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Communism Questions

alerdz5

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I was listening to this video about communism and I got to this point that I wanted to consider. I hear at the 245 mark that when considering a moral philosopher, what you'd wanna do is examine the moral philosopher themself and see if they are good or not. Do you think that matters? Does it matter if somebody's good if they're a moral philosopher?
If you are into moral philosophy and you are trying to do good every day and you're looking for the best possible arguments possibile and that's one situation, the situation you find yourself in, and then you compare this to somebody like... Marx who just abused people often these differences are two different scenarios. What do you think about this?
Do you see what I'm getting at?
And another question, take these two people, if the person trying to do good has an immediately harmful theory but just ends up meeting bad fortune and doesn't manifest good in the world are they likened to the person abusing others unapologetically, and justly so?

YouTube
 
I was listening to this video about communism and I got to this point that I wanted to consider. I hear at the 245 mark that when considering a moral philosopher, what you'd wanna do is examine the moral philosopher themself and see if they are good or not. Do you think that matters? Does it matter if somebody's good if they're a moral philosopher?
If you are into moral philosophy and you are trying to do good every day and you're looking for the best possible arguments possibile and that's one situation, the situation you find yourself in, and then you compare this to somebody like... Marx who just abused people often these differences are two different scenarios. What do you think about this?
Do you see what I'm getting at?
And another question, take these two people, if the person trying to do good has an immediately harmful theory but just ends up meeting bad fortune and doesn't manifest good in the world are they likened to the person abusing others unapologetically, and justly so?

YouTube

Alerdz5:

First, welcome to DP Forum and congratulations on your first post.

Secondly, I am totally confused by your two main questions and therefore cannot answer them. Sorry.



Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
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I was listening to this video about communism and I got to this point that I wanted to consider. I hear at the 245 mark that when considering a moral philosopher, what you'd wanna do is examine the moral philosopher themself and see if they are good or not. Do you think that matters? Does it matter if somebody's good if they're a moral philosopher?
If you are into moral philosophy and you are trying to do good every day and you're looking for the best possible arguments possibile and that's one situation, the situation you find yourself in, and then you compare this to somebody like... Marx who just abused people often these differences are two different scenarios. What do you think about this?
Do you see what I'm getting at?
And another question, take these two people, if the person trying to do good has an immediately harmful theory but just ends up meeting bad fortune and doesn't manifest good in the world are they likened to the person abusing others unapologetically, and justly so?

YouTube

You really need to exercise far more discretion when looking at youtube.

It took me only the first few minutes of the link to realise i was listening to an idiot.

And i am with evilroddy here. I have no idea what you are trying to get at.

Communism is a theory of economics, not morality. Marx was a theorist not a moralist.


If you are into moral philosophy and you are trying to do good every day

I have separated this particular phrase out because of the laughter it gave me. Please tell me such an absurdity is not something you actually believe.

Have you ever heard the quotation, " The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
 
Secondly, I am totally confused by your two main questions and therefore cannot answer them. Sorry.

As far as I can make out.
1. Should the message of Ghandi be discounted because he slept with his nieces? Martin Luther King because he had relations with ladies of the evening? JFK because he had affairs?
2. Is evil perpetrated by well-intentioned idiots equally as reprehensible as evil perpetrated for pure malice?

(Substitute question examples with Communism related ones.)
 
I think it can be instructive if the actual life of the philosopher is related to their moral philosophy. Nietzsche was sickly as a child, and had serious health problems all his life, many relationship disappointments, job issues, and yet his answer was a beautiful idea he termed Amor Fati. Love your fate. Love the good AND the bad. Love it so much that you will be reluctant to go to Heaven.

Or consider Foucault and Sartre. Child molesters and perverts in private life. I try to consider what they write with an open mind, but it's hard to separate their writing from the men themselves.

If you are reading communist writers, most of them fell far short of living out the principles they espoused. To me this indicates that it's far easier to describe the perfect person, or the perfect governmental system, than it is to live it out. And here's where they fail. Communism depends on a person who has never lived and will never live. It depends on a great amount of altruism, and a person who will not misuse unlimited power (power of the state). This requires a near perfect person, in fact a society of near perfect people. Democracy, along with Capitalism, acknowledges and guards against the inevitable shortcomings of people. Democracy builds in checks and balances, protection for the minority, and individual rights are spelled out. Capitalism tries to redirect the inevitable greed and competition into a positive for society. The hard part of democracy is figuring how much to regulate that greed and competition. Communism, on the other hand, can get out of control very quickly, and end up one man, one party rule.
 
Pure capitalism, pure socialism, pure communism, pure free market libertarianism, this way evil lies.
Here be monsters, and that is because making an economic system and then turning it into the equivalent of a fundamentalist religious doctrine (by way of adherence to purity) is contrary to the laws of Nature, which for the most part rejects purity.
Genetic purity is a sure fire way of winding up with profound birth defects.
Purity in art, music, literature is a guarantee of cultural stagnation

Purity is fundamentalism.
Purity is nonsense.

The most robust markets in history have always been modestly and moderately hybrid, a main system with a few outlier tweaks added every now and then as an adjustment. The best economic system in modern history was the United States during the postwar New Deal era, when our modified regulated hybrid capitalist system lifted millions out of poverty, fostered upward mobility and fed markets throughout the world with record demand.
 
