[Hong Wu]

@Luna Ok, if you'll continue to humor me. How is it you agree with the "standard Talmudic Jewish teaching" but are also a communist? Doesn't that mean you take a dialectical materialist, communist interpretation of the religion?

[yiostheoy]

They're supposed to shut off the power and then I leave, but they haven't yet so I keep posting

Welcome to PoFo, no thread stays on topic. I'm surprised this hasn't turned into a debate about Maoism yet.

I think of religions as the original philosophies.

If Luna would acknowledge the first thing I wrote in the thread, which is the context under which I've been arguing, and which I re-quoted to no avail on this page, she would see that "world rejection" and following the golden rule are arguably the same thing. We reach the golden rule by rejecting the world or by being "unstained" by it (as Jesus said).

She personally attacks me in almost every post but hasn't explained why she used her "everything else is just commentary" quote, but she hasn't let go of the quote either, which makes me cynical about what her aim in this is.

Religion is ancient and wicked and preceded Philosophy by 25 centuries and preceded Science by another 20 more.

It was the ancient Greeks who first tried to free themselves from the superstitions of Religion by inventing Western Philosophy. Western Philosophy tends to be an analytical pure thought process, whereas Eastern (Asian) Philosophy tends to continue to be morphed together with Religion (Confucianism).

Once the ancient Greeks had invented their Philosophy, they soon focused it upon Olympian Mythological Religion -- this is what got Socrates killed. But afterwards even Plato and Aristotle could not resist focusing Philosophy on Religion, and hence what evolved ultimately was Aristotle's discovery of the "Prime Mover". This was a natural result of his stargazing and star-naming (astronomy).

The Medieval philosophers notably Aquinas added more proofs of God with their philosophies -- "First Cause" and so forth.

Whenever Philosophy now probes into Religion, which is mostly taboo but still common, it stops way short of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or Shinto.

But people often get confused by the difference and rush right into those forbidden philosophical paths and become lost.

[Hong Wu]

Religion is ancient and wicked and preceded Philosophy by 25 centuries and preceded Science by another 20 more.

It was the ancient Greeks who first tried to free themselves from the superstitions of Religion by inventing Western Philosophy. Western Philosophy tends to be an analytical pure thought process, whereas Eastern (Asian) Philosophy tends to continue to be morphed together with Religion (Confucianism).

Once the ancient Greeks had invented their Philosophy, they soon focused it upon Olympian Mythological Religion -- this is what got Socrates killed. But afterwards even Plato and Aristotle could not resist focusing Philosophy on Religion, and hence what evolved ultimately was Aristotle's discovery of the "Prime Mover". This was a natural result of his stargazing and star-naming (astronomy).

The Medieval philosophers notably Aquinas added more proofs of God with their philosophies -- "First Cause" and so forth.

Whenever Philosophy now probes into Religion, which is mostly taboo but still common, it stops way short of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or Shinto.

But people often get confused by the difference and rush right into those forbidden philosophical paths and become lost.

So verily wronk, the great Greek philosophers talked about the Gods or God (or Plato's divine truth, which is like the cave metaphor for enlightenment). They weren't trying to "free" themselves. Western philosophy only diverged from religion at a later date because the Catholic church resisted philosophical modifications. I don't think there is anything wrong with merging metaphysics and philosophy, which is what religion does, although religion tends to insert political principles as well.

[yiostheoy]

So verily wronk, the great Greek philosophers talked about the Gods or God (or Plato's divine truth, which is like the cave metaphor for enlightenment). They weren't trying to "free" themselves. Western philosophy only diverged from religion at a later date because the Catholic church resisted philosophical modifications. I don't think there is anything wrong with merging metaphysics and philosophy, which is what religion does, although religion tends to insert political principles as well.

You seem to be forgetting that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were monotheists not polytheists.

Thales strikes me as an atheist, although such a thing would have been unusual in ancient times.

[Luna]

@Luna Ok, if you'll continue to humor me. How is it you agree with the "standard Talmudic Jewish teaching" but are also a communist? Doesn't that mean you take a dialectical materialist, communist interpretation of the religion?

Personally, I'm not religious. I do identify strongly with the religious tradition I was raised in, though. I'm "culturally Jewish," which describes about 50% of American Jews statistically.

The Abrahamic sense of justice and historical progression towards God's Kingdom inform the ethical backdrop of my political views. I can justify the "historical progression" bit on materialist grounds even more easily. The sense of justice, I'd argue, can only come through emotion. In my case the basic human feelings of compassion and fairness, and the religious precepts of my upbringing.

