Fascism!

[padraig (u.s.)]

Just to go hard Godwin, run that same analysis with you-know-who.

In any case, what does Mao really have to do with what happened after he was dead? DXP deserves some credit (though obviously still a tyrant); less convinced by Mao's claims.

as I said I'm not entirely (or even mostly) convinced by this reasoning nor I do really know enough about China under Mao & post-Mao to attempt to assign credit & blame.

I think - at least as I understand it - the argument is anyway not that Mao didn't do a lot of terrible stuff. it's asking whether the Chinese people - who were also pretty badly off before Mao - have been better or worse off under Kai-shek & whoever came after him. which, again I don't know, tho admittedly it seems quite unlikely given much they suffered under Maoism.

As for how many deaths Mao is directly responsible for, well, I guess that's hard to say (ditto our other top mass murderers, Stalin and Hitler), but how many deaths is the system that Mao instigated and ruled over responsible for? I think it's about 65 million.

right, OK. but one question here - are deaths from famine during the Great Leap Forward equatable to those murdered during purges or people killed during the Cultural Revolution? that is, should deaths from bad policy be counted as murder as well? The last is obviously a question not limited to Maoism - actually I think this whole line of reasoning is more worthwhile for what it asks about regimes & governing in general than for any belated justifications of Mao it offers up.

 

[vimothy]

What's good for the reader is good for the author, and vice versa. Words, especially words that have a lot of meaning (in a non-judgemental sense) invested in them, hide as well as reveal chains of signification. I could write a mathematical formula that is hard to understand (I'm speaking rhetorically, of course) for someone unfamiliar with mathematics, but I could also break it down -- perhaps for their benefit -- to its constituent parts, and potentially uncover flaws, mistakes, relationships, identities, that I myself had failed to notice or properly assimilate.

Or to put it another way -- can you say the same thing twice?

 

[vimothy]

I think this whole line of reasoning is more worthwhile for what it asks about regimes & governing in general than for any belated justifications of Mao it offers up.

I agree of course, and it's a worthy line of inquiry. Regarding deaths from the great famine, I think that you have to remember that famine is a political event -- it isn't simply a case of mismanagement.

 

[nikbee]

I'm saying Badiou is full of it & that you come off like a pale imitation of Badiou.

I don't "want" anything really. I do think that instead of making coherent points you've just repeatedly retreated in to Badiouspeak. tho admittedly, I don't really care if you go on about betrayals and truth processes and whatever.

the claim that the rest of us simply can't understand it is ("can't separate the betrayal from the truth process", can't think "within" Badiou & so on) is if nothing else quite amusing.

padraig. not being able to "separate the betrayal from the truth process" does not mean that you are stupid.. this is part of the functioning of Badious ontology. it has a function withing the ontology of the Two.

i was explaining something there... ill quote my response: "to clarify, what is meant with the 'returns' to mao/lenin, is precisely this.. the Truth should be separated from the betrayal.. yes, the betrayal occurs, but there is use in "arresting", or "bracketing", the Truth, independent of the betrayal.. this does not deny the betrayal, but it arrests the truth (before egoistic self-interest betrays it), which can be used in a Truth process, to create a new Truth (this is dialectics of the Two)."

edit: it is 'part of the equation'.. to bring in vims post

 

[nikbee]

have you seen this?

http://facesinplaces.blogspot.com/

 

[scottdisco]

that's a nice pepper, Nikbee! meanwhile..

 

[nomadthethird]

God, this thread has some hilarious moments.

Thanks, Nikbee, you one-man truth making machine, you.

 

[nikbee]

god thats good. ive been giggling almost non stop.

 

[nikbee]

God, this thread has some hilarious moments.

Thanks, Nikbee, you one-man truth making machine, you.

 

[nomadthethird]

With respect, I don't think that's creditable. In terms of raw numbers, Mao was possibly the greatest mass murderer in history.

Vimothy, don't be bothered with icky little details like that.

Just enter the Truth Procedure and you'll be freeeee!! Free to defer to the Central Committee.

 

[josef k.]

What's good for the reader is good for the author, and vice versa. Words, especially words that have a lot of meaning (in a non-judgemental sense) invested in them, hide as well as reveal chains of signification. I could write a mathematical formula that is hard to understand (I'm speaking rhetorically, of course) for someone unfamiliar with mathematics, but I could also break it down -- perhaps for their benefit -- to its constituent parts, and potentially uncover flaws, mistakes, relationships, identities, that I myself had failed to notice or properly assimilate.

