning: morality

Then we construe the implications differently.

I do so only because I perceive others [time and again] as not truly recognizing the distinction that I do make between human interactions [the vast majority of them] not embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, and those [relatively few] interactions that seem [to me] to be.

But it’s these “relatively few” interactions that precipitate [by far] the most conflict, the most pain and suffering, among the human species.

Thus this point:

Yes, but those folks that I describe as moral and political objectivists certainly seem to discuss these interactions quite a bit differently from those I describe as moral and political nihilists.

As for the “pragmatists” here who in turn shy away from “moral absolutes” themselves, I’m still unclear as to how they have managed to sustain what to me seems like a greater “peace of mind” regarding these things than I am able to garner.

Sure, perhaps, some can just “will” themselves into not being as bothered by this essentially meaningless conflict-ridden world that ends in oblivion as “I” am. But that too can never really be more [for me] than just another “existential contraption” rooted in dasein.

You don’t, I do. Why? Because it seems clear [to me] that many here still do not understand what I mean by them from “down in the hole” that I am. All I can do then is to explore how and why they are convinced that their own “I” here is not down in that hole with me.

Come on, for all practical puroposes, you are either telling others that their understanding of Communism is incorrect if it is not in sync with yours, or you are acknowledging that with respect to value judgments like this, “I’m right from my side and you’re right from your side.”

How is that not applicable to you?

Your truth in other words. And even though you will be dead and gone someday, you have managed to think yourself in believing that your truths “here and now” are all that really matters.

Well, good for you. If that allows you some measure of “comfort and consolation” then that frame of mind “here and now” works for you. End of story. Yours.

It just doesn’t work for me anymore.

So the question for philosophers then is this: Is there a way to determine which frame of mind here reflects that which all rational men and women are In fact obligated to share?

If they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.

Sure, that’s possible.

Only “here and now” – the present – it’s not something that “I” believe.

Yes, that seems reasonable to me. If the conflicting good revolves around, say, the arguments expressed here…
slate.com/business/2018/08/demo … -poll.html

…how would one go about describing the conflicted reactions to capitalism and socialism as anything other than “existential contraptions” rooted more or less in “psychological defense mechanisms” pertaining to any particular ego out in any particular world understood from any particular point of view?

How would you go about it?

Unfuckingbelievable

I’ll promise not to ask, “how so?”, if you’ll promise not to tell me.

See you in the next round.

For now, pick one:

=D>
:wink:
:laughing:
:banana-linedance:

Iambiguous has stated (inferred by proof of his posting history) on many occasions that God created logic. So if you use logic, god MUST exist.

You folks aren’t good at reading between the lines to the core of his argument. So, you run around him like chickens with your heads cut off.

Pay attention to what he’s saying!

More to the point [mine] is the manner in which I think that others think that they know what is good [morally] is something that I can demonstrate as the embodiment of [or as embodied in] the components of my own moral philosophy: dasein, conflicting goods, political economy.

No, I can’t demonstrarte to others that what I think I know here is what they are obligated to think that they know in turn. You know, if they wish to be thought of as rational human beings.

Over and again I – “I” – include myself in the argument that I make: that value judgments [including my own] are existential contraptions once we move beyond that which can in fact be demonstrated as true objectively for all of us.

Then I propose that we take this “philosophical” discussion out into the world of actual conflicting goods and probe the extent to which we can in fact know what is either true or false when value judgments do come into conflict.

Let’s go to the dictionary:

Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

How then might we relate this to the conflicting goods that revolve around an issue like abortion?

How does a particular philosopher who has a particular “theory of knowledge” take that out into the world and embed it in her own particular moral/political narrative relating to abortion?

Using what particular “methods, validity, and scope” allows her to argue that her own knowledge transcends the manner in which I construe “I” here as embedded existentially in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy"?

How would their frame of mind not become entangled in this:

How on earth do we discuss what we think we know about the morality of abortion without going this route? I must be misunderstanding your point. From my perspective the state of mind of those who oppose abortion is rooted in dasein in much the same manner as those who oppose denying women the right to choose an abortion.

