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Cooper42
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Postby Cooper42 » Thu Mar 29, 2007 9:53 am

xander wrote:
daset wrote:
xander wrote:Federalist constitutional nation beats anarchy. I take as proof the fact that American Indians were basically communist-anarchists at the time of European arrival (this excludes large groups, such as the Inca, Maya, Aztec, Hopi, &c., which were big-man agriculturalists, and cheifdoms or even state-level societies).


That only shows causality, not correlation.

I believe that is the point, yes? Your typo excluded, this whole topic is rather tongue-in-cheek, so I thought that people might get it. Obviously not. I would still be curious to know what Cooper42 finds so objectionable to what I wrote...

xander
Native American societies could possibly be called 'tribal', 'nomadic', among others - these are fairly straightforward descriptions. 'Communist-anarchist' implies certain ideals, ideals which are alien to Native American societies. Like calling ants communists (not that I'm comparing NAtive Americans and ants similarly), they're not communists, they can have no conception of a communist ideal, they're ants...

My allusion to the sex pistols was an attempt to make a ha-ha. But it would only be funny to a few Brits who happened to remember/know of the UK chart in November 1976...

Daset: Shouldn't that be the other way around? Surely causality implies correlation (whether positive or negative) whereas correlation doesn't imply causation?

Anyway, off-topic, surely?

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Postby Xocrates » Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:47 am

Plants have no concept of green, yet most of them still are.
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Postby Cooper42 » Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:30 pm

Xocrates wrote:Plants have no concept of green, yet most of them still are.
They may be 'green', but last time I checked, they weren't environmental activists?
Communism, and to an extent, anarchism, imply ideals, they are not neutral descriptors such as the colour 'green'. I doubt many Native Americans would self-identify themselves or their ancestors as communist?
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Postby Xocrates » Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:47 pm

Cooper42 wrote:
Xocrates wrote:Plants have no concept of green, yet most of them still are.
They may be 'green', but last time I checked, they weren't environmental activists?
Communism, and to an extent, anarchism, imply ideals, they are not neutral descriptors such as the colour 'green'. I doubt many Native Americans would self-identify themselves or their ancestors as communist?


Which doesn't prevent them to act like such. They could have lived through their whole lives following the principles of communism/anarchism/whatever or something similar and not be aware.

And of course plants are environmental activists! They plant trees, don't they?
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Postby Ace Rimmer » Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:09 pm

Cooper42 wrote:Image


I would, but...

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Postby xander » Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:47 pm

daset, I believe that this is what you said:
daset wrote:That only shows causality, not correlation.

I believe you meant to say "That only shows correlation, not causation," which would be the more normal use of the phrase, and the more accurate. If one thing causes another, then there is, almost by definition, correlation (unless there are other confounding variables). However, two things can be correlated without one causing the other.

-----

Cooper42 wrote:Native American societies could possibly be called 'tribal', 'nomadic', among others - these are fairly straightforward descriptions. 'Communist-anarchist' implies certain ideals, ideals which are alien to Native American societies. Like calling ants communists (not that I'm comparing NAtive Americans and ants similarly), they're not communists, they can have no conception of a communist ideal, they're ants...

Communism, with a lowercase "c", as I used it, does not imply the belief systems that you describe. Communism, from the same root as "commune" or "communal" is a descriptive label. You can be a communist without ever having read Marx. Even so, Marx and Engles were attempting to describe the world as they saw it. In doing so, they cribbed heavily from Lewis Henry Morgan, specifically his book Ancient Society (ISBN: 0765806916). Lewis Henry Morgan is generally regarded as one of the very first ethnographers. Ancient Society was a description of the Iriqous in southern Canada. An American Indian group.

Communism, with a lowercase "c", is egalitarian. Resources are shared throughout a group, and everyone is expected to contribute to the work. In small scale societies (band level, tribe level, and, to some extent, chiefdom level societies), this is the only way to survive. By default, these societies practice a form of communism. Get over it.

As to anarchy, that generally means a lack of government. Again, in band and tribe level societies, there isn't an institution that we would call government. Again, these were very egalitarian societies, and decisions would have been made by consensus, rather than decree.

As many of the societies in the New World were small and nomadic (bands and tribes), we can say certain things about how they were organized. One of those things is that they lived in a communal, egalitarian manner; another is that they lived without government; i.e. they were communists and anarchists.

-----

Finally: use this to find an alternate route:

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Postby Ace Rimmer » Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:30 pm

And that is why you don't argue with xander. ;p

In other news, it seems that Hu Jintao received a poorly translated briefing taken off of a Japanese "diplomat". It was in engrish. A note to his wife about their satellite dish and their good china (on the back) was taken completely out of context. In response, he ordered all satellites neutralized.

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Postby Cooper42 » Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:51 pm

xander wrote:Communism, with a lowercase "c", as I used it, does not imply the belief systems that you describe. Communism, from the same root as "commune" or "communal" is a descriptive label. You can be a communist without ever having read Marx. Even so, Marx and Engles were attempting to describe the world as they saw it. In doing so, they cribbed heavily from Lewis Henry Morgan, specifically his book Ancient Society (ISBN: 0765806916). Lewis Henry Morgan is generally regarded as one of the very first ethnographers. Ancient Society was a description of the Iriqous in southern Canada. An American Indian group.

