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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26561 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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In the Marxist view, after all, ownership of private property was theoretically illegitimate in the first place -- and so the police's role in preventing Bolsheviks and their constituents from stealing money and other valuables that they wanted to steal (or "expropriate", as they put it) was, in their view, a form of oppression.

Sometimes, I forget how core and radical this is. Then, I see things like this guy's most recent comic. It really kind of baffles me to imagine how they think that's actually supposed to work. What do they really think their life would be like if civilization reverted to essentially the state of nature and nobody was around to care every time a slightly larger hairless ape showed up and decided to take something from them by violence. I know the old joke about pro-capitalist people being 'temporarily embarrassed millionaires', but what are they actually envisioning? Are they 'temporarily embarrassed gang leaders/warlords'?

The problem with the comic is that the author obviously sympathizes with the wolf, not that the wolf is ipso facto incorrect.

old joke about pro-capitalist people being "temporarily embarrassed millionaires"

For what it's worth, this may be a common misquote of John Steinbeck who was originally saying that the American Communists that he knew were temporarily embarrassed capitalists, not that the people who wouldn't support communism saw themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: 'After the revolution even we will have more, won't we, dear?' Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picknickers on her property.

I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn't have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."

Then, I see things like this guy's most recent comic

Yeah, why exactly does he think the wolf is the good guy in this tale?

It really kind of baffles me to imagine how they think that's actually supposed to work.

IMO this is the million dollar question. I think they are spoiled children grown up, and they absolutely take for granted the peace and prosperity "just happen" in an effortless, stable equilibrium. They think the only thing mucking it up is a few bad apples, and that if we can just put bullets in the backs of those people's heads we will get back to the Garden of Eden.

Well, in actually existing non-state societies people abandon individualism to take advantage of, or form, structures which provide security from external violence. Eg, clans, gangs, etc. I think we can safely say that the far left does not want to live under clan structures, and when asked what they envision they're usually cagey on details, but they talk about everyone living together in harmony and doing whatever it is they find personally fulfilling. When they try to start something, it usually at least attempts to do this before failing horribly because no one in the commune is volunteering to scrub toilets and they can't resolve disputes.

I think we can take their ideas at face value, as stupid as they appear(very). Yes, as a good redneck it seems trivially obvious that some people have to be assigned to do unpleasant work, and someone has to be in charge so you don't have people fighting it out whenever there's a disagreement(often over who has to do that unpleasant work). But I think far leftists have very different backgrounds and life experiences.

when asked what they envision they're usually cagey on details,

I think Crosby, Stills, and Nash crystalized their motivating impetus pretty well:

Song: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1sH0uR2u7Hs

Lyrics: https://genius.com/Crosby-stills-nash-and-young-woodstock-lyrics

Which makes me think of the line from This is Spinal Tap: There's such a fine line between clever and... stupid.

Rabbi Raphael Hirsch wrote,

Mankind, estranged from G-d, longs in vain for happiness and peace, longs for the garden of Eden, but they have chosen a way on which they will never find them! Cherubim and the flames of the sword of suffering "preserve" for mankind the road to Eden. Their message: Men cannot win Eden through his own strength; this road is saturated with blood; he will find Gan-Eden again if he is willing to be led and commanded by G-d. [Rabbi Raphael Hirsch: Commentary on the Torah]

I think Hirsh is right in that the story of Eden captures something that people, or something inside people, longs deeply for; and there are two paths that appear to lead toward it. One path respects our position as servants of a Higher Power, the position of our fellow man as being made in His image, and the constraints of the moral and causal laws of nature and human nature. The other does not -- and was aptly called the unconstrained vision by Thomas Sowell. Both are essentially spiritual in their composition. What does Marx's utopian vision look like? No divisions by class or country, no courts or cops, no private possessions, and plenty for all. Sound familiar? If you want to understand Marxists, you should think of Marx, not as a political philosopher, but as a self-anointed prophet. When Bertrand Russell met with Lenin, he unexpectedly found that Lenin regarded Marx that way:

If he [Lenin] wanted to prove a point, he thought it enough to quote a text of Marx. No fundamentalist was ever more addicted to scripture than he was to Marx. [Bertrand Russell, describing his meeting with Lenin in a 1962 interview with David Susskind]

Bolshevism is not merely a political doctrine; it is also a religion, with elaborate dogmas and inspired scriptures. When Lenin wishes to prove some proposition, he does so, if possible, by quoting texts from Marx and Engels. [Russell, Bertrand (1920): "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism".]

they're usually cagey on details, but they talk about everyone living together in harmony and doing whatever it is they find personally fulfilling.

