Communism as an ideology of love

[Dean]

It has been said by many that the actualization of communism lies in the activity of love. Others here oppose that idea, claiming that it is strictly a historical expectation, or something else that denies the importance of love for liberation.

I believe that love is the only path to freedom; indeed my motto has bene for years, "Love is Freedom." The quote in my signature is from somebody who agrees with me. Fromm argues that love is not real unless it is unconditional, and unconditional love implies a universality of love; if I truly love you unconditionally, than I cannot truly say that I do not love others, because it is only their condition that seperates them. Furthermore, love lies the the active usage of your powers to allow the beloved to become what they potentially are. This means that to love is to free the loved - from chains external and internal.

Understanding this concept of love, does it parallel your own concept of communism?

[Rawthentic]

Your reasoning is very idealistic, yet I understand what you mean. Communism will be a world of love and solidarity between humans. Yet, that is not the road to communism. The road lies in a historical context, and its roots lie in capitalist society.

[LSD]

It has been said by many that the actualization of communism lies in the activity of love.

Not by anyone who understands what communism actually is.

Communism is a socioeconomic system just like any other. It's "actualization" comes out of the proletariat rising up and establishing it. Emotions, be they "positive" or "negative", have very little to do with it.


I believe that love is the only path to freedom; indeed my motto has bene for years, "Love is Freedom."

That may be your personal motto and it may have incredible meaning for you, but it has very little to do with politics in any real-world sense. Nor should it!

Mixing emotions and policy is always a bad idea. Whenever people's "feelings" start guiding government, disaster always insues.

Remember, conservatives truly "feel" that gays make bad parents. They can't actually prove it, but they "feel it in their heart". Similarly, they "feel" that abortion is wrong. Their "love" for the "unborn" forces their hand and because they "feel" so strongly, they forcibly strip women of their basic rights.

In a psychological sense, it may well be "love" that lies at the heart of your politics. But it's really neither here nor there for the rest of us. It certainly has nothing to do with the "attainment of communism".


Fromm argues that love is not real unless it is unconditional, and unconditional love implies a universality of love

"Unconditional love" is an unattainable ideal, not to mention an incredibly bad idea from a practical sense.

We shouldn't "love" our capitalist masters, we should despise them with every thing we've got. Considering that we're probably going to have to kill a great deal of them, it'd probably be better for our mental health if we don't try and "love" them first.

[redhmong]

Love can make us more responsible.
But it doesn't cause freedom naturally. Love gives us impulse to destroy the ugly capitalist world and constructe a ideal new world for all.

And unconditional love doesn't exist. I love working people, and I cannot love capitalists so as working people.

[Dean]

Loving the Oppressor

I am not particularly surprised that the capitalists are viewed as unlovable here. I have personally only come to accept that I can love the oppressors somewhat recently. However, if I had applied the logic that I use to sympathize with the heinous crimes of many disenfranchised in this nation and abroad, I would have understood that they are only benefactors in material possession, and are victims of the capitalist system as well. For a communist to claim that one is truly benefiting from increased material wealth is to, quite ironically, perpetuate the worship of material wealth.

Marx himself said that he who is impoverished in material becomes rich in spirit. Seeing this, is it not clear that those who own more becomes less? When a person relates to possession and denies relation with his fellow man, indeed to the extent that he finds himself alone on a pile of dead and oppressed people, is he happy? Has he truly benefitted from the capitalist system? I cannot see how a person who sees the suffering and oppression in the world that he creates or can alleviate, but does not, is truly happy.

Perhaps my concept of love is not so clear as to make this love of your enemy understandable. Love requires respect, and to respect a person is to accept that they are a product of their environment. You need not hate an oppressor to oppose or prevent their actions; in fact, the latin root of respect, respicere, means to look at. In that sense, to respect a person is to see them for what they are, and that is a product of their social situation.

Viability of Unconditional Love

To say that unconditional love does not exist is to an extent true; as an idea, it certainly exists and is certainly useful in understanding and encouraging the development of others. As an actuation, it may be very well unreal; but its idealism is no less unreal than that of a communist state of things. There will always be the Manic - Depressives, there will always be people who do not fit well into a system of global communitarianism. Understanding that, is not a generally unconditional love as viable as a generally communist society?

