It took me a while.
Long enough to become ashamed of myself…
But I finally got it!
All those individuals are birds! In order to get there they had to fly!
In human terms they were free, nobody forced them to get in those relative positions.
If living in a democracy they even elected themselves to those places…
So what’s keeping them there?
Do they really enjoy it?
Are they afraid that if they leave, even temporarily, somebody else would take their places?
Have their wings became so stuck with shit that they are no longer able to take off?
Besides that, what kind of leader can find any satisfaction in presiding over such a filthy mess?
The answer, like always, is to be found inside the question which generates it.
“If socialism is so bad, how did the Soviet Union produce so many scientists.”
The key word here is ‘produce’. First of all, Russia did have an important cultural and scientific tradition to start with. Secondly, the communist leaders – mostly Lenin but more or less all of them, had a clear understanding of the literacy gap which separated Russia from the rest of the world. Filling that gap was the first step towards Russia/the Soviet Union becoming a First Tier country. Hence the ‘free, standard, universally available education’.
But there’s a caveat here. When we’re speaking about education – in the West, we mean ‘everything already known to man’. Students are allowed to read everything in the library – except for certain places in the US, but those are exceptions. When we speak about the education in the Soviet Union we must remember that each of the ‘free, standard and universally available’ aspects had its own limitations. It was free in the sense that everybody – well, almost – had the right to apply for it. Actually getting it was something else. It was standard in the sense that it was standardized. Only what was deemed safe/useful was allowed to reach the students. It was universally available in the sense that everybody was subjected to some form of education. Much of which was nothing more than indoctrination…
Finally, let’s remember that the Soviet Union was able to produce scientists only for so long. Until it collapsed under it’s own weight…
Moral of the story?
Producing scientists is not enough. Science teaches you only how to do whatever you want to do. What to want… that’s something else!
Am crescut in Giulestiul anilor ’60 – ’70 asa ca am vazut, si baut, multe.
Am primit repartitie la Filipestii de Padure, intre Campina si Moreni, in anii cei mai nasoi ai comunismului, ’86-’89.
Mancam la cantina fabricii si daca ratam o masa singura sansa mai era circiuma din sat. La alimentara se mai gaseau doar carlige si rafturi metalice. Sa nu va inchipuiti ca la carciuma aveau mancare – snitzelul de parizer era considerat delicatesa dar se gasea foarte rar. Cateva conserve cu tocana de legume, rar de fasole si din cand in cand se milostivea carciumarul de noi: improviza o tocana de cartofi cu slanina adusa de acasa de la el. Deh, eram clienti importanti…ingineri…
Pana fierbeau cartofii gustam si noi, cateodata la insistentele celorlalti musterii care se simteau datori sa ne ‘cinsteasca’, din ce se afla prin rafturile ‘barului’: RDD (rachiu de drojdie), RDV (rachiu de vin)…
People who have never experienced communism speak freely about it. Some are frightened by it – as they should be, while others are looking forward to it.
People who have no real idea about what fascism/nazism was about speak freely about it. Some are frightened by it – as they should be, while others are looking forward to it.
While there is a consensus about communism being a ‘far left position’, fascism is usually – but not unanimously, considered to be ‘far right’. Some even speak about a ‘third position‘, whatever that might mean.
The way I see it, what we have experienced as fascism is what Marx had in mind when he wrote the Communist Manifesto. According to Marx, at some point in what he hailed as ‘the future’, the middle class was going to become poorer and poorer. All the wealth generated by the capitalist economy and governed by the increasingly imperialist/monopolist states was going to be herded into fewer and fewer hands.
What Marx was prophesying had soon enough come to be. The post WWI German and Italian peoples had lost their hopes and allowed themselves to be led by those who pretended to put ‘the best interests of the people’ above everything else.
Same thing happens whenever a crises is deep enough to impoverish a significant number of people. Who loose their hopes and allow callous political operators to advance closer and closer to power.
What we have experienced as ‘communism’ was a Leninist short-cut. In Marx’s view, communism was going to happen after economically advanced societies had reached a certain pinnacle. Lenin – and Mao, had introduced ‘socialism’ and ‘popular democracy’ as intermediary stages between their underdeveloped societies and what Marx had in mind.
So no, there is no such thing as a ‘third position’. We have democracy – where left and right cooperate towards the common good, and authoritarianism. While democracy is clear and transparent, authoritarianism hides its true nature under a chameleonic cloak. Painted, by the spin doctors who run the show, in whatever hue happens to be more attractive to the masses which are about to be fooled.
Afterthought. I googled ‘third position’ and found out that:
“In the last few years of the 20th Century, according to an article by Chip Berlet, a new form of fascism emerged in a period of resurgent neo-fascism. Called the Third Position, it seeks to overthrow existing governments and replace them with monocultural nation states built around the idea of supremacist racial nationalism and/or supremacist religious nationalism.”
Who wrote the Bible? Who considers God to be both omnipotent and wholly good? Who had become human by learning ‘to tell good from evil’? Does evil even exist outside our minds? Is anything actually evil unless considered so by one of us?
