Personal and political life

[Queercommie Girl]

I do not believe there is a distinct separation between "personal life" and "political life". If one is a socialist, one is a socialist in both spheres.

Unlike in Greek and Western philosophy where there is a distinction separation between "public life" and "private life", there is no such distinction in Confucian and Chinese philosophy. For the Chinese, managing an entire state is an enlarged version of managing a family or clan, or even managing oneself.

I believe socialist should lean more towards Chinese philosophy rather than Greek philosophy here. If one is a committed socialist politically but in one's personal life one acts and speaks exactly like a degenerate capitalist does, is this not a sign of hypocrisy. How can and why should there be a schizophrenic-style division between the political and the personal? If one challenges the capitalist exploiters and imperialist bullies at the macroscopic political level but nevertheless turns a blind eye to the bullies at the personal level who likes to offend and insult others, or even turn into an asshole himself or herself, then is this not a sign of hypocrisy?

Socialism is not just a political programme, it is also a way of life. If socialists live and behave just like capitalists, then they are not worthy socialists.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I agree to an extent, but it is impossible to live completely as a socialist when every day of our life is dominated by capitalism, right down to the food we eat.

We can't live as socialists when the means of production are in the hands of capitalists, we can only live as an exploited class, dependant on the capitalist class, until the consciousness of the masses changes radically.

It is only when the means of production are in the hands of the oppressed when they can actually start to live as socialists.

[khad]

How can and why should there be a schizophrenic-style division between the political and the personal? If one challenges the capitalist exploiters and imperialist bullies at the macroscopic political level but nevertheless turns a blind eye to the bullies at the personal level who likes to offend and insult others, or even turn into an asshole himself or herself, then is this not a sign of hypocrisy?
Is there also a rule against being a passive aggressive ponce who has nothing better to do in life than to harass people by insinuating they're *gasp* closet cappies?

In my time here, this has to be the lamest attempt at disguising personal beef that I've ever seen.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/im-making-formal-t138864/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/some-points-t138887/index.html

[Raúl Duke]

Unlike in Greek and Western philosophy where there is a distinction separation between "public life" and "private life", there is no such distinction in Confucian and Chinese philosophy. For the Chinese, managing an entire state is an enlarged version of managing a family or clan, or even managing oneself.I have my doubts...considering that in Asia there's the concept of "face" which seems similar to the idea of public appearance/how one is perceived in public/public sphere.



Socialism is not just a political programme, it is also a way of life. The logical conclusion of this idea is "lifestylism." While I'm not opposed to it, the thing is lifestylism does nothing against capitalism, etc and, to be frank, perhaps (outside of some circles where you be rad for doing this) makes you appear like a freak plus it's a lifestyle that not many find appealing.

[Queercommie Girl]

Is there also a rule against being a passive aggressive ponce who has nothing better to do in life than to harass people by insinuating they're *gasp* closet cappies?

In my time here, this has to be the lamest attempt at disguising personal beef that I've ever seen.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/im-making-formal-t138864/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/some-points-t138887/index.html

Disgusting? In what way? My primary point here is to make a general point for its own sake, it's not a personal point.

But if you are referring to that matter, then you should know that as I told you, I do not take kindly to being insulted at all, and I will be damned if I don't fight back.

I don't believe in "forgiveness", sorry.

If this goes against your precious little Abrahamic divinely inspired religious ethic in some way (I'm not assuming it, just saying it's a possibility), then sorry, I can't help it. I don't follow that particular ethical philosophy. When people hit me, I hit them back, and I hit back hard.

Well, consider it this way at least: suppose as the "freedom of speech" people like to promote so much, assholes should have the right to be assholes. Now consider the scenario when one asshole insults another. What do you think the second asshole is going to do? Just "turn the other cheek"? Hardly. The second asshole is going to hit back.

Don't think I can't be an asshole too. If you think I'm just some kind of passive weak fuck who can't hit back, I must say, sorry, but you are mistaken.

And no, there is no rule against passive-aggressiveness. Which is why being passive-aggressive is better than being explicitly offensive. This is because it is utopian to think that every socialist must like every other socialist and have no essential arguments against anyone. The subtlety of a more "passive-aggressive" approach is actually less destructive than an outright confrontation with another person. After all, people should have the right to voice their personal "beef" in some way, it is unrealistic to think that socialism is some kind of utopian paradise where there are no personal disagreements.

But as far as this particular issue is concerned, well there is a very pragmatic reason for why I might become somewhat "passive-aggressive", as you say. In your great acts of promotion of genuine "freedoms of speech", you have taken away my "freedom of speech" by sealing those two other threads.

But I have no direct issues with you personally. I do not wish to pursue this topic further on this particular sub-forum board.