Politics and Love

This is sometimes the hardest point to argue, though it ironically seems to me to be the clearest, most logical and sustainable idea that I have developed.

Firstly it must be said that politics are in everything. If I say that I do not like Muslims, that is clearly political. It can compel my allies to interest themselves with this viewpoint, which creates divisiveness. Divisiveness dissuades understanding amongst different people, and further allows an "us and them" mentality. Does that not have political ramifications? It would allow a state to more readily rally the Islamophobes into more senseless wars. Understanding this, it becomes clear that subtle anti - Muslim activity, like giving a mean look to a Muslim or choosing not to board a plane with a Muslim passenger can ostracize them and perpetuate the mentality of Islamophobia.

This view of politics as the universal makeup of social interation is shared by others. As Chumbawamba said, "...how I treat you is political, what you do with the rest of your life is political... I think sex is political."

Freedom as a psychological issue

The denial of the importance of emotion in social change is to me scary. Marx himself said that a "new man" was needed to create a communal society. To paraphrase Lenin, "give me your children and in 5 years I will make you a communist society."

But simple quotes cannot suffice for a good argument. Why it seems so strange that emotion is not considered politically important is because the various cultures in the world have shaped the morals and society of their generations. To look at the U.S. and other industrialized nations and see the respective view on the death penalty is not simply compelling toward the point, it is chilling. It shows that the environment one is raised in can make them find state - sanctioned murder acceptable. It is even scarier to see what the oppression and presence of racist clerics in the middle east has done to the people. People have found the active murder of 2,998 people acceptable. Zionism has done the same to support the oppression and murder of Palestinians. These are emotions, certainly, and they have shaped the essence of the political culture of the middle east today. A tribe in Africa has become so perverted that it views love as disgusting and immoral; hatred and antagonism are viewed as virtues and shows of affection ostracize members of the group.

To claim that emotions should not be involved in politics cloudsand ignores the issue. All passion is derived of emotion, and all political change and revolution is passionate. Certainly, emotions can be destructive and violent, but so can politics, ideology, and expectations of historical development. There needs to be more emphasis on the psychological emancipation of man than on the mechanisms of the state - otherwise, Marx's "new man" is doomed to the mechanistic alienation of state - worship and a worship of state goals, not human ones. The aim of the revolution should be man and his emancipation from alienation.

[Clarksist]

When a person relates to possession and denies relation with his fellow man, indeed to the extent that he finds himself alone on a pile of dead and oppressed people, is he happy? Has he truly benefitted from the capitalist system? I cannot see how a person who sees the suffering and oppression in the world that he creates or can alleviate, but does not, is truly happy.

I think the point is, they decided to exploit, to oppress, and to repress. It doesn't seem so sad, because they are the ones that are violently keeping this violent system alive.

Any non-bourgeois person didn't get to decide.


Love requires respect, and to respect a person is to accept that they are a product of their environment.

You don't need love or respect to realize people are products of their environment. You do, however, need a sentient brain and perception to empirically witness such things.

Now, even though they are a product of their environment, that takes nothing away from the fact that they are committing crimes against humanity. They may very well have just been raised a certain way, but does that mean we should let them off so easy.


As an actuation, it may be very well unreal; but its idealism is no less unreal than that of a communist state of things.

What?

Communism isn't based on idealism, that's what makes it a scientific ideology and not a liberal or utopian one! That is the very point of why Marx is so impressive, and why its wise to listen to what he had to say (you don't necessarily have to agree with it).


Does that not have political ramifications?

Just because something might have political ramifications, that doesn't automatically make it political.


Marx himself said that a "new man" was needed to create a communal society.

Marx... or was it Che?


Why it seems so strange that emotion is not considered politically important is because the various cultures in the world have shaped the morals and society of their generations.

Emotion shouldn't be brought into politics because emotions aren't based on facts or logic, they are based on chemical connections in your brain that are triggered by memories your brain has associated with certain events. Why should that lead politics? It should be logic that decides politics.


There needs to be more emphasis on the psychological emancipation of man than on the mechanisms of the state - otherwise, Marx's "new man" is doomed to the mechanistic alienation of state - worship and a worship of state goals, not human ones.