South Park nailed it: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ywVHF6Lltac?si=4DBzhyjxJT3tvYc3

Many leaders lacked the pragmatic realism that other visionaries like (IMO) the Founding Fathers had. The practical answer is a lot of people were living in objectively poor conditions and were mad and wanted to throw a bomb at the system. Bomb-throwing has a habit of not stopping nicely and neatly and isn't exactly known for forward thinking. A leader of an angry mob only has so much power. At the time, they felt the existing structure was too strong and deep-rooted for anything other than revolution to fix. And you see this (horseshoe theory anyone?) from other groups, too. At risk of opening a can of worms, you can even see Trumpists use this same exact language today (the justice system needs to be blown up, the deep state is too deep where we need to wholesale fire entire swaths of the civil service, flirting with suspending the Constitution to allegedly save it somehow, etc).

Eh, the wolf is absolutely right. Either the pig needed sharpshooters, or the wolf would have had to be convinced that if he ate the pig and tried to take his stuff, the people the pig contracted with would kill him. Might may not make right, but it doesn't need to; might is sufficient unto itself.

might is sufficient unto itself.

But quantity has a quality all its own. And with quantity you need coordination, and then we're back where we are only now it's wolves quoting contract law.

And getting killed just the same. Because if the Fraternal Brotherhood of Pigs, Sheep, Deer, Bison, Elk, and Moose decide that wolves need to be trampled (presumably by the bison and moose), any contracts the wolves have are worthless.

the wolf is absolutely right

Might may not make right

I think there are multiple meanings of "right" in here, and that we have to be pretty careful with the concepts we're using for this topic.

The wolf is factually correct that private property requires force, because Communists (and other thieves and despoilers exist). You cannot trust in the bricks of contract law to willing parties to save you, absent men willing and able to do violence on your behalf.

When dealing with wolves (or when wolves deal with you), there is no 'right' in the moral sense; that only applies when you are dealing with moral actors interacting with each other. If we were talking about pigs, or other people who had signed contracts, then we can discuss if they were right or wrong for how they followed their contracts, and even if contract law is the highest form of morality and if there are some contracts that shouldn't be enforced, but (if I may delve into the spicy takes) the correct response to wolves is not negotiation, not diplomacy, but large amounts of armed men, and probably helicopters.

When dealing with wolves (or when wolves deal with you), there is no 'right' in the moral sense; that only applies when you are dealing with moral actors interacting with each other.

I sense some ambiguity here as to what entails a "moral actor". Likely, it's not just "an actor that always chooses morally right acts", for that would be a bit weird. Most theories I've encountered have some lower bar for an actor to qualify as a "moral actor", one that allows them to choose morally wrong acts, yet be considered blameworthy for such a choice and possibly subject to morally acceptable punishment. Perhaps this punishment would involve large amounts of armed men and possibly helicopters, but the actors, themselves, are usually still considered to be "moral actors".

Of course, this is all very much complicated if you take what is either a strong minority opinion or possibly a majority opinion in this place, exemplified by @self_made_human and @SSCReader, that this whole morality thing is totally relative, anyway. Who's to say whether the wolves are moral actors? Maybe they're just actors with their own morality, which is I guess just as good as anyone else's. I don't know what else to say here, other than I think that this entire subthread kind of fails to get off the ground back a few steps if this type of thing is adopted.

My opinion is that morality is not relative, but neither is it universally shared. Morality is a way for people willing and capable of positive-sum interactions to interact with each other. If you are not willing and able, you are not a moral actor, and likewise, dealing with you is a matter of pragmatism, not morality. You can have a moral war (or at least a war with moral aspects), if both sides are willing to agree on values like "Killing civilians for no significant military gain is wrong." and formalize combat to keep the fighting out of the fields and towns; when one side violates that agreement, then that is no longer a moral issue.

Again, I agree with the wolf; I agree that the wolf and those who carry water for him can and will disregard both honor and morality, and tear down every house and building to loot the rubble for themselves and their fellow-travelers.

A pretty elementary tenant of morality, or reasoning in general, is that you need to be alive to do it (or at least for other people that share your ideals to continue in your stead). If you choose to lay down and be devoured, because you feel that it's as good for the wolf to enjoy your flesh as a meal as for you to keep living in it, then that's on you. And if you hold to a morality that says that the above is the highest virtue, then that morality will end when it runs out of practitioners.

I honestly don't see this as something that can be meaningfully argued. Either you read the above comic and reach for your gun (or give fervent thanks to those around you who pick up the gun on your behalf), or you don't; if you don't, then you're not likely to share enough values with those who do to make discussing it worthwhile.

Morality is way for people who share values to coordinate and make great things. But it is only that. Absent shared values, there is only the pigs shooting every wolf, or the wolves devouring every pig.

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