Discussing the Discourse - Question Format Recommended

[Dodes]

tl;dr Felt like taking another crack at it / here we go again

So I'm not going to set any ground rules nor I am going to dismiss any opinions - no matter my or others feelings on them, indeed one of the purposes of this thread is to address people who's reaction is to instead start hating instead of engaging in valid critique. I will however lock this thread if it becomes unproductive but I have no reservations against anyone creating a follow-up if that happens. Let's try to keep the tone in accord with taleworlds offtopic; jokes, mocking, and counter-mocking are all fine as long as there's wit involved. That said regarding a pleasant atmosphere, it's more than understandable that this topic can cause emotions to rise due to its very real context on recent history and even direct and indirect actions within people's friends and families. If you can engage in civilized debate while possessing animosity towards other communists and anarchists, or even myself, I applaud and respect you for that.

The reason I am making this thread now is because I felt that I personally have developed a better understanding of both subjects over the last several months and now not only have greater articulation, but can provide better context as well as answer questions that I could not previously. The reason I am making it here is because I honestly believe that taleworlds offtopic one of the better places to discuss this, especially given the intellect and maturity of its senior/active members (you may begin scoffing), that said I do realize that not everyone is at the same level that many of its respected members I am speaking about are. That said, when it comes to communism and especially anarchism, an overwhelming majority don't seem nearly as well-versed (at least in my perspective). This could very well extend to other political ideologies among leftism and even libertarianism (which I consider to be the anarchy equivalent of rightist ideology). Because of that I'm going to refrain from talking high and mighty as I might with another communist or anarchist.

Because I know how many misconceptions there are, not just in the general public, but almost everywhere to be found, I'm going to go over a few points before we begin.

Context of Speaker: My name is Will Patrick Daughtery and I live in the substate of Iowa which is located in the Midwest (middle/Mississippi river) of the United States of America. I currently live in low-income housing that the government finds me eligible for. I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, general anxiety, and register on the autism spectrum as by a (former, but current when diagnosed) free clinic psychiatrist and confirmed by a psychologist counselor. I currently work part-time locally and am in a waitlist to join in a domestic peacecorps called Americorps come October. I did not complete high school due to mental illness but have recovered almost completely from said illness.

What is a communist? The question is hard to correctly identity because there are a wide variety of sub ideologies within communism. Though all communists are bond together in the belief that lower classes will somehow establish victory over the upper classes and further democratize the entirety of the practice of politics.

So if there are different kinds, what are you? I am a left communist, following a contemporary version of a Luxemburgist or  council communist thought. If Karl Marx would be the "father" of contemporary communism as a whole, Rosa Luxemburg would be the "Mother" of left communism. Left communism is much less popular than right communism, though it can be most noted when Vladimir Lenin criticized in it his work, "Left Communism: An Infantile Disorder" (1920). Left communism is not to be confused with The Left Opposition, an group that was led by Leon Trotsky and his followers. Left communism does not identify with Leon Trotsky and his followers, called Trots, who prescribe to Trotskyism.

So what about anarchy? We are talking here not about "a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority" but rather "an absence of state government with the absolute freedom of the individual". To help gain an understanding of the concept, it is best to point to its practical use today. Anarchy is currently happening as we speak, as there is no world government in place, but rather voluntary agreements made by separate states and nations.

So this is where I planned on start naming popular issues (i.e. human nature, planned economies, class consciousness), but I have decided it would be better if critics here on taleworlds proposed critiques. I think that would be more efficient in breaking down knee jerk reactions to this political taboo of sorts and also allowing more freedom in where the discussion is taken.

So without anything more to say, I'll leave it to you. First person to say "but communism doesn't work" gets a witty remark.

Also, for those giving constructive critique, I do appreciate that you are participating in the discussion.

Edit - 1: Also I almost forgot, I may be doing a little callback to godfrey and updating on current events to give a communistic perspective of the happenings. That doesn't mean I won't comment on the events if they have their own threads, I just won't go heavy on the communism for the event-specific thread.