Well, thats what almost all leninist countries have attempted. Hence, the cult of personalities, and the red flags and hammers and sickles. Communists should be about basic logic and explaining our ideas in the obvious logic of the situation. Never should we revert to creating emotional triggers simply to further our revolution.

Alienation is bad, but manipulation is even worse.

[bcbm]

I would have understood that they are only benefactors in material possession, and are victims of the capitalist system as well. For a communist to claim that one is truly benefiting from increased material wealth is to, quite ironically, perpetuate the worship of material wealth.


No one is claiming that, unfortunately, so you're arguing against a straw man. I don't want to be rich; I am not jealous. I want the bosses to stop stealing from me, stop kicking me, stop threatening me, etc, etc, etc.


When a person relates to possession and denies relation with his fellow man, indeed to the extent that he finds himself alone on a pile of dead and oppressed people, is he happy? Has he truly benefitted from the capitalist system? I cannot see how a person who sees the suffering and oppression in the world that he creates or can alleviate, but does not, is truly happy.

Oh, ye poor oppressed masters! Cry me a fucking river. Most of the rich people I've ever met seemed perfectly content in their position for, indeed, being rich doesn't really isolate you as much as you seem to claim and most people who have wealth don't give a fuck about the people they crushed to get there! How do you think they ended up on top in the first place? :roll:

And if they are truly unhappy then the best thing they can do is turn everything they've got over to the workers and put a bullet in their temple.


Perhaps my concept of love is not so clear as to make this love of your enemy understandable. Love requires respect, and to respect a person is to accept that they are a product of their environment. You need not hate an oppressor to oppose or prevent their actions; in fact, the latin root of respect, respicere, means to look at. In that sense, to respect a person is to see them for what they are, and that is a product of their social situation.

I don't respect those who clearly don't respect me. So much for loving my oppressor.

[ComradeOm]

Feel free to love the capitalist screwing you over. I am not so forgiving or stupid.

[Dean]

These arguments have been by and large defeatist.

To take Marx's ideas as the ideas of communism is asinine, and all arguments against my points were based on a poor understanding of marx's theories.

The following is worth responding to, because the author did not understand what I was saying:

"No one is claiming that, unfortunately, so you're arguing against a straw man. I don't want to be rich; I am not jealous. I want the bosses to stop stealing from me, stop kicking me, stop threatening me, etc, etc, etc."

The point was to show that their possessiveness destroys their own capability to relate to others; thusly, they are harmed by capitalism as others are. The important issue is a new psychological character, much like Marx's "new man."

Communists rountinely say that people are lergely products of their environment, so why should it not hold true that the high crime rate in poor US populations be condemned just as much as the crimes of the wealthy?

Lastly, all political issues are psychological in nature; they deal with how people relate to each other. Marx himself focused on the idea of a "new man." If you want to be free, "know thyself" and take a more humanist approach to Marx's ideas and the idea of communism in general. "Marxist" ideologies are not the only representatives of communism, so to compare my ideas to Marx's and judge their vitality is stupid. I am not a "Marxist" even though I see much of his ideas as logical, penetrating and above all humanistic. I choose to make my own decisions on what to think, not to bow down to a person who surely would hate such reverance.

[bcbm]

The point was to show that their possessiveness destroys their own capability to relate to others; thusly, they are harmed by capitalism as others are.

I disagree entirely, both in that it destroys their ability to relate to others and that, even if it were true, they are harmed as much by others.


Communists rountinely say that people are lergely products of their environment, so why should it not hold true that the high crime rate in poor US populations be condemned just as much as the crimes of the wealthy?

I have no problem condeming those who would rape, murder or steal from their fellow proletarians, but I understand why crime is so prevalent among the poor. I can also understand why the wealthy may act as they do, but that doesn't mean I have any sympathy or mercy for them. Personal responsibility is not completely thrown out the window, in any case.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

Communism is not love. Communism is the present movement that moves to destroy this society. if successful this would lead to a new society. That new communist society is not about universal love. Sure lots of things that make people hate each other will no longer be around (competition for jobs, brutality from the police, wars, deportation etc...). The real nature of communism is about our everyday activity. It would not be forced on us for a wage, for the purposes of a selling things. We would freely choose our productive activities and produce for each other directly. This would be a much less alienating world. But there would still be people who hate each other, petty jealousy's, even violence. But who wants to live in a world where everything is flat, because we love everyone. That sounds as boring as Church, if not as authoritarian.

