Reddit reviews The Gulag Archipelago Abridged: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)
We found 14 Reddit comments about The Gulag Archipelago Abridged: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Harper Perennial
Unfortunately it seems that you are the one "undereducated" on Socialism as you seem to fail to see its true nature and its ultimate goals.
The goal of socialism (as defined by Lenin) is Communism, and Communist regimes are responsible for more death and mass killings in the last 100 years than any other ideology. 100 million people dead is the estimate most often sighted.
Living in the "information age" does not make the ideology any less dangerous or destructive and you would be a fool to think otherwise. Human beings are too quick to forget the lessons of the past and it's clear to see that the thinking that lead to that staggering number of deaths is back in vogue.
>How much did the delivery of the baby cost in Australia? Close to zero. $3500 bucks on average for just the childbirth itself, just that one day, in the capitalist paradise of the United States.
In socialist systems someone always pays. I can tell you for a fact that the birth of my child, nor any healthcare I receive in Australia, is "free". I pay for it with an extremely high tax rate. It appears that you haven't thought very deeply about the realities of a socialist system if you think that things are "free".
I have thought deeply about these things and my conclusion is that the system is fundamentally immoral as the state is taking my property by force for redistribution. If I do not consent to the redistribution of my property the state will destroy my life with either prison or death (if I resist).
>dragging on American academics for pointing a finger at the oppressor culture that is the source of global strife and complaint.
It's interesting to me that I keep seeing this rhetoric about the "oppressor culture". You state that it is the source of global strife and complaint, but all I see is that your thinking is immersed in identity politics and this idea that everything should be seen through the lens of the 'oppressed and the oppressors'. I believe this is a kind of cult that has infected people's thinking and it has spread comprehensively in the Western world. Now I don't hold it against you because I too used to think like this. The elements of this post-modern, marxist thinking are highly pervasive and have infected almost every aspect of our society.
There is too much to unpack here and I need to get back to show research but I will say this; both Aaron and I do not subscribe to identity politics or the far left thinking that has become so prevalent in society. We will continue to talk (and joke) about whatever we find interesting on Mysterious Universe, and this might include things that cross over into political or cultural areas that some listeners do not agree with.
If you don't agree with our views and what we say then that's fine. You have the liberty to not listen to us whenever you please.
Recommended Reading:
Try The Gulag Archipelago. Can't recommend that book highly enough. The abridged version is the most palatable, but here is the full text of all three books for free if you don't mind reading in HTML.
Jordan Peterson talks about these ideas a lot, and about post-modernism/cultural Marxism and his clashes with the far-left. The Soviet Union is a huge topic of study for him and he touches on it a lot in his lecture. This one might be a decent place to start. It's quite a rabbit hole, but his YouTube channel is brilliant.
It's also important for you to read the works that are being criticized and understand how they led to these phenomenon. Marxists.org is a great resource with a huge library of writing. Try Lenin's The State and Revolution to get a primer on the kind of thought which went into executing Marxism in the founding of the Soviet Union.
Good luck.
To add to this, two good books to read are:
Gulag Archipeligo - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin - Timothy Snyder
The 20th century kinda settled the debate on socialism.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn single-handedly decimated the ideology in The Gulag Archipelago.
Clinical Psychologist Professor Dr. Jordan Peterson lays out the argument pretty compellingly.
How you defined it
> Nazism= fascism, ethnostate, genocide of anybody who is deemed “untermensch” including Jews, mentally ill, socialists, communists, gypsies, homosexuals. Authoritarianism.
>Communism = all production shared between an equal social class with no private ownership.
Boy oh boy. You’re a lost cause. I’ll send you some thing to read so you can get some enlightenment on what you think was simply an approach to “all production shared between an equal social class with no private ownership.”
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061253804/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1518215713&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+gulag+archipelago+volume+1&dpPl=1&dpID=51TOjJwqD-L&ref=plSrch
Read that and tell me if there weren’t massive amounts of innocents destroyed in the quest for equality. Jews, Latvians, Koreans, Japanese, repatriated poles, gypsies, the list goes on. The groups destroyed in the quest of equality are endless. You are horribly misinformed.
Edit: let me ask you this, were the millions killed and incarcerated any less innocent than the Jews killed under Hitler?
History is cyclical and it tends to repeat itself. Maybe you should be a little more concerned with educating yourself on what your side of the political spectrum was responsible for in the 20th century. I could care less about your personal experience fallacy, those tend to be extremely bias based on the worldview the person wants to portrait and they tend to ignore what statistics say, and in this case the statistics for Europe are quite damning.
