American Marxism

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:55 am Frankly, I don't see what there is for anyone to be grateful for in this world.
Well, let's see...

You posted a picture of yourself on a court, playing tennis. You look like you've got all your limbs. You have eye glasses. Without insult, you look like you eat. You have shoes. You have clothes...even some just for sport. You are enjoying recreation, and are holding a tennis racquet in your hands that probably could be parlayed into a couple of corrugated roofs to shelter families in Colombia or enough medicine to cure a half dozen Africans of river blindness...

So what was your question, again?
I've tried for years to find happiness and am convinced it doesn't exist in this world.

Was there somebody who promised you you'd be happy in this world?

Well, I'm sure you know that happiness is not a thing one can "find". It's a byproduct. It comes when one is finding one's life significant and meaningful in some way, or when one feels loved and secure. When one is not finding happiness, it's invariably because something else is out-of-sorts in one's life. Being unhappy is then a symptom, but not a description of the root condition.

So, Gary, the real question is, what is missing from your life?
I've tried embracing God but it hasn't solved anything either. I'm just as lonely and miserable now as I was before giving religion a try.
I don't recommend "religion" to anyone, for precisely that reason. Religion is man's attempt to engineer some sort of "deal" with God, on his own terms. That never works. At best, it anaesthetizes one to the lack of a real relationship with God. At worst, it makes one merely a zealot.

What one needs is an actual relationship with God -- something much more than "religion."
I think God created one screwed up world.
He didn't. We did.
He gave us a sex drive, then told us we're sinners to appease it.

He invented marriage. It we who messed that up, too. And loneliness is the consequence.
Now you're just getting annoying. If you're happy, IC, then good for you. Just don't expect those of us with clinical depression to jump for joy. Must be nice to be neurotypical. I wouldn't know, myself.
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:49 am
I think God created one screwed up world.
He didn't. We did.
Humans didn't create the world, IC. God did, according to your own religion. How do mere mortals bear responsibility for the creation of anything?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:59 am Just don't expect those of us with clinical depression to jump for joy. Must be nice to be neurotypical. I wouldn't know, myself.
You don't know me, Gary...and you don't know what challenges and experiences I've had in my life. So I'll excuse the comment. But I have some knowledge of the field. That much, I'll say. And I don't think you've found me unsympathetic.

But the answers don't change. That's one thing a clinically depressed person needs to realize.

"Clinical depression," by definition, is not depression that happens when circumstances warrant sadness; it's depression that comes about when they don't. So the world isn't a meaner place for everybody else than it is for you; your perceptions are where the problem lies.

That's why the normal approach for clinical depression is not mere cognitive counselling but therapies targeted at physiological alteration, such as sleep therapy, drug therapy, and so on. And I assume you've gone down that road.

But the point is simple: the factual goodness or badness of life is not reliably indexed your feelings about life, -- especially, if, as you claim, you are not neurotypical. The problem you need to address, then, is not that your life isn't good, or that it's circumstantially worse that others' lives; it's those internal states that tell you life is bad when it actually isn't.

That is, assuming your self-diagnosis of "clinical depression" is accurate, which I here take for granted.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:11 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:49 am
I think God created one screwed up world.
He didn't. We did.
Humans didn't create the world, IC. God did, according to your own religion. How do mere mortals bear responsibility for the creation of anything?
When God created it, it was good. But it included humans, and humans have free will. Free will means they can choose to do the right thing, or they can choose not to. To be free means to be free to choose.

They chose not to.
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:25 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:59 am Just don't expect those of us with clinical depression to jump for joy. Must be nice to be neurotypical. I wouldn't know, myself.
You don't know me, Gary...and you don't know what challenges and experiences I've had in my life. So I'll excuse the comment. But I have some knowledge of the field. That much, I'll say. And I don't think you've found me unsympathetic.

But the answers don't change. That's one thing a clinically depressed person needs to realize.

"Clinical depression," by definition, is not depression that happens when circumstances warrant sadness; it's depression that comes about when they don't. So the world isn't a meaner place for everybody else than it is for you; your perceptions are where the problem lies.

That's why the normal approach for clinical depression is not mere cognitive counselling but therapies targeted at physiological alteration, such as sleep therapy, drug therapy, and so on. And I assume you've gone down that road.

But the point is simple: the factual goodness or badness of life is not reliably indexed your feelings about life, -- especially, if, as you claim, you are not neurotypical. The problem you need to address, then, is not that your life isn't good, or that it's circumstantially worse that others' lives; it's those internal states that tell you life is bad when it actually isn't.

That is, assuming your self-diagnosis of "clinical depression" is accurate, which I here take for granted.
Fuck off. You have no more idea what clinical depression is than you know what it's like to live permanently in all those places you visited in the developing world as little more than a tourist. Why did you go to those places, IC? So you can guilt all your friends with holier than thou rhetoric about "gratitude"?
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:27 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:11 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:49 am
He didn't. We did.
Humans didn't create the world, IC. God did, according to your own religion. How do mere mortals bear responsibility for the creation of anything?
When God created it, it was good. But it included humans, and humans have free will. Free will means they can choose to do the right thing, or they can choose not to. To be free means to be free to choose.

They chose not to.
Whether or not humans have free will is debatable.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:42 am Why did you go to those places, IC? So you can guilt all your friends with holier than thou rhetoric about "gratitude"?
No. I lived in a place like that, for one thing; and some others I went to because I had the chance, and it was the right thing to do. And if I want to be a tourist, that's not the sort of place I think anybody in their right mind would choose.