As far as loving the oppressor. That's just bullshit. I don't love very many people in this world. I certainly don't love my boss. Actually I hate his guts. I realize that his being a dick to his workers cuts off his own ability to relate to others, and he suffers. (Still I suffer more.) But in any case. The more people you love, the less love means, so you can't be loving your oppressors. If you love your oppressors, love is about as meanigless as universal declaration of human rights or the geneva convention.

If you do want to talk about the relationship between communism and things like love, the best essay I've seen written on the topic is "For a World Without Moral Order" from La Banquise

check it out:

http://www.prole.info/articles/withoutmoral.html

[Dean]

To the last two posters.. you seem to fail to recognize the dynamic I draw between alienation and love. You admit that communism is about relieving the aliention between men, and this clearly brings people together, as one. Love is about becoming one with others, so it clearly falls directly in this concept of relieving alienation.

Furthermore, if the core of love is to relieve alienation, it logically follows that practicing love more broadly and fully furthers this end.

On that topic of loving he who oppresses... personal responsibility need not be thrown out the window, but I do not concieve how mercy falls into this. Would you kill somone if they became no threat to you and yet you still hold a grudge? how is that positive? We have to understand that people are psychologically deranged due to their environments, and show them mercy after we protect ourselves from any threat they may pose. Racists are not good for society, but they are not good for themselves either.

No divisiveness, even against oppresors, helps and furthers the goals of man in general to achieve a more free and equal society.

[encephalon]

Love is a cultural misconception, not a definition of human relationships.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

A world without alienation is not a world without unhappiness of any kind. It is a world where relationships are direct and human, not "alien". We produce things because we have a need to produce things--or because others have a need. Not because a market needs them, or because we have no way of living but doing a work that has no meaning for us for a someone else.

Now direct, human relationships won't be destructive on a mass scale like capitalist wars and poverty. Still, they will be direct and human. People will love each other, hate each other and be indifferent to each other, get in fights etc... How incredibly boring would it be if this weren't the case. If somehow we were going to end all human history and there would be no more conflict. I have no desire to "become one with others". That seems to me to be religious nonsense. We are individuals with our own personalities, quirks, desires, perspectives etc... These don't go away just because we are no longer institutionally pitted against each other.

Finally, you just have too moral a perspective. I can see that a scab may come from an impoverished background, and may be scabbing because they are having trouble finding other work. Because I can see this, I might try to exploit this contradiction by an appeal to class unity. If the scab continues scabbing, I have no problem breaking his knee-caps.

With my boss, there isn't even this chance to appeal. They're just our enemies, whether or not they're suffering too. I just don't care. I think any revolution would have some aspects of revenge against oppressors. I don't really have a problem with this.

[Dean]

Love does not necessicate a lack of conflict. If you truly love someone, you will certainly confront them with their vices and attempt to help them to be a better person, for themselves or others. This does not make it a purely moral or emotional issue at all, though it is clear that politics is irrevocably tied to emotions and morality. I agree entirely that a world without conflict is a dead and painful one, but at the same time love is simply a positive way of responding to these conflicts.

Love is not only a definition of human relations, it is a way of living... if I truly love humanity, I will recognize that everybody ought to live, for instance, but at the same time that it would be better for humanity if I shot somebody who was going to kill 3 others. Breaking a scab's kneecaps is sick... he is a commoner just as anyone else is, and unless he posed a threat of violence to you or others it would be in no way justified. It would also reflect very poorly on the union, anyways, nd lead people to be suspicious of them. Everything is psychological, and the question of how people out to relate to each other is clearly a moral one. I don't see how any defense of marxist, communist or humanist ideas can stray from being moral.

