No. Centrists: “We think absolutes turn into fucking problems. We should have a choice and not a choice between two things we ALL don’t like.”
Absolutes are not problems by themselves, you must evaluate each case.
As an example, the only correct stance is being absolutely against the KKK, and not give a shit if the KKK objects to that. You’re saying that’s a problem, and that the KKK should be heard out. Fuck that.
Absolutely. But they are a problem. The KKK is not supported and exactly what I was considering an absolute. So I stand by what I said. There should be more diversity in the voting structure and not so many flashy carnival rides.
The KKK is an absolute, and you’ve advocated for taking the middle of the road approach for everything. Are you walking back your statement that absolutes are bad inherently, and taking the common-sense position that everything must be judged individually?
This is a total strawman.
It’s an nonsense response to a concept that should be considered reasonable.
Bringing up the KKK in the concept of general problem solving views is a distraction from consideration that reasonable people can solve problems. It exaggerates reasonable people with those who are not.
Nobody but KKK considers them reasonable.
It’s not a Strawman.
By claiming that absolutes are bad inherently, they are stating that taking an absolute stance against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Is also bad. The KKK is a great example, they were defended by White Moderates during the Civil Rights Movement.
But that anti-KKK stance is not as extreme as it could be. I’ll give you an example of a more extreme stance: Every member should be tortured and executed, everyone who they were friends with should be imprisoned, everyone who mentions the name “KKK” should be imprisoned.
That is an extreme stance and it is ridicolous too. And in most (all?) cases, extremism also means authoritatian. Do you have an example for an extreme stance is any good?
I do. I just don’t buy the whole “that wasn’t real communism, this time it’ll be different, we totally won’t trample all over human rights” crap. Especially not when those same people are praising the likes of Castro, Xi, Lenin, and assorted other dictators.
What people are advocating for is generally not communism and I would say communists are generally pretty rare on the left. Finding an actual Marxist who engages with the solution theory side of his work and not just his pointing at a social structure side is like finding a unicorn. Recognizing that there is an owner class is Marxist sure but it’s also leaving 75 percent of his political theory on the table.
People will definitely joke about being communist but that is a dig at McCarthist witchhunt logic which flattened and branded anything left of enthusiastic neo libralism as a potential threat. There’s also people who will respond to the virulent rejection of communism by arguing for it based on the fact that it never has been pulled off as written but that’s a knee jerk reaction to being called a communist since breaking down why you aren’t a communist at all requires more knowledge that a lot of people don’t have at hand. When you brand everyone with nebulous left facing ideals a communist you functionally create “communists” who need to defend themselves. Results vary.
But break open the left at a philosophical level and you find much sharper distinctions… Many variations of which have represented stable democratic government systems with historical precedent of being resistant to power consolidation.
Communism or the Communist systems resulting from attempts to make the idea of Communism work, relies on a relocation of personal property with the state as an intermediary based on need for all citizens in the system. It is highly invasive in its management of distribution while solidifying a fairly rigid government control with autocratic power weilded through offices that are not elected positions … Doing things like creating universal government services like Universal Health care or looking at affordable housing as a basic right aren’t nessisarily Communist. Those things are still subject to democratic control of elected groups. It’s a feature of multiple leftist structures.
Out of the systems frequently discussed seriously Socialism is the most common but the subheading is more of a spectrum that represents a wide band of different ideologies about how to manage resources to create specific reserves for the public good outside of capitalist profit driven structures leaving the domain of personal property allocation basically alone. Critically, under Socialism you still have rich and poor people there’s just limita on how wide a band the top is from the bottom. Maybe the rich man doesn’t evade being taxed and has regulated limits of how much they can benefit from mutually held public common like the environment and the poor man isn’t dying on the street. At it’s shallowist end Socialism is potentially as gentle as just having more protections to ensure people’s labour is protected from exploitative practice.
What most modern leftist ideologies particularly depend on these days is a highly democratic framework. Making elections more representive, enforcement of term limits and peaceable changeovers of power and re-establishing the idea of community held property by empowering local government bodies meaning a very beaurcratic decentralized power. There are lots of countries running variations of this framework so no, the left in a general sense is not interested in bringing Communism back. When you equate the left as a whole to Communism you are basically falling for decades old propaganda that preys on the habit people have of oversimplifying something that is deep and difficult to understand into a flat, easily dismissable token. An oversimplification designed by detractors whose interest is in giving you tools so you stop thinking and exploring further than benefits them.
