Friday, March 29, AD 2024 5:16am

Socialist Cooking Show

 

Why, for example, is it still acceptable to profess the philosophy of a Communist or, if not that, to at least admire the work of Marx? Why is it still acceptable to regard the Marxist doctrine as essentially accurate in its diagnosis of the hypothetical evils of the free-market, democratic West; to still consider that doctrine “progressive,” and fit for the compassionate and proper thinking person? Twenty-five million dead through internal repression in the Soviet Union. Sixty million dead in Mao’s China. The horrors of Cambodia’s Killing Fields, with their two million corpses. The barely animate body politic of Cuba, where people struggle even now to feed themselves. Venezuela, where it has now been made illegal to attribute a child’s death in hospital to starvation. No political experiment has ever been tried so widely, with so many disparate people, in so many different countries and failed so absolutely and so catastrophically. Is it mere ignorance that allows today’s Marxists to flaunt their continued allegiance – to present it as compassion and care? Or is it instead, envy of the successful, in near-infinite proportions? Or something akin to hatred for mankind itself? How much proof do we need?
Jordan B. Peterson

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David WS
David WS
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 8:15am

“Why, for example, is it still acceptable to profess the philosophy of a Communist or, if not that, to at least admire the work of Marx? “

Because… our hearts are restless, until they rest with the Lord,
and communists, restless as they too are, never give up the idea that they can build a utopia (without Him.)
They/we of course can’t, but remain driven to find It.

Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 8:24am

Don’t underestimate the media’s propaganda efforts either. Let “commie” be used as an insult by the left, have every mention of it bring up the millions dead, let it be a repeated and frequent villain in movie after movie, and see if it doesn’t become within a generation or two as hated and despised as Nazism is.

Frank
Frank
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 9:15am

On target, Nate. Control the language and you control the debate.

John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 9:17am

The Washingto Post in 1994 wrote that the new estimates of Mao’s death total was 80 million and Stalin’s total was 40 million. But what’s 35 million more dead?
The problem is people under 40 have no idea. It’s just not taught. 12 years ago, my boss when to China and brought back Mao coffee mugs. I brought up my concern with them to a fellow conservative co-worker. She had no idea who it was or what he did.

Tom Byrne
Tom Byrne
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 10:26am

The Nazi death camps were revealed to the world in photographs and at Nuremberg, the gulags were closed before the press even had a chance to see them. No gulag commandant ever went on trial.
We never had a US president propagandizing for “Uncle Adolf” like with had for “Uncle Joe”.
Marxists learned how to look and write like sophisticated middle-class Westerners, while fascists always looked like “those deplorables”.
The survivors of the Nazi horrors gained great influence in US culture and have never let us forget what happened. Communism’s survivors have little influence.

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 11:25am

Stalin starved over 5 million people between 1931-34 by using socialist principles (rationing, communal farming) to create a capitalist profit driven economy (industrial expansion)- which was a blatant contradiction to socialist principles. It was one of his more rapid humanitarian disasters.

You’d be stretched to find a single person who has immigrated from a socialist country (even a former Soviet one) who would give a stunning endorsement of the life under one of those governments. They may however praise that government if they are allowed to live a capitalist lifestyle- such as the cashed up large, Chinese middle class who are anything other than products of a well disciplined socialist economy. In other words, their “principles” work if they are hypocrites.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 12:23pm


Socialist Cooking Show

Donald R. McClarey Donald R. McClarey
October 5, 2021
6 Comments

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Why, for example, is it still acceptable to profess the philosophy of a Communist or, if not that, to at least admire the work of Marx? Why is it still acceptable to regard the Marxist doctrine as essentially accurate in its diagnosis of the hypothetical evils of the free-market, democratic West; to still consider that doctrine “progressive,” and fit for the compassionate and proper thinking person?

They’re highly involuted intellectual systems which provide justifications for turning power over to Alvin Gouldner’s New Class. The shmucks who run Oberlin College despise the ordinary people who run Gibson’s Bakery. Marxism is an apologia for that sort of hate.

J. Ronald Parrish
Tuesday, October 5, AD 2021 11:25pm

Totally agree; however, a possible answer to the why question. We, the United States, and other nations proportionally worse, are right on their heels. Over 60 million preborn human babies slaughtered since 1973. Sodomy, a disappeared word, is now replaced with gay (huh!). The reality that there only two sexes is ignored as an excuse to mutilate children. Such an evil society may explain its tolerance of the evil emminating from others.

GregB
Wednesday, October 6, AD 2021 8:13am

Communism concentrates power in an all powerful state. This makes it an ideal system for those who crave absolute power. The absolute power that corrupts absolutely.

Pinky
Pinky
Wednesday, October 6, AD 2021 8:44am

Pardon me if I poorly paraphrase Chesterton, but I remember he talked about preferring myths to philosophy, because when a myth-maker discovers an error, he changes the myth, but when a philosopher discovers an error, he denies reality.

I’ll grant that there’s a spiritual dimension to why people cling to communism, but you also have to remember that theoreticians love this beautiful Marxist vision so much that not even its impossibility can mar it in their eyes. We on this site have a hope in something better, but if your only choices are present-day misery or present-day misery with a chance at utopia, it’s hard to let go of utopianism.

SouthCoast
SouthCoast
Wednesday, October 6, AD 2021 11:54am

JFK, your response to your boss should have been, “Drink the poison yourself.” Not that I’m recommending self-immolation on the altar of unemployment, of course.

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