I don't see how anybody who wishes social change has not love for humanity, which means a love for all people... it depends on the extent of that love and how understanding someone is as to how productive their ideas and actions are. If you truly care for humanity, and the anti-capitalist cause, I 'd suggest that you join Amensty International and start writing letters in defense of freedom; Chrisitan Aid is also a profoundly good organization for charity, as it is anti-capitalist and promotes boycotting Israel and actions against the IMF and World Bank.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

Freedom is not a psychological issue. If you're in a prison, you are not free, no matter how much you think you are. If you are forced to work for someone else, you are not free. Psychology is a specialized form of knowledge developed in the last century for the purpose of explaining things that used to be religious or mystical concerns. I'm certainly not arguing that emotions shouldn't be part of politics. They are deeply human, and of course are part of our politics. But emotions have to mean something. And I certainly don't want a political perspective based on psychology. Why is love better than anger, or indifference? We love a few people we are close to, we get angry at people who oppress us or cause us problems and we are largely indifferent to a lot of other people. I am not interested in devolving emotion into an abstract love of humanity. I'm no more interested in Humanity than I am in God. I'm interested in real concrete humans. As Gilles Dauvé wrote, "Neither Jesus nor Prometheus".

If you frame the question as "how people SHOULD or OUGHT TO relate to each other" then of course you end up with moral answers. I prefer to ask "how DO people relate to each other" and "what are the current tendencies that could change this?" This is not moral because there is no claim that things have to be measured by universal moral laws. No guilt if we violate these laws. No angst that we don't know what the laws are.

I don't want social change because I love humanity. I want social change first and foremost because it is in my own interest. It is not in some people's interest (such as business owners), and I am naturally going to clash with these people. I am also going to clash with people who may be oppressed to a certain degree, but who take the side of the business owners (such as cops, scabs, racists, etc...) I want to win... not make them feel guilty.

And I'm not interested in Amnesty International or charity organizations. They are the left hand of the system, who's right hand is bombs and prison. The logic that calls for declarations of human rights or the rights of citizens grows from the same place that the logic for wars and xenophobia come from. They come form the society shaped by the needs of capital to move and expand.

[Dean]

Social interaction forms society, and that clearly is based on psychological considerations. It has been this way since before the field of psychology existed; to say that somebody is likely to do something or that one is alienated fromt heir work is to make a psychoogical statement. Because politics are simply an aspect of social relations, they are also very subject to psychology. This doesn't have to be strictly emotional in the conventional sense, but it can: anti - muslim sentiment has come to guide politics more heavily today, and they are clearly issues of psychological domination by a lying media and a xenophobic government. It is also emotional.

Freeedom is descriptive of capabilities which originate from the mind, and slocieties like Nazi Germany could never have existed if psychological considerations were not taken into progpagandistic ones. I do not see how a mechanistic view of freedom that simply describes governmentla or overt authority as capable of domination taes into account anything that chains us as a result of our own actions, especially when those actions are a response to those of others.

Love does certain things which relieve alienation... anger is by no means useless or unreal. it is human, too. I too am interested in real humans, and that is why I recognize that psychology determines our own determinism so greatly.

If your concern for social change is only in your own interests, and those interests ignore those of others as meaningful to your own value judgements, you are clearly alienated from others. Conformity comes from a sense of desiring to become one with others, but not knowing how to - that puts other's interests as part of your own naturally, and you have taken a step away from that concept.

As to your point on AI and Christian Aid... everything today comes from our current societ.y The logic toward helping victims of human rights violations and capitalism may come from similar ones to those of war or xenophobia, but that does not make that work any less meaningful or useful. If your right hand is militancy, I do not see what business you have debating this online anyways, and I don't see what you have done to further the causes of the impoverished. Sounds like laziness to me.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

I would say psychology is based on social relations, not vice versa. But if you can paraphrase what you're saying as "emotions play a part in politics" then I agree completely.

I do not think freedom is just about freedom from government authority, that would be very individualistic. Still, when government is on your back, when you are forced into wage labor, you can't claim that you are free. No matter what your psychological or emotional state. Freedom is about the ability to do things that you want to do. So definitely people who are more social, have more contacts, are more free to do what they want, as opposed to people who are isolated. If you're a prick to everyone people will hate you and you will find it harder to do things. So you don't want to isolate yourself from other working class people. Still, this very obvious line of thought doesn't lead to the conclusion "Communism = Love".