[Queercommie Girl]

I have my doubts...considering that in Asia there's the concept of "face" which seems similar to the idea of public appearance/how one is perceived in public/public sphere.


Ideals are not realities often. This is as true in Confucianism as it is in Platonism.



The logical conclusion of this idea is "lifestylism." While I'm not opposed to it, the thing is lifestylism does nothing against capitalism, etc and, to be frank, perhaps (outside of some circles where you be rad for doing this) makes you appear like a freak plus it's a lifestyle that not many find appealing.

Hardly. Your kind of "lifestylism" basically means "all personal not no political", that's what you are talking about. But it is ridiculous to think that this must be "the logical conclusion". Why are the "personal" and the "political" mutually exclusive, I wonder?

My point is simply to still have political activism as the primary component and the personal aspects only as background support. So how does this violate the struggle against capitalism? In fact, it should only strengthen it.

If a socialist thinks the socialist lifestyle is "freakish" and "un-appealing", then why is it that he or she is a socialist at all? In such a case I would very much doubt his or her political sincerity. If the person doesn't even like the "prototype" of the world he or she is supposed to be fighting for, why should anyone expect the person to be genuine at all in any sense?

[Queercommie Girl]

I agree to an extent, but it is impossible to live completely as a socialist when every day of our life is dominated by capitalism, right down to the food we eat.

We can't live as socialists when the means of production are in the hands of capitalists, we can only live as an exploited class, dependant on the capitalist class, until the consciousness of the masses changes radically.

It is only when the means of production are in the hands of the oppressed when they can actually start to live as socialists.

Basically agree.

[ChrisK]

I do not believe there is a distinct separation between "personal life" and "political life". If one is a socialist, one is a socialist in both spheres.

Unlike in Greek and Western philosophy where there is a distinction separation between "public life" and "private life", there is no such distinction in Confucian and Chinese philosophy. For the Chinese, managing an entire state is an enlarged version of managing a family or clan, or even managing oneself.

I believe socialist should lean more towards Chinese philosophy rather than Greek philosophy here. If one is a committed socialist politically but in one's personal life one acts and speaks exactly like a degenerate capitalist does, is this not a sign of hypocrisy. How can and why should there be a schizophrenic-style division between the political and the personal? If one challenges the capitalist exploiters and imperialist bullies at the macroscopic political level but nevertheless turns a blind eye to the bullies at the personal level who likes to offend and insult others, or even turn into an asshole himself or herself, then is this not a sign of hypocrisy?

Socialism is not just a political programme, it is also a way of life. If socialists live and behave just like capitalists, then they are not worthy socialists.

So trade in western bullshit for Chinese bullshit? Instead of talking about "Being" we talk about "De"? Also, are we supposed to now talk about action through inaction? Sounds like its just as bad as western philosophy to me.

By the way, I thought you detested swearing, why put a curse in your first post?

[Blackscare]

Disgusting? In what way? My primary point here is to make a general point for its own sake, it's not a personal point.

He said disguising, as in, you're doing a terrible job of concealing your clear beef with me.

[Optiow]

Well to be frank, I do have a personal life, and it is different from socialism. I am a socialist, yes - but I do things other than that.

For example, I write stories. I write about war and all that, but does that mean I am not socialist anymore? I wrote a story of a White Russian in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, just to see what they would have felt like. I wrote another about a German in the Second World War, and another about a policeman during the Stanley Graham massacre of 1941.

I am a socialist, and I do socialist things, but I am not going to live my life doing only socialist things. Now before you judge me, we live in a capitalist world, and we should not forget that. Everyone has a personal side, and it should stay that way.

[Communist]

I don't believe in "forgiveness", sorry.

Really. Well then that sort of negates your entire point doesn't it? Didn't Confucius say something along the lines of "Being wronged means nothing unless you continue to remember it"?
If one doesn't learn to forgive they may well end up very bitter and, almost certainly, alone. Pretty basic.

.

[ChrisK]

Really. Well then that sort of negates your entire point doesn't it? Didn't Confucius say something along the lines of "Being wronged means nothing unless you continue to remember it"?
If one doesn't learn to forgive they may well end up very bitter and, almost certainly, alone. Pretty basic.

.


It also violates the Daoist belief in one of the three treasures; compassion. Part of compassion is forgivness.

[Invincible Summer]

If one is a committed socialist politically but in one's personal life one acts and speaks exactly like a degenerate capitalist does, is this not a sign of hypocrisy.

How does one do this? Telling people that you're "downsizing," kicking them in the face and stealing their money?

[S.Artesian]

I have to take exception to the OP-- it is about as wrongheaded as you can get. The author says-- "socialism is not a political program, it's also a way of life"-- by which he means types of personal behavior. And then follows the bit about socialists acting like capitalists.