What I am interested in then are those who address this: What can we know or not know here when the discussion shifts from abortion as a medical procedure to abortion as a moral conflict?

So you say. Am I then allowed to demur? Because in fact I do. For all of the reasons I raised above. Then it comes down [as it always does here] to a tug of war between points of view.

Yet I maintain over and again that my own arguments here are no less an existential contraption. Sure, others can convince themselves that I really don’t mean this; and that in yanking the discussion in a direction more suited to my own alleged motivations and intentions, I am engaging in an ad hom attack.

And, as I noted above, I can only speculate myself as to what is really behind my efforts here. Introspection here is always a slippery slope. Depending on the extent to which one believes that he or she really is in sync with the “real me”.

Are you? Because “I” am certainly not. Not with respect to these enormously complex and convoluted existential relationships.

Meaning what, that only the manner in which you have come to conclude an approach is “relevant” in resolving conflicting goods reflects the “correct” agenda of a philosopher? That only you get to say “what matters” here?

Cite an example of me “not liking it” when when others “do it to me”. Do what specifically relating to what particular context?

Look, there are objectivists of Ayn Rand’s ilk who insist that our emotional and psychological states can in fact be included in philosohical discussions of conflicting goods. Why? Because [they insist] there is not a single emotion or psychological reaction of theirs that they are not able to wholly subsume in their intellectual assumptions.

Me, I suspect it is all considerably more problematic than that. While we all come into world genetically predisposed to experience emotions, the manner in which each of us come to embody them in any particular context is no less an existential contraption to me. After all, the human brain intertwines both in ways that neurologists are just beginning to explore.

Note to others:

Below Karpel Tunnel jumps the shark. If that’s the right expression. Suddenly he starts to get pissed off at me. He has laboriously attempted to enlighten me as to how a truly sophisticated thinker goes about broaching and then discussing/debating these complex relationships. But [as with so many others before him] I refuse to concede.

So, you label me as an “epistemologist”. But we are to understand this accusation only in the manner in which you insist that all rational men and women are obligated to understand it. We must know it as you know it.

And if you insist that I don’t think it is even possible to know the good and to demonstrate it then my attempts to explain that my own arguments here are no less an existential contraption is just me, what, lying to everyone?

It is as though with respect to an understanding of human value judgments in conflict you keep noting that 1 + 1 = 2, while I keep insisting that 1 + 1 = 3.

No, that is what I – “I” – think that “any number of” epistemologists attempt to do with me. But the only truly substantive manner in which I can understand their argments is if they are willing to take their “theories of knowledge” out into the world of conflicting goods that most of us here will be familiar with. Separate out the purely philosophical components of their assessment from the emotional and psychological reactions that they have in order to propose a brand new deontological assessment said to be the obligation of all rational men and women.

All I can do here is to grapple with the gap that I perceive between me being down in my hole [in the is/ought world] and the extent to which you do not perceive yourself as being down in one. The extent to which you feel less fractured and fragmented here than I do.

And in that regard you come off to me as just one more “intellectual” intent on focusing the discussion in the direction of “general descriptions” of human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments.

My reaction, however, is but one more “existential contraption” rooted in the manner in which “I” have to react to those discussions of this sort as the embodiment of dasein.

The sort of reactions that, surely, are far, far, far less frequent in discussions among folks like geologists or meteorologists or chemists or biologists or mathematicians.

Wow, you’ve got me here right?!!

But: What prompts this sort of reaction? Again, I have my own suspicions.

A common refrain here at ILP. When others do not respond to the points that you make as reasonable folks are expected to then they are clearly not understanding those points.

No doubt it is asserted because they are not even reading them.

What, by completely stripping the subjunctive components of our reactions to the world around us? Let’s discuss “the right to bear arms” in America as only “serious philosophers” can?

Note to others:

Again, what am I missing here? What point is he making out at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political power that a proper “theory of knowledge” would address first.

