What kind of communism had Przemyslaw Babiarz, the Polish journalist, experienced? And where, since the Polish people did not enjoy what had been dished to them by the communist rulers?!?
What a waste of energy…. John Lennon had invited us to dream! The communists, the real ones, had acted worse than the worst robber barons. What I had experienced under communist rule, in Romania, had nothing to do with what Lennon had invited us to dream about. Comparing Lennon’s dreams with the crimes committed by the communists is narrow minded to say the least. Firing a guy for airing a ‘less than inspired’ statement and pretending to do it in the name of “Mutual understanding, tolerance, reconciliation” is nothing short of idiocy! For it gives ammunition, and plenty of it, to those who wish to torpedo any mutual understanding and tolerance that still survives.
Each of us expects the others to behave rationally. While each of us rationalizes their own biases. And considers this to be normal!
Not so long ago – evolutionary speaking, things were free. As in ‘up for grabs’. Our not so distant forefathers fed and clothed themselves by picking ‘things’ from nature.
By talking to each other they had become conscious human beings. Then came up with the notion of property.
‘If I/we have this thing, you cannot have it too’.
Using this notion, they introduced some order unto the social stage. Some things, albeit fewer and fewer, remained free/up for grabs while the rest – specially ‘the things of interest’ had become private.
Entertaining the notion of property means that individuals are able to link an object to its owner. This link is a piece of information. Discussing and remembering who owns what, our forefathers realized that information is important. Not only the information regarding the link between owners and their property but also information in general. Whatever ‘useful’ things had been learned, remembered and passed around. Thus information became ‘a thing’.
The order created by the communities using the concept of property and by actively circulating information among the members had become the premise for those communities to thrive.
Somewhat naturally, the members of those communities had reached the conviction that: Property is good. And that more property is better. Old people are precious. For the simple reason that they deposit what had happened. By sharing their memories, old people make it so that the younger ones don’t need to learn again and again.
Since property and remembered information were good for the community, the communities using them developed faster and had a way better survival rate than those who didn’t. For whatever reasons.
Since in reality people rationalize rather than think rationally, they have reached the conclusion that the rich and old people were the ultimate cause for the well being of the community. The individuals, not the modus operandi of the community.
At least one of his classmates perceived him as ‘an outcast’ while another – and his high-school counselor – perceived him as being ‘bright’. Neither ‘saw it coming’.
So why would a very young adult attempt to assassinate a very well known, and very well guarded, public figure?
Let me rephrase the question. Why would a 20 years old male with a steady job, who had graduated from high school two years ago “with a $500 prize for maths and science“, attempt to shoot somebody out, from a distance, given the fact that he wasn’t trained for it. Nor exactly talented in this domain…
Are we sure this was Crooks’ main target? To assassinate a former, and possibly future, President of the USA? Or was he trying to end it all? Once and for all?
What were the odds for him to get away with it? To survive after shooting the first bullet? He was unanimously described as being ‘smart’…
What drove Thomas Mathew Crooks to the conclusion that his life was no longer worth living?
According to the English lore, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”. According to the cat, ‘who cares about how I lose my coat? I’ll end up dead anyway!’ According to the fur tanners, ‘the manner of skinning the pelt is of utmost importance for the end-result of the operation’.
Whom to believe? Specially since all of them seem to be right…
Well, truth has a marked tendency for being complicated. Hard to comprehend in its entirety and even harder to express in a concise manner. Meanwhile we, conscious human beings, have a marked tendency to notice only what we’re interested in. To notice only what we care about…
In fact, the manner in which we notice things speaks volumes about who we are. About how we relate to what we call ‘reality’.
The white colonists inhabiting a certain area in Northern America had become ‘Free Americans’ after fighting the British. Only after they had freed themselves through battle! A. Philip Randoph had fought for his freedom. And for human rights.
All this fighting leads to a bout of pondering. Are we free together? As in ‘all of us’ and ‘once and for all’? Or our freedom is defined against other people? Who might try to steal our liberty from us?
What is freedom, after all? A zero sum game? Where liberty is up for grabs but in limited supply? Or a ‘grace’ we impart with and upon our fellow human beings? Something to be jealously guarded or something to be collectively and cooperatively maintained and enhanced?
And one final question. Why would anyone attempt to steal other people’s freedom? When history gives us plenty of evidence that whenever freedom was out to be shared people were happy while whenever freedom was in short supply the entire society eventually crumbled under it’s own weight…
What is going now in China – and in Russia, for that matter – has nothing to do with the ‘left’. With what is understood as “left” in Europe… Instead, it has many similarities with fascism. ‘Corporatist’ states imbued with revindicative nationalism.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has introduced the concept of “Skin in the Game“. In short, it is about the fact that the decisions made by people who do not directly and immediately ‘enjoy’ the consequences of their choices have a high probability of being bad. A phenomenon that is accentuated as bad decisions are not immediately sanctioned by those who suffer.
