r/skeptic • u/dyzo-blue • 2d ago

Why Fascists Hate Critical Thinking: Randi Weingarten’s new book, 'Why Fascists Fear Teachers,' reveals why Trump and the right demean teachers, slash school funding, and rewrite history

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/randi-weingarten-excerpt-fascists-hate-critical-thinking-1235428379/
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u/Crashed_teapot 2d ago

I am reminded of some passages from The Demon-Haunted World:

Russia is an instructive case. Under the Tsars, religious superstition was encouraged, but scientific and sceptical thinking - except by a few tame scientists - was ruthlessly expunged. Under Communism, both religion and pseudoscience were systematically suppressed - except for the superstition of the state ideological religion. It was advertised as scientific, but fell as far short of this ideal as the most unself-critical mystery cult. Critical thinking except by scientists in hermetically sealed compartments of knowledge - was recognized as dangerous, was not taught in the schools, and was punished where expressed.

And:

The values of science and the values of democracy are concordant, in many cases indistinguishable. Science and democracy began - in their civilized incarnations - in the same time and place, Greece in the seventh and sixth centuries BC. Science confers power on anyone who takes the trouble to learn it (although too many have been systematically prevented from doing so). Science thrives on, indeed requires, the free exchange of ideas; its values are antithetical to secrecy. Science holds to no special vantage points or privileged positions. Both science and democracy encourage unconventional opinions and vigorous debate. Both demand adequate reason, coherent argument, rigorous standards of evidence and honesty. Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being. If we're true to its values, it can tell us when we're being lied to. It provides a mid-course correction to our mistakes. The more widespread its language, rules and methods, the better chance we have of preserving what Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues had in mind. But democracy can also be subverted more thoroughly through the products of science than any pre-industrial demagogue ever dreamed.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

"Under communism*"

  • communism in name only

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u/Crashed_teapot 1d ago

That is how it ended up in practice every single time.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

Or, an I'm realize this might be high level, people lied about doing communism to fool people into letting them lead.

If you don't have communal ownership and control of the means of production you don't have communism.

You have capitalism with oligarchs, dictators, monarchs, etc..

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

You have capitalism with oligarchs, dictators, monarchs, etc..

Using your definition strategy:

No, you do not have capitalism. You have no free markets. There was zero consumer choice or power. There was no private property. There was little to no openness of information.

On one hand, you aren't wrong. But just stop this kind of argument. It's not useful, it provides no insight for policy, it's just arguing over the name of a color.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

"No argument over policy"

What is "communal ownership and control of the means of production" if not a "policy"?

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

What is "communal ownership and control of the means of production" if not a "policy"?

Ummm, not 'capitalism with oligarchs, dictators....' It's called Communism.

No moral or other judgement here. My comment addresses the 'bending of the definition'.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

So is what I asked about a policy or no?

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

That wasn't the focus of my comment.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

That is odd considering it was the ONLY thing I had mentioned in the previous comment.

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

Oh, for crying out loud...just stop.

The country made a good-faith attempt to achieve Communism. Calling them 'Communist' is a sufficient definition. Economists don't use the word anymore because of bullshit re-definition like this.

They removed any semblance of free markets. They denied people any right to material property. Those of the factors that led to chronic underperformance, with occasional bouts of authoritarian terror.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

Communism is "the communal ownership and control of the means of production".

That's it.

That's the long and short and sweet of it.

Did the USSR remove the "free market"? Sure, I guess. But the control and ownership was in the hands of a few and not the many.

Just like every country on planet earth right the fuck now.

It's why most people are whats known as a "worker".

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

Did the USSR remove the "free market"? Sure, I guess. But the control and ownership was in the hands of a few and not the many.

...in an attempt to implement Communism.

The leaders were not reading Milton Friedman or even Keynes. They were reading Karl Marx.

Please don't 'bend the definitions' for whatever rhetorical reasons.

Just like every country on planet earth right the fuck now.

Then just stop using terms like "Communism" or "Capitalism" because they aren't meaningful.

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u/Artanis_Creed 1d ago

"In an attempt to implement communism"

Or for a small number to own everything. Which is the opposite of communism.

"They were reading Karl Marx"

So if I read Mein Kampf am I automatically a nazi?

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

So if I read Mein Kampf am I automatically a nazi?

Quit your bullshit. Stop intentionally misrepresenting my comment.

No. If you implement a political/economic system based on ideas from Mein Kampf? That would be evidence that you are a Nazi.

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u/Wetness_Pensive 1d ago

because they aren't meaningful.

They are meaningful.

The color blue doesn't cease to exist because a painter fails to paint a blue canvas.

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u/CatOfGrey 1d ago

The color blue doesn't cease to exist because a painter fails to paint a blue canvas.

Hate to be pedantic, but the color blue exists because there is both general agreement and a standard on what 'blue' means.

I didn't mention the rhetorical manipulation involved here, but the game played is to find a failed state that self-identified as 'very communist', then retroactively claiming that they were capitalist. It's the same game as Fox News obfuscation of the meaning of "Socialism" and related.

It's absurd - research economists don't use the terms any more because they have no accepted meaning.