Socialism is not that way of life. Marx's analysis is of social development, not personal behaviors. It's about the social organization of production. That's what socialism is-- the social organization of production for use and the satisfaction of need, where the means for any and all individuals to satisfy his or her needs contributes to the satisfaction of everyone's needs.

This has nothing to do with somebody telling somebody else to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Socialists act like capitalists when the engage in socially exploitative relationships, not when they exhibit any or all of those wonderful human characteristics of pettiness, bitterness, jealousy, envy, rage, sloth etc etc etc.

If somebody has a personal gripe, as Iseul does with me-- and with Khad, and with others-- then he should address that personally and spare us the delusions of grandeur that somehow his bruised feelings amount to a communist manifesto.

[Queercommie Girl]

So trade in western bullshit for Chinese bullshit? Instead of talking about "Being" we talk about "De"? Also, are we supposed to now talk about action through inaction? Sounds like its just as bad as western philosophy to me.

By the way, I thought you detested swearing, why put a curse in your first post?

Just because I used a swear word to show a point, doesn't mean I'm swearing.

I don't know where you got the idea that I'm trying to promote Chinese philosophy here. I just used a historical idea to illustrate a point, nothing more. Both Lenin and Mao said we should not simplistically and mechanically reject everything in the past, and learn from its more positive aspects. It seems you are just rejecting everything that is old, which is not the method of historical materialism. Even Marx didn't say that capitalism is completely evil.

The central point is not Chinese philosophy or Western philosophy, but the integration of political and personal life.

[Queercommie Girl]

I have to take exception to the OP-- it is about as wrongheaded as you can get. The author says-- "socialism is not a political program, it's also a way of life"-- by which he means types of personal behavior. And then follows the bit about socialists acting like capitalists.

Socialism is not that way of life. Marx's analysis is of social development, not personal behaviors. It's about the social organization of production. That's what socialism is-- the social organization of production for use and the satisfaction of need, where the means for any and all individuals to satisfy his or her needs contributes to the satisfaction of everyone's needs.

This has nothing to do with somebody telling somebody else to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

Socialists act like capitalists when the engage in socially exploitative relationships, not when they exhibit any or all of those wonderful human characteristics of pettiness, bitterness, jealousy, envy, rage, sloth etc etc etc.

If somebody has a personal gripe, as Iseul does with me-- and with Khad, and with others-- then he should address that personally and spare us the delusions of grandeur that somehow his bruised feelings amount to a communist manifesto.

Your mistake is that you think socialism has no connections with ethics in general, which is frankly a common mistake among some Western socialists.

Economic base reflects itself at the level of cultural super-structure. That is to say, generally speaking people of different classes do not live in the same way.

I already said that this thread fundamentally has nothing to do with any "personal" issues, but it is just a general point. If you don't believe me, there is nothing I can do.

As for the "personal" issue, I do not think highly of you at all. I don't care that you fought in the Vietnam War before and somehow got bruised by it and the experience of labour camps. I'm not going to show any compassion to you as a result of it at all. I'm just going to say "tough!" Nor am I even going to emphathise with you in any way. Perhaps it is better for the likes of you to simply have died in the war, it would mean there is one less fucking asshole running around in the world today.

If you bruised my feelings, and yet somehow you still think it is my own fault, and I can't even complain about or insult you back on this point, do you really think this is a fair evaluation of the situation? It strikes me as rather thuggish. Which is why you are a complete and utter asshole. You would make an excellent hit-man for the big capitalists and their slavery-like blood-and-sweat factories in mainland China today. You could strike down any Chinese workers who ever dare to raise the point about their "bruised feelings" at the hands of the exploiting capitalists.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well to be frank, I do have a personal life, and it is different from socialism. I am a socialist, yes - but I do things other than that.

For example, I write stories. I write about war and all that, but does that mean I am not socialist anymore? I wrote a story of a White Russian in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, just to see what they would have felt like. I wrote another about a German in the Second World War, and another about a policeman during the Stanley Graham massacre of 1941.

I am a socialist, and I do socialist things, but I am not going to live my life doing only socialist things. Now before you judge me, we live in a capitalist world, and we should not forget that. Everyone has a personal side, and it should stay that way.

No-one is dictating what you should or should not do. But at the very least you should show respect for people for whom socialism is pretty much everything. They have a choice about how their lives should be like just like you do.

Obviously there are a lot of "neutral things" out there and not everything is clearly reactionary. One example is that Mao Zedong really liked classical Chinese poetry which strictly speaking is a kind of "reactionary feudal culture". But don't you think it is somewhat hypocritical for a person to be "politically" a socialist but on the other hand clearly enjoys explicitly reactionary literature like the Mein Kamph?

