[quote] Communism believes in the absolute equality of all people, thus eliminating individuality as well <hr></blockquote>..........um... isn't that the bill of rights idea that we are all created equl..
. does that mean that democracy=communism=fascism/nazism?!?
Communism. as outlined by Marx (I am not a fan) does not say ABSOLUTE equality, it is supposed to allow the feedom of individual development without the coercion of enforced labor . . . he even said that under communism 'we would be able to fish in the morning work at our own pace, and philosophize in the afternoon" . . . or something to that effect . . what he thaought would happen is that without the ideological blinders put in place by those who own the means of a cultures production, everyody would be free to produce themselves--- to actualize themselves- that means to become individuals
this is of course idealistic and unrealistic
and, translated, in history, to something very ugly and dismissive of individuality
but its basis as a set of ideas (and Marx is actually very intelligent and has many good things to say) is extremely extremely different than Nazism
and I've said as much already in this thread.
Both don't work, can't work . . . and realistically both seem to have a debilitating effect on individuality . . . but they are very different in the ideological basis of their respective forms of totalitarianisms.
a but maybe we only imagine that we are individuals . . .
But our republic (not to be confused with a true democracy ) did and does not make any attempt to abolish fundamental human hierarchies like social class and the dichotomy between rich and poor. It provides social and economic mobility, the opportunity to eliminate these things. So the individual, while all created equal, infact can excel and fail on their own merit, at least partly. But the American system does not try to alter the conventional socio-economic structure directly, aside from rejecting autocracy at the top. That is, it changed people's attitudes while still keeping the people's heritage. It is, in fact, both more ideological and conciliatory than Marx's approach which affected the institutions more than the individuals. (It's really Adam Smith and Thomas Payne teaming up on poor Karl Marx.)
You can even contrast this American approach to France after the revolution. I find it ironic that Marx didn't understand why that revolution failed because he makes the same mistakes that brought on the Terror. Lenin applied those mistakes to Russia and look what they got under Stalin!
Saying "all men are created equal" is not in the least Communist. It is not "all men will be given equal things amongst each other" or "all men will be forced to have equal standing."
I find the "well, Communism is a good idea that's been perverted.. blahdeefreakin'blahblah" stuff very tiring and trite.
I think by "Commie or Nazi?" he meant the actual application of both ideas.
well, economically communism tends to lead to disaster, but the soviet union produced it's fair share of brilliant writers, artists, scientists, and musicians, so your argument that communism stifles excellence is a little off.
</strong>
<hr></blockquote>
Most of the great soviet artistic movement happened in the early part of it where everyone wtill thought they were going to convert the world. Once realism (and stalin) came up, soviet art diminished quite a bit.
Then there's the fact that so many great soviets minds expatriated. I can't help but imagine how fruitless & helpless brilliant minds feel in a society that's not supposed to benefit them.
And if you compare past America to the Soviet Union, I think you'd find that a lot more scientific developments (as in an order of magnitude or more) happened on this side of the Atlantic that anywhere else over the past 100 years. On that account, it would seem to me that corporate R&D is better than state R&D.
[quote]Most of the great soviet artistic movement happened in the early part of it where everyone wtill thought they were going to convert the world. Once realism (and stalin) came up, soviet art diminished quite a bit.<hr></blockquote>
Umm.. well, my area is music, so i'll point out Dimitry Shostakovitch, Prokofieff, Rostropovitch, Richter, all products of Stalin's era. And in terms of science, the most public example is the soviet's superiority in space (missile) technology that continued until bureaucratic infighting killed their space program in the 1960s (under Kruschef.. oops, can't spell his name ) And saying that soviet art diminished once Stalin came up is a bit odd, since that rules out all but the first 15 years or so of the Union's existence.
Yeah, Russian music was at a high point when they were strictly watched by the state, at the same time that the traditional center of great music - Europe - was in the grips of Schoenberg et al. (OK, with the exception of France, who always kind of did their own thing).
robo, doesn't it seem that when music is most "stifled" by constraints, composers' creativity flourishes the most? The greatest composers, like Bach and Mozart, worked within the strictest rules. The biggest crap, IMO, has come out when composers have tried to make a point of freeing themselves from the rules of the past. I wonder if it's the same with Shostakovich, Prokofiev et al., who had artificial constraints imposed on them by politics, but managed to produce some of the greatest music of that time.
Solzhenitsyn was brilliant while working against the tyrrany . . . he has now become a provincial hack with psuedo royalist ideas . . .
Soviet music was fine, if you like these composers . . . most of them I find awful, literal and too sentimental.... even Shostokocich (Rostopovich plays a fine slurry version of Back but so what?!?) But even these that you mention all were very restricted, under constant watch and very wary of not stepping on toes . . . they were compelled to write music that was not too far out . . . and yes they feared as well . . . they were given alot of perks (big houses, staff etc) but they were not free.
