Well, for whatever it's worth, I've always enjoyed your posts.
Thanks. It is very difficult to express these kind of views even casually online so that does mean alot.
I'm pretty open about my views offline, but then again, I work in social services, so working with and among the oppressed, nobody really seems to mind if I have odd views. Every day, I see the victims, the broken and beaten - the ones that this country doesn't care about or acknowledge. I also see a lot of self-proclaimed "liberals" who pretend to care, but many of them are complete phonies.
So, I can understand the need for communism - or at least the need for revolution. I can see that there are far too many smug, arrogant, bureaucratic types who are so intransigent, stubborn, and condescending that the only way to reach them is to {do something I can't advocate publicly}. A lot of people need to be taught a lesson. They need to be shaken out of their complacency. That's what revolution does; it teaches a lesson to people who badly need to learn.
Sadly, the far left appears to be in the grip of the phonies who do it out of a sense of narcissism and moral superiority. Whilst they often hit on many of the key issues, it often degenerates into professional protesting rather than attainable results. the rhetoric is far more radical than the solutions and the latter usually aren't more than slogans and are not thought out very well. moreover, there is a general unwillingness to confront the realities of communist dictatorships. the latter is entirely understandable, but less than helpful if we are to seriously obtain a "better world".
The complacency of the ruling class will probably be its undoing. It is hard to support a status quo that seems to have little relationship with your own every day experience. The media gets in the way as well and toxifies discussions by people using slogans and soundbites rather than really thinking about what they are doing and saying. It is easier to repeat what they have heard rather than think for themselves. I'm not sure revolution is the answer but communists typically ask the right questions and as an intellectual system, it is extremely useful to connect the dots and try to build up a big picture.
That's why I don't really fear the dangerous or the violent. I don't fear guns or mass shootings or even terrorism. That's because I understand them. I understand why they're angry. What I don't understand is why the upper classes are so clueless. Why don't they get the message and change their ways before things start to escalate even further? Why don't they learn?
I'm comfortable to say I do fear violence. I'm not a pacifist, but having read about the history of communism, it has put me distinctly on guard against ever using violence or being put in a situation where violence becomes necessary. For purely selfish reasons, pain isn't attractive and that appears to be a healthy aversion to needless cruelty and suffering. revolution brings out people's sadism and masochism and the social nature of psychology means that whatever may be right in an individuals conscience is not necessarily what they actually do. Individual principles don't translate easily in to political practice or into a socially organised morality so pacifism is at least somewhat futile even if the sentiment is necessary to preserve one's sanity and to continue to value living as a goal and not simply a means.
Whatever its intention, it is easy to get on the wrong side of a revolution, particularly because it is driven by passion and emotion. The sense of grievance and injustice may be right, but the outcome is far from certain. violence can become a weapon of the mob or an industrialised violence of a state apparatus, where symbols and labels become the basis for denouncing people who are otherwise innocent or harmless to the state. It is also not clear whether violence is really a deserved punishment against the guilty or merely an expedient of suppressing criminality.
As far as Marxist Communism is concerned, it specifically mandates indiscriminate revolutionary terror against the "enemies of the people". This has consistently been a reason why, as much as I love the theory and its ability to open up whole new spheres of learning, the political practice makes my blood run cold and troubles me deeply. There aren't easy answers for it and if there were, that could actually be more frightening by making murder easily justified.
These are the questions I try to explore here at RF, and I'm glad to find folks like you and a few others who get it. It is kind of frustrating at times, encountering the same kind of insular arrogance and supercilious attitudes from some of the other posters here. But that doesn't sway me; it only reinforces my view that I'm striking a nerve.
Yeah. I have the same experience. A majority of anti-communists have little or no idea what communism is, or have such mistaken ideas that what they do know is relatively insignificant contribution to why they oppose it. There are a handful of intellectuals who have come up with decent attempts to rebuttal it, and are often worth reading, but these usually don't go much further than repeating common prejudices in a more sophisticated way.
There are certainly anti-communists, typically those who have had first hand experience of it as party members or living in communist countries, who have very good reason to be hostile. However, the latter are a rarity in debates and it really isn't clear why anti-communist violence is any better than communist violence. The fact that in-depth discussions of communism are so often inconclusive and so difficult is why I keep coming back to it. Its really opens your mind to what is possible, both good and bad, when you want to see how society can change.
The one thing that keeps me somewhat "sane" is that I have a sense of personal honor. People who know me realize that I'm a bit of an oddball and maybe slightly crazy, but they also know that I'm honest, dependable, and compassionate. That's how I can live with myself without any feelings of guilt or regret.
"
As long as I do no wrong I don't need an alibi"
This is one of my favorite songs. It speaks to generations. You might like it. Cheers!
Thanks for the video.
I think I might be pretty similar in that respect. I do want to do the right thing and can be honourable in a way. But the idea of public service and wanting to do good are so often treated with scepticism and hostility that it can be hard to sustain. The cynicism is very common but it isn't actually that useful in the long-run because we all need each other and have to work together if we are ever to get things done.