Or to put it another way -- can you say the same thing twice?

A good model.

I think that you have to remember that famine is a political event -- it isn't simply a case of mismanagement.

Famine as political event?

What kind of factors are involved in producing a famine?

Stalin also successively produced one.

Is there something in "Stalinism" and "Maoism" which produces famines?

Theories of anorexia...

 

[nomadthethird]

A good model.



Famine as political event?

What kind of factors are involved in producing a famine?

Stalin also successively produced one.

Is there something in "Stalinism" and "Maoism" which produces famines?

Theories of anorexia...

Uhh absolutely shitty resource management, paired with a very lugubrious bureaucratic nightmare of policy making?

 

[scottdisco]

Regarding deaths from the great famine, I think that you have to remember that famine is a political event -- it isn't simply a case of mismanagement.

true that.

ive 'followed through' a few times i think

i nearly followed through whilst in a cab on the Cheetham Hill Road in north Manchester last Friday evening.

the moral of that story is not to drink about a dozen beers and then start on tequilas on an empty stomach.

consider the bell pepper. (cf. Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

but if something is 'flawed' then lets investigate. what is flawed?

fair enough. admittedly this has degenerated into general whinging about jargon, which is pointless.

I don't really have any problem with him as a philosopher, a pure thinker. and I do agree with you that he's a pretty clear writer for a philosopher.

it's when he gets into the "real world" (not "the real") that things usually go awry.

politics, when it exists, grounds its own principle regarding the real, and thus is in need of nothing, save for itself

as a justification for, specifically, the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution. (of course he's very careful to say that yes, it was also barbarous & cruel)

I also agree, more or less with the "Communism=new man, Fascism=old man in new form" (so to speak). but, like nomad, said, who cares? they're both bad ideas.

 

[josef k.]

anorexia

Badiou's philosophical dissemination/reception through the mediasphere (the real world) might be occurring in more subtle ways... and might be made to occur in more subtle ways.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think that you have to remember that famine is a political event -- it isn't simply a case of mismanagement.

that's true - but to my mind there is a fundamental difference between a famine & sending people to death camps. tho famine may be & often is used as a weapon.

what I really mean is - if you are exercising power & you make a bad decision but one that is (more or less, at least) in good faith are how morally responsible are you for the negative outcomes of that decision? (I don't mean to say that the Great Leap Forward specifically was in good faith - it seems like it mostly was but I'm not really sure?)

 

[nikbee]

fair enough. admittedly this has degenerated into general whinging about jargon, which is pointless.

I don't really have any problem with him as a philosopher, a pure thinker. and I do agree with you that he's a pretty clear writer for a philosopher.

it's when he gets into the "real world" (not "the real") that things usually go awry.



as a justification for, specifically, the atrocities Cultural Revolution. (of course he's very careful to say that yes, it was also barbarous & cruel)

I also agree, more or less with the "Communism=new man, Fascism=old man in new form" (so to speak). but, like nomad, said, who cares? they're both bad ideas.

yes, but again. what is problematic with that point?.. pure politics of the Two, unrestrained, should be in perpetual motion, perfectly efficient, in theory.

this is the 'utopia'. only betrayal kills the 'machine.'

i admit, this is utopian. but communist subjectivity is an attempt at this pure politics. the 'passion for the real.'

or, 'love is a thought'.

 

[nomadthethird]

Josef, the internet is the only place where this Badiouian stuff floats. Ever wonder why? Seems pretty obvious...

Much the same way conspiracy theories work pretty well online.

The medium is the message, after all, and all of that stuff.

 

[nomadthethird]

yes, but again. what is problematic with that point?.. pure politics of the Two, unrestrained, should be in perpetual motion, perfectly efficient, in theory.

this is the 'utopia'. only betrayal kills the 'machine.'

i admit, this is utopian. but communist subjectivity is an attempt at this pure politics. the 'passion for the real.'

or, 'love is a thought'.

or 'words are just words, until you do something about them'

 

[nomadthethird]

If you had any passion for the "real", you'd study the world for five minutes instead of making bullshitty "universal" statements out of your ass.