I just read on CNN that Malala, the little girl who was shot in the head by Taliban is conscious and able to communicate. In your face, Taliban, you fucking assholes. This just shows that you can't silence the voice of reason. I wish Malala a speedy recovery and hope she can continue to stand up to those misogynist bastards.
This reminds me of the conversation I was having with my roommate the other night over a couple drinks. When I switched majors to Anthropology, I studied many things about the origins of man and also origins of human and animal behavior. Right now I am taking this class called "Great Adaptations" which is essentially like taking Discovery Channel, National Geographic and BBC Earth for 3 credit hours. Animal behavior has fascinates me but also makes me realize how primitive human behavior still is. After a few million years of evolution when we went from living in caves to building skyscrapers and from gathering wild berries to tailoring plants to precisely suit our needs, some things about us still remain extremely animalistic.
I was discussing with my roommate how people can find a way to discriminate among each other no matter how even the playing field may appear to be. The obvious examples that come to mind are racism, caste discrimination, etc. But then even without color differences, there are still tensions and discrimination. Consider WWII. It was almost exclusively a white man's war. There was prejudice involved but then again, the Nazis still saw themselves as "more white that others". It reminded me of George Orwell's brilliant analogy of "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others".
And that brought the conversation to communism. One of my favorite topics *grin*. I was intrigued by communism when I was something like 12 or 13. In my teen mind, the idea that the whole society being seen as equal was a brilliant idea. Given the political situation in India, where each state has its own very distinct culture since thousands of years, it seemed like a perfect cure (again this was to my naive teen mind). I maintained a view that communism was a brilliant idea and even used to declare my political views as very left liberal. I didn't really give it much thought for a few years. I used to think America is needlessly hating on commies (I still maintain that view partly but the perspective has changed).
Last semester I took a Soviet history class and I realized how the 'vision' had changed and warped from Lenin to Stalin. I also thought about human behavior and the reason communism doesn't work. Although some policies of socialism can do wonders, most people in America don't know why exactly they hate communism. They don't know the first thing about it and just know that it is somehow the 'evilest' man has ever conceived of.
I think the shortest way to give the answer to why communism doesn't work is to write about this article i read a few years ago. It was by a scientist who studied animal behavior and related that to political ideas or something like that (mind you it has been a few years since I read that). Anyways, he made the analogy that ants and bees are very clearly in a strict communist society. Each type of ant/bee has a particular function. And they survive great with that system. But unfortunately humans have aspirations and often frivolous needs. They have greed and hatred and grudges and prejudices. And that's where communism falls completely apart.
This reminds me of the conversation I was having with my roommate the other night over a couple drinks. When I switched majors to Anthropology, I studied many things about the origins of man and also origins of human and animal behavior. Right now I am taking this class called "Great Adaptations" which is essentially like taking Discovery Channel, National Geographic and BBC Earth for 3 credit hours. Animal behavior has fascinates me but also makes me realize how primitive human behavior still is. After a few million years of evolution when we went from living in caves to building skyscrapers and from gathering wild berries to tailoring plants to precisely suit our needs, some things about us still remain extremely animalistic.
I was discussing with my roommate how people can find a way to discriminate among each other no matter how even the playing field may appear to be. The obvious examples that come to mind are racism, caste discrimination, etc. But then even without color differences, there are still tensions and discrimination. Consider WWII. It was almost exclusively a white man's war. There was prejudice involved but then again, the Nazis still saw themselves as "more white that others". It reminded me of George Orwell's brilliant analogy of "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others".
And that brought the conversation to communism. One of my favorite topics *grin*. I was intrigued by communism when I was something like 12 or 13. In my teen mind, the idea that the whole society being seen as equal was a brilliant idea. Given the political situation in India, where each state has its own very distinct culture since thousands of years, it seemed like a perfect cure (again this was to my naive teen mind). I maintained a view that communism was a brilliant idea and even used to declare my political views as very left liberal. I didn't really give it much thought for a few years. I used to think America is needlessly hating on commies (I still maintain that view partly but the perspective has changed).
Last semester I took a Soviet history class and I realized how the 'vision' had changed and warped from Lenin to Stalin. I also thought about human behavior and the reason communism doesn't work. Although some policies of socialism can do wonders, most people in America don't know why exactly they hate communism. They don't know the first thing about it and just know that it is somehow the 'evilest' man has ever conceived of.
I think the shortest way to give the answer to why communism doesn't work is to write about this article i read a few years ago. It was by a scientist who studied animal behavior and related that to political ideas or something like that (mind you it has been a few years since I read that). Anyways, he made the analogy that ants and bees are very clearly in a strict communist society. Each type of ant/bee has a particular function. And they survive great with that system. But unfortunately humans have aspirations and often frivolous needs. They have greed and hatred and grudges and prejudices. And that's where communism falls completely apart.
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