CNN) – Conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck apologized Friday after appearing to mo

[Jiro]

Its not the sole reason, just one example. The Dust Bowl was an act of nature not an overprivliged person deciding they knew better than the people who actully did the job.

I know Mao's principles are still used today, and yes those principles can build a powerful country. But would you want to live under that rule? Sorry I would rather live in a slightly less powerful country and have my freedom.

But I was refering to your post were you said China was Marxist under Maoism. Now I see you say they only took parts of it. So I understand what you are saying now

well - you never experienced it so how do you know you wouldn't like it?

 

[Jiro]

You cannot deny that those type of government are very easy to change into a dictatorship concidering the basics of each form are the same.

Venezuela isn't a good example to thow out there. Last I heard you could be arrested for speaking out against the government. That tells me they have something to hide and or fear.

quite possible! from our perspective - censorship implies fear mongering and secrecy

from their perspective - enough is enough. censorship was necessary to maintain stability. why? do you have any idea how many civil wars and bloodshed it went thru? enough is enough.

but hey - who knows?

 

[Jiro]

I'm not taking offense to anything you say. Only thing that got me going was the Mao and Marx thing. Jiro pointed me in a direction showing some good from Marx so I wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying.

You are probably right that the Dust Bowl was worse than it should have been but the drought really kicked it into the demon that it was.

yes - every ideology/theology/---ology has its good and bad side. and flaws.

There's nothing wrong with adapting couple of concepts from some of it into democracy. The law of nature continues to be true to this date - "only the strong survive" right? wrong. Only those who adapt survives.

 

[darkdog]

This is subject to perspective. We have never seen a true Marxist environment in the works.

And that's my point all along. We've never seen one in the past and we never will seen one. We've seen the revolution part and the socialism part, but the transition into communism where the state and classes gradually melt away and everybody lives happily ever after- it never gets to that point. A brutal dictatorship always remains.

I'm trying to get you to distinguish between Marxism the theory and Marxism in practice. Marxism as a theory will never be realized in reality. It's an impossible fantasy. Heck, I've had a fantasy where I grow wings and fly to Mars, but the odds of doing so are about the odds of us seeing a true Marxist environment: 0.

I took upper division social stratification classes for my previous degree. In no way throughout the whole semesters both lecture and lab, did they [all professors in the University of California education system, their Lab TA's] mention or give a hint to Marxism as evil.

Perhaps they were just focusing on Marxism as a theory and trying to be unbiased and let you guys decide for yourselves. I can respect that. Maybe they themselves are Marxist. That I can't respect.

In fact, there was more constructive brainstorming among our peers in rosters of ~100 students as we had to process the complete manifesto by two-three weeks. Competitive university courses at its best.

Did you guys discuss the actual results of Marxism whenever someone tried to put it in practice? It would seem odd not to. It would be like going into a physics class and philosophizing about the Aristotlean idea of heavier objects falling to the earth faster than lighter objects without discussing any actual experiments. Wouldn't it make sense for someone to say "Hey, has anyone actually tried to drop two objects of different mass and observed how fast they fall? How did that turn out?" No matter how logical and rational it may seem for heavier objects to fall faster, if it doesn't happen that way in reality (and it doesn't), the theory has to be discarded. That's just basic empiricism.

The fact that there are still Marxist professors in the humanities and softer sciences shows that empiricism is not very important to them. I don't know how many more countries need to be destroyed for them to be convinced that Marxism in practice leads to the exact opposite of its intents. I'm thinking no amount of evidence will change their minds if the abundant evidence from the 20th century is not enough. To me, a Marxist professor is about as credible as an Aristotlean physicist.

Not once did anyone spew negativity to anything that you are implying..
Other than the lazy students who withdrew the courses or those who got dropped. By this alone, I personally know there is a bit of exaggeration going on in here.

Thanks for the implication that I'm intellectually lazy. I studied engineering and if you had to attempt some of the classes I had to take, you'd find that sitting around navel gazing about Marxism is fluff in comparison. I prefer to boil things down as simple as possible. Marxism in practice leads to abusive regimes, mass murders, human rights abuses, and extreme poverty. It's black and white. Likewise, Aristotlean physics is absolutely wrong. Black and white. It's fine to learn about what Marxism the theory just as it's fine to learn about Aristotlean physics, but one should keep in mind how the theories compare to reality. Both utterly fail the reality test.

 

[somedeafdudefromPNW]

Wirelessly posted

Why are you comparing social theories to scientific theories...

 

[darkdog]

Wirelessly posted

Why are you comparing social theories to scientific theories...

Because I'm of this belief that social theories, just like scientific theories, should bear resemblance to reality, and if they don't, they should be discarded as useless. I would like to think that would be an uncontroversial notion.

 

[Beowulf]

Because I'm of this belief that social theories, just like scientific theories, should bear resemblance to reality, and if they don't, they should be discarded as useless. I would like to think that would be an uncontroversial notion.

Sort of like the ongoing psy-ops operations here in the USA? The way our opinions and feelings are being deliberately tampered with? Ach, the controversy over that, lol.

 

[darkdog]

Sort of like the ongoing psy-ops operations here in the USA? The way our opinions and feelings are being deliberately tampered with? Ach, the controversy over that, lol.

Uhhh... you lost me at sort.

 

[Beowulf]

Uhhh... you lost me at sort.