 

[Mage246]

I'm not sure I agree with your stance on what is and is not anarchy. It seems too rigid when it comes to defining what is state and non-state. Honestly, the line between the two is blurry and there's a lot of overlap in many societies. For example, in an ideal democracy all are understand to (on paper) be equal under the law. That means that state employees and non-state citizens are understood to have the same rights, and there is no action that the state can legitimately take against a person that is against those rights. In the same way, the state employee is understood to be protected by those same rights from the state itself. There is no conceptual difference between the two, and it is understood that if the non-state employee has a grievance against the state employee, or vice versa, each enjoys equal standing when it comes to redressing those grievances. Each individual enjoys absolute freedom *except* where their actions would break the commonly agreed upon laws of the state, at which point the enforcement mechanisms that have been agreed in common for the state come in to play, and the state employee enforces the law. If the state employee fails to enforce the law - or seeks to abuse it - any person or group, whether within the state apparatus or outside of it, has the right and responsibility to act to change this. The state, in other words, encompasses all persons living and participating in it, whether they work for the state or not. I'll return to this in a moment to show you why I brought this up.

Now, you can object here and point to any number of examples where the above has not been true, but I would like to point out that here we are discussing the matter in a hypothetical/ideal world scenario, so I am not making any claims about whether or not this ideal is consistently applied in practice (no more than you can claim that anarchy or communism is consistently applied in practice).

So let's move to a more macro level and look at the international arena. You claim that this is an anarchy because there is no world government, and there are only agreements between states. I would argue that these agreements constitute a state, albeit a weak and decentralized one. In the same way that individual states are derived from agreements among its citizens (establishing a more or less powerful apparatus to enforce those agreements - the state), agreements between countries establish a more or less powerful apparatus to enforce those agreements - the global state (or bilateral state, or group state, whatever the scope of the agreement in question). Each country then enjoys absolute freedom within that framework *except* where their actions would breach their common agreement. If the agreement is broken, then whatever mechanism designed to enforce it comes in to play. This can take the form of one state acting unilaterally against another, a group of states against against that state, an empowered global entity acting against that state, etc. If the state or states fail to act, it is understood that the agreement between them is void and no longer binding on any of them, leaving each state the right and responsibility to take whatever steps they feel necessary to secure their safety and liberty. There is no anarchy unless all states decline to enforce breaches of their collective agreements, in the same way that there is no anarchy within an individual state unless its people decline to enforce their own laws.

 

[Dodes]

Anarchy, as I have learned it or maybe just the elements of anarchism that I support, may be considered "Left" anarchism, much along the same lines that I prescribe to communism, but only when it is within the leftist spectrum inside communism. That said, that just gives my perspective on the ideology of anarchism.

I believe that anarchy will never appear but a weak and decentralized state. This is why I compare anarchy to libertarianism. Both advocate decentralization on a political level. The difference is their economic approach and I would summarize it by saying that libertarianism advocates a centralized economy through centralized power of investors and owners while anarchy advocates a decentralized economy through power equally divided among workers, investors, and owners. The anarchist approach of economics is why they are accepted by communists (such as myself) because they believe in, roughly for the sake of summary, a greater worker controlled business apparatus.

Anarchy does not equate to no organization or cooperation between decentralized entities (such as regional substates or even cities and their municipalities). If anarchy correlated to no enforcement of breaches of collective agreements then even on a micro level, a person-to-person basis, we would have a result of complete disorder. For example, anarchy does not  advocate the abolishment of law enforcement agencies and preventive measures in place to prevent the creation of new agencies, rather anarchy advocates a law enforcement that is not quasi-fascist in its design or a centralized one. (see: the economic policy of anarchy above)

 

[Kevlar]

Neither anarchy or communism seems worth while or stable, what is the point?

Neither seem to work much due to human greed and oppression.

 

[Dodes]

Neither anarchy or communism seems worth while or stable, what is the point?

Politics and human society would be a little too easy if it was as cut and dry as that.

Neither seem to work much due to human greed and oppression.

It would be a little overwhelming if I just addressed every possible interpretation of what you meant by that, so I'll just ask you.

Why doesn't communism or anarchy work because of human greed? (simplifying as oppression is just the greed of power rather than what we traditionally think of greed, which is wealth) What elements of humans being greedy makes communism or anarchy fundamentally not work?

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

Communism can't work, and it's for the reasons I said to you earlier - no matter what, there are rulers and there are the ruled. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people couldn't give less of a **** as to who is ruling them and what they are doing, so long as it does not directly affect them too much. They have absolutely no desire to take part in government, because all they want to do is watch their TV and live their little lives in their little bubble. Now, this is why representative democracy-based forms of government work, because these people can still be somewhat involved in government by voting for their preferred candidate and thus expend as little time and effort as possible at politics, although this is apparently still too much work for many people.

