Hexen
18th February 2010, 20:02
Could anyone help me debate with these people over at the SnE forums (which is a WoD community)?
some quotes of interest...
The long and the short of it is thus; there are no heroes.
The Technocracy is the bad guy in Mage because it represent a post-modern concept of the Death of the Self, or the Obviation of the Individual. They represent not extreme Left or Right ideology, but authoritarian ideology; We are Control, We know what's Best, We shepherd Humanity. It's faceless, automated, and industrialized. They don't have politics, they make politics. Just like they make crappy little happy meal toys.
The Traditions are full of ideologies, competing ideologies, and that's what makes them interesting. The Technocracy doesn't think, and doesn't pay Union members to think. The Traditions enforce thinking, to the point of suicidal deadlock.
That has to be the most inane segue I've ever seen.
Death of the Self has nothing to do with economic strata; it's a philosophical concept about the difference between You, the Individual, and the Society. Both Socialist systems and Capitalist systems can focus on the Self or on the Society. That's the fundamental difference between Western and Eastern cultures. Europe is a Self-focused Socialist ideology, the US is the Self-focused Capitalist society (though we're moving toward responsible socialism, little s), while China is Society-focused Capitalism and North Korea is Society- or KimJungIl-focused Socialism.
The focus here isn't on Capitalism or Socialism, it's about the Technocracy controlling access to information and technology, it's about Paternalism (which is MUCH more focused on the Left than on the Right, no matter how it looks in the US. China, Russia, and Cuba are/were VERY paternalistic governments). The Technocracy doesn't need to worry about Leftist and Rightist ideology...they created it in order to control people.
You'd make a very good NWO plant.
[So Philosophy, the bedrock of thinking, is out to keep the poor man down?
Seriously, this is some kind of neurotic anarchist thinking. This has nothing to do with class ideology any more than the difference between rice and wheat. We're talking philosophy here, and philosophy that was pioneered by the Working-Class Intelligencia, those members of the college force in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that came from working class families and were elevated to make something out of themselves.
It's the very foundation of modern thinking that you're questioning with your insistence that everything boils down to redistributing wealth. We already know that politics must be more nuanced than that.
No, the bourgeoisie control the means of production in Socialism; that's why it works. The bourgeoisie just becomes a select few members of the Party. This happened in Russia, this happened in China, this happens in modern socialist/capitalist economies; someone must be in charge.
In Capitalism, though, if someone fails, their capital investment suddenly goes on the market for the cheap. Just look at the success stories from people who "trade up" and buy things at auction. In Capitalism, the Self, or the Individual, is in control of their destiny in a much more dramatic and specific sense. The more socialization you have, the more likely it is that the economy itself will keep people under-employed, over-worked, starving, homeless, etc.
Socialism is an Economic system.
Communism is a Governmental system.
Someone must still control the resources. That's why Governments institute Policies to control Economies.
And Stalin was not capitalist by any stretch of the imagination. Neither are Russia, China, or Cuba.
Again; Communism is a Government, Stalinism is an ideology, Socialism is an Economy. Y'get both an Economy (lets say Socialism) and a Government (lets say Theocracy) and all the sudden we've got the Catholic Church. Or, my favorite, Economy (Socialism) and Government (Representative Democracy) and we've got...South Korea? I think that fits South Korea.
You can't start moving the goalposts around to make your argument make sense. This isn't about Economies, this is about Governments. You keep shoe-horning Economies into it when it isn't necessary, or even correct.
You're still confusing Communism with Socialism.
Socialism is an economic practice, not a governmental one. Very, very different.
As soon as we the people control it, we become the high-ranking class. That's what totalitarian uprisings do. Look at the military; it's the perfect example of We The People controlling a power structure of some kind (and the American Military is a great example of a Totalitarian Socialist Government).
As soon as a small group of people are making policies for a larger group of people, you get class differences.
If you want to take this to the Nth degree, you're talking about seperatist socialist city-states where a means of production (like a tractor) is personally indebted to a single person, and everyone must work together within their own best interests in order for anything to get done.
That isn't socialism, technically, that's some kind of strange authoritarian/autocratic bartering society.
Fun fact: we do not now, have not ever, and will not ever live in a textbook. As soon as you introduce actual human beings to any system it becomes imperfect. There will be classes in society. There will be an us and there will be a them. So has it ever been, so shall it ever be. That's how human beings work. Is there a way to respond to this?
some quotes of interest...