Pure knowledge? Don’t be saddened or frightened or enraged or confused or ambivlalent when the discussion gets around to your unwanted pregnancy. Figure out what you either can or cannot know about it and then come up with the least dysfunctional moral and political narrative/agenda.

Cite example of me spitting in your face here at ILP.

Note to Phyllo:

In our discussion of Communism, was I basically spitting in your face? Or, instead, was I suggesting that any particular inidvidual’s reaction to it is likely to be embodied in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?

Unless, of course, the epistemologists among us can in fact determine that which all rational men and women are obligated to know about it.

Yeah, this may well be closer to the “objective truth” than my own assesment of my own motivation and intentions here.

And the fact that it does not resonate at all with me, might be just more proof that the problem here is me. Now, let’s find someone who can demonstrate it one way or the other once and for all.

And, then, presto, just like that, the insults and the spit and the occsional bullets, would all be subsumed in a cool, calm and collected discussion of what these folks can really demonstrate [intellectually] that they know regarding the most rational manner in which to recocile the conflicting goods here?

And yet you can’t even eschew an emotional outburst in discussing it with me here and now.

Either philosophers take what they think they can know about human morality “technically” out into the world of, at time, fierce human interaction, or [from my frame of mind] they become just one or another rendition of Will Durant’s own conjecture regarding the “epistemologists”:

“In the end it is dishonesty that breeds the sterile intellectualism of contemporary speculation. A man who is not certain of his mental integrity shuns the vital problems of human existence; at any moment the great laboratory of life may explode his little lie and leave him naked and shivering in the face of truth. So he builds himself an ivory tower of esoteric tomes and professionally philosophical periodicals; he is comfortable only in their company…he wanders farther and farther away from his time and place, and from the problems that absorb his people and his century. The vast concerns that properly belong to philosophy do not concern him…He retreats into a little corner, and insulates himself from the world under layer and layer of technical terminology. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes an epistemologist.”

I’ll stop here. The rest is just you tumbling head over heels into a scathing rant about me. Huffing and puffing because I refuse to yank the exchange up into the vicinity of the “general descriptions” you seem [to me] more clearly comfortable with.

YOU tell me. Apparently only YOUR thoughts, YOUR feelings and YOUR reactions have any reality for YOU. If I tell YOU how I saw it and what I thought about it, then YOU will just react with YOUR interpretation of what I say. YOU have YOUR own truth about it which is independent of what I think or feel. I need not respond to these questions.

No, I was not even remotely spitting in your face. Though both of us seem ready, willing and able [at times] to be provocative, testy and querlous in our exchanges.

As for my own thoughts, feelings and reactions about/toward Communism, I root them in “I” as an existential contraption. I was once a proponent of Communism. Then as a result of “new experiences, new relationships, and access to new ideas” I abandoned that commitment.

Does this then mean that now I am more in touch with the “real me”? Does this mean that others who still champion one or another rendition of Marxism/socialism/Communism ought to aboandon these things as well?

How on earth would I/could I go about demonstrating that? Here I am just like you: taking an existential leap to a particular set of political prejudices rooted more in the subjective/subjunctive “I” than in anything philosophers, ethicists and/or political scientists are able to encompass in an argument said to be the obligation of all rational men and women.

The difference being that my leap “here and now” has landed me in the hole I am in. Whereas your leap still affords you some measure of conviction. Your take on Communism is thought by you to be, what, neccessarily more reasonable than those who oppose you?

My whole point revolves around the extent to which individual reactions to things like Communism either are or are not basically just existential contraptions. And, thus, our “interpretations” would be in turn.

And out in the real world, responding or not responding to another’s view on Communism depends on the particular context that you find yourself in. If the liberals and Democrats go further left in America and become more and more willing to use the “S” word, how far will that be for some from the “C” word?

The power might shift to the left and proponents of capitalism may be confronted with actual substantive arguments revolving around, say, actual legislation.

Or, sure, the power might shift to the “F” word. Then we’ll have “national socialism”. And you can bet those folks will be full-blown objectivists.

Pardon me. I realized I was just trying to clarify for myself how odd and unpleasant his penultimate response was. Clarified and deleted.