This is also why Communism won't work, and why Communism eventually will turn into a dictatorship, regardless of whether it takes place in Lenin's post-feudal imperial Russia or in Marx's preferred England or Germany - when you have people who do not want to participate in governmental processes, but still oppose the changes wrought by them, you will run into a problem. This is not a problem that education can solve, because most of these people are already "educated", and if you try re-education, then you've already painted a dark portrait of your future. You can't force them to participate either, because that is already a big step on the road down to authoritarianism.

 

[Dodes]

Communism can't work, and it's for the reasons I said to you earlier - no matter what, there are rulers and there are the ruled.

Neither anarchism or communism are in opposition to rulers.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of people couldn't give less of a **** as to who is ruling them and what they are doing, so long as it does not directly affect them too much.

See: class consciousness

They have absolutely no desire to take part in government, because all they want to do is watch their TV and live their little lives in their little bubble.

Also class consciousness, but also implying that there is something underlying human about not wanting participation in political activism (human nature which would imply genetics). If true, then we would see roughly the same amount of political activism among all of humanity under all circumstances.

Now, this is why representative democracy-based forms of government work, because these people can still be somewhat involved in government by voting for their preferred candidate

Communism and anarchism both advocate representative republics.

and effort as possible at politics, although this is apparently still too much work for many people.

It's becoming clear that you are a human cynic, which the majority of all schools of contemporary psychology agree is not only based on a skewed world-view, but also is the result of either imprinted behavior, predisposition genetics, or a mixture of both. Whatever be the case, any skewed disposition can be adjusted with imprinting and pursuit of the subject's cerebral being.

This is also why Communism won't work, and why Communism eventually will turn into a dictatorship, regardless of whether it takes place in Lenin's post-feudal imperial Russia or in Marx's preferred England or Germany

Already it seems the evidence you provided is wrong for the reasons I have given, but I doubt that is the only evidence you have to support this theory, I would be happy to hear other evidence that lead you to this conclusion.

when you have people who do not want to participate in governmental processes, but still oppose the changes wrought by them, you will run into a problem.

Agreed, undeniably. That's why communism and anarchism focus so heavily on education, history, and psychology.

This is not a problem that education can solve, because most of these people are already "educated", and if you try re-education, then you've already painted a dark portrait of your future. You can't force them to participate either, because that is already a big step on the road down to authoritarianism.

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks" which psychology and dozens of real life examples say is untrue. Re-education does not imply forcing people into concentration/labor camps, (though communists have done this) and it sounds to me like you perceive any re-education as this. Do you consider going to a counseling appointment re-education? Because that's what it is in an overwhelming majority of the cases. Left communists and anarchists main goal is opening up dialogues, which is hardly a force which leads to authoritarianism (hint, hint, it's what we are doing right now)

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

I was going to actually respond but you lost me when my worldview is "skewed" and that it can be "corrected" with some crack pseudopsychology thrown in for good measure. You sure seem to know quite a bit about such things for a guy who has never finished high school.

Re-education is bad because it implies that one is unable to draw one's own conclusions and needs to be shown the right way, which is something which you very vaguely seem to imply.

 

[Dodes]

I was going to actually respond but you lost me when my worldview is "skewed" and that it can be "corrected" with some crack pseudopsychology thrown in for good measure. You sure seem to know quite a bit about such things for a guy who has never finished high school.

What, you think I'm lying about not finishing high school? There's plenty of people who never finished school or even had a traditional education who weren't angst-ridden and thought education was a waste. I enjoyed my education, I didn't choose to not finish and I hope to pursue higher learning in my immediate future. If it were feasible, I would stay in school my entire life until I was fulfilled with learning.

Also when I said "skewed" it was only in reference to your cynicism of humanity as a whole, not any other of your opinions, though when someone is a cynic, it usually feeds into all other aspects of their life. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to talk to someone about it, even a professional.

If I've offended you someone with the "skewed" remark, I hope that you'll forgive me for it and we can further discuss the topic at hand. If you think I'm a crazy nutjob who thinks everyone with a different opinion is "skewed", perhaps you'd be willing to engage in further discussion so that you can find out the truth about that?

edit: Also if you think I'm bull****ting this whole "cynicism is bad according to psychology" I would recommend reading Luis E. Navia's  "The Adventure of Philosophy" (1999). If you think that claim not credible, dated or incorrect, I can easily recommend other reading.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

I didn't think you were lying about not finishing high school.