Lol, never mind. It is just that I think the media ought to be the fourth branch of our government, since it has the power to mold public opinion and sentiment, but that's another thread entirely.
My only excuse for babbling today is that I am in the breakneck process of moving away from St. Louis, since my business is expanding in another city, so I feel sort of rushed, lol.

 

[naisho]

Thanks for the implication that I'm intellectually lazy.

No, there no implications at all. Scout's honor. If I did imply, you'd know it was for sure.
I was merely speaking on context of those classmates.

It still is a theory and has not been seen practical in reality, so it is questionable entirely.

One of the examples we thought of for real world but still unrealistic - was if there was mass genocide to an extent all adults in the world passed away and only children remained - or if infants were taken to a different world or even planet and raised with their own innocence intact, "ideal" theoretical situations like these, we wondered if Marxist environment could truly work.

I think what has been said of this socialism/communism tangent has been stated and I don't really have anything else to argue about it.

 

[darkdog]

Lol, never mind. It is just that I think the media ought to be the fourth branch of our government, since it has the power to mold public opinion and sentiment, but that's another thread entirely.
My only excuse for babbling today is that I am in the breakneck process of moving away from St. Louis, since my business is expanding in another city, so I feel sort of rushed, lol.

Okey dokey. Good luck on the move.

No, there no implications at all. Scout's honor. If I did imply, you'd know it was for sure.
I was merely speaking on context of those classmates.

No problemo. We've all said things that came off different from what we intended.

One of the examples we thought of for real world but still unrealistic - was if there was mass genocide to an extent all adults in the world passed away and only children remained - or if infants were taken to a different world or even planet and raised with their own innocence intact, "ideal" theoretical situations like these, we wondered if Marxist environment could truly work.

That's a good question to ask because even though as you said, it's unrealistic, it does boil down to the question of whether Marxism fails because of innate traits of human nature or whether it's because of the culture in which we're raised. Personally, I think it's just human nature that won't allow it to work.

 

[jillio]

Naisho, isn't this supposed to be a Beck thread and not about theories? If it's really that critical to talk about these "theories" then create a thread just for that.

Funny. You've seen fit to attempt to contribute posts to the discussion of theories...albeit non-contributory ones. BTW...I originated the thread, and I have no problem what-so-ever with the direction it has taken. Nice to see there are a few that enjoy and are capable of engaging in an intellectual discussion regarding society. So refreshing from the constant barrage of "It's Obama's fault" threads that proliferate here.

 

[AndyE9503]

One of the examples we thought of for real world but still unrealistic - was if there was mass genocide to an extent all adults in the world passed away and only children remained - or if infants were taken to a different world or even planet and raised with their own innocence intact, "ideal" theoretical situations like these, we wondered if Marxist environment could truly work.

Looks like we are going to have to get a colony going on the moon and try it out.

 

[jillio]

This is subject to perspective. We have never seen a true Marxist environment in the works.

Other than China during the era of Maosim, there wasn't any slavery there at all and the nation was, and still is bigger than ours.


I took upper division social stratification classes for my previous degree. In no way throughout the whole semesters both lecture and lab, did they [all professors in the University of California education system, their Lab TA's] mention or give a hint to Marxism as evil.

In fact, there was more constructive brainstorming among our peers in rosters of ~100 students as we had to process the complete manifesto by two-three weeks. Competitive university courses at its best.

Not once did anyone spew negativity to anything that you are implying..
Other than the lazy students who withdrew the courses or those who got dropped. By this alone, I personally know there is a bit of exaggeration going on in here.

Quite true. Pure Marxism as a form of government is...dare I say it...a theory. It has never been put into practice.

 

[AndyE9503]

Funny. You've seen fit to attempt to contribute posts to the discussion of theories...albeit non-contributory ones. BTW...I originated the thread, and I have no problem what-so-ever with the direction it has taken. Nice to see there are a few that enjoy and are capable of engaging in an intellectual discussion regarding society. So refreshing from the constant barrage of "It's Obama's fault" threads that proliferate here.

We have permission!!!

 

[jillio]

Sort of like the ongoing psy-ops operations here in the USA? The way our opinions and feelings are being deliberately tampered with? Ach, the controversy over that, lol.

We can always count on Beowulf for cerebral levity!

 

[jillio]

Looks like we are going to have to get a colony going on the moon and try it out.

Not necessary. Just put a bunch of 3-5 year olds in a room without adult interference,and you will see adherence to some Marxist prinicples occur as innate behaviors.

 

[jillio]

We have permission!!!

Absolutely. I, too, am enjoying the sharing of ideas going on in this thread. To those that have nothing more than inane commentary to contribute, there are plenty of threads devoted to the inane. They need not come in here to demonstrate their inability to dicuss topics on more than a superficial level.

 

[AndyE9503]

Not necessary. Just put a bunch of 3-5 year olds in a room without adult interference,and you will see adherence to some Marxist prinicples occur as innate behaviors.

But would they stick with it as they grew up? Thats why I said the moon. It would be kind of hard to keep them locked in a room for decades.

If this experment were to be possible I would be very interested in the results.

 

[jillio]

But would they stick with it as they grew up? Thats why I said the moon. It would be kind of hard to keep them locked in a room for decades.

If this experment were to be possible I would be very interested in the results.

This is just an hypothesis, but without the outside influences, the tendency is to stick with what works. A child that grew up emulating the priciples of Marxism, and found it to be working within that little society they have created would stick with it. It is the outside influences that lead one to believe that what is working needs to be changed.

But you are correct that it would be impossible to do a longitudinal study without isolating the kids somewhere.