Communism, with a lowercase "c", is egalitarian. Resources are shared throughout a group, and everyone is expected to contribute to the work. In small scale societies (band level, tribe level, and, to some extent, chiefdom level societies), this is the only way to survive. By default, these societies practice a form of communism. Get over it.

As to anarchy, that generally means a lack of government. Again, in band and tribe level societies, there isn't an institution that we would call government. Again, these were very egalitarian societies, and decisions would have been made by consensus, rather than decree.

As many of the societies in the New World were small and nomadic (bands and tribes), we can say certain things about how they were organized. One of those things is that they lived in a communal, egalitarian manner; another is that they lived without government; i.e. they were communists and anarchists.
I know Engels' work well, and whilst superficially descriptive, it was, certainly in later writings, not without an agenda. And whilst yourself and I may be aware of communism in a more abstract sense, who else here considers it anything but a reference to a political and social ideal?

Anarchism doesn't mean just apolitical, or anti-governmental. For most (popular, but not necessarily correct) imaginings, it means 'without order' or even chaos. I certainly don't think that applies.

My point was, who thinks of communism and anarchy (capitalised or no) as anything but political (or apolitical) ideals, other than those who may have studied the subject? For most people, such a description is misleading.

Yes, it's a possible description, not entirely unaccurate, but it's certainly very misleading.
And as an excuse to whip-out images of the most worthless piece of paper ever written upon, it's as good as any...

And, besides, I only placed my head-up-my-arse to ellicit response, it certainly wasn't sincere, and also because I think it's where I lost my id.
Last edited by Cooper42 on Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby NeoThermic » Thu Mar 29, 2007 4:52 pm

Ace Rimmer wrote:And that is why you don't argue with xander. ;p


Well, you can argue with xander, but you better have your facts straight or xander will tie you up with real facts :)

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Postby xander » Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:35 pm

Cooper42 wrote:I know Engels' work well, and whilst superficially descriptive, it was, certainly in later writings, not without an agenda. And whilst yourself and I may be aware of communism in a more abstract sense, who else here considers it anything but a reference to a political and social ideal?

I never said that Engels did not have an agenda. Both Engles and Marx had very clear agendas. But much of their work was descriptive. Have you read Zinn's A People's History of the United States (e.g. ISBN: 1583226281)? Would you say that the book is descriptive? Would you say that it has an agenda? Are the two really exclusive of eachother? I don't think that description is exclusive of an agenda. Everyone has an agenda, even if they are attempting to describe something.

Cooper42 wrote:Anarchism doesn't mean just apolitical, or anti-governmental. For most (popular, but not necessarily correct) imaginings, it means 'without order' or even chaos. I certainly don't think that applies.

That is a dictionary description of anarchy, and only one of many. In the modern political arena, what does anarchy mean? When used to describe a society, it generally means "without an organized government." That is certainly the meaning that self-described anarchists have in mind (including both Communists on one end of the political spectrum, and Libertarians on the other end). Small societies, like many of those found in the New World at the time of contact, certainly met that definition.

Basically, it seems to come down to this: you seem to think that if I describe people as communists, I am also implying that these people have the same political ideals of Marxists, or Leninists, or Maoists (all forms of Communism with a capital "C", all rather different). You argue that, because American Indians had never heard of Marx, they could not have those political ideals. In contrast, I am stating that Marx described a form of political organization, and that term transcends the specific political goals that he had.

Cooper42 wrote:My point was, who thinks of communism and anarchy (capitalised or no) as anything but political (or apolitical) ideals, other than those who may have studied the subject? For most people, such a description is misleading.

What you are saying here, basically, is that the vast majority of people see communism and anarchism as having certain political ideals associated with them, and that, because of the stigma associated with them, people who are differently (I might even say "better") educated should shy away from those terms? I would prefer use the terms, and, if objected to, explain exactly how I am using the term, and what the term means to the vast majority of social scientists that use it. In that manner, perhaps, the political and social stigma of the terms can be reduced, and we can actually have logical and calm debates about the relative merits of the systems.

Cooper42 wrote:Yes, it's a possible description, not entirely unaccurate, but it's certainly very misleading.

In fact, it is almost entirely accurate. Honestly, I know exactly how I am using the terms, and I know about the societies that I am describing with those terms. If you do not, I am more than happy to explain.

Cooper42 wrote:And as an excuse to whip-out images of the most worthless piece of paper ever written upon, it's as good as any...

You are really going to have to clarify this comment...

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Postby daset » Fri Mar 30, 2007 3:37 am

<snip>
Last edited by daset on Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Shwart!! » Fri Mar 30, 2007 5:50 pm

xander] [quote="Cooper42 wrote:And as an excuse to whip-out images of the most worthless piece of paper ever written upon, it's as good as any...

You are really going to have to clarify this comment...

xander[/quote]

I think he was referring to your picture of the constitution (or whatever document it is, I didn't really look at it real hard).
I also believe that he is either being sarcastic or he doesn't like the U.S.

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Postby ChasM » Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:12 am

"worthless piece of paper "?
Kinda makes me appreciate the phrase "perls before swine." Cooper42 is a clueless hallucinatingfarmer.
Meanwhile back at the War (of pictures)-:
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Bill of Rights trumphs the Constitution (at least in the U.S.)
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Postby wwarnick » Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:40 am

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And then came typewriters.

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Postby shinygerbil » Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:12 pm

note: THIS IS A TONGUE-IN-CHEEK JOKE

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