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!
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.”
The difference between ‘strange’ and ‘different’ isn’t ‘menial’. Nor harmless.
Currently, we’re still allowed to frown upon things which are ‘strange’ but are insistently taught that ‘different’ is good.
Beyond ‘acceptable’. Actually good!
I’m different. Noticeably different. Different enough to know, first hand, how it feels to be frowned upon. Also, different enough to figure out the difference between ‘acceptable’ and ‘good’.
More than two millennia ago, Protagoras opened up our eyes. Told us it was our job, and responsibility, to ‘measure accurately’. More than a hundred years ago, Twain warned us. Told us to be careful of ‘well spun fictions’. Of stories too good to be true. Of the fact that in our quest for consistency we are prone to actually discard the uncomfortable truth.
Are we going in the right direction?
In a sense, there isn’t much difference between Mark Twain’s and Tom Clancy’s words. On the other hand, there is a huge difference between ‘strange’ and ‘different’.
Exactly the same difference which can be found between actual facts and alternative facts. Exactly the same difference we pretend to not notice when we accept alternative facts as being true. Well… not necessarily true… only comfortable enough to become acceptable…
Way more comfortable, a.k.a. ‘sensible’ – for us, than the naked truth. Even if only for the shorter and shorter time frames…
How many times can be killed an already dead zone?
Why would anyone want to over-kill sections of their own homes?
NB, the range extender works fine. Those trying to market the product (to over-market?!?) jumped the shark… but isn’t this what we’ve unconsciously come to expect from the marketeers?
What WE know about the reality WE are speaking about drives ME to the following ‘inkling’:
We are living inside a three layered reality.
The ‘real’ one, the ‘perceived’ one and the ‘result’.
We ‘measure’ reality using our conscience. Through our senses. Very much like when we gauge a length using a tape measure. We apply the tape measure over the length and ‘read’ the number.
We apply the standards we’ve been groomed into over the underlying reality and we decide according to those standards.
Then we attempt to deal with the consequences of our decisions.
“Sheer hatred of the regime”….
Who’s painting the pictures we’re hanging on our walls? Who chooses them? Who has to make do with the ‘aftermath’?
Your ‘most cherished’ tool for bringing people back into submission being the all mighty thunder. Jupiter Tonans. The Thundering God. Thor yielding his Mjoelnir…
And now what?!? Every worshiping place has a lighting rod installed…
What do you feel? Have all those people lost their faith in you? In you behaving as a rational being? In your ability to treat them right? Are they convinced they are now insulated against your wrath?
War and chess have a lot in common. Most strikingly, the different manners in which both of them end.
The king is captured. Or the other side gives up.
A tie is nothing but the prelude for an encore, not a real end.
Even the roads to the end are very similar in both cases. While at the start of the game/’joust’ everything is ‘possible’ – nobody knows what the other side might be doing next, as the end nears each of the combatants are more and more limited in their currently available choices by the consequences of their previous decisions. By the very path they had followed since the beginning. Which path becomes more and more evident for everybody present. Opponent as well as spectators.
Finally – but not the least important, the similarities go even further. Deeper? The king is the most ‘important’ piece but not the most powerful. In fact, the king cannot do much by itself. It can help the other pieces achieve their common goal but when left alone it is basically powerless. The only thing it can do is run. But only as far as the board allows it to go… A pawn, if it manages to reach the eight rank, gets to be promoted. To become the new ‘right hand’ of the king. The new ‘most powerful member of the team’.
‘OK. And the real point of your post is?’
Putin cannot win this war – cause war it is, by himself. Hence he needs to preserve the loyalty of his henchmen, to instill enough fear into his opponents to make them quit and to convince the ‘spectators’ that their efforts to help Ukraine are too expensive.
Now! Are we smart enough to understand that we, each of us, are ‘next’? That each time a bully gets his way, all other (would be) bullies present become even more bullish? Are we smart enough to understand that the most meaningful thing we can do in this situation is to separate Putin from his power base? From the ordinary people who see no other alternative and from those who, for various reasons, continue to support Putin’s misconstrued ‘vision about the world’? Are we smart enough to understand that no matter how hard it is for us, the Ukrainians have it ten times harder?
Democracy is about every body having the opportunity to speak up their minds. To speak up their minds, not to kill their neighbors under the pretext that there is a difference of opinion between them!
“We didn’t invade Ukraine,” he claimed. “We declared a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way of explaining to the West that dragging Ukraine into Nato was a criminal act.” “Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are.”
Are you trying to figure out what’s the real meaning of Lavrov’s words? Let me translate for you this fine example of NewSpeak.
‘We – those who are currently running Russia, will do whatever we need to do in order to preserve our power. In order to achieve that, we first and foremost need to convince the ordinary Russians to continue to obey our orders. In order to achieve that, we need to convince the ordinary Russians that you are the enemy and that their only chance lies with us, their current masters. Hence each time we destroy an Ukrainian apartment block and any of you says ‘Russians are savages’ we’re one step closer to our goal. Each and every time any of you declares ‘Russia has to pay for what it has done in Ukraine’ we tell them, the ordinary Russians, ‘See? This is what they plan to do to you once we’re are gone’.
WWI had lasted until 1945. We have the opportunity to end the Cold War now. The war in Ukraine will reach a conclusion. Let’s make it so that after the war will have ended, Russia will fold in the family of ‘civil’ nations.
Those nations that choose to live in peace! Not because they cannot win wars but because they have learned that winning wars it’s not enough. Those nations which have learned, the hard way, that war has but one winner while for peace to last every body must be a winner.
Going back is not an option. If back were good enough, we wouldn’t have left it in the first place.
Many people believe we’re reliving the fall of Rome. Contemporary with that fall was the advent of Christ’s teachings. The fact that, eventually, Christianity has altered his teachings to fit the needs of the christian hierarchy doesn’t demean any of what he taught us.
That people who treat each-other respectfully fare a lot better than those who allow the exploitation of the weak.
That people who live ‘together’ fare a lot better than those who keep forgetting that ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ are both relative and temporary.
That people who are convinced that ‘survival belongs to the fittest’ will eventually make place for those who understand that evolution is solely about the demise of the unfit.
“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
How many times have these words been invoked? By people who use them to divide? To carve a follow-ship? A follow-ship for them to lead…
How many times have these words been invoked? By individuals cocky enough to pretend they are speaking for Christ? Cocky enough to pretend they are able to fill Christ’s shoes…
nicichiarasa 