You can be a communist and religious though, for the record. Liberation theology Christians are, as are socialist Reform Jews. And Marx explicitly broke with Bakunin's belief that Christians should not be allowed in the First International, on the grounds that this would exclude most of England's (Quaker/Methodist-led) labor movement.

[Hong Wu]

I don't recall anything about Thales atm, but I think you are trying to pit philosophy and metaphysics against each other and I don't think that's constructive. It generally leads towards communism, which is when large numbers of people fail because they don't want to admit there are things at work which they can only understand tangentially.

@Luna you won a couple of the exchanges in this thread I think, but ultimately I think I was arguing that this was about you making Judaism mesh with Communism, and that seems to have been correct. The real "standard" viewpoint, in any religion, is fundamentally not-materialist, which means it's not dialectical materialist and not communist. So you have probably taken what you like from your upbringing and rejected what you didn't like. /shame

[yiostheoy]

@Luna Ok, if you'll continue to humor me. How is it you agree with the "standard Talmudic Jewish teaching" but are also a communist? Doesn't that mean you take a dialectical materialist, communist interpretation of the religion?

See ... it's just like I said ... she is humoring you ... and you are humoring her ... and this is a win/win situation ... so there is justification for both of you to continue in this interaction ... regardless of the thread now being jacked.

[yiostheoy]

I don't recall anything about Thales atm, but I think you are trying to pit philosophy and metaphysics against each other and I don't think that's constructive. It generally leads towards communism, which is when large numbers of people fail because they don't want to admit there are things at work which they can only understand tangentially.

...

Thales did not concern himself with metaphysics, although Socrates and Plato dabbled into it a wee bit, and then Aristotle plunged into it in a big way and then discovered "The Prime Mover".

Regarding the philosophy police and what is constructive, I am futilely trying to help you see the difference between metaphysics and religion -- you seem to keep confusing these two for some odd reason.

[Hong Wu]

Thales did not concern himself with metaphysics, although Socrates and Plato dabbled into it a wee bit, and then Aristotle plunged into it in a big way.

That's probably why I don't remember anything about him, an ancient philosopher who doesn't even try to get out of Greece was probably not very good. I think that metaphysics are ways for us to tangentially or symbolically understand or work with things we can never understand literally. For example, in another thread Mike is saying there's a theory that only one electron exists but it moves back and forth in time and is everywhere at once. So does that make this electron God?

[Luna]

you won a couple of the exchanges in this thread I think, but ultimately I think I was arguing that this was about you making Judaism mesh with Communism, and that seems to have been correct.

I'm not a follower of Judaism except in the sense of identifying with its basic ethical teachings and historical traditions. Again, "cultural Judaism." I don't have any particularly strong religious belief, and I also have a problem with Judaism as a faith (and Orthodox Judaism as a culture) for its extreme patriarchal tendencies. So, not really, though I can and did point to commonalities in the sense of historical progression which attract me to the left and the sense of justice inculcated in Hebrew School forming part of my beliefs' ethical backdrop.

The act of disagreeing with you isn't that.

"... the idea that it doesn't matter as much as the 'next life', which naturally means that in a way we should not care about it" just isn't the Abrahamic tradition of stewardship, or reciprocal ethics as the foremost fruit of genuine belief. It's imposing a Gnostic and/or Daoist interpretation of "in the world but not of the world" onto a belief system that, evidenced by the above, looks at that through a lens that isn't "should not care about it."

If we're getting into "you're just promoting X economic system": the Catholic Church has a full socioeconomic model promoted by Popes since Leo XIII, called distributism. It's all about community subsidiarity, all about fostering healthy human relationships rather than rejection of the same. I'd disagree with distributism on numerous grounds, but it is the furthest thing from non-concern. An ethics of non-concern in an Abrahamic context would generally be labeled Gnosticism.

[Hong Wu]

I'm not a follower of Judaism except in the sense of identifying with its ethical teachings and historical traditions. Again, "cultural Judaism." So, not really, though I can and did point to commonalities in the sense of historical progression which attract me to the left and the sense of justice inculcated in Hebrew School forming part of my beliefs' ethical backdrop.

The act of disagreeing with you isn't that.

"... the idea that it doesn't matter as much as the 'next life', which naturally means that in a way we should not care about it" just isn't the Abrahamic tradition of stewardship, or reciprocal ethics as the foremost fruit of genuine belief. It's imposing a Gnostic and/or Daoist interpretation of "in the world but not of the world" onto a belief system that, evidenced by the above, looks at that through a lens that isn't "should not care about it." The Catholic Church has a full socioeconomic model promoted by Popes since Leo XIII, called distributism. It's all about community subsidiarity, all about fostering healthy human relationships rather than rejection of the same.