[Queercommie Girl]

It also violates the Daoist belief in one of the three treasures; compassion. Part of compassion is forgivness.

Tell that to Lenin and Che. Maybe they should have showed compassion to the Tsarists, capitalists and imperialists. Isn't it horrible that Lenin had to slaughter the entire Tsarist royal family?

[Queercommie Girl]

Really. Well then that sort of negates your entire point doesn't it? Didn't Confucius say something along the lines of "Being wronged means nothing unless you continue to remember it"?


If everyone simply forgives everyone else whoever wrongs them, how can this wrong ever be corrected?

If a person is being racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic towards me, should I just forgive him/her too? I don't think so.

If a capitalist is exploiting a worker, if an imperialist is oppressing the native population, should they just be forgiven too? I don't think so.

You might say these are different, but why are they so different? And where do you draw the line?

It is utterly reactionary to expect anyone to just "take" whatever comes their way instead of fighting back.

This is why Confucius used to say: "respond to resentment with righteousness, not virtue".

Carry on the discussion here in this following thread if you wish, it's not the main point of the current thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/turn-other-cheek-t138946/index.html

As for being "lonely", it isn't always a bad thing. The founding member of the Chinese Communist Party Li Dazhao once said that to be a good socialist one must learn how to enjoy being lonely, because in practice being a socialist means a lot of the people who are around you would reject you in one way or another.

And to be frank I'm not really lonely at all anyway, just because a few assholes on this forum seem to hate me personally with a passion means nothing to me. RevLeft is just on the fringe of real serious socialist activism, and thank "god" none of the socialists I've worked with in seriously socialist organisations I have contact with ever behave like some people here.

[Queercommie Girl]

He said disguising, as in, you're doing a terrible job of concealing your clear beef with me.

I'm not concealing anything, since as I said this thread is a general point in itself, not a personal point.

If I was concealing anything I would not have talked about the more "personal" issues so openly, would I?

[S.Artesian]

Your mistake is that you think socialism has no connections with ethics in general, which is frankly a common mistake among some Western socialists.

Your mistake is pretending your notions have anything to do with Marxism.



I already said that this thread fundamentally has nothing to do with any "personal" issues, but it is just a general point. If you don't believe me, there is nothing I can do.

Yeah, you said that. And Nixon said he wasn't a crook.


Perhaps it is better for the likes of you to simply have died in the war, it would mean there is one less fucking asshole running around in the world today.

See, that's the kind of things only an idiot, or a coward, would say-- somebody who either felt safe behind the electronic distance the internet provides and would never dare say something like that to someone's face because of the expected, and appropriate, response; or somebody who's just too stupid to know what the appropriate response to something of that nature is going to be.

It's the same stupidity you demonstrated with your remarks about labor camps.



You would make an excellent hit-man for the big capitalists and their slavery-like blood-and-sweat factories in mainland China today. You could strike down any Chinese workers who ever dare to raise the point about their "bruised feelings" at the hands of the exploiting capitalists.

You must live one miserable, deluded life, mistaking and glorifying your personal neuroses as militant Marxism.

Glad I'm not you, and glad I don't know you. And you should be very glad you don't know me.

[Queercommie Girl]

Your mistake is pretending your notions have anything to do with Marxism.


Your mistake is in assuming that your personal interpretation of Marxism is somehow the only correct version in the entire world and anything which happens to disagree with your holier-than-thou version of Marxism and socialism must somehow be wrong.

Maybe I should tell you that there are more than a billion Chinese people in the world and among Chinese socialists and leftists ethics is a big part of their system. So perhaps the opinions of a single individual like you somehow weighs more than millions of Chinese proletarians and socialists?



See, that's the kind of things only an idiot, or a coward, would say-- somebody who either felt safe behind the electronic distance the internet provides and would never dare say something like that to someone's face because of the expected, and appropriate, response; or somebody who's just too stupid to know what the appropriate response to something of that nature is going to be.

It's the same stupidity you demonstrated with your remarks about labor camps.
Maybe I don't fit in with your masculinist idea of what a man is supposed to be like, and frankly I don't give a damn about that at all. I am not actually a man anyway.

If you are making an implicit threat about me and somehow I might feel threatened by that you are mistaken again. I can tell you very clearly that I would say it to your damn face just like what I've told you online, and if you wish to get physical then you are very much welcome to try.



You must live one miserable, deluded life, mistaking and glorifying your personal neuroses as militant Marxism.

Glad I'm not you, and glad I don't know you. And you should be very glad you don't know me.
Fuck off, asshole. I wish you will die soon so our world would have less junk flying around causing pollution.

I'm issuing you with a verbal warning for wishing death on a comrade. Bob The Builder

[Hit The North]

Ok, I'm calling time on this thread as it has degenerated into trash talk.