One can demonstrate that the secret police existed/exists, that people disappeared during the night, that the camps existed/exist and that the bodies were disposed of.

Those are demonstrable truths.

I make a personal evaluation that those sort of things are not acceptable. It’s my personal line in the sand.

Sure, someone else does find it acceptable.

But you make it sound as if I’m making up truths and that I intentionally deny the truths presented to me by other people. I don’t think I do that.

Yeah, I’m still convinced that there is truth “out there” that can be used to make decisions.

It’s definitely not this :

I don’t have “my own truth”. I have beliefs based on truths and also some beliefs based on falsehoods (which I mistakenly think are truths). When I discover that something that I thought was true is actually false, then I adjust my beliefs. I try to minimize my errors. It try to avoid errors. I fix my mistakes.

You seem to have lost that.

I know, let’s bring that “down to earth”. :wink:

Yes, but then we are back to the political prejudices – assumptions – embraced by those on both sides of the divide.

Some Communists will argue that these policies were necessary [historically] because the capitalist juggernaut around the globe was hell bent on destroying the Soviet system by whatever means necessary. So, by whatever means necessary, the Communists were forced to defend themselves.

Others will note that in nations like Russia and China the revolutions did not unfold in accordance with the official Marxist trajectory.

Still others will argue that next time the revolution will be done right.

And any revolution will beget these terrible things. Just ask the folks defending the Kings and Queens at a time when the capitalists were just beginning to lay the groundwork for what would become the horrors embedded in the Industial Revolution.

And then [of course] there are all the terrible tales [and practices] that the Communists can disclose to us about the capitalist political economy.

Let’s call them, say, conflicting goods.

But that’s my point. That’s the part where I suggest that your own particular “I” here is largely just an existential contraption embedded in dasein. You just don’t happen to react to this in the manner in which “I” do. You are considerably less “fractured and fragmented”. You are considerably more convinced that your take on Communism is much, much closer to whatever all rational men and women will be obligated to think about it if, one day, philosophers and ethicists and political scientists actually do pin this all down.

The day you’ll be able to say, “see, I told you”, and I will be left with no other viable option but to agree with that. The objective proof will actually be there!

And only then do I connect the dots between that frame of mind and this one: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

Okay, and if folks come into this exchange who still defend Communism, they will no doubt say the same thing about themselves in regard to the points they raise about capitalism.

But my frame of mind revolves around the assumption that individual motivations and intentions are embedded in the enormous gap between what “I” think I know about myself here and now and all that actually could be known about myself if I had access to all of the variables that went into creating “me” from the cradle to, well, “here and now”.

Again, it all depends on the extent to which one is able to convince oneself that “I” am in sync with the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.

And then acknowledging that the closer one comes to believing this, the more likely they are able to attain and then sustain the sort of “comfort and consolation” that human psychological defense mechanisms were designed [by nature] to help us endure what can be a profoundly precarious and problematic life.

There you go. This works for you. And since what you think you know is true here is what motivates your behaviors, you can choose to go after the Communists in much the same manner that they choose to go after the capitalists.

That’s just no longer an option for me anymore. My own “I” here is considerably more fractured and fragmented.

So, wouldn’t I want to be more like you then? Wouldn’t anyone?

On this side of the grave. And then all I imagine waits for “me” on the other side is nothing at all.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Because, again, all you need do is to believe it.

What’s important though [to me] is how “general” this assessment is. Somewhere “out there” is the whole truth about Communism. Maybe invested in one or another God. Maybe invested in one or another Humanist narrative. Maybe invested in what science can tell us. And that has implications for this side of the grave and for the other side of it.

And as far as your own particular “I” is concerned here and now, you have struck just the right balance so as to sustain just enough of the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do” to take solace in just enough “comfort and consolation” to keep you up out of that hole that “I” am in.

Bottom line: It looks like you are [still] the clear winner to me.

Then one goes on to examine how much of a threat was posed by the “capitalist juggernaut” and whether the response was appropriate. Kind of like determining whether it’s appropriate to swap a fly with a sledgehammer.