My equation of Democracy=communism=Nazism was just a joke responce to the way that the previous posts had phrased their missguided equation of Communism=Fascism.
And, I do not believe "well, Communism is a good idea that's been perverted.. blahdeefreakin'blahblah" as groverat says, it is not a good idea because it based on a fixed idea of what humanity is, and it therefor is wrong . . .
it is well intentioned however, whereas Nazism is by no means well intentioned, and in fact, thrives off its glorificatin of horror: for example: the ss bonded together through the deliberate perpetuation of atrocities by hand!! To be fully a member you had to kill someone with a pistol . . ( I got this from the son of an ex ss officer that had been brought to the us after the war. . . . its also documented in other places).
well zute allors . . . I guess I have to argue with myself then...
me2: I don't believe me when I say that Communism is "well intentioned"!!
me: oh yeah why not?
me2: because its actually motivated by resentment: resentment for the good life that is had by others: people can't stand it that others have stuff they don't. People can't stand the fact that the world also exists for others . . . its even in Hegel's M/S dialectic . . . but Marx refuses to see it
me: no, that's cynical, if everybody HAD, then nobody would be without, say the Communists... face it, Communism is actually a very Christian morality put into a political philosophy... just without the religion.
me2: hhmm?!?!?! I don't know.... people's motives are not so simple . . they say and consciously think one thing but are really just wanting something else . . . well, at least very often... And perhaps I'm also speaking about so called 'christian morality' as it exists most often...hm?
Me: yeah your probably right . . . but the Communists think things are so simple... see, that's the impossibility of it.
me2: ahah!!! so I agreed with me the whole time!!!
[quote] robo, doesn't it seem that when music is most "stifled" by constraints, composers' creativity flourishes the most? The greatest composers, like Bach and Mozart, worked within the strictest rules. The biggest crap, IMO, has come out when composers have tried to make a point of freeing themselves from the rules of the past. I wonder if it's the same with Shostakovich, Prokofiev et al., who had artificial constraints imposed on them by politics, but managed to produce some of the greatest music of that time. <hr></blockquote>
Well, i'm not sure i can agree. First of all, Shostakovitch in particular was always on the verge of getting in trouble with the Art Police for writing 'unwholesome' music. Then again, having to walk this fine line between offical sanction and a 6 foot deep hole in Siberia did force him to become very creative in expressing himself in his music.
And at the same time, Schoenberg, for example, created an unbelievably constrained system for writing music (the 12 tone system) that, IMHO, produced some rather unlovely music.
And then there's Debussy, who did absolutely whatever he wanted, and produced masterpieces.
Also, while Bach's music is famous for it's almost mathematical theoretical rigor, Bach himself was _not_ writing by rules. He basically wrote what he wanted, and later scholars worked out complex rules that seem to govern Bach's music (and even then, Bach often 'breaks' these rules). Bach is even quoted as saying that he didn't belive in all this analysis crap (i paraphrase )
Basically, i think great composers will produce great music, though of course their circumstances do affect what kind of music they write (compare Shostakovich to Mendelssohn!)
Oh, and pfflam: Rostropovich is an amazing cellist, really. His Bach recording is probably the worst thing he's ever done.. i think he's just too old to play well. It's out of tune and messy, not to mention in horrible taste. I honestly think i could play the suites better than that (i'm a cellist), but that recording is a small blemish on an otherwise amazing career as a cellist and conductor. Try to find some recordings of him from the 1950s to 1980s.. they are truly great.
Is it wrong to be intolerent of certain things?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you will find that in most communist regimes as in facist regimes intolerance was more the rule than the exception.
What never seems to amaze me is that everyone seems to agree that facist regimes were wrong but no one seems to mind when a certain government in the Middle East takes facist measures to fight another certain people.
I think you will find that in most communist regimes as in facist regimes intolerance was more the rule than the exception.
What never seems to amaze me is that everyone seems to agree that facist regimes were wrong but no one seems to mind when a certain government in the Middle East takes facist measures to fight another certain people.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What amazes me is how even fewer people denounce the nearly daily mass murders committed by agents of the quasi-governmental organization that generally opposes the right of that government/nation to exist.
There is a difference between the indescriminately thrown the word 'fascistic' and 'in a 'fascist' way', and the proper used word 'Fascism' one is an over-used slang term denouncing power the other is apolitical formation and ideology (or a technique w/out an ideology, as some theorists have it)
They are different: Fascism doesn't just mean no-freedoms and military brutality, it is a particular form of no-freedoms and brutality.
