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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I'm really tempted to do a point-by-point engagement with this but I have to get work done. Hopefully someone does :)

PS terms like "backwards barbarism" are deeply rooted in racist and ethnonationalist thinking, as the progress narratives of colonisers; you might want to look into that.

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Communism_not_Barbarism OP wrote

You speak as if there were no white barbarians. In fact, it was most often used to describe Europeans that simply didn't speak Greek very well!

<<The word "barbarian" is derived from the ancient Greek word βάρβάρος which was used 3,200 years ago when a civilization that modern-day scholars called "Mycenaean" ruled much of Greece, writes Juan Luis Garcia Alonso, a Classics professor at the University of Salamanca, in a paper published in the book "Identity(ies): A multicultural and multidisciplinary approach" (Coimbra University Press, 2017).

The word was written on clay tablets found at Pylos, a large Mycenaean city on the Greek mainland. "In the Pylos clay tablet collection we do find the word simply applied, apparently, to people from out of town," wrote Alonso.

A number of scholars have argued that the "bar-bar" in the word "barbarian" may be an attempt to imitate a stammering voice which, presumably, some non-Greek speakers might sound like to someone who speaks Greek.

By "the archaic period [2,700 years ago] there is no doubt that one of the major meanings of the word was linguistic: the Barbarians were those who did not speak Greek," writes Konstantinos Vlassopoulos, a professor of history and archaeology at the University of Crete, in his book "Greeks and the Barbarians" (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Non-Greek speaking people could be friendly or hostile. The Persians who invaded Greece were referred to as "barbarians" in Herodotus' (lived fifth century B.C.) description of their battle against a Spartan led force at Thermopylae.>>

Besides, I'm simply using the word here to describe the nihilistic anti-civilizational ideology that has a stranglehold over this whole site. This ideology is harmful, destructive and prevents us from achieving communism by creating apathy in the working class. A return to this anarchist babarbarism would be destructive to humanity and reactionary ideologies such as nihilism should be rejected by all communists that believe in bettering human lives. Apathy is our worst enemy.

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Pop wrote

In the Pylos clay tablet collection we do find the word simply applied, apparently, to people from out of town

this was a time of city-states, and so out-of-towners were literally from other nations - so most of what you're saying re greek language etc corresponds well to the 'ethnonationalism' point made

and you're ignoring the uses of these terms to justify the 'civilising' processes of colonisation engaged over the last several hundred years and how they continue to be employed by racists the world over

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Communism_not_Barbarism OP wrote

The post-colonial process depends on the people seizing the means of production from the imperialist powers that enslaved them. There's nothing racist about communism, which has liberated billions of people from the jaws of colonization. Would you rather have a China where foreign imperialists are in control, or the Chinese people?

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Pop wrote

you're not addressing the points being made so you come off like you are arguing in bad faith

instead you're parroting communist truisms that are mediating your engagement with this context and prevent you from having to actually think

Would you rather have a China where foreign imperialists are in control, or the Chinese people?

to do some actually responding to what you're saying, I would rather have no china, because communism is a stateless, moneyless society where people govern themselves and have direct control over the means that intimately affect them

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Communism_not_Barbarism OP wrote

<<communism is a stateless, moneyless society>>

It doesn't get like that just by magically snapping your fingers, smh anarkids.

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martasultan wrote

When the hell does it get like that? I'm still waiting.

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ziq wrote

the fuck are you smoking, thinking china is an example of communism? And you're a euro-USAer so how is prattling on about china gonna demonstrate your weird 'barbarism' shtick isn't racist? get a clue already.

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martasultan wrote

Would you rather have an East Turkestan where foreign imperialists are in control, or the Uyghur people?

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broseph wrote

Exactly. This is what these anarkiddies don't get, China is literally surrounded by enemies and the only way it can stay independent is by making sure its land isn't colonized by imperialists. Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong all need to be protected against colonization from America even if the people living there have drunk America's kool aid. China is one land and letting it get sectioned up by the imperials like they did to the middle east will destroy the revolution.

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ziq wrote

I don't see how "anti-social barbarism" (primitive cultures) destroyed anything. Civilization, on the other hand, has rendered vast tracts of the planet inhospitable to most life, and driven 80% of all species to extinction so far.

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Communism_not_Barbarism OP wrote

This person openly admitted to me he isn't a communist. He clearly has no interest in preserving human life and is pushing his nihilism, anti-communism, apathy and so on to hurt the revolution. He is spreading a reactionary apocalyptic ideology. He openly admits he wants our world to be destroyed.

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martasultan wrote

What revolution are they hurting?

They don't want our world to be destroyed, they just see that its gonna be.

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