I would be careful about dismissing someone’s ideas just because the person themselves may not be the best person in the world. In logic And Philosophy, this is called the ad hominem fallacy.

Another figure whose ideas are often questioned, not on their own merits, but because of the peerson’s history, is Martin Heidegger. He is considered by some to be one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. But he also joined the Nazi party for about a year, And never really fully renounced them later. But he really had some interesting and fertile ideas. Should they be dismissed just because of his questionable history? I don’t think so. Good ideas are good ideas.
 
I think it can be instructive if the actual life of the philosopher is related to their moral philosophy. Nietzsche was sickly as a child, and had serious health problems all his life, many relationship disappointments, job issues, and yet his answer was a beautiful idea he termed Amor Fati. Love your fate. Love the good AND the bad. Love it so much that you will be reluctant to go to Heaven.

Or consider Foucault and Sartre. Child molesters and perverts in private life. I try to consider what they write with an open mind, but it's hard to separate their writing from the men themselves.

If you are reading communist writers, most of them fell far short of living out the principles they espoused. To me this indicates that it's far easier to describe the perfect person, or the perfect governmental system, than it is to live it out. And here's where they fail. Communism depends on a person who has never lived and will never live. It depends on a great amount of altruism, and a person who will not misuse unlimited power (power of the state). This requires a near perfect person, in fact a society of near perfect people. Democracy, along with Capitalism, acknowledges and guards against the inevitable shortcomings of people. Democracy builds in checks and balances, protection for the minority, and individual rights are spelled out. Capitalism tries to redirect the inevitable greed and competition into a positive for society. The hard part of democracy is figuring how much to regulate that greed and competition. Communism, on the other hand, can get out of control very quickly, and end up one man, one party rule.

Very well said. Same goes for socialism, libertarianism and fascism.
By the way, certain fascist principles, (THE PRINCIPLES, not the boilerplate social ideology) are ideal in a corporate setting.
Some socialist principles, (again the PRINCIPLES and NOT the boilerplate social ideology) work well in a social setting, in the public sphere, so to speak.

Your warning about the potential volatility of democracy, and to the extent to which it may be applied, is reminiscent of the warnings of the founders. They too understood that democracy, while egalitarian to a fault, contains enormous potential for abuse, and can, under the worst circumstances, devolve into mob rule and tyranny of even a slight majority.
Hence the reason they compartmentalized it into the framework of a constitutional republic and left democracy to govern representative elections and then delegated the remainder to the states.

All I ask is that NO ideology or system, be it capitalist economics, libertarianism, socialism, fascism, or any other, be elevated and purified to the level of religious dogma. All of these things are only ingredients in a recipe, and in social, political and economic endeavors, there are many ways to apply them.
One is by force, one is by the voice and will of the people, or it may be applied by recommendations of councils of experts in a technocratic manner; there are many ways to apply such ingredients but I offer the suggestion that perhaps outcome based expectation is a fair measure provided that it is tempered with a healthy respect for the democratic process and respect for checks and balances.

The recipe is supposed to yield something which, in a free country, is palatable and digestible to the people, something which is capable of empowering them, something which has the potential to help them grow and grow strong and prosperous, while taking care of the vulnerable and less fortunate to at least some reasonable measure.

Thank you for your well thought out and well written post, Waddy.
 
As far as I can make out.
1. Should the message of Ghandi be discounted because he slept with his nieces? Martin Luther King because he had relations with ladies of the evening? JFK because he had affairs?
2. Is evil perpetrated by well-intentioned idiots equally as reprehensible as evil perpetrated for pure malice?

(Substitute question examples with Communism related ones.)

Roman Polanski is one of the most gifted filmmakers in history. And yet the man apparently has a weakness for pubescent girls, to the extent that, were he present in the United States, he would be prosecuted and imprisoned as a sexual predator. He isn't attracted to small children, but he is attracted to weak and vulnerable minor females barely of age and ignores the accepted conventions on exploitation of a minor.
He is, quite frankly, something of a rapist on the level of Bill Cosby.
U.S. authorities consider Polanski a fugitive from justice.

At least one critic has suggested that Roman Polanski might be some kind of unhinged nihilist, at least to the extent that he expresses himself in some rather nihilistic storytelling.

"Forget it, Jake – it's Chinatown!" That was the famously nihilist ending to Roman Polanski's classic 1974 thriller.

Roman-Polanski-right-and--001.jpg


Roman-Polanski-right-and--001.jpg
Polanski1.jpg
 
I was listening to this video about communism and I got to this point that I wanted to consider. I hear at the 245 mark that when considering a moral philosopher, what you'd wanna do is examine the moral philosopher themself and see if they are good or not. Do you think that matters? Does it matter if somebody's good if they're a moral philosopher?
If you are into moral philosophy and you are trying to do good every day and you're looking for the best possible arguments possibile and that's one situation, the situation you find yourself in, and then you compare this to somebody like... Marx who just abused people often these differences are two different scenarios. What do you think about this?
Do you see what I'm getting at?
And another question, take these two people, if the person trying to do good has an immediately harmful theory but just ends up meeting bad fortune and doesn't manifest good in the world are they likened to the person abusing others unapologetically, and justly so?

YouTube

Hypocrisy doesn't invalidate sound reasoning.

If a parent teaches a child to never take up smoking, but has smoked for years, the existence of their smoking habit doesn't negate the goodness of the advice.
 
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