[quote] When the boot is on your neck it's doubtful you care care very much what its owner calls himself.<hr></blockquote>
That may be so, but I tend to think that in some ways its unproductive to throw such a descriptive term around (that has real specific qualities that adhere to what it describes) at any manifestation of force. For one thing, you get to the point that you hear everything called fascist that you stop taking it seriously and really keeping an eye out for the elements that can, when amplified and combined, form real Fascism.
I think its good to know how real Fascism is differrent, because, it has unusual qualities that seperate it from simple tyrannies and despotisms, and, which make it particularly insidious.... qualities that I have touched on in other posts in this thread and elsewhere.
I think the issue here is that everyone's solitary understanding of fascism involves German and Italian groups during WWII. The post-republic Rome was certainly fascist, especially by the time Emperor Trajan was in power in the mid second century. It was more or less a military regime with an enormous amount of state control, but by and large they were pretty tolerent of most cultural ideas. If you study that era, you'll find that Christians and Jews weren't persecuted, though they were antagonized if they came to the surface.
Aside from those two groups, their wasn't a lot of cultural discrimination in the Empire. While I certainly wouldn't enjoy living in a society run similarly to ancient Rome's, it is an example of a softer fascist regime. (Where do you think the term fascist came from anyway? . . . it's Latin.)
Comments
. does that mean that democracy=communism=fascism/nazism?!?
Communism. as outlined by Marx (I am not a fan) does not say ABSOLUTE equality, it is supposed to allow the feedom of individual development without the coercion of enforced labor . . . he even said that under communism 'we would be able to fish in the morning work at our own pace, and philosophize in the afternoon" . . . or something to that effect . . what he thaought would happen is that without the ideological blinders put in place by those who own the means of a cultures production, everyody would be free to produce themselves--- to actualize themselves- that means to become individuals
this is of course idealistic and unrealistic
and, translated, in history, to something very ugly and dismissive of individuality
but its basis as a set of ideas (and Marx is actually very intelligent and has many good things to say) is extremely extremely different than Nazism
and I've said as much already in this thread.
Both don't work, can't work . . . and realistically both seem to have a debilitating effect on individuality . . . but they are very different in the ideological basis of their respective forms of totalitarianisms.
a but maybe we only imagine that we are individuals . . .
You can even contrast this American approach to France after the revolution. I find it ironic that Marx didn't understand why that revolution failed because he makes the same mistakes that brought on the Terror. Lenin applied those mistakes to Russia and look what they got under Stalin!
I find the "well, Communism is a good idea that's been perverted.. blahdeefreakin'blahblah" stuff very tiring and trite.
I think by "Commie or Nazi?" he meant the actual application of both ideas.
<strong>Anyway : right winged and left winged share something in common : the intolerance.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Is it wrong to be intolerent of certain things?
posted by robo:
<strong>
well, economically communism tends to lead to disaster, but the soviet union produced it's fair share of brilliant writers, artists, scientists, and musicians, so your argument that communism stifles excellence is a little off.
</strong>
<hr></blockquote>
Most of the great soviet artistic movement happened in the early part of it where everyone wtill thought they were going to convert the world. Once realism (and stalin) came up, soviet art diminished quite a bit.
Then there's the fact that so many great soviets minds expatriated. I can't help but imagine how fruitless & helpless brilliant minds feel in a society that's not supposed to benefit them.
And if you compare past America to the Soviet Union, I think you'd find that a lot more scientific developments (as in an order of magnitude or more) happened on this side of the Atlantic that anywhere else over the past 100 years. On that account, it would seem to me that corporate R&D is better than state R&D.
Umm.. well, my area is music, so i'll point out Dimitry Shostakovitch, Prokofieff, Rostropovitch, Richter, all products of Stalin's era. And in terms of science, the most public example is the soviet's superiority in space (missile) technology that continued until bureaucratic infighting killed their space program in the 1960s (under Kruschef.. oops, can't spell his name
robo, doesn't it seem that when music is most "stifled" by constraints, composers' creativity flourishes the most? The greatest composers, like Bach and Mozart, worked within the strictest rules. The biggest crap, IMO, has come out when composers have tried to make a point of freeing themselves from the rules of the past. I wonder if it's the same with Shostakovich, Prokofiev et al., who had artificial constraints imposed on them by politics, but managed to produce some of the greatest music of that time.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Soviet music was fine, if you like these composers . . . most of them I find awful, literal and too sentimental.... even Shostokocich (Rostopovich plays a fine slurry version of Back but so what?!?) But even these that you mention all were very restricted, under constant watch and very wary of not stepping on toes . . . they were compelled to write music that was not too far out . . . and yes they feared as well . . . they were given alot of perks (big houses, staff etc) but they were not free.
My equation of Democracy=communism=Nazism was just a joke responce to the way that the previous posts had phrased their missguided equation of Communism=Fascism.
