From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Mar 30 2003 - 11:18:51 MST
Dehede011@aol.com wrote,
> Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2003 9:56 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: Nature of Ideology (was RE: More enthusiasm than news in
> Fox's coverage o...
>
>
> In a message dated 3/29/2003 8:37:30 PM Central Standard Time,
> phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu quotes Lee Corbin: "My other theory
> is that the left
> has inherited a tradition, or aspects of a tradition, that
> goes all the way
> back to Lenin. In revolutionary Russia, Lenin and his
> followers labeled
> themselves the Bolsheviks, or "Majority". It was a conscious.."
>
> Then he chips in in reply, "Lenin is not part of the
> memetic history
> of most US liberals. Really, he's not. This may be hard to
> accept if you're
> someone like Dehede who likes to slather "socialist" all
> around, but it's
> true. There may be some common roots between Lenis and
> social democracy,
> going back to the first people outraged at the condition of
> the poor in the
> 19th century, but that's it. This "Bolshevik" connection is
> a fantasy."
>
> Earlier today one of the list members was discussing
> the difference
> between the left and the right. I have observed one of the
> differences is
> that the communists and socialists never like to admit their
> political
> beliefs.
That's because the labels "left" and "right" are so inadequate. You are
trying to force a whole world of political beliefs into a single continuum.
Everybody who doesn't agree with your side, you try to lump together on the
other side. Then you are surprised when they won't admit "they" are all the
same.
Animal rights lovers probably won't agree with communism. Green
environmentalists probably don't derive ecology rules from Lenin.
Anti-technology luddites probably don't read Mein Kampf for ideas. Leftist
atheists and Gaia worshippers aren't deriving their belief systems from the
same sources.
Trying to lump all these leftist groups together into a single philosophy
would be like trying to lump the religious right, christian conservatives,
militant islamists, and zionist judaism all into a single label. They
certainly won't fit well together, and won't all derive their philosophies
form the same source.
Extropians are another group that can't all be easily lumped into "right" or
"left". Imagine trying to lump all of us onto one side or the other. It
won't work. Those labels don't describe Extropians as a whole. If we all
can't be lumped together easily, why do you assume "they" all can be?
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
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