I am more of a Gnostic/Daoist/Buddhist in lots of ways. But I also said "in a way" which lets you turn my statement into whatever you want it to be I'm a fan of distributism, it's why I wrote my favorite thread about artisan beer in the political circus section. But ultimately I'm not a materialist, which means not caring about material things in of themselves ("a rich man can't enter the kingdom of heaven", [sic]). Communism talks a lot about ethics but eventually we realize that it's really just redefining ethics so as to value material things in of themselves, which is why their authority is always disastrous unless they modify that part out, as the quasi-traditionalist modern Chinese communists have.

[Luna]

But I also said "in a way"

Yeah, saying "in a way" gets you an out. Considering your very Daoist-like religious understanding expressed earlier in the thread though, combined with the specific phrasing of "non-concern," I saw the plainest interpretation as conflation of the two ideals. That was backed up by you using that phrasing in response, in later posts. Both can be phrased as "world rejection" in one sense or another (one much more loosely), only one can in the sense of "non-concern."

But ultimately I'm not a materialist, which means not caring about material things in of themselves ("a rich man can't enter the kingdom of heaven", [sic]).

If you want to talk socialism now, that's even more off-topic, but sure.

For the record, I don't either. One reason I'm a socialist is that bottom-up, long-range democratic planning sets off a transition from an exchange-value-driven to a use-value-driven society. Money is a means, not an end in itself. Production and consumption as ends in themselves is a value held primarily by the class that depends on capital accumulation. Simply put, it's a bourgeois value.

Communism talks a lot about ethics but eventually we realize that it's really just redefining ethics so as to value material things in of themselves,

Considering the exchange-value/use-value gap is talked about as far back as Engels, that's not the case.

"Materialism," in the Marxist sense, refers to interpreting history through the lens of economic processes, with economic relationships and states of technological transition changing primary modes of production through history.

[Hong Wu]

Yeah, saying "in a way" gets you an out. Considering your very Daoist-like religious understanding expressed earlier in the thread though, combined with the specific phrasing of "non-concern," I saw the plainest interpretation as conflation of the two ideals. That was backed up by you using that phrasing in response, in later posts. Both can be phrased as "world rejection" in one sense or another (one much more loosely), only one can in the sense of "non-concern."


If you want to talk socialism now, that's even more off-topic, but sure.

For the record, I don't either. One reason I'm a socialist is that bottom-up, long-range democratic planning sets off a transition from an exchange-value-driven to a use-value-driven society. Money is a means, not an end in itself. Production and consumption as ends in themselves is a bourgeois value.


Considering the exchange-value/use-value gap is talked about as far back as Engels, that's not the case.

"Materialism," in the Marxist sense, refers to interpreting history through the lens of economic processes, with economic relationships and states of technological transition changing primary modes of production through history in a roughly predictable fashion.

I think the failures of communism speak for themselves. All that's really left now is the Chinese and the Vietnamese. The Chinese have very awkwardly molded Chinese traditionalism into Communism and basically don't allow anyone to point out the inconsistencies. So basically, we have what communism says it is and what is shows itself to be, or "you will know them from their fruits".

[Luna]

I think the failures of communism speak for themselves.

Building modern Russia, China, and Cuba?

It has so far failed at moving past capitalist development, but it's somewhat hard to run things through a bottom-up workers' council system and avoid bureaucratic ossification when you have imperial powers literally invading your newly-freed country. Vested bureaucracies are always and everywhere a conservative, anti-change force, and they're required when you are outright invaded and/or encircled by countries that would invade were you divided. Hence, the Trotskyist analysis that it takes a global movement and pushing the revolution's gains further as much as possible in other regions.

At building capitalism, it took many countries from "feudal backwater" to "modern global player."

All that's really left now is the Chinese and the Vietnamese.

It probably will fall apart after Raul given the lack of a clear succession plan in their top-down system and American pressures for liberalization now that the embargo is ended. But you forgot Cuba.

So basically, we have what communism says it is and what is shows itself to be

What it says it is a stateless and classless society. This is also the definition of communism.

What motions towards the socialist phase of development have thus far produced are countries competitive in the global late-capitalist economic framework.

[yiostheoy]

Building modern Russia, China, and Cuba?

It has so far failed at moving past capitalist development, but it's somewhat hard to run things through a bottom-up workers' council system and avoid bureaucratic ossification when you have imperial powers literally invading your newly-freed country. Vested bureaucracies are always and everywhere a conservative, anti-change force, and they're required when you are outright invaded and/or encircled by countries that would invade were you divided. Hence, the Trotskyist analysis that it takes a global movement and pushing the revolution's gains further as much as possible in other regions.

