It took a Socialist to do this

[Verbal]

I'll try one last time to drag you at least into the last century, Charlie. We no longer talk about 'human nature' like we're leftovers from the Enlightenment. Molecular biology has put a decisive end to that. Human nature is found in the double helix. Nowhere else. Also your 'fundamental difference' between explaining and excusing is specious in this case - it was a play on words, obviously. If you want to argue that it's 'within our nature to act badly' in any causal sense, you have to give a genetic explanation. There isn't one. Nor are such normative concepts as 'good' and 'evil' reducible to biological causation.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

I'll try one last time to drag you at least into the last century, Charlie. We no longer talk about 'human nature' like we're leftovers from the Enlightenment. Molecular biology has put a decisive end to that. Human nature is found in the double helix. Nowhere else. Also your 'fundamental difference' between explaining and excusing is specious in this case - it was a play on words, obviously. If you want to argue that it's 'within our nature to act badly' in any causal sense, you have to give a genetic explanation. There isn't one. Nor are such normative concepts as 'good' and 'evil' reducible to biological causation.

 

I have seldom seen the goalposts shifted more adroitly mid-match.

 

Firstly you argue that my understanding of the destructive aspects of human nature is all wrong because cultural factors (what we might call the 'Zeitgeist') explains our behavior and that there is no such thing as a "swastika gene" of course - your term not mine. I pointed out that cultural or sociological factors cannot fully explain the historical phenomena of war crime because people raised in exactly the same culture can - and do - behave very differently when subjected to extreme environmental situations, such as living under the heel of Nazi occupation for instance.

 

Now you have executed a very rapid 'volt-face' and shifted your position to opining that psychology has become a outdated activity anyway (!) and that the science of Molecular Biology has conclusively proved that the awesome diversity of human behavior can be fully explained by the study of the double helix structure of our DNA. So which of us is now claiming that "the genes made me do it guv" - you or me ?

 

I can only invite others reading this to form their own judgment as to how convincing an explanation they find that.

[Johnny Bognor]

Massive generalisation, obviously - but I'd have thought that the "giving a f**k" component of being a socialist might have played into this

 

Stalin was a socialist. Killed more people than Hitler. HTH

[trousers]

Is God a socialist?

[pap]

Stalin was a socialist. Killed more people than Hitler. HTH

 

I do love this argument whenever someone is brave enough to whip it out.

 

Stalin was a dictator. Socialism or communism never got past the "temporary dictatorship to put everything in place". Stalin would be the prime reason that this didn't happen in the USSR. Wasn't interested in the politics, just the power - and as you say, killed a lot of people to maintain it.

 

Now, if you can connect Stalin's purges to fervent belief in socialist doctrine, you might have a point - and I'll concede right now that the various Five Year Plans were utterly indifferent to the day-to-day needs of people and caused millions of indirect deaths.

 

However, I suspect that your real focus are the purges. That's got feck all to do with socialism, and everything to do with Stalin being a complete c**t willing to murder anyone to hold onto his power.

[saintfully]

Is God a socialist?

 

Just a figment of the imagination...

[Danbert]

You conveniently ignore the fact that a Communist state is ipso facto a form of dictatorship and that, therefore, the abuse of power while not inevitable is likely.

 

Socialism is different. I find it incredibly irritating when British people talk about socialists spending other people's money and always bankrupting the state. America has been bankrupted by the right - and them alone. Denmark has had an ingrained socialist system, despite the changing complexion of various governments, for 50 years and is the most solvent country that doesn't rely on natural resources or dubious tax haven status on God's green earth.