Hey everyone,
I’m thinking about how best to approach debates on communism, but it could well apply to any number of subjects on the forum. The level of discussion largely consists of people independently repeating the same claims over and over. For every person you respond to, there are about 10 or 20 ready to step in and make exactly the same claim or very slight variations on it at a later date. Hence you end up having the same discussion over and over again. There isn’t a perfect solution to this but trying to respond to each one is maddening and demoralising like a game of whack-a-male: for every one you respond to, another one or two pop up! It never stops and goes on indefinitely...
Would it bother anyone if I occasionally used a set of standard answers to reply to the most typical positions just to make life on the forum a little easier? Maybe a paragraph or two in length?
This obviously isn’t limited to a single subject and I’m more than happy to listen to people’s advice and experiences to take the sting out of the online “war of attrition” that goes on. If you have ANY alternative suggestions to deal with the very repetitive kinds of debate, I’m all ears!
I think it largely depends on the context. I've seen the typical debates about communism over the course of my lifetime. I've observed that the main thrust of the argument seems to involve comparing the United States at its peak with the Soviet Union (or sometimes China) at its nadir.
Ultimately, the "debate" boils down to competing (and often disingenuous) perceptions, where the US is portrayed as a "land of plenty," while the USSR is/was portrayed as a land of deprivation and scarcity.
Apart from that, back during the Cold War, it was also common to refer to them as "godless communists," although in more recent times, rebuking someone for being an "atheist" is not so much a dirty word as it used to be. That was the argument that pushed the Bible Belt four square into the anti-communist camp. Americans were mostly anti-monarchist throughout our history, so there was no real ideological dispute with the idea of a classless society advocated by communists. But the communists' atheism was extremely distasteful to the more devoutly religious, even if they agreed in theory with advancing the interests of the working classes.
Another common argument often advanced by anti-communists involves pointing out the scourges of the state and the methods of oppression, such as show trials, purges, gulags, and other such excesses which occurred mainly under Stalin (which were even denounced by his successor). This line of argumentation generally involves a "scoreboard" of body counts, along with a lot of judgmentalism, self-righteousness, sanctimony, and holier-than-thou attitudes which are typical of the Western bourgeoisie. They'll typically say something like "Look at how many people died under Stalin and Mao. Therefore, communism is evil and much worse than capitalism."
Of course, one could easily point out the millions who died under capitalism, but then they'll use an intellectually dishonest trick and claim that it's "whataboutism" to point out the flaws of capitalism. Even though they're the ones who are basing their entire position on a comparison between communism and capitalism, they suddenly cry foul when the same line of argumentation is used against them.
Moreover, the typical anti-communist will attempt to box in the argument and try to confine the parameters solely to a comparison between the United States today versus Stalin's USSR or Mao's China.
Even taking into consideration the atrocities of slavery, expansionism, and genocide, the death toll in the United States is still relatively low compared to the tens of millions who are said to have perished in the USSR and China. We didn't kill as many in America, so this implies that we are morally superior and therefore qualified to judge our adversaries.
And that might be all well and good if someone is arguing that "America is better than Russia" (regardless of whichever political system or form of government either has).
But if one is attempting to argue that one abstract "system" is superior to another abstract "system," then that's a completely different argument. Then it's no longer just about America or Russia.
Another aspect which tends to cloud the debate is that, historically, elements of nationalism were evident in both the communist and non-communist worlds. Modern Western capitalists would sharply condemn and decry the nationalistic elements of colonialism and racism in our nations' pasts. They would also condemn the sweatshops, beatings, and child labor associated with capitalism of yesteryear and suggest that they now support a "kinder, gentler" version of capitalism.
But there was also certain embrace of nationalism in the communist world, too. That's where there has been some measure of ideological conflict. For a time, the ideal of national liberation from the colonial powers was an effective vehicle for anti-imperialist factions to unite against the common enemy. But it's the nationalistic elements which have also served to create barriers to any real unity among communist nations, and that's how they were broken.
That's probably where the debate between communism and capitalism might be more productive, at least in the sense of arguing their merits without bringing up the nationalistic elements.
