Thought about it, but totally didn't get it

I read the Bernstein vs. Luxemburg articles, but I don't seem to have gotten anything out of them, except immense confusion. No doubt this has something to do with the fact that I didn't really understand the excerpt from the Communist Manifesto.

Maybe it's the nineteenth-century wording. Maybe it's my upbringing in this bastion of capitalist activity we call America. Maybe it's second block and my mind is too wrecked to understand anything. I don't know, but I don't understand communism. I get socialism, socialism makes sense to me. But this nonsense about eliminating class distinction?About people voluntarily making property a common commodity? About the human race reaching a point when we can provide as from everyone's abilities to each of their needs? It just seems so illogical.

I guess the problem is that I don't really understand why Marx and Engels and all those who followed in their footsteps think capitalism is so bad. I agree that there is a problem with the wealthy exploiting the poor, but I don't think equal distribution of property is the way to fix it. Reforms like some of those suggested in the Manifesto, such as quality education for all, are the way to go in equalizing a society. If people are provided with equal opportunity, they can take that opportunity and use it as they please.

I also don't understand why everyone thinks that the collapse of society and general chaos are a good direction for life to be headed in. According to the theories, the utopia of communist ideals will follow said chaos, but shouldn't we be the least bit concerned about all the destruction and death that will no doubt occur during this period? Wouldn't it be better to, say, slowly transform through reform and broad social and ideological movements?

Whatever. I don't get it. 

Equality in diversity

Looking at conservatism in the 20th century, we read from Phyllis Schlafly's "The Power of the Positive Woman." Schlafly's writings came as a backlash against the women's movement. In this work she tries to portray feminists as self-haters who can appreciate the benefits of being female. 

There are a couple of things that Schlafly speaks of that I agree with, though for the most part I find her writing to be simply ridiculous. The one positive thing that Schlafly does speak about is accepting that men and women are not equal. This, of course, is not to imply that they are unequal, or that one sex is superior to the other. But women and men are simply different - different anatomy, different strengths, different weaknesses, different skills.

However, Schlafly takes her assessment of the difference between men and women a little too far. She assumes that all men are cut from the same cloth, and so are all women. This is just insane. There is every bit as much difference between one woman and the next woman and one man and the next man as there is between a woman and a man. It is particularly infuriating when Schlafly describes every woman as having some sort of overwhelming imperative to be a mother. This is simply not true. Not every woman is maternal, just like not every man is stoic in regards to parenting. Every person is different in their needs and wants, whether they be a result of nature or nurture.

I also find her description of self-hating feminists as completely illogical. Feminists do not hate being female, they hate the constraints that society places upon them because they are female. Most frustrating by far is Schlafly's complete misunderstanding of the televised NOW advertisement. It is obvious that the description of the small child's gender as a handicap is meant as a satire of the way American society treats women. Schlafly completely misconstrues this as evidence that feminists think being female means something is wrong with them. 

As I see it, Schlafly's article is an excellent example of people completely misinterpreting facts and the ideologies of others in order to suit their own belief system.

You can't take it with you

The two articles we read by Heywood and Kirk seem to me like very good interpretations of the underlying principles of American conservatism. I also think they do a good job of presenting the tension that exists within modern conservatism because of the background in liberal ideology.

Both articles, though particularly Heywood, discuss the tendency to view conservatism as a "negative" or "reactionary" ideology because conservatives have trouble identifying any principles behind those that they do not like. I think that a lot of this confusion about what exactly conservatives do stand for results from the tension. It is difficult for conservatives to justify their love of economic freedom with a belief in a society that is dominated by a particular set of morals or values. 

The conservatives are, at heart, hypocritical. They want to preserve the status quo, but it is impossible to make economic progress without permitting social freedoms. They are against big government because they value an unregulated market, but they feel the need to control every aspect of an individual's life. the conservatives have chosen to identify the principles they stand against because they have no idea what principles they stand behind. 

To the BBC, because it successfully predicts my life

In spite of the fact that I was very confused while reading the excerpt from Burke's work (thank goodness it's almost Friday), some of the things he wrote about definitely clicked with me.

I actually just read an article today on the BBC about government views akin to those Burke describes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7657473.stm.

The article talks about how Americans have essentially been raised to believe that government is inherently bad. We no longer have any trust in the system, and a lot of Americans are for rolling back government involvement in both the public and private sectors. This is exactly what Burke is talking about when he describes people dismissing the state as a mere contract to be ignored at will. The main problem Burke sees with society, and that is so often reflected in our modern times, is the complete lack of respect for the law and tradition. We need society to protect us from the rebellion and illogical nature of anarchy.

Admittedly, Burke goes perhaps a bit too far in describing the government as a natural body laid down by God to improve man's nature. But his point is true enough that we have created the state to protect us from ourselves, to improve from the point at which we started. People seem to have forgotten that we went through a lot of effort to develop the relatively democratized states of the modern world and that to reduce the government would merely be a step in reverse.

Things that are bad ideas

The first thing that came to mind when I read Andrew Coulson's "Human Life, Human Organization and Education" was that unforgettable piece of legislation, No Child Left Behind. I don't know if Coulson ever consulted on the act's language, but it definitely seems like he did. The idea of a free market education system is at the heart of NCLB's school choice and competition principles. The act is definitely one of the more significant impacts of the economic conservatism that has ruled the government in the last ten years.

The heart of Coulson's (and NCLB's) economic conservatism is definitely a basis in the principles of liberalism. In terms of economic freedom and the free market, the idea of a privatized educational system makes sense. Coulson does cite Freidman's belief that the market is inherently protective of humanity because everyone has the choice to find another option. Coulson seems to really believe that school choice gives everyone the option to find the best education for their children, especially from political and religious standpoints.

However, I think Coulson's views are very optimistic, as does John Covaleskie. The truth is, individuals will not look out for other's best interests unless there is government oversight. Maybe it wasn't so true in 1994, but certainly now it's obvious that deregulation and privatization of markets can do harm. 

School choice is also inherently bad because, as much as Coulson would like to think that school vouchers will take care of a child's education, what about the child who doesn't have transportation to the school? What about the rural child or the inner-city child who lives hours from a decent school? Plus, when schools are forced to compete for parents and teachers, they lose out on the good students and the involved parents who will want to improve the school's quality. They lose out on the good teachers that will help disadvantaged students learn.

If we think of Coulson's ideas in terms of his economic conservatism, his belief in school choice is logical. It is essentially a means of returning to an age of economic segregation, where the best schools were provided with all the advantages. Coulson is asking for a resurgence of a socioeconomic divide.

So many buzzwords, so little time

I've just read the excerpt from Milton Freidman's book, and the most glaring thing about it to me is the evolution we are watching unfold in the history of political and economic theory. Starting with Hobbes and Locke, but especially as we have delved in to the nature of capitalism, there has been so much speak of the inherent lack of freedom in humans' natural state. Freidman speaks of this freedom in terms of the idea that "absolute freedom is impossible." Not all freedoms can be accounted for because the freedom of one individual inevitably infringes on the freedom of another.

It is for this reason that Freidman examines the importance of government in society and especially in the economy. The government, according to Freidman, sets the rules to the game of life and allows to adjust them so that the market may, in fact, be free to the interests of the men. The privatization or public ownership is subject to the interference of the government because there must be some overarching determination of how to regulate areas in which no man's freedom can supersede that of another, such as transportation industries or national resources. 

I think it is interesting that the basis for government in all these articles is always the inability of man to provide for his own freedom. Even though government is completely unnatural, it is the most natural and logical way for human society to function efficiently.