You act as if any response is reasonable.

Sure. Do the same things but get a different result next time.

Not surprising since Marx made up all the stuff. You know “in his head”.
It sounds wonderful and I understand why people embrace it. But…

The actual trajectory shows how quickly and easily the theory falls apart and the society becomes a totalitarian nightmare.

Oh really? You can’t have a significant change without the horrors and the terrors?

Sounds like your giving carte blanche to the revolutionaries. “Do whatever you want and you won’t be held accountable”.

This sounds like just bringing up the evils of capitalism makes the evils of communism “go away”.

Okay, you have “terrible tales and practices” in both systems … now compare the level and extent of those terrible practices.

I don’t think it is your point. I make the distinction between the truths and my use of truths to make decisions, whereas you repeatedly deny the existence of those truths. You keep referring to “my truth” and “hammering” the truth to suit myself. We fundamentally disagree on that point.

You keep saying this about me, but I don’t say that “all rational men and women will be obligated” to think about it one way. That’s just silly.

I also don’t say that in any disagreement, my opponents are right based on their assumptions and I am right based on my assumptions. That’s also silly. Their assumptions may be stupid and/or logic may be stupid. The same may be true of my assumption and/or my logic. Somebody could be wrong.

You’re bouncing from one extreme to another.

You seem to care about that much more than I do.

Well isn’t that general and abstract.

I make a personal claim to give due respect to truth and in reply you refer to some anonymous “folks” who allegedly do exactly the same things.

Bring forth an actual person so that we can examine his actions.

Well here again, you deny that I can know a truth. Can I know about the secret police and their actions? Apparently not.

And note that you are not saying that my evaluation of secret police actions is based on dasein and therefore skewed in a particular direction. You’re saying that I can’t even know historical facts.

I guess that you know what I think and do better than I know it myself. :open_mouth:

Do you want me to make a specific claim?

There is truth about historical events. Right?
Stalin taking control, Ukrainian famine-genocide, show trials, purges, etc.

Those truths are basis for an evaluation of communism. How can they not be?

Yeah, that’s your rendition of it. And, in embracing it, you project [to me] as someone basically arguing that anyone who does not think and feel exactly the same way is [must be] wrong.

How can they not be when you are so fiercely certain that you are right? It’s either this or one or another variation of, “they’re right from their side, we’re right from ours.”

Then those on both sides [all sides] yank out sets of historical facts to bolster their claims. And then argue heatedly over what either was or was not “appropriate”.

Same thing regarding those who detest capitalism.

On the contrary, my argument revolves more around the assumption that with respect to value judgments relating to such things as abortion and Communism, many sides are able to construct arguments which can be construed as reasonable given a particular set of assumptions about the human condition.

If, for example, human interactions are said to revolve more around “we” than “me”, then one or another rendition of socialism seems more reasonable. Unless, of course it is the other way around. Then, sure capitalism makes more sense.

So, how do philosophers, ethicists and political scientists finally pin that down? Given how the history of human interactions to date is bursting at the seams with examples of both points of departure.

Yeah, that’s how the objectivists think about these things. It makes no difference what the new revolutionaries do because the damn thing is inherently broken. And they have the arguments to prove it.

Note to others: What does this tell you about the sophistication of his thinking here?

I am basically in agreement here. And that is because Marxism/socialism/Communism are objectivist frames of mind that can never be in sync with the manner in which I construe human interactions embedded existentially [and far more precariously] in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

But how do I go about demonstrating that to those hell-bent on believing in that which enables them to ground “I” in the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”? It’s the secular equivalent of convincing the religious that there is no God. They simply have too much “comfort and consolation” invested in Him.

No existential holes for them!

Not in a world where the significant changes embraced by some are construed as horrible and terrible by others.

In any event, that is a world embedded in democracy and the rule of law. And that in my view is a world that eschews both “might makes right” and “right makes might”.

Though there is still the part where those with the most wealth and power get to configure the actual existential parameters of this “best of all possible worlds”.

