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White Supremacist Protest Violence

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gregory kalian

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9 hours ago, New Buddha said:

 The philosophical ideas of the Left'ist Antifa and the Right'ist Fascists are both derived from Kant/Hegel.  They are, philosophically, "Opposite sides of the same fraudulent coin." 

 This is a different idea. I wasn't trying to say antifa is a moral -good-, only to say that Nazis are authentically more evil. After reading 2046's post, I see good reason to suspect they are "moral" equals. I still need to read more. Your quote didn't show that they are equals.

In either case I don't think antifa will dominate. Our time would be better spent on what to do about those who went to Unite the Right, how to combat that irrationality. Let antifa disintegrate on its own.

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40 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

You keep using that phrase, so I decided to cast around a moment. Perhaps it is easily accessible elsewhere, and you can direct me for the sake of context?

From the Lexicon: Skepticism .  I probably heard read that phrase for the first time 30 years ago, lol, and it stuck with me.  I had to Google it to find where it was in her writings.

These two positions appear to be antagonists, but are, in fact, two variants on the same theme, two sides of the same fraudulent coin:

40 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

You tried to attack Eiuol earlier, suggesting that he might find Stalin morally superior to Hitler.

I was questioning whether he can draw a moral and philosophical distinction between Stalin and Hitler.  The philosophical root of both Communism/Anarchism and Fascism are to be found in the philosophies of  Kant/Hegel.  The fact that we teamed up with Stalin to defeat Hitler has nothing to do with the discussion.

Objectivism rejects the traditional Left vs. Right Axis - with Communism/Anarchism on the Left and Fascism on the Right - and Founding Fathers/Objectivism falling somewhere in between.  Communism/Anarchism/Fascism are philosophically identical.

Edited by New Buddha
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16 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Your quote didn't show that they are equals.

We posted almost simultaneously, so I didn't read this first.  I will elaborate on my above post if you believe that Founding Fathers/Objectivism DO fall somewhere on the traditional Left vs. Right Axis.

Edit:  The Left vs. Right Axis is what I am referring to with the "opposite side/coin" quote.

Edited by New Buddha
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22 hours ago, New Buddha said:

I was questioning whether he can draw a moral and philosophical distinction between Stalin and Hitler.  The philosophical root of both Communism/Anarchism and Fascism are to be found in the philosophies of  Kant/Hegel.  The fact that we teamed up with Stalin to defeat Hitler has nothing to do with the discussion.

Objectivism rejects the traditional Left vs. Right Axis - with Communism/Anarchism on the Left and Fascism on the Right - and Founding Fathers/Objectivism falling somewhere in between.  Communism/Anarchism/Fascism are philosophically identical.

I also reject "left versus right" in an abstracted sense (perhaps even the same abstracted sense you're referring to), but when we make decisions in reality -- again -- we must make them in full context. That means that the real-life details we abstract away (which allows us to see "left" and "right" as "fundamentally the same") must be brought back into consideration, to the extent that they matter to our decisions.

This is what allows Dr. Hurd, for instance, to be able to compare the Democratic and Republican parties and find that it is moral to support one over the other to some extent (whether we agree or not with that specific decision) at this specific moment in time. And yes, this does have to do with teaming up with Stalin to defeat Hitler, and we cannot assert that away.

There is a sense in which we can say, "ah, Communists and Fascists are the same; Democrats and Republicans are the same; etc.," but when we're dealing with actual manifestations of the left or the right (or anything else) the details matter to our evaluation. Antifa are not good guys (and no one here has claimed that they are), and certainly if the most extreme (i.e. most consistent) of their members had their way, life on Earth would be shitty for everyone else. The better people within a group like that, or allied to it, do not yet understand that their endorsement of violent tactics/thuggery undermines their ideas for liberty, or peace, or whatever it is that they believe themselves to be working towards. They do not understand that they are in fact creating the very thing they imagine themselves to be fighting against: fascism.

But this is still different from people who understand that they are fighting for fascism and fight for it anyways. People who understand that calling for white nationalism is racist, yet call for it anyways. People who understand how their ideas are bound to actual human slavery, actual genocide, yet embrace those ideas regardless. When we're talking about Antifa and associated, as it exists in 2017 America, versus the KKK and neo-Nazi groups, as they exist in 2017 America, we can recognize that they are fundamentally the same in certain respects and different in others -- and yes, those differences matter to our moral evaluations.

