Muad’Dib -
If you think that is “Marxist”, may I suggest you take a poli-sci class or two?
Until you can correctly identify political philosophy, please refrain from using such terminology.
Thank you.
So then that of course gives you license to use such as an insult.:rolleyes: You might find, december, that the list of people on this board who tolerate what you write on here will get much smaller if you continue down this vein. Consider now how many people value what you have to say. Furthermore ask yourself if you want to dig your own grave deeper still. You haven’t begun to hit molten rock yet, after all…
As to the OP, are we all not aware that, if nothing else, the only way to be able to counter a particular viewpoint is to study it? Suppose you run into a leftist in class, or on the board, or something. It does no good to say “You/your beliefs are full of shit.” That convinces nobody, including the dog next door. Being able to show a logical fallacy or a factual error or something like that, or show why something is an argument ad absurdem or a strawman … these are part of why, if again for no other reason, we study things from more than one viewpoint. Learn about something before you go knocking it.
Gee, Sam its all so simple when you put it like that!
A quibble or two, if you will. Since the essential sin you deplore is “collectivism” may one assume that your regard Socialist and Communist as essentially the same? Perhaps you could enlighten us as to the grave oppression suffered by Swedes? The brutal gulags of Stockholm?
And as to the inherent sanctity of Western Democracy, seems to be I’ve heard tell of just such a one as that, where great numbers of people were oppressed, and some of them subjected to something very much akin to genocide.
Hitler siezed power, that’s very true. But he was voted into a position than enabled him to do so. Another West. Dem. bites the dust.
As to collectivism, as you put it, “putting the group above the individual”, hell, they all do! But of course! The reason we are innately “collectivist” has nothing to so with political philosophy. We are collectivist because we are monkeys!
About the only way you can avoid being collectivist is to row out to your own private island and establish Samstonia, population one.
Soon as the wife and kids arrive, you’re a collective.
This thread is funny.
It’s like a food fight.
:: flings a dollop of mashed potatoes indiscriminately::
starts tossing gummie bears at Dopers
begins sternly lecturing Milo for flinging geneticly altered mashed potatoes, notes Guin never throws away chocolate
I think Muad’dib learned a lot more about the free dissemination of ideas than he expected.
::ducks from a wad of mashed potatoes flung his way;;
are you really being FORCED to read that stuff?
or did you choose to attend university of your own volition?
and if you did so choose, were you not hoping to widen your viewpoint to some extent by attending university?
brain expansion is sometimes painful-- especially to the really rigid-
Mmmmmmm…communist mashed potatoes…droooooool.
What, you’ve never been to an Abba concert?
Just to establish this, because I keep getting beat up whenever I say something about this, I’ve read a lot of his (Marx’s) stuff, including Das Kapital, cover-to-cover.
Quite a bit of Engels too.
And that turgid prose Muad’dib was made to read in his English class is almost a parody of Marxist writing. Which is to say it is Marxist. Also, Marxist tripe.
Marx was way better at it. Pieces of his analysis were at least correct, and he at least had a strong moral reason for saying what he said. Can’t say the same about that stuff.
I’m hoping the colleges are different before my son gets there. Then again, he wants to be an engineer at the moment, so maybe he’ll get to avoid most of this stuff.
Did the kid actually write “loosing face”? I mean, sheesh.
BTW, given how cliched Marxism at the colleges seems to have become, true brain expansion would consist of kids being made to read and understand the Austrian economists. Not so as to become libertarian ideologues, with whom I also have very little patience, but just to expose them to something different and unorthodox.
Whoa, ugly thread. Let me try.
“Why must I be forced to read this God-damned Marxist crap?”
Because you are in school.
And when you are in school, especially in an English or poly sci or philosophy class, you should expect to be “forced” to read things you do not agree with. This is how you become more intelligent, because you learn to argue a point and find weaknesses in ideas and engage other people in discussion. Remember, just because you have to read something does not mean the professor expects you to believe it. And for the gods’ sake, assigning a paper does not mean condoning what it says.
I’ll echo whoever said you should take a poly sci survey class. Sincerely learning about Marxism, along with other political and economic philosophies, would probably be good for you.
And if you do have a teacher who is trying to indoctrinate students with their political philosophy (which I doubt is the case here, but it’s not impossible), the only way they can do so is if you sit quietly and allow them to.
Wait, elucidator, weren’t the Swedes the ones who were sterilizing the “undesirables” in their community in the name of making society better?
And I hate to disagree with you here, Daowajan, but the point of the OP was not so much that he had to read ONE pseudo-Marxist sociology tract but that ALL of the texts so far echoed this same ideology. Not a very well-rounded education. But the year is still early, so whatever.
Sam Originally, ABBA was intended strictly for export, not for the domestic market. This is clearly representative of a more-or-less enlightened import/export policy. Currently, Eminem CDs and Coors Beer are turned back at the border.
Neurotik, as you likely already know, “eugenics” was practiced by most, if not all, of the West. Dem.'s. Including our very own.
Swing and a miss, strike one.
december, you are not a doctor so please do not recommend what medicines people should take for disagreeing with you.
I am loosing patience rapidly with that particular spelling error.
Muad, doesn’t this provide you with a great opportunity to raise hell in class about your readings? And if the professor disagrees, accuse him/her of being a bourgeois suppressor of your right to protest?
Should be fun.
I am sorry but CITE? Stroessner, Videla, Galtieri, Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, they are all products of the west (unless you want to redefine west).
An to the Op if december agrees with you…
Don’t whine. I have to be force-fed the god-damn commie, pinko MATH!!!
I agree that college should be a time to explore radical ideas, and learn that there are entirely different ways of looking at the world. I went to UCSD in the late 1970’s, majoring in German literature, and the department was strongly leftist-oriented. A modicum of the material covered was left-leaning, but not nearly so much as many of the professors seemed to be in their own views. I didn’t have a problem studying leftist material; in fact, for a period of time I was a fully pursuaded Socialist. But I do think it’s wrong for good material to be rejected or bad material to be chosen on considerations of politics rather than quality.
Indeed they ded, elucidator, but not nearly to the extent and organization that the Scandinavians. I certainly don’t equate the Swedes to Nazis or Stalinist practices, though.
What spelling error are you talking about, Jack?