Taleb’s observation only confirms the fact that all dictatorships/authoritarian regimes have collapsed. Without exception! Alternatively, it is very easy to see that democracies ONLY last as for long as they manage to maintain their ‘functionality’. That is, for as long as people can – and undertake – to voice their grievances. And for as long as people listen to each other. Respectfully! In vain, some shout about being ‘hungry’ if nobody listens/cares ..
Returning to the idea of ’leadership’, yes, countries are led. By some who consider themselves/are considered to be ‘elite’. ‘Led’ only from the operational point of view, however… Countries are living things, ‘natural selection’ still has the last word! Ernst Mayr, a biologist, said that ‘evolution is not about the survival of the fittest, but about the disappearance of those who cannot find their ‘right’ place. The misfits. ‘. That’s right, countries have big problems if/when they don’t manage to take down the ‘misfits’ who happen to have clambered into power. Why countries don’t succeed to do this in a timely manner? How did they clambered there in the first place… Everything starts when the popular dissatisfaction reaches a critical level. Which dissatisfaction is engendered when the members of that country no longer care for each-other. When mutual respect has disappeared.
I will conclude by returning to the major difference between communism and fascism. Both of them appeared in situations when enough dissatisfied people were ‘wandering aimlessly’ while looked down by the rest of the society. Some low-life profiteers seized the occasion and ‘grabbed the helm’. Profiteers who have been able to operationalize the dissatisfaction festering in the society. And the lack of vision of those who hated the others. I repeat myself, both communism and fascism had appeared when various sections of the society despised, and sometimes hated, the ‘others’. The minor difference consists in the fact that the proto-communist dissatisfied looked up without having any chance to get there, while the proto-fascist ones wanted to return to where they had once been. The Russian muzhiks dying during WWI versus the unemployed German workers who had just lost WWI.
This being where the difference appears. The difference which makes it hard to recognize what’s going on now in Russia/China as being a form of fascism. Both the Russians and the Chinese have a lot better lives now than they had under communist rule. Statistically and from the material point of view! Psychologically speaking… Those who live in well-established democracies – people who respect each other – have a greater tolerance for ‘insecurity’. Each of them knows they can rely on the others. In that environment, failure is temporary. People try as many times as they need to succeed. Or that’s how it used to be… In communism, we had learned – the hard way, that one was not allowed to make mistakes. When Russia and China switched to ‘capitalism’ and people saw what could happen to them – to make mistakes while trying – they had become frightened! And, at least some of them, chose to return – especially psychologically, in the past. Where they felt safe…
On the other hand, we must keep in mind that fakes are also facts. They exist, don’t they? Even more so, fake facts do engender consequences! In fact, it’s these very consequences which impart fact-hood to ‘successful’ fakes.
Also, it is high time for us to understand that this undermining might occur ‘naturally’. Due to our attention being distracted rather than ‘intentionally misguided’.
Now, what would you have done if this guy had started to swing his fists? In the very proximity of your precious nose? “Stood your ground” or gave him enough ‘space to exercise’?
You’re not exactly comfortable with the current meaning of ‘stand your ground’?
Then maybe it’s high time for us to understand that ‘stand your ground’ is the direct consequence of ‘your liberty ends where my nose begins’.
Not comfortable with the current situation?
Then maybe it’s high time for us to come up with another definition for liberty. One which brings forward the cooperative effort which made liberty possible in the first place. Instead of the confrontational one currently in use. Which serves perfectly the interests of those powerful enough to define evolution as “survival of the fittest”. Which serves perfectly the interests of those powerful enough to be convinced that only those able to defend their liberty are worthy to be free.
The key word here being “their”, not “liberty”! For this kind of people, for the Capones of this world, freedom – their freedom – is something to be appropriated rather than shared.
Think about it! Do you remember the argument ‘the west has provoked the current situation’?
What kind of freedom do we want? For us and for our children? The kind that must be constantly wrenched from the likes of Putin or one shared freely among all those present? Built cooperatively or defended against all others?
Socrates and Bertrand Russel, both, knew everything there was to be known in their respective times. Socrates and Bertrand Russel, both, had enough guts to acknowledge their doubts. To themselves and to the rest of us.
On the other hand, Russell presents us with a very interesting riddle. Is it possible for a naturally occurring thing to become a vice?
