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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'Not that Becktionary, the Rhyming Becktionary!'- Bender Bending Rodriguez

lucifer_sam

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

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first.am

hip hop bunny hop

Libertarians, despite their wailing, are hardly serious business.

Anyways, if you want to know my political position, click the appropriate link in my signature. If you've an a cursory familiarity with TAC you would recognize that I would be quite familiar with Libertarian arguments.

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Have mercy on the poor.

lucifer_sam

...And those would be?

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first.am

Mykonos

Lucifer, I can actually agree with you on a lot of points there. I've always been skeptical to communism for basically the reasons you stated, although I think we diverge at the point where you see more value in the individual while I see more value in the individual as part of the collective. And the collective to me includes people being able to reap the benefits that the state can offer them while being protected from the way the state can control them.

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'Not that Becktionary, the Rhyming Becktionary!'- Bender Bending Rodriguez

lucifer_sam

Exactly. You don't need to have the same interpretation of libertarianism that I do. So long as you are attempting to assure civil liberties for everyone, you're still going in the same direction as me. What more is there to argue about?

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first.am

hip hop bunny hop

Eh? The links are in my signature.

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Have mercy on the poor.

lucifer_sam

No, you silly man.

What arguments are you responding to? All I saw there was conservative dogma with no philosophical groundwork. Any response I make to that is going to be subject to your conceits as a writer, not a philosophical debate.

If you're familiar with these arguments, show me. Stop talking and say something.

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first.am

hip hop bunny hop

Eh? TAC isn't quite conservative dogma - it's the only major Paleoconservative publication out there, really. Wiki Link

Yes, and thank god for that! Philosophy as politics doesn't have a great track record, to say the least.

Anyways, three Libertarian positions (in the American context) I find to be retarded:

-returning to the gold standard
-advocating free trade
-advocating an open immigration policy

...although the creepy obsession with Ayn Rand makes my skin crawl, you claim not to read her, so...

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Have mercy on the poor.

Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Well, if immigration is open than we wouldn't have to hire illegal aliens because there would be any, and with everyone being paid minimum wage obviously it'd be a more balance labor market.

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Al Pacino = God