But if you'd been to places like those, you'd know what I'm saying is the truth.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:45 am Whether or not humans have free will is debatable.
If they don't, then nothing is "debatable" at all.
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:42 am Why did you go to those places, IC? So you can guilt all your friends with holier than thou rhetoric about "gratitude"?
No. I lived in a place like that, for one thing; and some others I went to because I had the chance, and it was the right thing to do. And if I want to be a tourist, that's not the sort of place I think anybody in their right mind would choose.

But if you'd been to places like those, you'd know what I'm saying is the truth.
So you grew up as a peasant in a third-world country and immigrated to the first world when you had the chance, I stand corrected.
Gary Childress
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Re: American Marxism

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:45 am Whether or not humans have free will is debatable.
If they don't, then nothing is "debatable" at all.
Why do you say that?
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Gary Childress »

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:42 am Why did you go to those places, IC? So you can guilt all your friends with holier than thou rhetoric about "gratitude"?
No. I lived in a place like that, for one thing; and some others I went to because I had the chance, and it was the right thing to do.
Why do you think it was the right thing to do? So you can castigate clinically depressed people for being depressed? I think you've simply used your experience for your own personal promotion. Most clinically depressed people I know of don't go out of their way looking for places and things to be depressed about. There's plenty for us to be depressed about just in everyday life.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:55 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:45 am Whether or not humans have free will is debatable.
If they don't, then nothing is "debatable" at all.
Why do you say that?
Because if humans have no free will, there's no actual thing as a a "debate." Views are not capable of persuading. Minds are not changing. All that's happening is that drones are mindlessly playing out the hand of cards dealt them.

So there's not real thing such as a "debate." There's only the appearance of one.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:06 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:49 am
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:42 am Why did you go to those places, IC? So you can guilt all your friends with holier than thou rhetoric about "gratitude"?
No. I lived in a place like that, for one thing; and some others I went to because I had the chance, and it was the right thing to do.
Why do you think it was the right thing to do?
Because the circumstances made it that.
So you can castigate clinically depressed people for being depressed?
I'm not "castigating," Gary; I'm trying to point out that you do have grounds for gratitude. I'm trying to help you to be thankful, not plunge you into guilt.

Now, check back: you said you had no reason for gratitude; I say it's obvious you do, even if you don't feel it at the moment...but when one is clinically depressed, one is going to be slow to see that and is going to need it pointed out, right?

You're healthy. You have food. You have recreation. You live in the West....etc. With such things, we can either dismiss them all and get bitter, or remember them and be grateful. I'm saying you're going to be happier if you do the former; I see no happiness arising from a person who is not thankful for anything they get and only focuses on what he still wants. And my hope is that you could be happier.

I think that's a goal you and I probably share.
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Re: American Marxism

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:13 pm
Gary Childress wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:06 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:49 am
No. I lived in a place like that, for one thing; and some others I went to because I had the chance, and it was the right thing to do.
Why do you think it was the right thing to do?
Because the circumstances made it that.
So you can castigate clinically depressed people for being depressed?
I'm not "castigating," Gary; I'm trying to point out that you do have grounds for gratitude. I'm trying to help you to be thankful, not plunge you into guilt.

Now, check back: you said you had no reason for gratitude; I say it's obvious you do, even if you don't feel it at the moment...but when one is clinically depressed, one is going to be slow to see that and is going to need it pointed out, right?

You're healthy. You have food. You have recreation. You live in the West....etc. With such things, we can either dismiss them all and get bitter, or remember them and be grateful. I'm saying you're going to be happier if you do the former; I see no happiness arising from a person who is not thankful for anything they get and only focuses on what he still wants. And my hope is that you could be happier.

I think that's a goal you and I probably share.
Well from the standpoint of love and romance, God made an absolutely terrible world. I should hope (that if there is a God) that he has indeed given us all the basics of food, clothing and a place to sleep, just out of human decency, however, for some he hasn't even done that.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: American Marxism

Post by Immanuel Can »

Gary Childress wrote: Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:31 am Well from the standpoint of love and romance, God made an absolutely terrible world.
I think blaming "the World" is casting a pretty wide net. Not everybody is sympathetic to that assessment, I'm sure. But romance is complicated; that much is certain. Still, that which is complicated is often most worth doing.
I should hope (that if there is a God) that he has indeed given us all the basics of food, clothing and a place to sleep, just out of human decency, however, for some he hasn't even done that.
Don't blame God. He made plenty of resources in this world to go around. Blame man.

I've seen this over and over in the Developing World: the reason people starve is not lack of food, but rather other things, like war, poor agriculture, foolish ideologies, destruction of rivers, tribal hatred, greed, and so on. Bad, corrupt political systems is a huge cause of such things. But these things we can't blame on God.

Now, I get why it's tempting to make everything out to be "God's fault." It would mean I'm just a victim, and none of what has happened to me has anything to do with decisions and choices I've made. I'm free of shame, guilt and second-guessing. I'm magically transformed from the person causing his own misery to a Camusian hero, a "noble" victim of forces beyond my ability to resist.

However, that's self delusion. And it has a very unfortunate effect: for since my problems are not caused by me or by mankind, then I have absolutely no power to do anything about them. And since they were never my fault, I also cannot learn anything from them. All i get to do is suffer and pity myself...which is pleasurable in a very limited way, but ultimately completely disheartening and disempowering. So long as I insist on interpreting my situation that way, I will learn nothing, never become a better person, and never have power over my own results. I'm just a chump.

So we've got to rethink that strategy and that interpretation. If God really hated us and really wanted to torture us, I'm certain He could have done far, far more than anything we've experienced so far. I think what we experience is far more likely to be the results of choices that we and other people have made.

And the good news is that very often we can do something about that.
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