PreteenCommunist - ask me anything ^.^

Preteen, it takes a certain amount of time, as in years, to completely master both the tenets of Marxism as well as the standard rebuttal to every economic, social, and philosophical argument against it. You've done it in fewer than the standard number of years, all the while doing the things a normal child does. Moreover, you articulate those arguments as though you've done it a thousand times before, always logically, never emotionally. It's not easy to understand where one finds the time to grow up and learn so much beyond the normal western curriculum so fast.

I've had exchanges with you on and off the board and I respect you, so I can't bring myself to accuse you of dishonesty. So something else is afoot. What, I don't know.

 

You have a point, but then again people are different. She must've found the stuff very early on, and built from there to this point. But you have a point, most of time prodigies like her usually have something lacking on social aptitude.

I have a hard time reading archaic literature, so it took me a while to get understanding of Marxism/Left-Communism and Anarchism from youtube videos and supplement that with some reading.

 

Agreed. That's the point of the historical materialist concept of social history.

Working for an intrinsic purpose is working because one enjoys it (i.e. work and leisure merging). The desire to create a better future may be a purpose too, but I don't see why this would mean that some people not pulling their weight is a serious problem. If anything, the lack of a division of labour and degree of technological advancement renders this less of a problem than it is under capitalism, since everything is so flexible.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here.

A "communist" party functioning as elected leaders in a bourgeois state does not a communist society make. At least, no more than the CDU being in the ruling coalition in Germany makes Germany a Christian theocracy. But anyway, yeah, socialism is of necessity global.

Ok, so an élite to you is a stratum (?) of people in society who perform respected, challenging jobs, right? Well, for one thing communism does not involve equal wages, but the abolition of the wage system and the division of labour, and for another, money is not the only reason why people become doctors. In fact, I know lots of people who want to become doctors and none of them even mentioned money as a motivation. I imagine it's incredibly rewarding to save someone, as it is to do other jobs which pay well currently and require a lot of skill and training. Architecture for example; when I was 11 or so I fell in love with the idea of architecture and creating structures for purposes and doing an activity as intensely human as designing buildings. I knew it wasn't for me - my spatial awareness is atrocious - but despite the 7 years of school first, it's worth it for intrinsic reasons.

 

Yeah, no. Nowhere in TCM did it say that those 10 planks were the be-all and end-all, and nor did it say that they characterised a communist society. It merely said that they would be "pretty generally applicable" as steps to achieving proletarian conquest of power, and the expropriation of bourgeois property and baby steps towards socialism which that would entail.

Russia from 1917-21, probably, but the NEP blew it. In my opinion. However, this was not a "communist nation" (that's an oxymoron) but a vaguely proletarian state.

 

"You don't fit into my preconceived notions of how a 12-year-old should behave, therefore you're dishonest, and I'll throw in a political insult for good measure."

I'm 14 now (I was 12 when I first made an account here) but anyway. Surely you can see the flaws in this reasoning?

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I was planning on drawing a bunny on my first ballot paper anyway.

 

I think you're grossly overestimating me, to be honest.

I'm not a prodigy. There is nothing "innate" (wherever the heck that could possibly originate) about my knowledge or understanding, and there is no way I've mastered everything. Just the other day I was debating the whole "individual" concept with a humanist and it took me about an hour to realise that I had completely misconstrued her position, and then I resolved to go home and reread my entire Althusser collection for the nth time. I have readily admitted on this site that sometimes I haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about, but I talk about it anyway. What knowledge I do have was garnered from a combination of over two years of intense political and philosophical reading to the point of obsession, eighteen or so months of political activism in one of the most turbulent periods the socialist scene in my country has had, and a hell of a lot of theoretical and political blunders which embarrass me to no end but taught me so much. Anyone could've done that; I just had the desire to do it. One thing I will be proud of, though, is the lack of emotion in my arguments. That's one of the things I value the most and I'm glad it has come through.

As for the time...I don't have Insta, Twitter (anymore), Snapchat or basically any social media (I have Facebook and VK and barely use them). Maybe that helped. This stuff is what I do in my free time.

 

Your grammar and thought structure is not that of a younger person.
Furthermore, your posting manner is exactly the same as another poster here as well as a couple of other forums.

 

Nice assertion. I'm sure it's totally credible and not based on personal preconceptions in the slightest. Nope.

(Also, I'm a Grammar CheKist, what do you expect?)

I did have a RevLeft account if that's what you're thinking of, and a DDO one back in the day (waaay back in 2014). Which poster here?

 

I don't think I said anything about it being innate, and don't suggest that it could be. My point is the very opposite: merely familiarizing oneself with all of these philosophers, political arguments, and counter arguments takes study time that most children simply do not have. I don't say they're mentally incapable of it, obviously, but it must needs come at the expense of sacrificing something else, and I can't figure out what that is. I take your point that you were studying obsessively for 2 years, and I admit that a lot can be learned in even one year. (The other suspicious adults here might note that American kids on high school debate teams tend to go nuts studying the ins and outs of trade policy, supply side economics, or death penalty statistics, and they put many adults to shame. So yeah, what preteen has done is feasible.) But how did you become jaded, sort of bored with it all? Were you debating capitalists during this 2-year period? You seem "tired" already.

I'll confess also that I am jealous of you, regardless of your age. I can still remember asking a more sophisticated friend, when we were both 16, what the difference was between the Democrats and the Republicans. (Of course, sometimes I still can't see the difference, and I am an old man, LOL. (See how "with it" I am with my "LOL"?)

And now we're "re-reading" our "entire" Althusser collection for the "nth" time? Please forgive my cynical eyebrow arched in suspicion. Unless your entire collection consists of one abridged tome.

