"I was going to say that, in their undiluted form, the
ideologies of
communism and fascism exclude each other;"

When I made the analogy I was n't really thinking of
Marxism-Leninism, more just of social democracy. I
guess it doesn't really matter.

 According to the stuff I've read, very few ppl have
flipped between fascism and communism, partly perhaps
because fascism and communism tend to have quite
different social bases, ie Fascism - petit
bourgeoisie, communism - skilled working class.
But the point really should be not that commies (if
we're going to talk commies and not social democrats)
never become nazis or vice versa,let alone that there
are some submerged similarities or whatever, but
rather that you can't practically be a nazi and a
commie at the same time. I mean, a lot of commie
groups spend a lot of their time breaking up nazi
meetings and demos...I think you'd have your work cut
out, unless you developed a split personality.

Another eg I have used in the past to try to make the
same point (the point was actually being made
specifically against Arthur Danto's empty-headed 'End
of Art' thesis): one could not be an Abstract
Expressionist and a Pop Artist at the same time in NY
in the early 60s. Nowadays, of course, under the
influence of Danto's ahistorical historicism and the
art market since the 80s boom and decadent
postmodernists who abstract aesthetic doctrines from
the way they were put into practice...

Scott

PS It's worth remembering that not all the people who
call themselves communists are Marxist-Leninists.
Libertarian or anarcho-communism is a type of
Anarchism, for instance, and left-wing and council
communism are anti-Leninist forms of revolutionary
Marxism.

X-Apparently-To: [log in to unmask] via
web803.mail.yahoo.com
X-Track: 4: 40
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 21:32:56 +0100
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE
V5.00.2919.6600
Subject: Re: outburst in defence of Martin Johnston
From: "Lawrence Upton"
<[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
X-Unsub: To leave, send text 'leave poetryetc' to
[log in to unmask]
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Sender: [log in to unmask]

View 1
The practice of something which *called itself
_communism_ but wasn't and
the selling of fascism create this illusion

View 2 (complementary)
What the ideologies have in common, excluding the bad
faith of their
managers, is the willingness of the followers to be
duped

I was going to say that, in their undiluted form, the
ideologies of
communism and fascism exclude each other; but any
attempt to purify fascism
and it evaporates

Someone flipping from communism to fascism
demonstrates their idiocy and
nothing more

L



=====
"Why is it not possible for me to doubt that I have never been on the moon?  And how
could I try to doubt it?  First and foremost, the supposition that perhaps I have
been there would strike me as idle.  Nothing would follow from it, nothing be
explained by it.  It would not tie in with anything in my life...  Philosophical
problems occur when language goes on holiday.  We must not separate ideas from life,
we must not be misled by the appearances of sentences: we must investigate the
application of words in individual language-games"      - Ludwig Wittgenstein

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%