As for skewed, I know exactly what you meant. I am not a cynic, I'm a realist. Voting information in various Western democracies will confirm what I have said. You can certainly dream of a place where everyone cares about government as much as you do, but unfortunately that place exist only there, in your dreams, and the reality is that nothing short of authoritarianism is what it would take to "correct" the modern citizenry's habits towards government to pave the way for Communism, especially in America.

As for the comments about cynicism, I've already told you that your diagnosis was wrong, and your comments to me that I need to talk to someone about it and seek counseling gives the impression, frankly, that you have been horribly misled by one school or another of what I have already termed as crack pseudopsychology.

 

[Dodes]

As for skewed, I know exactly what you meant. I am not a cynic, I'm a realist. Voting information in various Western democracies will confirm what I have said. You can certainly dream of a place where everyone cares about government as much as you do, but unfortunately that place exist only there, in your dreams, and the reality is that nothing short of authoritarianism is what it would take to "correct" the modern citizenry's habits towards government to pave the way for Communism, especially in America.

I'm not denying that the populaces in Western democracies are not nearly as involved in political activism as you said. Though to relate that to humans as a species "don't give a ****" is a far stretch and would require historical perspective as evidence. The aspects of cynicism, which you would say is pragmatism, that I am picking up on is you implying that humans fundamentally cannot change and that the dystopian elements that are present today cannot be fixed and that said elements could only have their symptoms rather than the actual elements themselves treated by totalitarianism. If I'm wrong by assuming this, please correct me.

I feel like this is coming to a crossroads where I'm going to have to tackle "human nature" but to effectively do so I feel that I would have to use the word "bourgeois" or "upper/ruling class". I'll hold off on that for now because of the stigma that comes with throwing around class warfare terms.

As for the comments about cynicism, I've already told you that your diagnosis was wrong, and your comments to me that I need to talk to someone about it and seek counseling gives the impression, frankly, that you have been horribly misled by one school or another of what I have already termed as crack pseudopsychology.

The only school of thought that I have learned about that any credible sources would claim is what you infer as pseudopsychology would be 19th century Freudism, though with the vast majority of contemporary psychology being based on Freudism, you may take that as how you wish.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

I do take that how I wish, and I take it as follows, in that a lot of the branches of behavioural psychology are at best theoretical and generally unscientific and at worst a grouping of diverse cults, many of which are little more than a eugenics revival.

 

[Dodes]

I do take that how I wish, and I take it as follows, in that a lot of the branches of behavioural psychology are at best theoretical and generally unscientific and at worst a grouping of diverse cults, many of which are little more than a eugenics revival.

Wilhelm Wundt rolls over in his grave and a hundred psychologists at the University of Leipzig cry out in anguish. Anyway, onto the serious stuff.

The basis of what you are saying, at least for behavioral psychology, is that it is invalid due to psychology being unscientific. For psychology to be scientific it must follow the scientific method. The scientific method unfortunately cannot be directly translated to psychology, thus early psychologists had to adapt the scientific method while keeping to its core tenants. How this works is that psychological research must be replicable, falsifiable, precise, and parsimonious. Then how research is performed is the development of a hypothesis, the observation of subjects, the refinement of a theory based on the observation, and then the development of a theory which *surprise* results in additional formed hypotheses.

If you can tell and prove to me that this is not a scientific process and thus psychology is not a science, I will be astounded. 

 

[Kevlar]

Why doesn't communism or anarchy work because of human greed? (simplifying as oppression is just the greed of power rather than what we traditionally think of greed, which is wealth) What elements of humans being greedy makes communism or anarchy fundamentally not work?

I was on my cell phone with 10% battery so I couldn't write much more then that.

Basically I don't see the basic form of communism ever working since some people will always want more then what would be deemed necessary for the greater good, whether that be power or wealth it is basically the same either way since it has been proven to be this case over time.

Anarchy won't work since the way I see this happening is you would need your country/state or what have you to have a very strong military or police/militia presence in the area to dissuade others into just taking your land. Then if greed sets in with some of these state run militia you would possibly have a military dictatorship on your hands.

You say the world is in anarchy since we don't have a world government but that isn't really true. The US loves to go around the world trying to tell other people how to live it seems no matter what and has shown that it can basically do whatever it wants.

