EuroSoviets
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Post by EuroSoviets on Sept 23, 2005 21:24:02 GMT
You've made a lot of assertions and have yet to back them up Gilligus.
1. Why would having people looking after the child other than its biological parents give the child less affection?
2. Why would depression rates rise? You fail the appreciate the point that the state would no longer exist in a Marxist system. Everything would be about people - people managing each other. Children would be a resource certainly but humans show care to domesticated animals that were not birthed of the human - so children would be no different.
3. I don't love my parents. Simple reason is I totally understand what Marx meant when he defined the relationship between parent and child are monetary when stripped of its sentimentality. The idea of love itself is not human nature and has not been around forever - it does not exist in many cultures. It is a western bourgeois creation.
4. Why would being raised by many people in community exclude any child from formative experiences?
5. Why would people be cold, mindless and emotionless?
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Post by canteria on Sept 23, 2005 21:55:41 GMT
A bold idea, but not going to work. The human mind evovled in such a way that family is natural, and the lack thereof would leave deep emotional scars.
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Post by D.S. of Soviet Sexy Girls on Sept 23, 2005 23:27:12 GMT
1. Why would having people looking after the child other than its biological parents give the child less affection? We could say that biological parents would tend to have a greater affection for their children. I don't say that impossible, but a priori you don't have the same affection for your offspring or others' ones. 3. I don't love my parents. Simple reason is I totally understand what Marx meant when he defined the relationship between parent and child are monetary when stripped of its sentimentality. The idea of love itself is not human nature and has not been around forever - it does not exist in many cultures. It is a western bourgeois creation. A the bourgeois thing. They are really handy, aren't they ? Each time there is something you don't like, it's their own fault More seriously, could you quote some cultures where there were no concept of love or any one approaching it ? And, you do a difference between love and affection, don't you ? 5. Why would people be cold, mindless and emotionless? A stereotype of children raised by a cold and calculating state, no ? Welcome to Gattenga...
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EuroSoviets
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Post by EuroSoviets on Sept 24, 2005 6:48:02 GMT
What is this whole infatuation with the state? Up until this discussion, everyone who discussed aspects of communism totally understood that it does not involve the existence of some USSR-type state. Or any state at all.
SSG, I feel pretty confident in saying that the feudal Far Eastern cultures did not have the concept of love. I'm not sure about the feudal Western cultures but I can check it up and see - we always have to remember that most of what we learn from popular culture about past ages is filtered through the Victorian-era mysticism and romanticism - which retrospectively tinted our world view with bourgeois ideas.
On the matter of affection; why would biological parents have more affection for their own children? Consider most of the examples in nature you can think of. Children of other mothers are turned away from a surrogate because the would-be surrogate needs her milk for her own children. The drive to look after ones own children is simply based on resources. If we take resources out of the equation, children become people too and not just another unit of production. The extended family is not an economic unit for the most part - but some are still very close. Those are ties which can exist between any human beings - and would exist to allow a greater role for the community in caring for its children rather than relying on two people not screwing up.
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Sept 24, 2005 11:42:30 GMT
I believe this to be partially wrong, this does not take into account biology. The reason why most organisms will not look after others young is not a factor of resources (many organisms will continue to breed even when there are no resources to make it a viable option) but of genetics. Most organisms breed for only one reason, to propergate their genetics across the population and to thus increase the numbers of "them". A surrogate mother will not look after the child of another as it will gain no genetic advantage from doing so. Human biology dictates that a communist collective up-bringing of the new generation is impossible. The bond between a parent and child is too strong in us, a mothers inbuilt responce is to care for and not surrender the child thus making seperation to the state impossible. The child also is linked to the mother, without this mental issues are all but inevitable, stripped of a family that truely cares for it will significantly lower its propects of success. As was shown by the experiments into nature and nurture our biology is a more important factor during childhood than our society. This is a shame as I fully agree with ES that a collective up-bringing would probably benifit society better than an individual one. As a side note this is where two of my interests collide, the only true "communist" society in the living world is that of the social insect. In my case the bee. Basically put the bee has had millenia more time to evolve than we have and thus has created an incredibly advanced classless society, indeed the society operating within the average hive is considerably more socialist than anything achieved by us! 1. There is no individual, the bee should not be seen as a one but as a whole, all the individuals are selfless and only what benifits everyone is done! 2. There is no class, only a simple male, female distinction. Aha you say but what of the queen, surely the bees are monarchists....not so! Queen is a defunct term, "designated egg layer" would be more appropriate. Any egg layed by a queen has the potential to become a queen, queens may be liquidated and replaced by the colony at any time, the workers control all aspects of the queens life, food, cleaning, etc. Only while it serves its purpose is a queen maintained. 3. There is generally no conflict in a day to day colony and group dicissions are norm, a group of 40,000 "individuals" can come to a collective concensus in minutes, a swarm can after a mear hour of entering a new home be carrying out all the functions of a hive that has stood for years. 4. Internationalism, so long as it serves the colony any bee is welcome, those who have lost their original home will be welcomed into a colony in short order, those who cause trouble (wasps, robbers) are reppelled. 5. Work, all work is for the good of the colony, all participate in work, all recieve equal share. A worker bee does all the jobs in a hive over it lifetime, no job is more important all that matters is that all jobs are done! 6. Communication, as noted above bees can come to a consensus very quickly, in addition to this they also have the only other deciphered communicatable language (within the constraints of a bees purposes) in the animal kingdom. You can tell a be in exactly which direction to fly and what plant to collect from, once found it will tell others and fly a direct route! Setting up a whole production line in a few minuets, considering each bee only carries a few mg of nectar you can imagine how much effort goes into the 60pounds I extracted off one colony this year! Interesting is it not when you look at how un-advanced technologically a bee is and what is has managed to achieve in its society. You then see how we rely so much on technology and yet have managed to achieve so little and if all was removed tommorow we should be no better than a pack of dogs!