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Don,

To the extent that they can understand their ideas at all, the Marxist/Anarchist/anti-Capitalist (redshirt) far-Left Antifa equates the Fascist (brownshirt) far-Right White Supremisticts with Capitalism.  To the far-Left, Nazi Germany was the inevitable, logical and historical manifestation of Capitalism (Dialectic Materialism).  It's not just a coincidence that Marx's treatise was titled Das Kapital.

This German dialectic has been playing-out for over 200 years (really even longer, since Martin Luther) and has caused 100's of millions of deaths.  It is nothing more than Marx's Collectivism (Socialism/Communism/Anarchism) vs. Hegel's Statism (Prussian Statism, Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm II (World War I) and Nazism).  This is the redshirt vs. brownshirt "dialectic" that 2046 outlined in his well-written post.

The far-Left want' people to believe that there is a difference between Collectivism (Classism) and Statism (Racism) and they want people to equate Capitalism with Fascism - but this a game that Objectivists refuse to be tricked into playing.  Objectists reject this dialectic.  The Globalist Left also want people to equate National Sovereignty with Fascism.

None of the above has anything to do with the Ethical Individualism which shaped the U.S. through the ideas of Locke, Smith, Paine, Jefferson, etc.

And, by the way, the same far-Left also sees Objectivists as far-Right borderline Fascists.  Rand was/is attacked to no end (sometimes even by ignorant Republicans) for just this very reason.

Edited by New Buddha
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From the Lexicon entry America

America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more—and nothing less.

In its great era of capitalism, the United States was the freest country on earth—and the best refutation of racist theories. Men of all races came here, some from obscure, culturally undistinguished countries, and accomplished feats of productive ability which would have remained stillborn in their control-ridden native lands. Men of racial groups that had been slaughtering one another for centuries, learned to live together in harmony and peaceful cooperation. America had been called “the melting pot,” with good reason. But few people realized that America did not melt men into the gray conformity of a collective: she united them by means of protecting their right to individuality.

Today, that problem is growing worse—and so is every other form of racism. America has become race-conscious in a manner reminiscent of the worst days in the most backward countries of nineteenth-century Europe. The cause is the same: the growth of collectivism and statism.

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From the Lexicon entry Fascism and Communism/Socialism

For many decades, the leftists have been propagating the false dichotomy that the choice confronting the world is only: communism or fascism—a dictatorship of the left or of an alleged right—with the possibility of a free society, of capitalism, dismissed and obliterated, as if it had never existed.

It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism).

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On 8/20/2017 at 1:13 PM, New Buddha said:

The far-Left want' people to believe that there is a difference between Collectivism (Classism) and Statism (Racism) and they want people to equate Capitalism with Fascism - but this a game that Objectivists refuse to be tricked into playing.  Objectists reject this dialectic.  The Globalist Left also want people to equate National Sovereignty with Fascism.

Meh, "Globalist Left" is a non-existent thing, you may as well just go on about George Soros too as if that's any value for discourse. It's conspiratorial, and discredits what you say. 2046 mentioned Soros, making me skeptical about the degree that really is doing a careful look at antifa.

Your German dialectic bit is fine and all, but it's no argument to show moral equivalency. While Hegel is a way to show why collectivists are superficially different, it won't show us how or why Nazism is worse than Prussian Statism. It won't show the different thinkers that grow ideas differently. We can't just point out a link and say "aha! They're moral equals!" It's the sort of person who says "Antifa are fascists!" to avoid thinking about the way fascism surpasses the evil of Communism. There is a moral difference despite both being dictatorial.

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I'm not really following. Granted my look was more anecdotal in nature, wouldn't a thoroughgoing analysis include things like looking at organizational structure and outside funding sources?

Wouldn't it be of interest if one of those sources was a billionaire former Nazi party member who promoted various left wing organizations targeting the idea of free speech?

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It was a minor point, it's just that even minor mentions of things/people like George Soros are distractions and exaggerations. He isn't a -special- problem. He might be of interest - if he wasn't so easily invoked as if he were Voldemort. Still, your earlier post was great anecdotal info, it has substance and things I wouldn't know otherwise.

The rest of my post wasn't related.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

It was a minor point, it's just that even minor mentions of things/people like George Soros

You're the only one who mentioned George Soros.  He didn't even enter into my mind when I was writing the post.

In my mind were such quotes from Jefferson: (Edit: Also, I've been thinking a great deal lately about the nature of  trade agreements and how they can become entangled with both foreign and domestic Government policy, national security, etc.).

"I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection 
with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment.  And I am 
not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of 
Europe, entering that field of slaughter to preserve their 
balance, or joining in the confederacy of Kings to war against 
the principles of liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 
1799.

"We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country,
nor with the general affairs of Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to 
C. W. F. Dumas, 1793.

"Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself
from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own.  Our
circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct.  The 
principles of our policy should be so also.  All entanglements 
with that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that 
peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American  
societies." --Thomas Jefferson to J. Correa de Serra, 1820.
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52 minutes ago, 2046 said:

Wouldn't it be of interest if one of those sources was a billionaire former Nazi party member who promoted various left wing organizations targeting the idea of free speech?

Are you claiming that George Soros is a former Nazi? You understand that he's an ethnic Jew, right? Or that he was born in 1930, which would make him 15 when WW2 ended?

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On 8/19/2017 at 7:45 PM, Eiuol said:

In either case I don't think antifa will dominate. Our time would be better spent on what to do about those who went to Unite the Right, how to combat that irrationality. Let antifa disintegrate on its own.

Communism is a much more dangerous ideology than anything "Unite the Right" has to say. Partly because they have been far more destructive throughout history, but mainly because, unlike the far right, they are well represented, and tolerated, among cultural, academic and political elites.

So they, along with the entire far left they work side by side with, should absolutely be the main concern.

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1 hour ago, New Buddha said:

You're the only one who mentioned George Soros.  He didn't even enter into my mind when I was writing the post.

2046 mentioned Soros near the end of his big post explaining why he thought antifa gets ignored in the media more or less. You saying "Left Globalists" is a similar "scare phrase".

Anyway, I find racist collectivism to be worse and scarier than classist collectivism because of historical evidence that Italian Fascism and German Nazism were able to unify quicker than Communists through appeals to culture and tradition. That works far better to collectivize and destroy others than the cultural revolution demanded by Communists. More specifically, antifa is anarcho-Communism, isn't it? It lacks the major authoritarianism we'd see from Maoists or Stalinists.

Jefferson isn't a good person to cite on government policy, at least not for me. He was an anti-federalist; I've studied the debates on the Constitution lately, and I don't like anti-federalists. Cite Madison or Hamilton, or any Federalist. (That might belong on the immigration thread. :P )

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48 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

More specifically, antifa is anarcho-Communism, isn't it? It lacks the major authoritarianism we'd see from Maoists or Stalinists.

Technically no.  The reason that Anarchist are on the "left" with Communism is because they, like Marxist, believe that the State will disappear once their goals have been achieved.  The Anarchist in the late 19th Century did not believe, like Marx, in Historical Determinism and the progression from Capitalism to Socialism to Communism (no State).  The Anarchists believed that a violent event would "spark" a global uprising, in which the people would demolish all institutions.  That's why they were throwing bombs around....

Having lived in Portland for the last 25 years, I've seen these anti-Capitalists/Anarchist destroy business and storefronts in downtown Portland numerous times.  I'm not impressed that they are "Social Justice Warriors". (Edit: The protests typically coincided with the G8/20 Summits)

Edit 2:  The question/point you make above may explain the different views you and I have on this issue wrt Anarchism.  Fascism was the "opposite" in the sense that the State was the end goal of Hegel, Wilhelm II, Hitler, etc. - and this is how Rand uses the term(s) too.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Anyway, I find racist collectivism

Statism is Racism.  When Rand mentions Racism and Statism in Europe, she is talking about the endless wars between Bosnians, Serbians, Bohemians, Czechs, Slovakians, Hungarians, Germans, Prussians, French, English, Poles, etc.

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

More specifically, antifa is anarcho-Communism, isn't it? It lacks the major authoritarianism we'd see from Maoists or Stalinists.

 

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Jefferson isn't a good person to cite on government policy, at least not for me. He was an anti-federalist; I've studied the debates on the Constitution lately, and I don't like anti-federalists

You're stepping all over yourself with the two above posts.  Jefferson opposed Federalism because he was concerned that it would lead to authoritarianism.

And I'm not sure how what you say in this entire series of posts squares with the staunch anti-anarcho capitalism position you've taken on other posts.

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1 hour ago, New Buddha said:

Edit 2:  The question/point you make above may explain the different views you and I have on this issue wrt Anarchism.  Fascism was the "opposite" in the sense that the State was the end goal of Hegel, Wilhelm II, Hitler, etc. - and this is how Rand uses the term(s) too.

Oh, to be clear, I don't mean to say that fascism and Communism are opposites. When I said classist and racist, I mean something deeper than dialectic oppositions. These systems have the same genus as collectivist, but then that can be split into authoritarian or not authoritarian. Then split authoritarian into the means they distinguish "the enemy" - class, race, or culture. Anarchism from leftists isn't authoritarian per se, so I don't think it's as destructive due to being self-defeating, despite adopting some of Communism in modern times.

41 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

Jefferson opposed Federalism because he was concerned that it would lead to authoritarianism.

I know, that's because he's more like a proto ancap. Of course he'd think the Constitution was a bad idea. Do you think it's relevant to this conversation for us to follow that tangent though? It seems unrelated.

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43 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Oh, to be clear, I don't mean to say that fascism and Communism are opposites. When I said classist and racist, I mean something deeper than dialectic oppositions. These systems have the same genus as collectivist, but then that can be split into authoritarian or not authoritarian. Then split authoritarian into the means they distinguish "the enemy" - class, race, or culture. Anarchism from leftists isn't authoritarian per se, so I don't think it's as destructive due to being self-defeating, despite adopting some of Communism in modern times.

 

I have, to the best of my ability, been using terms as Rand (and, honestly, most other philosophers and historians) use them.  The above paragraph is to a large extent your own creation, with categories and definitions all your own.  I'm not sure why that is necessary.

I'm not a stickler for agreeing with everything Rand say by any means.  But when I deviate, I try and be clear when doing so to help bypass any confusion.

Edited by New Buddha
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I don't think I deviated or disagreed. I made some deeper distinctions for the purpose of moral judgment while saying (implying) Rand is right that fascists and Communists are evil for similar reasons (collectivism). I don't think it's controversial to say not all collectivists are authoritarians or statists.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I don't think it's controversial to say not all collectivists are authoritarians or statists.

But "collectivists" don't exist.  It is a completely fraudulent, floating concept and is not tied to reality in any way shape or form.  Individuals exist - not collectives.  Marx's concept of Class and Hitler's concept of Race were both pseudo-scientific nonsense.  (And Hegel's was complete mystical nonsense).

Your reification of "collectivists" is in direct opposition to Objectivism and is an example of the point I made in the previous post.

Edited by New Buddha
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Even Rand used the word collectivist. I guess Rand uses a fraudulent concept? By the looks of it, you're lumping ANY sense of collectivism as all the same. So of course you won't make the distinction that Communism has a different means of attaining its ends. 

If you don't see how antifa are anarchists and collectivists, we were never talking about the same thing. Just read the Wikipedia page.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Even Rand used the word collectivist. I guess Rand uses a fraudulent concept?

Good Lord.  Rand's entire fricking philosophy is dedicated to demonstrating that Collectivism - in any form - IS A FRAUDULENT CONCEPT.

Objectivism is a philosophy of Man - Man, the Individual.

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6 hours ago, New Buddha said:

Good Lord.  Rand's entire fricking philosophy is dedicated to demonstrating that Collectivism - in any form - IS A FRAUDULENT CONCEPT.

Objectivism is a philosophy of Man - Man, the Individual.

Thinking of the best way to put this: Actual collectives do not exist.  People who believe they do or should DO exist and are called collectivists.   

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