Idealism sucks ass.
Talkin’ about a Revolution
121–130 of 307 posts
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not stupid, just lacking class consciousness
I would love if the public discourse would allow for more diversity of opinions. Unfortunately, where I come from, the left has simplified the rhetoric to "If you are of a different opinion then we are, you are either badly educated (read, stupid) or a nazi." Unfortunately, this elitist attitude has only contributed to the divide of the people.
I don't know what to tell you, I'm never going to be happy about people voting against my rights or about secret police disappearing people and ignoring the court system
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
This tired old contention that some great historical thinker is somehow single-handedly responsible for the fall of civilisation is nothing more than railing against intellect itself.
It is precisely the opposite. A world where Karl Marx isn't responsible for millions of deaths is a world where the existence of intellectuals is ultimately pointless. There, a wise potentate could send philosophers into labor camps and he'd only benefit from the elimination of waste. If you believe that ideas matter, then you should allow for spectacularly bad ideas to have spectacularly bad real world consequences.
Aha, wise potentates.
Any accounting scheme which assigns Marx blame for the consequences of his poorer ideas, has to assign far more to "wise potentate" believers. Or even people who unironically use words like "wise potentate" at all.
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some fantasy about how millions of leftists voters either boycotted the election or voted for Trump because of Biden’s position on Gaza. Complete nonsense of course, but it’s a popular conspiracy theory among certain democrats circles. It was also funny to see democrats suddenly realizing that Arab Americans vote republican. They always have and they always will. Just like how Latino Americans, and generally most imm…
The left pretty much falls into the same trap all around the world. Its almost funny to watch when a leftist realises that immigrants are right-leaning. The typical reaction is to fall back to elitism and claim those immigrants must be stupid somehow.
I think they don't fall into the trap, and their position on migrants is formed not from the assumption that migrants have leftist views, but from the assumption that it is easier to make migrants dependent. And when someone is dependent, it doesn't matter what cultural views they are inclined to.
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
This tired old contention that some great historical thinker is somehow single-handedly responsible for the fall of civilisation is nothing more than railing against intellect itself.
It is precisely the opposite. A world where Karl Marx isn't responsible for millions of deaths is a world where the existence of intellectuals is ultimately pointless. There, a wise potentate could send philosophers into labor camps and he'd only benefit from the elimination of waste. If you believe that ideas matter, then you should allow for spectacularly bad ideas to have spectacularly bad real world consequences.
Karl Marx isn't responsible for anything that happened in the 20th century. People have individual responsibility for their actions, it doesn't matter where you got the idea from. Ascribing e.g. crimes of stalinism to Marx is actually terrible idea, it absolves the people who did these crimes of their own moral agency. Ideas do matter (as Gramsci has shown by example), but the moral responsibility is on the implementors.
But just out of curiosity, what exactly Marx said that you deem so dangerous? Can you show some quotes?
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#126[flagged]
Uhh, why someone like Sartre or Foucault is on this list, equal to Lenin or Mao? It's hard for me to see how they as existentialists were on par of them; and if so, ought we blame Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky too? I am asking genuinely on your stance because I don't see why you consider them to be evil.
I don't think the list makes any sense. It's just part of movement where some try to blame all the evil of the world past and present on intellectual/philosophers, that would have perversed society and academics by their ideas. The root of evil being Hegel it seems and all figures that remotely connect to him.
I think the reason here is Sartre was part of the communist party in France, for some time.
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
A supposed ally of the community?
Yes, Democrats have been historically seen as the party that cared the most about Muslim interests in the US. Just like it is the party that traditionally gets the most support from the black community for example. Again, this complete disregard for Muslim life could've been expected from Bush or whatever. But even he wouldn't have let Israel go this far without some sort of faint condemnation or call for restraints.…
Supporting Muslim interests and also supporting women's rights and gay rights.
No conflict of interests there.
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
A supposed ally of the community?
Yes, Democrats have been historically seen as the party that cared the most about Muslim interests in the US. Just like it is the party that traditionally gets the most support from the black community for example. Again, this complete disregard for Muslim life could've been expected from Bush or whatever. But even he wouldn't have let Israel go this far without some sort of faint condemnation or call for restraints.…
[deleted]
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, coincidentally, that is just the time window of the technological singularity.. where we either ascend to a peace- & powerful interplanetary civilization - or accidentally eradicate ourselves out of a collective lack of wisdom and sense of connectedness. Let's play..
I think the "technological singularity" is just the rapture for people who listen to sam harris
Millenarianism is evergreen.
Re: Talkin’ about a Revolution
#130The world gets both better and worse. it is something that I regularly get voted down for saying here, but IMO the west is unduly pessimist because it had a golden age from winning the cold war until the late 2000s, took an overly optimistic view of the future and the inevitability of progress (remember "the end of history") and cannot cope with things going back to normal. Things get better, sometimes they get worse…
>and cannot cope with things going back to normal. how do we define "normal" for society?
Normal is what we're willing to accept in exchange for our comfort.