{"id":723,"date":"2009-03-10T20:13:51","date_gmt":"2009-03-11T03:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/10\/contradictions\/"},"modified":"2009-03-10T20:13:53","modified_gmt":"2009-03-11T03:13:53","slug":"contradictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harmonicminer.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/10\/contradictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Contradictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laughing at the Contradictions of Socialism in America<\/a><\/p>\n

The six dialectical contradictions of socialism in the USSR:<\/p>\n

* There is full employment, yet no one is working.
* No one is working, yet the factory quotas are fulfilled.
* The factory quotas are fulfilled, yet the stores have nothing to sell.
* The stores have nothing to sell, yet people got all the stuff at home.
* People got all the stuff at home, yet everyone is complaining.
* Everyone is complaining, yet the voting is always unanimous.<\/p>\n

It reads like a poem, only instead of the rhythm of syllables and rhyming sounds, it’s the rhythm of logic and rhyming meanings. If I could replicate it, I might start a whole new genre of “contradictory six-liners.” It would be extremely difficult to keep it real and funny at the same time, but I’ll try anyway.<\/p>\n

Dialectical contradictions are one of the pillars in Marxist philosophy, which states that contradictions eventually lead to a unity of opposites as the result of a struggle. This gave a convenient “scientific” excuse for the existence of contradictions in a socialist society, where opposites were nice and agreeable, unlike the wild and crazy opposites of capitalism that could never be reconciled. Hence the joke.<\/p>\n

Then I moved to America, where wild and crazy opposites of capitalism were supposedly at their worst. Until recently, however, the only contradictions that struck me as irreconcilable were these:<\/p>\n

Economic justice:<\/p>\n

* America is capitalist and greedy, yet half of the population is subsidized.
* Half of the population is subsidized, yet they think they are victims.
* They think they are victims, yet their representatives run the government.
* Their representatives run the government, yet the poor keep getting poorer.
* The poor keep getting poorer, yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
* They have things that people in other countries only dream about, yet they want America to be more like those other countries.<\/p>\n

Hollywood cliches:<\/p>\n

* Without capitalism there’d be no Hollywood, yet filmmakers hate capitalism.
* Filmmakers hate capitalism, yet they sue for unauthorized copying of their movies.
* They sue for unauthorized copying, yet on screen they teach us to share.
* On screen they teach us to share, yet they keep their millions to themselves.
* They keep their millions to themselves, yet they revel in stories of American misery and depravity.
* They revel in stories of American misery and depravity, yet they blame the resulting anti-American sentiment on conservatism.
* They blame the anti-American sentiment on conservatism, yet conservatism ensures the continuation of a system that makes Hollywood possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More at the link. A useful intellectual exercise: see if you can come up with a similar list revealing inner contradictions in Capitalism. Or American Exceptionalism.<\/p>\n

I think it will be difficult to do with the natural connection of those above, because there are simply fewer internal contradictions.<\/p>\n

But I await any attempts with interest.<\/p>\n

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