Quote:
Originally Posted by Mykonos
Sure, I'm interested in your reasoning. Even if I don't agree with them, I'm interested in opinions. I just don't like throwing mine at other people.
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I wish it was an opinion, it seems to me like truth. Maybe that's why I'm unintentionally bruising egos here.
Okay, so basically, there are two different philosophical approaches to evaluating human experience: idealism and materialism. While they might sound funky, all it basically suggests is
a) does thought precede matter? or
b) does matter precede thought?
It's a bit more complicated than that, but it's a driving force in how people view Communism. The ones that say "it won't work, human nature cannot be explicated" are idealists. The ones that say "eventually, our natural tendencies will abide by the objects of our experiences" are materialists. Obviously, I'm on the former side of the fence, but I didn't just pick a side arbitrarily.
When you get down to the bones of it, Communism (the philosophical ideology, not the political tool) asks people to come together as a collective and pool resources. But in order to do that, a Communist INDIVIDUAL must first reject desires for what is interesting (the aesthetic) in order to satisfy the ultimate just system (the ethical). The problem becomes that the motivation for Communism, and its continued existence, is that people remain equal. Egalitarianism is this Communist absolute.
This is where a paradox becomes inevitable.
If the process of moving human existence (the Hegelian dialectic) is governed by negation (or contradiction), then it becomes obvious that materialism has a fatal flaw in its evaluation: it does not consider our genetic heritage. Being a "just" person is an unsatisfactory motivation to continue reproducing. Think: if the ONLY purpose to your life was to bring equality (NOT HAPPINESS) to strangers, would you really want to live it? Some can; some can't.
We need a higher purpose, and this is what Kierkegaard & Nietzsche both realized. While their applications of that idea led them in completely different absolutes (Kierkegaard to Christianity, Nietzsche to nihilism), how they got there is what matters. I realize how divisive the God subject is here so I'm not going to broadcast my views on the matter.
This is where the conversation is going to break from conventional logic, because you cannot dialectically qualify this discontinuity. But basically, you have a choice. You can either REJECT the world and all its tenets, or you can ACCEPT it and find your own purpose.
My purpose drove me to consider that if I recognize every single being on earth as a distinct self-consciousness separate from me, then I would seek to show respect for THEIR decisions and NOT try to seek dominion over them. It is the act of showing compassion for others, even when they don't "deserve" it -- this is why it might be construed as a logical fallacy.
It isn't that I don't want people to agree on things, but the simple notion that universal agreement is impossible.
The transition from here to libertarianism is inevitable. And again, it's up to your personal choice to decide how, or even why to live. This is why it's very hard to criticize dialectically. How can you argue against "live and let live"?
That is why I felt you didn't understand where I was coming from let alone what I was talking about.
EDIT: For further reading (if you actually care)
Immanuel Kant - The Critique of Pure Reason
Georg Hegel - The Phenomenology of Spirit
Karl Marx - The 1844 Manuscripts
Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling -- probably helps illustrate the paradox I made reference to best.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Genealogy of Morals