But I think there is a problem with measuring political actions against abstractions like "freedom", "conformity". When I say that I am concerned with freeing myself, I am in no way attacking other working class people. I realize that the only way I could possibly free myself is as part of a massive social movement that would destroy capitalism. Therefore my own interests are bound up with the interests of billions of other people. Still, they are the starting point for my actions. I am very skeptical of people who claim to hold other people's interests above their own. I think this usually tends to lead to patronizing help, charity, consciousness-raising and other non-revolutionary activities.

I am not claiming that charity has no meaning or is useless. I am saying that it is used by our enemies against us.

And I'm afraid I don't understand your last point about what right I have to debate based on being militant. I think being militant is a good thing. Unless you are just taking an ideological pacifist position, saying that anyone who uses or advocates violence is bad.

[Dean]

Psychology is simply how the mind works.. in that sense, it is clearly the psychology of relating people that defines human relations.

You describe instances where government and companies do force people into psychological slavery - they choose to become slaves out of necessity. There are certainly choices, such as insurrection, etc., but the propaganda that is the news enables those in power to control the public mind. The mind always plays a role in human relations.

I do not recall claming that you have no right to argue being militant... I find a use for militancy, though I take a moral stance against it - I would support it and even be a part of it, but I still cannot concede that anybody actually can give up their right to live. My point on militancy is that you appear to have a phobia of charity, even when I show how one organization does not work against the cause of global freedom.

G8 supporters and the Red Cross are certainly immoral entities, but Christian Aid has shown a genuine support for the masses of poor against the interests of the ruling class. Human rights organizations do hold stances against the interests of militants, but as far as I've seen only in regards to arms control. I have not joined that aspect of AI's campaigns, but I have worked on other ones and I think that the work is very helpful, not simply to encourage change but also to show what is going on in the world. I never knew about the extent of Israeli apartheid and soviet - stlye russian abductions that are happening until I started reading AI's reports, and I do not see how the organization in general poses a realistic threat to a revolution that respects human rights. If you support one that doesn't respect them, than I wouldn't be a part of that.

The ACLU has done a lot to preserve human rights, and was founded by a self - proclaimed communist, so I find it especially ironic that you oppose that organization too.

And finally, I don't wanna hear bs about "human rights not existing," as I've heard from others. I don't care what you want to call it, I call it freedom.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

I can agree with you that "The mind always plays a role in human relations." Although I think that wage slavery is much more fundamental than just a slavery of the mind.

I'm not afraid of charity. I think charity is a natural consequence of a liberal mindset that wants to help the poor, while not changing anything. I want to change things so I'm against charity. No charity I've ever seen is in opposition to the ruling class.

The point about amnesty is not that they don't try to defend people's human rights. The point is that human rights are ridiculous. They're like war crimes trials. Human rights are never respected by any side. After wars the victors try the losers for war crimes and human rights violations. Proclamations about human rights may be true, but are purely empty moral claims. What the working class need is not the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We need more power. There is no guarantee that "your rights will be respected" except power.

Yes I am against the ACLU just as much as AI and charities. A real communist movement would not demand rights. It would simply take things directly, not claim rights to things. Rights do exist, in the sense that all the talk about rights is an ideology with real material consequences. Rights talk is a natural consequence of a capitalist society--a society we want to destroy.

The revolution will not be monitored by Amnesty International.

[Dean]

Communism isn't a militant movement, it's a vision of the future. Christian Aid does oppose the ruling class in the ways I just mentioned; does every organization that does good have to follow your ideology for you to support it? I find htat ridiculous.

I don't understand the human rights thing... if you say that a militant communist cant respect them, than I cannot disagree any stronger. Communism is based on a vision of a future where there is no class, which means that human rights are more heavily respected than ever before. I do not see how human rights can be seperated from a revolutionary movement. They are always the driving force against those who take them to create a revoluton.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

I guess that is somewhere where we just disagree. I think communism is first and foremost a tendency today, not something to be put into the practice in the future.

Like I said before, I don't look at the world in terms of "doing good". That seems to me to be the attitude of liberals and charities wanting to alleviate their own guilt, not the attitude of a communist movement that wants to win.