And no, I’m not hair-splitting when speaking about the huge difference between bad and evil! An earthquake, for example, is bad for those affected. Yet no evil is involved here but for those who ‘question God’s actions’. An individual who tortures animals for fun is also bad. Arguably less so than a major earthquake… but for everybody in their right mind that person is undoubtedly evil!
‘What?!? “Ignorant of most things” yet still “knowing good and evil”?!?’
Yep!
A more relaxed reader of the Bible may notice that what’s written there recounts, symbolically, the becoming of Man. The foremost apes notice the difference between night and day. And name both. The difference between ocean and dry land. And name them both. Notice the stars above and the living things, plants and animals, with whom they share the place. And name them all. “Apes”, not ape, because nobody can learn to speak by oneself. Nor become self aware. As in ‘able to observe oneself while observing other things’. (Maturana, 2005)
That same relaxed reader may also notice that the very ‘fallen nature’ of Man stems from the ‘inconsistency’ noticed above.
We’re basically ignorant yet still able to call out evil!
Oops…
Humberto Maturana, “The origin and conservation of self consciousness…”, 2005, https://cepa.info/702
Isn’t it rather funny that something called “crypto” is run on a completely transparent platform? So transparent that all the tracks are apparent but many of the ‘access points’ remain cloaked?
“The thing is, once smart-contract code is live on a blockchain, you can’t update it. If you discover a bug, it’s too late: the whole point of blockchains is that you can’t alter stuff that’s been written to them. Worse, code that’s hosted on a blockchain is publicly visible—so black-hat hackers can study it at their leisure and look for mistakes to exploit.”
Ideology is but one of the many tinted glasses which shape what we feel into actual, and actionable, perceptions.
Ideology stands out because it’s the only one chosen by us.
We may grow up steeped in ‘tradition’ – in any tradition, but the ideas we become into become our ideology only after we assume them. We, each of us, become mature agents only after knowingly and self-awaringly chose our ways in life. Our own ways!
As you already know, choosing something is very much like entering a door. It’s not like the other doors suddenly close! By entering a door, all other previously apparent doors only disappear from your immediate perception. Your recollectible memories tell you they were still there when you last looked and your imagination helps you visualize them. If you care to remember… But you cannot actually see them. And they slowly fade away…
Here’s a glass. Is it half empty? Half full?
I’m not going to spell out the obvious! This is the sensible way to pour a glass of wine… I’m only going to point out that it’s not such a bright idea to full a glass up to the brim. You might easily pour too much and then it will be practically impossible to raise. And to drink from it…
Then why have we transformed a ‘fully functional glass’ into such a big topic? Because we like to split hairs?
Since I have no idea about what’s going on in other people’s heads/minds I’m going to point your attention to something else. To the dangers of waddling into murky waters.
Are you happy with the half full glass? You might end up with less than you might have gotten. Are you disappointed with the half empty glass? So disappointed that you’re going to give it up as being inadequate?
You’ve just wasted a perfectly ‘workable’ glass! Both of you.
When given a half full glass you don’t just enjoy what’s in it! And walk away… When given a half empty glass you you don’t just refuse it! And throw it away…
Before stepping into a room, no matter how much personally inclined to do it, check out the other open doors which happen to be around you. And even pry some of the closed ones…
Don’t allow others to fool you into seeing the world as they want you to! Don’t allow yourself to be entangled into other people’s problems.
And, even more importantly, don’t accept – indiscriminately, their methods of solving the problems they have invented for you!
The Bolshevik Revolution had nothing to do with cooperation. Nor with civilization. It was nothing but the famished underdog eating the bloated plutocrat. The ensuing indigestion lasted for almost a century and resulted in a huge number of people suffering from ideological food-poisoning. Too many of the poisoned ending up dead…
Yet here we are. Again! Trying to sort out a re-heated dish. Which had already been proved to be unpalatable!
No wonder ‘gaslighting’ had been determined to be ‘word of the year’…
As for Kropotkin… he was a true revolutionary! He was gaslighting his audience before the term had even been coined…
‘Jungle’ – or ‘bush’, is where evolution takes place. Some of us might see it as a venue for cut-throat competition but it’s nothing but the opposite of it. The fact that some of us misperceive the jungle doesn’t change the evidence. In nature, death doesn’t happen at the whim of someone. A lion kills only when hungry. And chooses to hunt the already weak. Leaving the rest of the herd in a better situation.
The kind of cooperation designed by Marx and put in practice by Kropotkin – the communist ‘civilization’, is the epitome of stagnation. When humans are no longer free to fine-tune competition with cooperation – and are forced to cooperate as they are told to from above, things end up in chaos.
All revolutions – 1789, 1917, 1989, have proven – time and time again, that things cannot be sustainably maintained as the rulers consider to be appropriate. That no matter how skillful the ‘designers’ consider themselves to be, society is a too complex thing for a small gang of however powerful people to be able to ‘keep afloat’. This being the point where Marx, along with all other ideologues, had gotten it completely wrong.
According to Marx, it’s enough for a bunch of people to pretend they have a ‘theoretically clearer understanding of the line of march’! In fact, this is the sole argument made by Marx when explaining why the communists were entitled to lead the proletariat. ‘Because they knew better!’
Well, we know, now, what it means to be led by people who pretend to be above all others! By people who pretend to be better than the rest…
nicichiarasa 