Can you take communists seriously?

For those who said they can't take Communists seriously, I suggest you read "The Communist Manifesto"; it's a short read and gives a very simple definition of Socialism, including a brief look at the history of the ideology and the difference between Socialism and Communism.

Knowing the basics, I'm sure everyone can take it seriously at least as an interesting thought experiment that could be considered as a source of ideas to be modified to improve circumstances in their society where certain changes towards Socialism might be helpful.

Admittedly due to all the baggage that comes with Fascism I am not entirely sure on what it's all about myself the closest I can come to is something to do with a bundle of sticks.

edited 25th Mar '11 5:18:37 AM by tnu1138

@Tzetze: It's hard to take Mussolini serious about Fascism being of the right when it was mixed up in revolutionary nonsense like transformation of consciousness through abolishing traditional cookware.

"...transformation of consciousness through abolishing traditional cookware."

...

Y'what?

Futurist gastronomy. I just linked it.

They were sort of kidding, but I sort of don't care.

edited 24th Mar '11 4:05:03 PM by Tzetze

"Ideal" fascism is when the leaders of the large corporation rules the country, and it is done via having a council meeting once in a while.
The "ideal" part is that they are willing to not be greedy bastards, and they discuss how to better improve schools so they can get better designers in the next 10 years, etc.
I would need some weird secondary council(not important how it is elected) to keep the main fascist council from going corrupt and berserk.
The idea is that when you are too bloody rich you stop being greedy.
Of course, it is a bad idea, but discussing the idealism of it is quite decent.

Heh, I was just struck with a vision of Italian blackshirts holding a saucepan & pot burning.

I find the problem most people have with not taking communism seriously is equal parts not understanding what communism is and not getting that NOBODY thinks creating viable communism is easy. The idea that communism is inherently at odds with human nature is brought on by the fact that we always think "human nature" is what our culture is, rather than taking a look at all the different cultures now and in the past and realizing that the concept of a singular human nature is untrue. Given that communism won't work without the right mindset, the trick is to gradually change our society's world view in order to make communism workable. Saying you don't take communism seriously because it doesn't work is like saying you don't take curing cancer seriously because it doesn't work. Neither works right now but both can work if enough energy is devoted to making it happen.

Win

The fact that the only other people who take communism seriously are beardy people who hang outside the students union and hand out copies of "Socialist worker" in a country with virtually no industrial output.

I don't MIND them, its just that I see being socially concious and willing to use differing methods to achieve better results a more important goal than listening to Marx and Engels.

There is also the fact that if something cannot be applied in some way NOW then it is often not good as a political idea. If I were to campaign against reforming the AI servant laws at the moment you'd look at me like I was mental, because there are none of them. If I were to take your arguement seriously then most of the people who describe as communists should instead be working towards changing the world for the better in order to make "fairness for all" come true, instead I've not encountered many who aren't either so far off from normal people as to make chatting to them ridiculous or in it to get girls.

I must admit that while I'm a Socialist, I can't take seriously people who read Marx like the Bible.

There is probably not a single philosopher that was right every time, and Marx was wrong about many things. He was right about many things, too. Socialism (and Communism) has to evolve. Any ideology has to develop and allow itself to be influenced by the events and ideas of history as it happens. Modern, "interactive" (for want of a better word) Socialism and Communism are movements I can get behind. The kind of Communism that just repeats everything Marx of Lenin said infinitely, the kind that still lives in the 19th century, I can't take seriously.

Socialism in terms of medicine and other options I can agree with and support, I'd ofc like to look over specifics but I CAN support them.

Its just that there appears to be no way to actually create a socialist state at the moment that doesn't end either in failure or the kind of success that is built on a whole heap of corpses.

It's more vital to look over specifics and try and work with them than it is to argue generalities of philosophy.

I'd argue that the Nordic welfare states are at least 60% Socialist...

I can relate to that one. The socialist groups seem to be the only political organisations that seem to have any presence in the QUB students' union. There's at least one Conservative Party group, but they don't really do very much and I imagine they're not very popular at the moment.

I'm fine with that for instance, but if I had been there when they started off (or if I had wanted to go and live there) I would ofc have to put in some research into them.

You can take Communists seriously, but it is not advisable.

Instead, I prefer to take Communists twice a day with a glass of water, unless directed otherwise by a health care professional.

Srsly though, Communism is a big school and lots of different kinds of people call themselves that. It has to be a bit more discriminatory. For instance, I would take Karl Marx fairly seriously. Yes, he was wrong on a number of key points (including the adaptability of capitalism to resolving internal crises) but at the same time, the guy was a pretty impressive social scientist and sociologist. On the other end of the scale, Slavoj Zizek is clearly trolling philosophy departments all over the English speaking world.

I would be somewhat wary of someone who calls themselves a Communist, but then I am fairly wary of anyone who subscribes to any particular political movement, so it is nothing personal. I think there is ideas and work of worth to be found in some Marxist thinking, which is often dismissed out of hand for various ideological reasons, but at the same time there is a lot of nonsense. I find a lot of thinkers who cite Marx as an influence (but certainly not their only influence) and who do not identify as Communists tend to be more interesting and methodical than people who commit fully to the idea of Communism (I am thinking here of Giovanni Arrighi, Immanuel Wallerstein and Charles Tilly, among others), though naturally there are exceptions to this.