Communism would probably work if we had robots that could handle everything though, until they break down or glitch at least.

 

[Dodes]

Basically I don't see the basic form of communism ever working since some people will always want more then what would be deemed necessary for the greater good, whether that be power or wealth it is basically the same either way since it has been proven to be this case over time.

Does this only resound within communism? Or does this extend to all other political aspects? If this extends to all other politics, then what is the solution to this? If there is no solution, then what was the purpose of establishing republics (first steps of democracy) in the first place and should we have remained with depots instead?

Not sure if I want to have those as rhetorical questions, but for the sake of building an understanding, let's have the questions answered.

Anarchy won't work since the way I see this happening is you would need your country/state or what have you to have a very strong military or police/militia presence in the area to dissuade others into just taking your land. Then if greed sets in with some of these state run militia you would possibly have a military dictatorship on your hands.

Before I start on this, I want to emphasis that I do not specialize per say in anarchism, but I will try to explain to the best of my communistic abilities.

So it seems to me you're interpreting anarchism as complete independence as its methodology for generating anarchistic freedom when really it's just a decentralization of a state government with more power to substates. Really it's a power flow chart for lack of better words. Councils influence the substates and then the substates influence the state, furthering this you could then have the state influence a macro state (I would say something like the U.N. but that's a terrible organization as an example because it doesn't abide by anarchist ideology)

You say the world is in anarchy since we don't have a world government but that isn't really true. The US loves to go around the world trying to tell other people how to live it seems no matter what and has shown that it can basically do whatever it wants.

Yes interventionist powers ruin what anarchy there is, but this is rectified by decentralization (creation and strengthening of councils and substates) of states that would be interventionist.

 

[Kevlar]

Basically I don't see the basic form of communism ever working since some people will always want more then what would be deemed necessary for the greater good, whether that be power or wealth it is basically the same either way since it has been proven to be this case over time.

Does this only resound within communism? Or does this extend to all other political aspects? If this extends to all other politics, then what is the solution to this? If there is no solution, then what was the purpose of establishing republics (first steps of democracy) in the first place and should we have remained with depots instead?

I believe it can be the same with democracy but it doesn't matter nearly as much since people still need to get voted in (except cabinet members and what not I guess).

It just seems a lot worse when you have all mighty powerful people who are a bit crazy (I'm looking at you NK).

As for the anarchy bit its been so long since I have been in school for anything like that I probably don't know wtf I am talking about.

 

[Dodes]

Communism can be absolute, especially among the "right communists". Left communism does not prescribe to the practical use of a centralized state. To me, to say communism is about a powerful federal government or even a decentralized government is incorrect as communism by itself is only about overthrowing the bourgeois and the rise of the proletariat. The predecessor of the bourgeois were the nobles (the reason why we call the upper class bourgeois now) and the predecessor of the proletariat were the serfs/peasantry.

I believe communism can be best described as moving society into the next stage of democracy.

So yes, militarized and violent states can be what you say "are a bit crazy (North Korea)". There were primitive North Korean equivalents to communism when feudalism was on the decline and democracy was gaining more power.


SIDENOTE: When I'm talking about a lot of my rhetoric/discourse/theory I notice that there isn't really a good word for what replaced feudalism, because capitalism as we know it wasn't apparent when democracies replaced feudal society. Thinking about using a temporary replacement like "(primitive capitalism)".

 

[Vissy]

a lot of the branches of behavioural psychology are at best theoretical and generally unscientific

And I thought behaviorism was the branch of psychology that brought the scientific method into psychology...

Speaking of behaviorism, it isn't itself enough to explain human behaviour. One needs the other 4 as well, namely behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, socio-cultural psychology and the psychology of emotion and motivation in order to satisfyingly explain human behaviour.

 

[Dodes]

I learned that is was structuralism, though nobody adheres to structuralism nowadays.

edit: oh yeah and since we're talking wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism_(psychology)

Though I should have added beforehand that psychology is commonly criticized as unscientific because there is no "right" answer, often psychologists are pushing towards what they consider to be a "right mind" while at the same time every human's mind is flawed and thus there is no "right mind".

Though I've heard someone joke about that if psychology is unscientific on the basis of "no right mind" then physics is unscientific as humans "perceive time as linear".

 

[Vissy]

Maybe the difference here is that in psychology of the mind one has several good choices he can make.