Humans, and their pets, also get fat. Humans – some of them and alone, this time – like to get ‘high’. Exclusively on naturally occurring substances, until recently.
Humans are the only animal species – known to ‘man’ – displaying a certain kind of consciousness. Self-awareness, as defined by Humberto Maturana. Also known as ‘Human Consciousness’.
So, consciousness drove us to become vicious? To eat too much? To drink alcohol? To use drugs? To introduce other animals to drugs? In the name of science…
The way I see this, consciousness didn’t drive us to become vicious. Only made it possible.
Being aware of ourselves – being able to observe ourselves ‘in the act’, according to Maturana – has added ‘purpose’ to the whole thing. Animals do experience pleasure. Pet your pet and then call me a liar. Animals have even learned from us to ask for pleasure. Many of our pets beg for food and to be petted. But most wild animals – with the exception of pentailed treeshrews, whatever they might be – shun alcohol. While capable of learning to ‘douse their angst’ from us. In captivity… Which makes us the only species which has learned to behave viciously on its own. By itself…
To over indulge on purpose. Do you have a better definition for vice?
Which brings us back to Russell’s “intellectual vice”.
Which intellectual vice does have two aspects. Overconfidence in one’s own intellectual prowess and over-reliance on other people’s expressed opinions, despite those opinions having a very slim chance of being true. The point being that the second aspect is a ‘simplification’ of the first one. The opinions believed despite being unrealistic do match the biases entertained by the believer. By the ‘vicious’ believer, albeit the second aspect is less vicious than the first one. Where the overconfident should have known better.
To over-think on purpose. To convince yourself of your own rectitude… on your own or with the help of others…
Greeks, the Ancient ones, has been the first people which had allowed its culture to waste its civilization.
By considering their neighbors as being ‘barbaric’, the Ancient Greeks have isolated themselves from the rest of the world. From the rest of the reality. Shutting themselves out from the exterior, they turned their attention towards their own interior. Towards themselves. Found differences among themselves. Ranked themselves. And ended up fighting among themselves.
Allowed themselves to be conquered.
First by home grown tyrants. Pericles, Alexander the Great… And then by foreign emperors. Persian, Roman, Ottoman…
Establishing a pattern. And constituting a warning.
Every time when people become complacent, somebody will seize the opportunity.
Every time people will stop – for whatever reasons and under whatever pretexts – respecting each other in earnest, scheming con-artists will step in. Identify the situation and taking the opportunity to deepen the differences between the people into chasms. Into unbridgeable chasms which make it impossible for people to reconnect. Unbridgeable chasms which destroy the community. Rendering it to the mercy of tyrants. To the mercy of tyrants who constantly lurk in what we call reality and which, under ‘normal circumstances’ – a.k.a. ‘democracy’, are kept in check. In a normal, functional, social setting. By a functional community.
The fact that all tyrannies end up badly, for all those involved, is no consolation.
And all these – social settings, democracies, tyrannies, etc, – are as real as it gets. Only this level of reality is being created by us. By us, people. By ‘the people’ who not only creates the reality but also has to make do with the consequences derived from the reality it has created for themselves. Knowingly or ignorantly.
“Only freedom of speech with repercussions isn’t anything special. That has existed throughout every dictatorship. If we consider freedom of speech as a value, it must be something else.”
Whenever somebody opens their mouth, they reveals things about themselves.
That’s a repercussion.
Whenever somebody acts upon information gleaned this way, those acts also have repercussions.
The repercussions belonging to the second category are the ones which ensure that, in the end, every dictatorship ends up in failure. In abject failure.
Out of fear, everybody shuts up. So nobody yells anymore ‘The emperor is naked. And about to be run over by a bus’. So the emperor, and his henchmen, end up hanged by an angry mob. Process usually called retribution. Or revolution?
““We are not extremists. We are just angry,” explains Lazar Potrebic, a 25-year-old from a Hungarian minority in Serbia who is entitled to vote.
He – and many of his peers – are worried about the future, and feel that the more traditional parties are not listening to their concerns.
“We feel like our needs are not being met. People our age are taking really important life steps. We’re getting our first jobs, thinking about starting a family…but if you look around Europe, rent prices are going through the roof – and it’s hard to get work.”
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Of course the feeling of not being listened to when you’re young, of not being part of the equation, is nothing new. But many of the parties on the far right are actively courting the young vote, says Dave Sinardet, a professor of political science at the Free University of Brussels.
“The radical right channels anti-establishment feelings,” he told the BBC. “They have a bit of a rebellious vibe – especially when it comes to their anti-woke agenda – and that appeals to young people.””
nicichiarasa 