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gilligus
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Post by gilligus on Sept 24, 2005 13:20:09 GMT
Well, you are all free to believe in the negligability of human emotion, but I choose not to. I won't call you sick or perverted or a defunct life form (which many people do), because you certainly have a right to your own opinion, but I will also not persist in this argument because I feel that our morals diverge here, and that factual evidence in itself is not enough to defend my place. Were I to meet you in person, this may be a different story, but I find it diffiult and not worth the time to attempt to convey emotion in mere words.
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Post by The Red Factions on Sept 24, 2005 14:26:47 GMT
As we were discussing this issue with fellow members of a political group in Sweden - I thought I might as well bring this up here for further discussion with others socialist not necessarily from Sweden. Here in Sweden - as compared to the rest of the world - we've undeniably witnessed important social progresses in this domain and the control and influence the parents exert over their childrens has been considerably curbed in favour of what "looks" like collective education. The theory of family abolition is not especially popular amongst us here and has never been so amongst revolutionnary Marxists in the first place. I, however, remain in favour of it.
History has proven that parents do not necessarily hold more affection for their own children and that these have often been considered as either extra arms to assist their parents in the labour or eventually possible successors/heirs once they come off age who will perpetuate family "values" but also social inequalities once they will inherit the fortune of their parents, if any.
The current situations shows us the ruling classes in various countries exploit the family concept for their own financial ends and that childrens are used to perpuate the class struggle throughout the generations to come. In the interesting of ending parental exploitation of their own children and eliminate the perpetuation of social tensions but also to prevent it from rising again in the future - the family as it stands today must be abolished and social, collective education put before the perverted forms of domestic education we've witnessed in which the childrens have been taught to accept their exploitation as mere production units for the ends of the ruling class.
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gilligus
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Post by gilligus on Sept 24, 2005 15:57:57 GMT
The fact remains that animals, especially mammals, are almost always raised by their parents. As Daniel Quinn agrues quite emphatically in his book Ishmael, we humans are still governed by the same laws as animals. The formula for survival is the same. Granted, humans have political and moral opinions that are passed on to their children, but that's just part of being human.
Let's take another angle: What are people going to think of socialism/communism when they hear that its supporters are in favor of the abolition of the family unit? Do you think that will make them want to revolt and set up communism? Not a chance.
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Sept 24, 2005 18:00:39 GMT
I agree with you mostly on the first paragraph, we are nothing more than primates in many regards. On the second: True they may not like it, but they also wouldnt be keen on giving up their private property either! You lose everything you have in communism, which is hard to take, the thing is that people dont realise that they gain everything as well!
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EuroSoviets
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Post by EuroSoviets on Sept 24, 2005 18:22:22 GMT
If we were nothing more than animals, surely we would not be able to choose not to have children? Surely finding a partner would not depend on a score of factors that have no precedent in the animal kingdom - factors which range far beyond mere looks and chemical compatibility.
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Post by D.S. of Soviet Sexy Girls on Sept 25, 2005 0:55:57 GMT
What is this whole infatuation with the state? Up until this discussion, everyone who discussed aspects of communism totally understood that it does not involve the existence of some USSR-type state. Or any state at all. Aah, I was just quoting a stereotype... SSG, I feel pretty confident in saying that the feudal Far Eastern cultures did not have the concept of love. I'm not sure about the feudal Western cultures but I can check it up and see - we always have to remember that most of what we learn from popular culture about past ages is filtered through the Victorian-era mysticism and romanticism - which retrospectively tinted our world view with bourgeois ideas. Feudal far easern cultures... Khmers ? Viets ? I'm not a specialist and I don't want to say anything false but do you have any link to studies that show these cultures didn't have the concept of love ? On Feudal Western ones... Aren't the "Roman de Chevalerie" (novels of knighthood, I don't know how you call it in english...) a good proof that the concept of love was here ? (even if these novels does not depicted reality very well) Actually I have recently read some studies that shows that even feelings of love (and related) are widely influenced by chemicals. Interesting. But well, same studies says that complex mental situations are also involved and combine with chemicals, so I guess it's 50/50.
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EuroSoviets
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Post by EuroSoviets on Sept 25, 2005 12:28:53 GMT
Incidentally, my girlfriend who has an infatuation with Botswana just told me this morning that the British Medical Association published a study wherein it was revealed that children brought up communally are more likely to be mentally stable, have greater health and greater learning ability.
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gilligus
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Post by gilligus on Sept 25, 2005 18:22:14 GMT
Perhaps communally, but not in total seperation from natural parents. I am totally against the idea of a child being taken away from the mother at delivery to be raised by people the mother does not know. However, being raised within a tight knit community is something that I think could be infinitely beneficial to children, giving them a wide array of perspectives and opportunities for development of their own opinions, which could potentially be more ambivalent (in an open-minded way) than those of children raised by one set of parents.
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Sept 26, 2005 17:20:39 GMT
Interesting, do you have a link to that ES? It would be an interesting read!!
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gilligus
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Post by gilligus on Sept 26, 2005 21:44:28 GMT
I, too, would like to read anything you have on such a study. If you have any links, please, by all means post them!
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