If you don't think that it can happen again you are very naive. You live in a world where it is still happening. Socialism has destroyed Venezuela right before our eyes, plain as day, and there is nothing you or I can do about it and no government that cares to intervene, nor should they. North Korea is a relic from the 20th century and one big Gulag. China, a world superpower is a great example of a country that censors the data in/data out that you are referring to. Read The Will to Power by Nietzsche, The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn (even if its just the abridged version, it is a masterpiece and changed my life), and Orwell's 1984. Read these and then cross reference what you learn with current political climate regarding political correctism, left wing authoritarian political systems in your countries over there that compel speech and ban certain idea's and criticisms, your governments collectivist policies and your firearm policies. After you read them you should be able to see striking similarities to your current political landscape and you will know just how close you are to the edge. At very least you will escape the ideological bubble you seem to be in.
>On what basis are we assuming a libertarian conception of freedom exists?
>How do you think we decide what should and should not be a right? I think we engage at least some degree of ethical reasoning to do this.
Easy, rights are natural and inherent to human beings. Going agaisnt that would be restricting what human beings are naturally capable of, whether through a state or through harm. Thus freedom exists.
Think of it like this. You have an island with no one else on it. Anything that you can do on the island is a right.
Oh and don't give me the "but people live with other people" nonsense. Obviously they do, but we're talking about a way to show what a right is and what a right isn't and in order to do that we must eliminate all other moral actors from the equation. You can't ask for a definitive way of showing rights and then deny any kind of scientific method in the process of finding it.
>However, what if the individual was raised to be religious, or raised in such a way that the outcome was decided for him (thus his autonomy violated).
He still has the ability to choose. I was raised christian, and although I still think religion is important, I consider myself atheistic.
>Then freedom of religion does not exist,
You severely misunderstand what freedom of religion is. This seems to be more of a problem with projection, because I only see this kind of argument from people who believe in social planning. Here's how the logic goes: I, as an individual, do not have freedom because I can be affected by the outside world, therefore the world is a battleground of people trying to influence each other as a zero sum game. Now you could be argumentative and say you don't believe that but that's the underlying logic that you're using. Essentially it's power politics, which is why a lot of people who believe in this also make statements like "everything is political." It's an attempt to legitimize their authoritarian behavior by claiming people influence each other anyway, so why not just have complete control over everyone' lives?
Freedom of religion is being able to choose for yourself which religion to follow and no one stopping you physically or practically from doing so. Freedom of religion is not having the right to isolate yourself and not be influenced at all. Although individuals do have the right to self isolate, they don't because that would be harmful for them. And they do not have the right to not be influenced because that's impossible.
>Then freedom of religion does not exist, and that which does not exist does not need protection.
Here, let's play that game. Whoever suppresses the other first wins. Oh, that game ends in people dying, sometimes in the hundreds of millions? Better not play that game then. I mean really, you're undermining liberalism and advocating for authoritarian societies, do you think there's going to be a happy ending for you? Or are you hoping that you'll screw over as many people as possible to make your life just a little bit better and gain some semblance of power that will be taken from you the second you are no longer necessary.
>Also, on what basis should we value a libertarian conception of freedom if we use to make our lives worse?
The problem with this is that you personally do not believe that. You think you're making the right choices in your life, you just don't think anyone else is. So what are you exactly? Some kind of special human capable of seeing the flaws in others and showing them the way to true enlightenment? It's a power fantasy that you've projected onto your politics. You're not better than anyone else, and stopping people from making mistakes will only end in you making mistakes for them.
>wouldn't the state be right to weigh into the private lives of citizens and prevent people from taking drugs
But what is too far? I drink coffee and smoke? These are bad things for me, but should the state intervene. You can't draw a line that isn't arbitrary. And plus, people take drugs because there's something else wrong. I know because I grew up in a town with a severe meth problem. The state intervened but all it did was drive them underground where they couldn't get help. You have no idea what these people need and neither does the government. Leave it to the local community to help them rather than trying to apply your stupid and short sighted ideas so that everyone suffers from your mistakes.
>subscribing to bad ideas (e.g. holocaust denial),
I consider your beliefs to be harmful, is that a line we can draw? Should I be able to suppress you? Any line you draw will be arbitrary because beliefs, although can be based in reality, will always have bind spots and thus will make mistakes. And who the fuck is even a holocaust denier, what, one out of every million people? We both know this will be taken much further, you just don't want to say that because you already know it will.
>being reckless with money, etc, etc.
