[MD] Politics

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Chris]
I'll say this one last time. It is not communism that is 
anti-intellectual and sent people to Gulag etc. Communism is an idea 
that grew out of the intellectual level, formulating a theory for how 
economy should be built, that's the main thing. Real communism have 
never been realized, and the things that happened under for example 
the reign of Stalin and Pol Pot etc has got no more to do with 
communism then the crusades has to do with Jesus.

[Arlo]
Exactly. Indeed, I've traced the historical progression from Marxism 
to Leninism to Stalinism to be one where the optimism of Marx is 
replaced with (what would become) the neoconservative ideology of The 
Myth of the Nation. From an old posting of mine.

"Lenin is a good example here, because he combines the overestimation 
of man of Marx, with the neoconservative notion that man is too 
stupid to act in his best interests (with strong 
politically-leveraged myths to control him).

Whereas Marx saw a temporary communist body to replace the old 
capitalist, he saw this transitory body as lacking real power, 
existing only for unavoidable bureaucratic business during the 
communist transition. The real goal was the abolishment of government 
ipso facto. "Eventually the state will "wither away" and become 
obsolete, as people administer their own lives without the need for 
governments." (Wikipedia, Marxism)

Lenin, however, came to deny this and using the neoconservative idea 
of a benevolent state that rules by strong orienting myths, set up as 
a final stage the Communist State, which would be promoted through 
propaganda and used to align patriotism and nationalism to hold the 
state together. Lenin did not think, in good neoconservative fashion, 
that man's individual liberty would lead to the altruistic state Marx 
envisioned, but to the nihilism and debauchery Strauss predicted.

When Stalin took power, the strong nationalist ideology was set 
firmly in place, and this was all he saw. Gone by now where the noble 
ideas of Marx. All that remained was patriotism and glorification of 
the state. Human liberty, all that Marx wanted, was replaced with a 
dictatorship resting on propaganda to support nationalism, which 
defined itself by virtue of its opposition to "the other", and where 
individual liberty was suspended entirely "for the good of the state".

This is, admittedly, abbreviated and simplistic, but I think it 
captures the basic themes of the Marx/Lenin/Stalin trajectory." (Arlo 
back in 2006)

[Chris]
I am not convinced this could work in practice, but I feel I have to 
take the role of Advocatus Diaboli here, because this debate becomes 
quite one-sided otherwise.

[Arlo]
Marxism has been discussed here often, and while I consider myself a 
sympathetic Marxist and yet disagree with him on several points (see 
the thread "Quality Decline" in the archives for a good overview of 
this), you'll find that most voices here are voices of reason, even 
those that disagree wholeheartedly with Marx. Platt stands as a 
unique example of the talk-radio blowhard interested only in 
ideological pontification typically through evasion, distortion and 
distraction. When I first joined the list, several warned me upfront 
to consider Platt "the comic book villain of the list", and to more 
or less ignore him. I wish I had that restraint, but I find myself 
tacking too personally the embarrassment that type of rhetoric brings 
to us all. My Zen-Goal has been to work on that, and I have been more 
or less succeeding, despite my recent lapse.