No, I’m suggesting that those convinced that their revolution reflects [historically] the next “kingdom of ends”, will rationalize virually any behaviors in order to sustain the kingdom.

And then there are the moral nihilists who basically skip all that right and wrong stuff and cut to the chase: what’s in it for me?

You continue to misunderstand me. The Communists and the capitalists in the objectivist camps are generally authoritarians. The evils of the other side necessarily go away if the revolution is successful. In other words, the revolution [in a Hegelian sense] reflects “the final synthesis”. It’s just a matter of whether this synthesis is embedded more in materialism, idealism, or God.

Notice how this :

contrasts with this:

In the latter, there is some sort of “reasonable arguments” - some sort of valid process.

In the former, there are two sides simply insisting that they are correct based on (I guess) what they want to be true - no process involved. No process is examined for validity.

You do that sort of shifting from one position to the other all the time in your responses.

As if it can’t be inherently broken.

But sure, try it again and kill a few more millions.

Marx wasn’t actually studying a communist society and reporting the results. Right? He was proposing that a society ought to work in a certain way. It’s what he thought a “good” society would be like.
And sure, he saw some of the evils of capitalism and he wanted to avoid them. But was his solution adequate or correct?

And notice that you seem to be suggesting that Marx’s writings are not just existential contraptions “in his head”. Which would be your accusation towards me and others if we had written his stuff.

Well, we’re talking about murder and enslavement and a police state, etc.

Too general and abstract. I invite you to bring it down to earth.

That is only because, unlike me, you are still convinced that the truth – the whole truth – embedded in “Communism: right or wrong?” is enscounced in the existence of moral and political facts that some are in sync with while others are not. My point is that the arguments from both sides are reasonable given the particular assumptions/premises made about the human condition. Embedded out in particular worlds historically, culturally and experientially.

In other words:

From my perspective this is basically a distinction without a difference. If folks don’t think about Communism as you do it is either because they are right to think about it as they do from their side, or because their assumptions and logic are “stupid”.

Okay, how then do the philosophers, ethicists and political scientists go about determining who is in fact wrong here? What does that argument sound like? Especially given that rules of behavior must be enacted in any given community either facilitating or retarding the actual political reality of Communism.

I’m the one down in the hole. I’m the one who is fractured and fragmented. I’m the one on the precipice of oblivion.

Of course I care about it! Just as you are keenly intent on not having me yank you down into the hole with me.

I mean, come on, look what the fuck is at stake here!!

Indeed, and if we bring it all down to earth pertaining to a particular conflicting good in a particular context, I can describe the manner in which I am down in that hole fractured and fragmented.

While you are still able to congeal your “self” into a frame of mind that is nothing like this at all.

Right?

Huh? I merely point out obvious: that you have your “personal claim” regarding the truth about Communism, while others, utterly in conflict with you, have theirs.

Isn’t that in fact the truth regarding those on all sides of all the moral and political conflagrations that rend us?

“Due respect to the truth”? Nope, nothing subjective and subjunctive about that.

Okay, how about Don Trump? Note something that he does over the next few days and we can commence a discussion/debate regarding the extent to which we believe it either is or is not “the right thing to do”.

My guess: the “basis for evaluation” will revolve around the manner in which you come to interpret the significance of the facts.

You can’t even acknowledge a simple truth like “The secret police murdered X number of people” and therefore that counts as part of the argument against communism.

I don’t know how many times I have repeated myself now.

There are assumptions which are wrong, assumptions which may be wrong or right (unclear), and assumptions which are right.

The same is true for logic.

That produces 9 possible end states in a truth table.

So, no. It’s not a distinction without a difference.

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and yet I don’t care if oblivion is on the other side.

“keenly intent” is your fantasy assessment.

Go ahead, bring it down to earth. You haven’t done it even once. Let’s see if you can.

I put my ass on the line here but all you can do is bring up some nameless, faceless “others” who according to you “do the same” as me. Prove that they “do the same”.

Show that I don’t respect the truth.

You make a lot of objective claims about me.

Okay, bring Donald Trump here so that he can make his claims and we can discuss them with him.

That way we can make some progress and maybe get at some truth and lies.

Aren’t Trump’s claims clear enough in recorded videos? Pick a clip of Trump stating one of his objectives and why? Should be simple enough to do.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p78JMn2na9A[/youtube]
Well boys, here’s one to get you started.

Iambig is more than willing to discuss other people … what Iambig thinks about their motivations and what he thinks they are saying.

So I’m sure he is willing to discuss Trump with you.

I’m interested hearing what Trump has to say for himself when he is actually confronted by questions from me. I’m not interested in discussing him or a video of him.

Am I like Trump? Iambig says that I am. So bring on Trump so I can see if it’s true.

Yes, you may well be pointing out something important here that I keep missing. But I do keep missing it.

Someone can attack Communism convinced that their argument reflects either the best assessment of it, or the only possible rational assessment that there is of it.

Or they can surmise that here and now their argument is thought by them to be the best [using whatever “process” appeals to them], but acknowledging that this is only because they start with certain assumptions about human interactions. That, for example, as the Ayn Rand Objectivists insist, “I” is the fundamental building block in human relationships. But then others argue that “we” is more plausable. They champion a “collectivist” approach to the community they live in. And, among them, are those who incorporate Marx and Engels into their analysis. They embrace Communism as “scientifically” the final synthesis in the material evolution of political economy.

So, what “shifting” do you see here?

I’m not arguing that it isn’t inherently broken. I’m suggesting instead that many who insist that it is, are not willing to sufficiently explore the manner in which I approach these value judgments as embodied existentially in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

Instead, they take that existential leap to a set of political prejudices based on the assumption that their own understanding of the Gulags and the political repression can only be understood if they grasp the extent to which Communism is inherently broken. That’s their default frame of mind in examining anything relating to it.

Just as, one way or another, the Libertarians and Objectivists are able to rationalize all of the terrible things that those opposed to capitalism can point out. It’s just “human nature”. Or it’s not real capitalism. Or human interactions necessarily [genetically] revolve around survival of the fittest.

And, again, that’s before we get to all of those [the moral nihilists] who care only about what capitalism can do for them.

More to the point, he was extrapolating into the future based on what a “scientific” understanding of political economies from the past – nomadic, hunter and gather, slash and burn, sedentary farming, cultivation, mercantilism etc. – would precipitate. And he was doing it at a time when the horrors embedded in the Industrial Revolution made life a virtual hell for many toiling among “the masses”. It was the best of both worlds. Not only was socialism the next step organically/historically in the evolution of the “means of production” but it created a world in which so many more were imagined to be better off.

His solution [as many point out] was never actually pursued. The socialist revolutions unfolded in nations that were still largely agrarian. There was no industrial base upon which the collectivists could launch their workers revolutions. Instead, the “dictatorship of the proletariet” was hammered into whatever actual substructure was around. And, yes, the rest is history. But it is the moral and political objectivists who insist there is one and only one way in which to understand all of this.

The bottom line is that neither the purist socialists nor the purist capitalists prevailed. Instead, state/crony capitalism has spread around the globe. And the folks who own and operate it are, in going “back to the beginning: morality”, basically insterested only in whatever sustains their own wealth and power.

If you read him, you will note that as a “left-Hegelian”, he was intent on going the materialist route. He attempted to examine the history of political economy to date and extrapolate into the future based on his own interpretion of “dialectical materialism”.

Which, from my point of view, your point of view wants to attribute to Communism being “inherently broken”. These things were never not going to happen. And when others attempt to rationalize what did happen based on the arguments I proposed above, their “process” is inherently flawed too. Why? Because your “process” gets it right. Then around and around we go.

To wit:

Yeah, you argue this. But my suspicion is that only when someone brings everything down to earth in sync with your own assumption that Communism is “inherently broken” will they really be bringing it all down to earth.

Meanwhile, you simply won’t go in the direction that your own value judgments here are reflected more in the need [psychologically] for you to ground “I” in the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.

The only point of view here inherently not broken.

And how “comforting and consoling” is that?