How many bodies does socialism have to produce before you change your mind? We're at 100 million at least, 260 million at most, I think 100 million is enough for me. And sure, maybe you don't actually believe these numbers to be the case, but you just advocated for censorship of holocaust denial, shouldn't we, by your own logic, silence people who deny the horrors of socialism and attempts at communism as a bad idea that we need to repress?
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccASsjhhgP8
You need to sit down and listen to this audio book. I know, it's long, but it's the best summery as to why the ideas you're promoting are not just wrong, they resulted in tens of millions of people dead. You want to be well read? You want to hear the best argument against authoritarianism? This is it. This book is the single most well constructed, well sourced, and well written argument against your ideology. I got through it, and I will never advocate in favor of authoritarianism. There is no argument that you could make because the results have been so terrible it's too great of a risk to attempt another instance of authoritarianism.
Edit: You can also find the abridged version here https://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-Abridged-Experiment-Investigation/dp/0061253804
I can't personally recommend the abridged version because the book as a whole is pretty packed. You can't take away anything without losing some of the punch of the argument. But if you won't sit down and take your time with the full version, then at least read the abridged.
Yes it's a physical copy. This is the one I have
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061253804/ref=sxts1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491015250&sr=1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
It documents the history of penal camps used by the Soviet Union to squelch political dissidents, terrorize the populace, and get slave labor.
If you've read read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and want to learn more, pick up The Gulag Archipelago.
Don't go for the unabridged version, it's another 2000 pages.
The go-to book is "The Cold War - A New History" by John Gaddis. http://www.amazon.com/Cold-War-New-History/dp/0143038273/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1/183-6028618-5185812
"The Gulag Archipeligo" by Solzhenitsyn is also excellent: http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-1918-1956-Abridged-Investigation/dp/0061253804/ref=cm_lmf_tit_20/183-6028618-5185812
"Truman" by McCullogh has some nice insight into the early years of the Cold War: http://www.amazon.com/Truman-David-McCullough/dp/0671869205/ref=cm_lmf_tit_26/183-6028618-5185812
Well of course the first place to start would be Wikipedia. You could look up:
1936 Soviet Constitution, Gosplan, five year plans, collectivization, kolkhoz, Gulags, the Virgin Lands campaign, TASS, Izvestia, Pravda, Elektronika, their incredible space program, etc. And of course the leaders. And the various republics (SSRs) would be good to know. In fact the country itself was CCCP = SSSR.
Read about all the post-collapse conflicts: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Transnistria, Russia-Georgia war, Ukraine Crisis. And about how turbulent the 90s were.
There are personal accounts of the gigantic conflict with the Germans, like those of Vasili Grossman and Marshal Zhukov. There are transcripts of interviews with Khrushchev and the books that Gorbachev wrote on Glasnost and Perestroika. Historian David M. Glantz writes almost exclusively about the Soviet military. There are the accounts of dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.
There are some classic pieces of literature like Master and Margarita and Dr. Zhivago. And music on YouTube by people like Shostakovich.
There are surplus stores like Soviet-Power.com that sell helmets, medals, coins, busts, and the like if that is what you are into. And blogs like English Russia.
r/history here on reddit probably has some articles to peruse. r/HistoryPorn often has old Russian photos.
And of course I've talked to several people on this forum who lived during Soviet times. I'm sure some here or elsewhere on reddit would be happy to tell you.
If it helps, I read the unabridged (Solzhenitsyn approved) version. Amazon link If you end up not wanting to continue unabridged, I might recommend going on with this one. Good reads!
I'm about half way through Gulag Archipelago, and OP's comic is too true.
Add another one to the list!
-reiduh, parent
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If you'd like an intellectual discussion, I'm all for it, but you don't know enough about me to claim that I am bigoted or anything equally as reprehensible. If you think that you're going to change anyone's mind by typing "lmfao" as many times as possible, then you need to orient yourself and discover your true virtues as an individual instead of using manipulative language for dramatic effect.
> you literally tried comparing the guys 'intentions' to Stalin
Your critical thinking skills are lacking; I drew parallels between intention and action and used idealistic Marxist ideologies as an example of how they can be dangerous when misaligned.
> I'm commenting right now, to shut you the fuck up.
Your intentions are that you're trying to be as boisterous and obstinate as possible to attempt to shut me down without a single sound argument on your side. You lack fundamental understanding of the humanities and haven't educated yourself enough to present yourself as anymore than an uncompromising ideologue with weak rhetoric.
If you really want to sort yourself out, here's a quick reading list: