I was looking at the history of Communism and it seems to me that in spite of it being really ridiculous, still I think it comes from an awareness of abuse on the part of princes and priests.
That is: it is a reaction.
John Searle pointed out that not just moral relativism but the larger relativism itself is incoherent. It depends on reality itself being relative. Thus not just the truth of "It is raining here and now" as a statement, but the very fact of the rain in itself. ["There is no intermediate position of truth relativism or semantic relativism between absolutism and ontological relativism, the view that everything that exists only exists relative to my feelings and attitudes."]
The further most obvious problem with Communism is the question: "Who hires the worker?" The obvious answer is the boss. No one is born with the label "worker" printed on their forehead. They only become a worker because the boss hires him. If you kill all the bosses, then there are no workers.
So what kinds of abuse caused people to fall for incoherent doctrines? You have to say there was a lot. Not just that, but Communism itself seems to have been a necessary antidote against the types of criminal populations that were under the rule of the USSR.
So the clear and true points of critique against socialism are seeing just one side of the picture.
I have mentioned before that the Ran (Rav Nahman) from Breslov made a note of the terrible and horrific abuses that were done in the name of the holy Torah. He considers many of the great and well known religious authorities to be demons. תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים
So what you end up with is: there really is no big answer for the human dilemma. We all ought to simply keep and learn Torah and Musar as best we can.
That was in any case the answer my learning partner David Bronson suggested. I had mentioned some of the problems with abuse in the religious world and he agreed but then suggested that since that is the case we ought to simply learn Gemara and try to be decent people ourselves instead of looking at what is wrong with others, or trying to correct the world.
[You would be right if you think that that is not the most satisfying answer. If you would in fact like to do something in the right direction, I would think that the basic Musar Movement of Reb Israel Salanter makes the most sense.--that is learning Ethics and books of Morality from the Middle Ages before these issues got to be muddy.]
That is: it is a reaction.
John Searle pointed out that not just moral relativism but the larger relativism itself is incoherent. It depends on reality itself being relative. Thus not just the truth of "It is raining here and now" as a statement, but the very fact of the rain in itself. ["There is no intermediate position of truth relativism or semantic relativism between absolutism and ontological relativism, the view that everything that exists only exists relative to my feelings and attitudes."]
The further most obvious problem with Communism is the question: "Who hires the worker?" The obvious answer is the boss. No one is born with the label "worker" printed on their forehead. They only become a worker because the boss hires him. If you kill all the bosses, then there are no workers.
So what kinds of abuse caused people to fall for incoherent doctrines? You have to say there was a lot. Not just that, but Communism itself seems to have been a necessary antidote against the types of criminal populations that were under the rule of the USSR.
So the clear and true points of critique against socialism are seeing just one side of the picture.
I have mentioned before that the Ran (Rav Nahman) from Breslov made a note of the terrible and horrific abuses that were done in the name of the holy Torah. He considers many of the great and well known religious authorities to be demons. תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים
So what you end up with is: there really is no big answer for the human dilemma. We all ought to simply keep and learn Torah and Musar as best we can.
That was in any case the answer my learning partner David Bronson suggested. I had mentioned some of the problems with abuse in the religious world and he agreed but then suggested that since that is the case we ought to simply learn Gemara and try to be decent people ourselves instead of looking at what is wrong with others, or trying to correct the world.
[You would be right if you think that that is not the most satisfying answer. If you would in fact like to do something in the right direction, I would think that the basic Musar Movement of Reb Israel Salanter makes the most sense.--that is learning Ethics and books of Morality from the Middle Ages before these issues got to be muddy.]