At building capitalism, it took many countries from "feudal backwater" to "modern global player."


It probably will fall apart after Raul given the lack of a clear succession plan in their top-down system and American pressures for liberalization now that the embargo is ended. But you forgot Cuba.


What it says it is a stateless and classless society. This is also the definition of communism.

What motions towards the socialist phase of development have thus far produced are countries competitive in the global late-capitalist economic framework.

Ok nutts to "free will". Now we are talking about "Communism".

Communism here having the meaning of a one party system seems to work ok in China.

In Russia it led to spiraling deficit military spending and it bankrupted the USSR into nonexistence.

Russia still has a form of Communism in that the Party chooses the candidates. Imagine if the GOP did that here in the USA -- then the whole world would be soon doomed.

Cuba having lost their sugar daddy USSR has plunged deeper into poverty, so it is about to abandon Communism and try capitalistic exporting and tourism again. Castro was unable to deliver on anything he originally promised other than subsistence wages and food. It failed there.

No more creation myths please.

[Luna]

Russia still has a form of Communism in that the Party chooses the candidates.

That is not communist by any definition, unless you're using "communist" as a blanket term for "any vaguely authoritarian state" which is pretty much the exact opposite of the generally accepted definition.

Modern Russia is no longer even transitioning to socialism. Modern Russia is firmly a capitalist state.

No more creation myths please.

Whether you do or don't like religion, that's no reason to be condescending and tell people to stop talking about their beliefs. We don't exist for your amusement.

[Hong Wu]

Building modern Russia, China, and Cuba?

It has so far failed at moving past capitalist development, but it's somewhat hard to run things through a bottom-up workers' council system and avoid bureaucratic ossification when you have imperial powers literally invading your newly-freed country. Vested bureaucracies are always and everywhere a conservative, anti-change force, and they're required when you are outright invaded and/or encircled by countries that would invade were you divided. Hence, the Trotskyist analysis that it takes a global movement and pushing the revolution's gains further as much as possible in other regions.

At building capitalism, it took many countries from "feudal backwater" to "modern global player."


It probably will fall apart after Raul given the lack of a clear succession plan in their top-down system and American pressures for liberalization now that the embargo is ended. But you forgot Cuba.


What it says it is a stateless and classless society. This is also the definition of communism.

What motions towards the socialist phase of development have thus far produced are countries competitive in the global late-capitalist economic framework.

I did forget Cuba, oh wells. I don't really want to turn this into a full-on communist thread, I think the ideology doesn't work, Russia and China would be there without communism. A good example of this is Taiwan, which is basically a democratic China. It has a much higher standard of living than the mainland, the people are happier (happiest in east Asia I read) and so-on.

Re: Russians, the ones I've spoken to are much more pragmatic than western people about communism vs. capitalism. They think they can both be pretty corrupt. Which is why religion seems to be on the uptick there, to the frustration of western whites who insist they've found the last ideology even as literally everything over here gets worse.

[yiostheoy]

That is not communist by any definition, unless you're using "communist" as a blanket term for "any vaguely authoritarian state" which is pretty much the exact opposite of the generally accepted definition.

Modern Russia is no longer even transitioning to socialism. Modern Russia is firmly a capitalist state.


Whether you do or don't like religion, that's no reason to be condescending and tell people to stop talking about their beliefs. We don't exist for your amusement.

Based on my own studies of Communism starting in high school civics class for my term paper, Communism has morphed so many times that there are no more consistent reasonable definitions to describe it other than a one party political system. Your creation myth about Communism is what I was referring to.

[yiostheoy]

I did forget Cuba, oh wells. I don't really want to turn this into a full-on communist thread, I think the ideology doesn't work, Russia and China would be there without communism. A good example of this is Taiwan, which is basically a democratic China. It has a much higher standard of living than the mainland, the people are happier (happiest in east Asia I read) and so-on.

Re: Russians, the ones I've spoken to are much more pragmatic than western people about communism vs. capitalism. They think they can both be pretty corrupt. Which is why religion seems to be on the uptick there, to the frustration of western whites who insist they've found the last ideology even as literally everything over here gets worse.

"... western whites ..." not to be confused with western blacks, or western browns, or western yellows, or western reds? They're all just palefaces to the original Native Americans.

We are still in the midst of a fairly deep contractionary recession therefore things here keep getting worse as we ramp down from inflated valuations and debt financed consumption. Religion has nothing to do with it, particularly since only about 25% of "western whites" are Theist -- the overwhelming majority are Deist instead.