And, I do not believe "well, Communism is a good idea that's been perverted.. blahdeefreakin'blahblah" as groverat says, it is not a good idea because it based on a fixed idea of what humanity is, and it therefor is wrong . . .
it is well intentioned however, whereas Nazism is by no means well intentioned, and in fact, thrives off its glorificatin of horror: for example: the ss bonded together through the deliberate perpetuation of atrocities by hand!! To be fully a member you had to kill someone with a pistol . . ( I got this from the son of an ex ss officer that had been brought to the us after the war. . . . its also documented in other places).
[ 05-19-2002: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
me2: I don't believe me when I say that Communism is "well intentioned"!!
me: oh yeah why not?
me2: because its actually motivated by resentment: resentment for the good life that is had by others: people can't stand it that others have stuff they don't. People can't stand the fact that the world also exists for others . . . its even in Hegel's M/S dialectic . . . but Marx refuses to see it
me: no, that's cynical, if everybody HAD, then nobody would be without, say the Communists... face it, Communism is actually a very Christian morality put into a political philosophy... just without the religion.
me2: hhmm?!?!?! I don't know.... people's motives are not so simple . . they say and consciously think one thing but are really just wanting something else . . . well, at least very often... And perhaps I'm also speaking about so called 'christian morality' as it exists most often...hm?
Me: yeah your probably right . . . but the Communists think things are so simple... see, that's the impossibility of it.
me2: ahah!!! so I agreed with me the whole time!!!
[ 05-20-2002: Message edited by: pfflam ]</p>
rather: communism --> fascism
the same is possible in a republic, but that's why we have checks and balances
Well, i'm not sure i can agree. First of all, Shostakovitch in particular was always on the verge of getting in trouble with the Art Police for writing 'unwholesome' music. Then again, having to walk this fine line between offical sanction and a 6 foot deep hole in Siberia did force him to become very creative in expressing himself in his music.
And at the same time, Schoenberg, for example, created an unbelievably constrained system for writing music (the 12 tone system) that, IMHO, produced some rather unlovely music.
And then there's Debussy, who did absolutely whatever he wanted, and produced masterpieces.
Also, while Bach's music is famous for it's almost mathematical theoretical rigor, Bach himself was _not_ writing by rules. He basically wrote what he wanted, and later scholars worked out complex rules that seem to govern Bach's music (and even then, Bach often 'breaks' these rules). Bach is even quoted as saying that he didn't belive in all this analysis crap (i paraphrase
Basically, i think great composers will produce great music, though of course their circumstances do affect what kind of music they write (compare Shostakovich to Mendelssohn!)
Oh, and pfflam: Rostropovich is an amazing cellist, really. His Bach recording is probably the worst thing he's ever done.. i think he's just too old to play well. It's out of tune and messy, not to mention in horrible taste. I honestly think i could play the suites better than that (i'm a cellist), but that recording is a small blemish on an otherwise amazing career as a cellist and conductor. Try to find some recordings of him from the 1950s to 1980s.. they are truly great.
-robo
<strong>
Is it wrong to be intolerent of certain things?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you will find that in most communist regimes as in facist regimes intolerance was more the rule than the exception.
What never seems to amaze me is that everyone seems to agree that facist regimes were wrong but no one seems to mind when a certain government in the Middle East takes facist measures to fight another certain people.
<strong>
I think you will find that in most communist regimes as in facist regimes intolerance was more the rule than the exception.
What never seems to amaze me is that everyone seems to agree that facist regimes were wrong but no one seems to mind when a certain government in the Middle East takes facist measures to fight another certain people.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What amazes me is how even fewer people denounce the nearly daily mass murders committed by agents of the quasi-governmental organization that generally opposes the right of that government/nation to exist.
"The more I am limited, the more I am free."
They are different: Fascism doesn't just mean no-freedoms and military brutality, it is a particular form of no-freedoms and brutality.
I'd rather eat at Arby's. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
That may be so, but I tend to think that in some ways its unproductive to throw such a descriptive term around (that has real specific qualities that adhere to what it describes) at any manifestation of force. For one thing, you get to the point that you hear everything called fascist that you stop taking it seriously and really keeping an eye out for the elements that can, when amplified and combined, form real Fascism.
I think its good to know how real Fascism is differrent, because, it has unusual qualities that seperate it from simple tyrannies and despotisms, and, which make it particularly insidious.... qualities that I have touched on in other posts in this thread and elsewhere.
Aside from those two groups, their wasn't a lot of cultural discrimination in the Empire. While I certainly wouldn't enjoy living in a society run similarly to ancient Rome's, it is an example of a softer fascist regime. (Where do you think the term fascist came from anyway? . . . it's Latin.)