I'm not saying that during a communist revolution we will go around torturing people. I'm saying that a communist revolution is not about securing human rights for people. The whole human rights outlook is a very capitalist one. It declares abstract rights that people have which are constantly violated in practice. And of course one of the most basic rights has always been the right to property, which we are against. The goal is not to make a society that "really respects people's rights" any more than it is to make one that "is about what Jesus really stood for" or what "the constitution promises us". The goal is to alter relationships so that they in fact do not pit people against each other. So a communist society would be far less brutal than the one we live in today, but not because we respect human rights, but because we would no longer have an interest in being brutal to each other. Still, violence won't be completely eliminated, and along the way there will be plenty.

[Dean]

The right to property is not really respected except in order to help the poor and antagonize organizations which seek to create wage - slavery.

The difference with Jesus and the Consitution and human rights is that the latter is abstract and changeable... I am not debating means of how to achieve communism; the movement towards it very well may be in the form of a militant one, which I could easily support. My point is that as a vision of the future, human rights, as seen in communist - oriented standards (from each.. to each...) there is a clear trend of support for these human rights, even if you would like to call them somethign else. These organizations tend to support them, as well.

If a socialist nation supports torture, than it is no ally of mine, and if it is no ally of yours, I can't see that as any different than a support of human rights, regardless of definition.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

I'm against any "communist nation". If it's a nation, it's not communist. But the point is that a human rights perspective is entirely inadequate to explain or change anything. As long as there is reason to kill, people will kill. As long as there is reason to torture, people will torture. So communism is not about support for human rights (which is an abstract principle), it's about changing the social structure so people are not institutionally pitted against each other. Human rights talk would be meaningless. Social relations would have no guarantee outside of themselves.

[namepending]

No such thing as love: I created this little subsitute for it:

The Three Signs of Weakness (A.K.A the love components):

Like
Lust
Respect

any combination of these or any on their own are traditionally called "love"

what a sick word= its such a mess.

I love that candy bar! (I like it)
I love girls! (I lust for them)
I love firemen! (I respect them)

More lovely statements:

I love my parents! (I like and respect them)
I love my girlfriend! (I like and lust for her)
I love my soul mate! (I like and lust for and respect her.)

Love is a term which should be eradicated from all languages, and especially in a socialist society. It has no real meaning.

[bcbm]

To the last two posters.. you seem to fail to recognize the dynamic I draw between alienation and love. You admit that communism is about relieving the aliention between men, and this clearly brings people together, as one. Love is about becoming one with others, so it clearly falls directly in this concept of relieving alienation.

I am not ever going to "love" everyone, especially my enemies, and if I did, the word would effectively become meaningless. Further, I don't think "love" is the cure for abolishing alienation; that job falls to "class warfare."


Furthermore, if the core of love is to relieve alienation, it logically follows that practicing love more broadly and fully furthers this end.

The core of love is to find a mate with whom you are compatible so that you may breed and stay together long enough to not endager your child's chances of living beyond puberty. Evolution. :rolleyes:


Would you kill somone if they became no threat to you and yet you still hold a grudge? how is that positive? We have to understand that people are psychologically deranged due to their environments, and show them mercy after we protect ourselves from any threat they may pose. Racists are not good for society, but they are not good for themselves either.

If they're not a threat, no problem. But so long as they are (ie, right now) they are my enemy and I will not love them or show them mercy.


No divisiveness, even against oppresors, helps and furthers the goals of man in general to achieve a more free and equal society.

Nonsense. Divisiveness on class absolutely furthers those goals.

[Dean]

To Black Banner and Name Pending, I cannot say that your concept of love relates to mind and therefore the argument is meaningless. If one defines a term and another claims the term has no definition, or that the defition is different, they can only create a concept for themselves, totally independant of the original one except in name.

To I'd rather be drinking, I am uncertain whether or not a nation can be truly and completely dissolved, but that is certainly an aim. My point is that the communist movement is, or should be, about granting certain changes that affect humans, call them rights or not. I did not say that I would never support the degredation of rights (i.e. shooting a soldier who surely still has a right to live) in order to further the aims of a communist concept of rights, which I believe is the total and egalitarian one. I mourn the loss of all human life, as all humans are born equal in moral and social value and in heart. However, that does not stop me from half-way hoping for violence against cops in order to create change.

