My 16 year old son called me a "goon". I asked him if he was accusing me of being a chronic masturbator. He got upset and informed me that a "goon" is different than a gooner. So that was something

The editors must have really struggled to find such a flattering picture

Right so, Marxism replaces objective morality with subject/object concretion. This does not mean removing people from the equation, on the contrary, it is a more comprehensive way of adding humans to "objective" analysis.

Where morality fails, is really well described by Nietzsche in "On the Genealogy of Morals." Nietzsche is a really frustrating author and I really don't recommend him as a philosopher (I do like his writing though), but he makes a really good point that objective morality ends up creating two moralities, one for the exploiter and one for the exploited. Like a shared set of principles that have different meanings based on who you are. This idea in the abstract maps pretty cleanly onto capitalist class antagonisms. Marx said that "in every era, the dominant ideology is the ideology by of the ruling class." What a particular moral axiom means is determined by power, via hegemony, regardless of what we as leftists and workers want it to mean.

Marxism, rather than turning society and free will into abstractions, demands us to be not just teachers of conditions, but students. The Ricardian labor theory of value finds its truth in the way it centers people in every part of the economy, Marx expands on this by defining people not only as abstract parts of society, but thinking, feeling, experiencing subjects that change the world based in their experiences in it. The Marxist doesn't tell people what is good and bad, the Marxist organizes people to go into the areas where oppression occurs and do the work of helping people understand our shared conditions. We organize people on the basis of their shared experiences, where capitalism alienates and isolates people from each other, from nature, from themselves.

Only when we understand how to organize our local conditions, can we organize localities and particular industries into regional and national delegations, who share experiences and coordinate action on the basis of class interests. Regional and national organizing is able to organize internationally, to achieve victories that local organizing can never accomplish. And we do it all by centering people and their experiences of oppression and exploitation.

Morality is cultural, and culture is part of the superstructure. We have an imperative to create counter hegemonies, which may include culture and morality, but achieving a "moral" society is not the strategy. We have to understand our place in society, as individuals who create society through our actions, that our actions are influenced by ideas, which are developed through our experiences in contemplation and in our lives. Morals are static, Marxism is dynamic. Morals hide contradiction, the world and people are inherently contradictory. The world can change because people can change. But people won't change if we don't first try to relate to them and understand how their experiences are, in fact, objective truth, even if the way they understand those experiences is backward and sometimes reactionary.

The fact is, we Marxists often have some weird ideas too, until we get involved in practical work. While hiding contradiction, morality creates new contradictions! If we are to commit to revolution we must commit to the truth. Not peoples idea of what the truth is, or "should be".

This is a decision made by the pregnant person, informed by her/their doctor. I can also see her/their family having some input in informing the pregnant person's decision, to the extent that they are not being coerced by their family.

As far as outside agents, such as ourselves, are involved, pregnancy is a medical issue. This is the only responsible way for society to handle these questions. Society is able to provide support for parents, esp those who are caretakers of children with severe disabilities, and we can improve education and access to contraceptives. But it is irresponsible and unethical to become involved in the medical decisions of others under any circumstances.

If we really care about unborn children we should care doubly about born children and the families who take on the responsibility of ensuring those disabled individuals are able to experience love and joy. Trying to collapse ethics and morals into pure individual choice is a scam.

I mean I still don't like the emphasis on the abstract future rather than the present concrete. But at this point I guess its not worth arguing about.

Thanks for good faith engaging! See ya around

Okay so based on this, the part of my initial statement that was inaccurate would be "communism already exists" in that there are communists, and people building communism, but "communism" doesn't exist because the conditions don't exist for it yet. That is, as long as we are drawing lines between "communism" and something like communalism, which might refer to certain communal living experiments taking place in different parts of the world. Like Marx didn't consider the Obshchina to be communist, but theorized that it could contain some pre-socialist potential (which bore out, at least partially, in the formation of the soviets.)

I wanted to consider communism as the practical work of communists. But I can see how that, at the very least, confuses the issue. And like the other responder pointed out, Marx was at least blended in his definition of communism, since he did spend time and energy describing "communist society." So in order to be correct, I would have to prove a worthwhile theoretical break between "communism" and "communist society" which, at the very least, confuses people's understanding more than it like addresses a practical shortcoming in our movements, and also seems to piss off other comrades.

If that tracks, I think I get where you're coming from.

Well thanks for the replies. I still can't square "ideas only exist objectively in practice," which is (IMO, but apparently nobody else's) a critical insight from Marx; and "the theory" being something that is inherently unknowable except in the most abstract lines of comprehension. Communists literally never spend time theorizing what the future society will be like. I don't understand how we are defined by something we can not understand concretely, as well as an activity that not only do we not engage with, but comrades will literally discourage, preferring to engage with actual struggle.

When I work with a lot of new people who want to get involved in practical work, the way to get them and keep them active, is not to describe the theoretical future, but connect them, their ideas especially, with the present. But when left to their own discussions, they often wax on about how things "should be". So is it practical to connect with them on that level? Absolutely. Is it what makes me and my comrades "communist?" No, what makes us a communist is the work we do, not the dreams I dream. That "work" can be self-development, and it can be development of objective conditions, and at some point self development and development of objective conditions become one in the same.

But either I don't understand something or other people don't understand me, and I wouldn't begin to know how to tell the difference. The other commenter was just debating me, so I'm not really any further along. But thanks again.

Good call out, shows how much I watch Russian state media. Like I'm not a Russia propaganda alarmist, but anything I watched there was garbage. FT is mostly capitalist propaganda garbo too, but a few decent articles sneak in from time to time, and being a British publication they can be a bit more objective about American events, plus British journalism seems to bee more critical by cultural definition, but that could just be bias.

Also that's not my donvote I don't do that shit, just to be clear

Then what is a communist? Is it just a utopian identity or is it a practical activity? I don't get why there is total rejection to this idea, from communists especially.

Its Financial Times, not Russian times. FT not RT

We don't need a logo designer, I'll ask my nephew to put something together, he draws nice pictures of animals, I think