Look, if you'll just erupt in a fervent "So, Chef, you and all the rest of the stupid dirty cappie/bourgeois scum on this forum can go stick it!!!!" one time, then I'll believe you.

Deal?

 

If there were so many people over the last 100 years that didn't know what real communism was, yet called themselves communists, and still call themselves communists, then the definition on communism can't mean much.

The whole socialist/communist ideology is an unworkable joke. A failure.

 

No, it isn't. It simply requires social morals for free. Thus, we are simply not moral enough due to a lack of a "hard working", moral ethic, to establish a Commune of Heaven on Earth.

 

You respect a self-professed communist, and obvious liar?

Have you any idea of the evil and misery done by communists in the last hundred years, and continuing to this day? And you "respect" a person advocating this crime against humanity?

 

Yes, I know more about that than most on the forum. But I believe that she is a kid and am willing to give her a break.

 

Ah, ok. Someone mentioned prodigiousness, so that's what I was reacting to. But yeah, I basically did study obsessively for 2 years, and that was mostly what I did in my leisure time. When I was at home, or when I had a spare moment in the library after school or on the metro or while waiting for someone, I would have a book out or a PDF open on my phone and I would be reading something Marxism-related. As for being jaded and tired...firstly, you're very perceptive, and secondly, yep, I went all-out over the two years. I went to every single leftist event in my city, got a column in a communist paper and made a bit of a name for myself. I also spent a lot of time debating with people and answering their questions at school, and last year, around International Workers' Day, I held this massive event where I gave a talk on communism, had a Q&A session and made an FAQ pamphlet for everyone:




Sooo...I went overboard, tl;dr. And I am quite tired. I often feel like communism doesn't have anything to offer me intellectually anymore, even though I'm still as fervent a communist as ever (I made a thread about it, since I thought the concept of such intellectual boredom was quite interesting to explore, but the thread degenerated into stupid bickering about whether or not I was a 30-year-old American bloke because people can't seem to get their heads out of their precious arses).

My Althusser collection is actually a bunch of PDFs because getting French books is fiddly and/or expensive here, and I have read his stuff quite extensively but haven't understood all that much, I suspect. Would "umpteenth" be better than "nth"? I thought it might have been but couldn't be bothered to edit.

 

It's not that they didn't know what it was. It was simply good for propaganda and rhetoric to keep up the pretence of communism. I'm pretty sure the Nazis knew what "independent" meant, but they still called their west Balkan puppet state the "Independent State of Croatia."

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Morals have zilch to do with communism. I'm a moral nihilist and a communist. The concepts are totally unrelated, and I would say they're antithetical, too.

 

omgggg its so tots peak of you 2 not reply to my last post and then post now and call me a liar :'( :'( like wt actual f i cant even

...Would you prefer it if I were to post like that? Does that soothe your sclerotic soul?

 

You don't do that, as they are an instrument by which others achieve mastery over you.

 

Since there has never been a proper communist government or nation, and the closest one you mention is 1970's Soviet Union---then tell me how you, the communist lover/expert would handle those in your fantasy communist state who resist?

What about the lazy welfare and entitlement seekers used to sitting around on their young, fat behinds and getting free stuff? Would you make them work? Would you cut them off? Your fantasy Commie state needs lots of mine and forest workers. Who gets a free pass from work that can work?

What is your punishment going to be for those who like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and the freedom to arm themselves with common guns? Do they go to work camps, prisons, or simply executed?

How about families? Do you support the idea of the classical nuclear family, or should "Big Brother" be the head of the family?

 

Only because you are clueless and Causeless. Morals for free have everything to do with it, even while being "punished" by lucre and capitalism.

 

Millions of gullible kiddies and adults fawn over socialist Bernie Sanders, a lifelong failure himself, much like Karl Marx.

 

Expand.

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We would call Sanders a social democrat here. He is a perfect fit for that term. But that word doesn't seem to exist in US-American political vocabulary, so he's unfortunately chosen the name "socialist."

 

1918-21 Russia* (it wasn't the Soviet Union until the end of 1922)

Are you talking about the transition period, or communism?

Why do you think there exist "lazy welfare and entitlement seekers"?

I still don't know whether you're talking about transition or communism. In the former, guns will be freely available with a little bit of background checking but nothing major (I oppose gun control) and people will be able to freely practice religion, although religion will have no place in politics and there will not be much need for it. There might be a need in some areas to force religion out of the public sphere, though that might not be necessary. Freedom of speech/the press are largely irrelevant because they don't exist anyway. For the majority of the transition period, there will not be much more control than there is under capitalism, except at the beginning when wartime conditions will be in place. In full communism the whole concept of punishment is meaningless.

I have no attachment to Victorian notions of the family. Upbringing and living will be communal in communism.

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How? What do you mean?

 

The "mastery" of such preposterous* precepts requires of the "master" the compromising of his human consciousness, which is the very faculty by which he is able to discern when he is being enslaved.

*The same result can be had even if said precepts are consonant with reality - which is why Christianity only rarely lives up to its potential, as so many professing Christians fail to recognize the folly of seeking in mere words such meaning as resides only in transcendent principles.

Of course no one who believes morality is illusory or subjective can be expected to understand any of this.

 

<<Throws rotten fruit for fraudery.

 

What do you mean by communal?. Most people wouldn't regard living in a dormitory as paradise, though I can see how many would regard communal living as acceptable if some type of privacy is allowed for and most forms of communism seem to do something like that

Most forms of communism I've seen regard families as integral, they aren't seen as entirely Victorian.

What do you think of the notion that the Western nations are in the first stages of communism now, but it's being carefully disguised as something else?