The problem of definition seems to be the main issue here, and I do not see any realistic difference between our ideologies except in that you are much more antagonistic towards others, which I believe - and I don't see how you cannot believe - creates more alienation between men. As bad as their actions are, they are human too and I cannot bring myself to respect them any less; I would go only as far as to subsume them into the proletarian class, I would not kill them or hate them. Remember: Environment makes actions makes morals... Marx said that, essentially.

[I'd Rather Be Drinking]

My point is that we are in a class war. So long as capitalism exists so does the class war. Class war is not just about overt acts of violence, it's also about how we have our lives taken away from us, have poverty, work and stress enforced on us. Capitalism means alienation. You can't get rid of alienation by loving the capitalists. That is in fact what they want, and only leads to more alienation. You have to fight against them. So my antagonism isn't to "other people". It is to specific people who uphold the system: bosses, bureaucrats, police, racists, scabs, etc... This is a very productive kind of antagonism.

Of course everyone is human. I am not interested in making non-humans of my enemies. But neither am I interested in idealistic nonsense like "moral value" or how people are all the same "in heart". I am interested in winning (or in the short term, increasing our side's power).

[namepending]

I forgot there is a fourth element of the label "love" which is actually hate, called commonly, pity, rather than sympathy, which is covered in respect.

Pity is a type of resentment that occurs within a socially-acceptable and self-acceptable reaction formation (Freuds term for psychological inversion of emotions for protection, while expending the same amount of emotional energy, love to hate, hate to love, is the most common), it is a very bitter and deep type of hate that is central to Christianity, and the other monotheistic religions. It is a teeth clenching type of hate that is very dangerous and desperate, and is mostly directed at ones self, when cultivated by religion.

In today's decadent culture, therefore,

like
lust
respect
pity

make up the entirety of the use of "love," however, the categories I highlighted before, like, lust and respect, are the only components of what is called "true love" by the better identifiers of this stupid term, for the fourth is deep, psychologically disturbed hatred.

Realize too, that for any individual facet to be called "love" it must be very intense. Together, they can be less intense, but intense emotion of attachment or reaction resentment are needed for anything to be called "love." It is completely possible to create a chart which identifies variously strong loves completely accurately, by degrees of the combined categories, so much so that the word itself is rendered meaningless in face of the more accurate expressions which compose it.

It is not semantics,

it is scientific accuracy, which intrests the ending of the word "love" and the use of commonplace components, with perhaps more respect for those components, while new words could be composed for each individual combination. Otherwise you are using a blanket term, like if you said "I saw a mammal" and could mean a blue whale or a fruit bat.

[Dean]

Marx on Bauer's assessment of love:
"[Bauer] transforms love into a 'goddess' and a 'cruel goddess' by transforming the loving man or the love of man into the man of love; he thus seperates love from man and makes it an idependant entity."

Here Marx is not only recognizing love, but the bastardization of it: no longer is man loving or loved, but possessed by love (the 'man of love'). So in this sense you would find yourself against marx as he sees love as a part of man, inseperable.

To quote fromm, besides his attacks on Calvinist and Nietzschen concepts of love,
"The basic affirmation contained in love is...an incarnation of essessnetially human qualities...

"Love of one person Implies love of man as such. The kind of 'division of labor,' as Willian James puts it, by which one loves one's family but is without love for the 'stranger,' is a sign of a basic inability of love. Love of man is not, as is frequently supposed, an abstraction coming after the love for a specific person, but it is its premise, although, genetically, it is acquired in loving specific individuals...

"The affirmation of one's own life, happiness, growth, freedom is rooted in one's capacity to love, i.e. in care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself too; if he can love only others, he cannot love at all."

Here Fromm not only defines a clear meaning for the term 'love,' but gives meaning to it in terms of classism. To the arguments on class warfare and love not existing, they are merely skirting the issues presented which are theoretical and have little concern for specific, utilitarian arguments that deny the existance of any of the evidence presented. If you want war you will always perpetuate it.