From: cdwilde@hertz.waterloo.edu (Chris Wilde)
Subject: Re: commies, etc
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 16:14:13 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.205024.27279@ncsu.edu>, curtis@eos.ncsu.edu writes:
> 
> 
> 
> <with Communists.  The very concept denies the basic human desires of
> <competition, success=reward, and individuality.
> 
> 
> Um, "basic human desires"?  better qualify that, or at least tack on the basic
> human desire to help other humans (I'm afraid it's genetic...)

	Yeah, poor choice of words.  I admit it.  Yes, communism does allow
the desire to help others, but that's not what I was trying to say.  I was
pointing out where communism denies certain drives the human creature
appears to have.  These seem to me to be inherent in most (50+%) people.
	Competition:  This was perhaps a weak choice.  The denial of
competition may be only inherent in the USSR style communism and not in
pure communism.  It may also be simply a symptom of the lack of reward.
	Success=Reward: probably better choice would be positive
reinforcement.  There is no real reward system set up in a Communist system.
Should someone excel, they typically might receive a promotion, but all that
means is more work (until you get into the hierarchy in the USSR style, but
that isn't pure communism).
	Individuality:  perhaps also simply a symptom, but individuality
of thought is certainly suppressed by a communist system.

> 
> Besides; even if these are the magic three or four "desires" (so quickly confusd
> with "needs"),  I see no sign of capitalism achieving these.  We are the mule
> following the carrot. Success?  BILL COSBY?  Is having a Mercedes a basic human
> desire?

	Competition:  A capitalistic society is the opposite extreme.  It
believes in the survival of the fittest: the ultimate competition.
The capitalistic society could not exist without competition driving
development and research.
	S=R:  In a capitalistic society, success provides a person with
increased wages and position and a higher life-style.
	Individuality:  more or less a symptom, I guess, since most
Capitalist societies allow freedom of thought.  It is conceivable that
a capitalist state could exist without it. 

> 
> 	If there ever were "basic human desires" they were based upon
> environmental need -- not a side effect, but evolutionary reason.  Technology
> (yes the old hack) removes the need to live in the environment -- therefore, it
> should remove the desires -- but the desires remain -- the desires spin into 
> themselves, unsupported by any sort of life-and death reality, unsatisfied
> with that mercedes, unsatisfied _always_, because the language of satisfaction 
> is dead -- we are trapped like rats in the traps we unwittingly constructed.
> We will all experience some difficulty when entering the post-biological
> age.  I plan on being VERY difficult myself. 
> 

Please clarify this.  I have no idea what you are trying to say.  Are you
looking to the future, or at the here and now?

> 	The argument for desires also becomes interesting in that the desires
> that support the propagation of the value-production system are the cherished
> desires in the media of the value-production system, whereas the other desires
> are moved into the area of taboo, censorship, and eventually, illegality.  Other
> desires?  Well, any and all of the sexual (non-productive) desires, just as a 
> start -- really, individuality has to get pulled down too, doesn't it?  
> Individuality is the ultimate destroyed desire, at once cherished and condemned,
> completely controlled, whatever the case.

Are you saying that the Capitalist system does this?  I don't want to
respond without clarification.

> 
> This is no rational argument, or at least, not a good or full one like you'd
> probably like.  Aint gotthe time.  I've got work to do, money to make.  
> As much as I'd like to continue, I CANT.

Well, okay.  Hmmm... Some of it definitely is getting into the realms of
surreality, but I doubt if what you are trying to say is irrational.  You
write a good line of prose, though.
 
> 
>  This is an old story in a just-like-new world of cowards.
>

There are no new stories.

cdwilde@sunee.waterloo.edu