The long and the short of it is thus; there are no heroes.
The Technocracy is the bad guy in Mage because it represent a post-modern concept of the Death of the Self, or the Obviation of the Individual. They represent not extreme Left or Right ideology, but authoritarian ideology; We are Control, We know what's Best, We shepherd Humanity. It's faceless, automated, and industrialized. They don't have politics, they make politics. Just like they make crappy little happy meal toys.
The Traditions are full of ideologies, competing ideologies, and that's what makes them interesting. The Technocracy doesn't think, and doesn't pay Union members to think. The Traditions enforce thinking, to the point of suicidal deadlock.
That has to be the most inane segue I've ever seen.
Death of the Self has nothing to do with economic strata; it's a philosophical concept about the difference between You, the Individual, and the Society. Both Socialist systems and Capitalist systems can focus on the Self or on the Society. That's the fundamental difference between Western and Eastern cultures. Europe is a Self-focused Socialist ideology, the US is the Self-focused Capitalist society (though we're moving toward responsible socialism, little s), while China is Society-focused Capitalism and North Korea is Society- or KimJungIl-focused Socialism.
The focus here isn't on Capitalism or Socialism, it's about the Technocracy controlling access to information and technology, it's about Paternalism (which is MUCH more focused on the Left than on the Right, no matter how it looks in the US. China, Russia, and Cuba are/were VERY paternalistic governments). The Technocracy doesn't need to worry about Leftist and Rightist ideology...they created it in order to control people.
You'd make a very good NWO plant.
[So Philosophy, the bedrock of thinking, is out to keep the poor man down?
Seriously, this is some kind of neurotic anarchist thinking. This has nothing to do with class ideology any more than the difference between rice and wheat. We're talking philosophy here, and philosophy that was pioneered by the Working-Class Intelligencia, those members of the college force in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that came from working class families and were elevated to make something out of themselves.
It's the very foundation of modern thinking that you're questioning with your insistence that everything boils down to redistributing wealth. We already know that politics must be more nuanced than that.
No, the bourgeoisie control the means of production in Socialism; that's why it works. The bourgeoisie just becomes a select few members of the Party. This happened in Russia, this happened in China, this happens in modern socialist/capitalist economies; someone must be in charge.
In Capitalism, though, if someone fails, their capital investment suddenly goes on the market for the cheap. Just look at the success stories from people who "trade up" and buy things at auction. In Capitalism, the Self, or the Individual, is in control of their destiny in a much more dramatic and specific sense. The more socialization you have, the more likely it is that the economy itself will keep people under-employed, over-worked, starving, homeless, etc.
Socialism is an Economic system.
Communism is a Governmental system.
Someone must still control the resources. That's why Governments institute Policies to control Economies.
And Stalin was not capitalist by any stretch of the imagination. Neither are Russia, China, or Cuba.
Again; Communism is a Government, Stalinism is an ideology, Socialism is an Economy. Y'get both an Economy (lets say Socialism) and a Government (lets say Theocracy) and all the sudden we've got the Catholic Church. Or, my favorite, Economy (Socialism) and Government (Representative Democracy) and we've got...South Korea? I think that fits South Korea.
You can't start moving the goalposts around to make your argument make sense. This isn't about Economies, this is about Governments. You keep shoe-horning Economies into it when it isn't necessary, or even correct.
You're still confusing Communism with Socialism.
Socialism is an economic practice, not a governmental one. Very, very different.
As soon as we the people control it, we become the high-ranking class. That's what totalitarian uprisings do. Look at the military; it's the perfect example of We The People controlling a power structure of some kind (and the American Military is a great example of a Totalitarian Socialist Government).
As soon as a small group of people are making policies for a larger group of people, you get class differences.
If you want to take this to the Nth degree, you're talking about seperatist socialist city-states where a means of production (like a tractor) is personally indebted to a single person, and everyone must work together within their own best interests in order for anything to get done.
That isn't socialism, technically, that's some kind of strange authoritarian/autocratic bartering society.
Fun fact: we do not now, have not ever, and will not ever live in a textbook. As soon as you introduce actual human beings to any system it becomes imperfect. There will be classes in society. There will be an us and there will be a them. So has it ever been, so shall it ever be. That's how human beings work. Is there a way to respond to this?