hawil wrote on Jan 31^st, 2014 at 4:36pm:


True, but just because all property is theft doesn’t mean we should give up stealing.

I love taking my stolen Australian dollars to developing countries to.spend up big. I love getting cheap imports from China. I’m quite fond of my house and land the king sold me too, even if it is receiving stolen goods.

The world has never had a communist state, Hawil. The ones that went through the motions were all state capitalists. There is no conceivable way anyone could infer Lenin, Stalin or Mao acted in the spirit of Marxism.

I doubt you could even call any of the communist parties we’ve had Marxist, or even remotely humanist. They were run like disciplined military units, and functioned under hierarchical cloaks of secrecy.

I’m referring, of course, to the Australian ones. In Tzarist Russia, the Bolsheviks raised funds by robbing banks - this was one of Stalin’s first jobs within the party.

It makes an interesting contrast to liberal capitalism’s ethical paradigm. Where communism (or state capitalism) preached unity and brotherly love, its people lived in constant fear of the state.

Freemarket capitalism, however, preached the virtue of greed and self-interest, yet aside from the odd world war or two, it somehow it managed to deliver a reasonable amount of happiness to a decent number of people.

No one calls themselves a post-structuralist, Mistie. There are no post-structuralist organizations or think tanks - as, for example, there are for freemarket libertarians, neoconservatives, discontented Tea Party Republicans, etc, etc, etc.

These are all badge-wearing organizations backed handsomely by rich donors, with well articulated agendas. It’s not a conspiracy - everyone knows who they are. They have money and clubs and meetings and prayer groups. They have connections. They have mass-print magazines, daily  newspapers and even international cable news networks with disciplined editors, columnists, broadcasters and talking heads on the payroll to spread the message.

If you can find one thinker who identifies as a post-structuralist, or more than a handful who identify as postmodernist, I’ll eat my hat. If you can even find any influential post-structural thinkers backing and supporting other post-structuralist thinkers’ ideas, I’ll eat my hat too. As you know, it’s dog eat dog in the Acadame, Mistie.

Communists, in their day, were different. They had leaders who declared "the party line". They had newspapers that followed it. They had members who infiltrated trade unions and student groups and followed their leaders’ orders. For "security" reasons, membership was top secret. Members were told where to live, which jobs to take, and even at times who they could marry.

Most "post-structuralists" don’t even acknowledge the existence of post-structuralism as a school of thought - even less as a "project". How could it be? All those different thinkers can’t even agree on the rules that constitute, as you say, "race, sex and gender".

So feel free to back up your argument with examples. You work in a uni, so you should be used to this - in theory. You teach these skills in your critical and creative thinking class, remember?

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Feb 1^st, 2014 at 9:30pm:


So this is the source of all the West’s problems?

Forget things like the Project for a New Amerikan Century, or the Worldwide Creation Science Research Centre, or the Charles Koch Foundation, or Benny Hinn Ministries.

We have a sinister network of Social Science and Humanities departments, all singing (out of tune) from the same hymnsheet, poisoning the minds of our youth.

Is that it, Mistie? Is that your central argument?

Which one, Mistie? You need to name names, remember?

Creative and critical thinking skills, you see.

Mistie didn’t say that, Aquascoot. He’s talking about "post-structuralists" this time.

As a farmer, you think those things shouldn’t be taught at school?

Or changed the land?

Still, Mistie’s not talking about any of that - he’s talking about the post-structural "project" to put a stop to metaphysics.

I think Mistie’s saying this is the cause of "progressivism" and all the worlds problems.

Mistie?

That's nice, dear, but you've met your kids' teachers - how many are urban trendies?

Teachers, on the whole, teach what they want. No one tells them what angle to teach from. There's no mandatory list of topics to teach in schools. With the exception of some Christian and maybe Steiner schools, no one tells teachers what social or political philosophy they should impose. School principles are at arm's length - education departments and teacher's unions even more so.

The school teacher as proponent of politically correct values is the silliest, most paranoid idea I've ever heard. Even if teachers were part of a vast conspiracy to poison our kids' minds, do you think the kids would listen?

Kids, like the rest of us, get their values from the media. Do you want me to tell you how the media spreads "truth"?

I don't think you do.

aquascoot wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2014 at 9:18am:


Good on you for sticking in there, Aquascoot. You've got an advantage being out on the farm - it's much harder finding time in cities, I think.