u/Kastelt

This is my last question to not annoy this subreddit too much, and it is an extremely ignorant one, because I've not read Marx yet (though I plan to very soon, as soon as I know a good study method)

It's simply, as far as I understand Marx himself advocated for a party, did he not? Am I wrong? If he did, why does council communism, as part of the left communist tradition that as far as I know preserves the theory without constant modifications over it, reject the party? Or am I misunderstanding that too?

In fact, how could the proletariat gain and keep power in an organized way long enough to crush the bourgeoisie without a centralized organ? The ICP has their own website, so do the ICC and ICT, they have organization and theory, do the council communists have this sort of organization? If the answer is spreading council com theory, is this not idealism?

That's all.

There have been two posts asking for reading lists here before, but they're not very commented on, I would like to know if there's any resource that council communists use as an organized reading list. That's all.

Greetings, I asked this on the r/leftcommunism subreddit but it has not gathered much response, so I ask at this place too, that while unserious compared to it (because this place has memes) is still left-communist.

My question is basically the title, how do you manage to not only study but also understand (because I read, but I don't get shit) and not only that but remember what you read?

I really ask here too because a conversation with fucking deepseek of all things (yes I know, stupid, but still) actually made me doubt party politics a bit. I also will have questions about that in my ignorance, I will ask two other questions in this subreddit straight away too.

Greetings.

I has said my last question was the last in long since I did not want to annoy the subreddit with a million questions (and believe me I have many questions) but out of need I also ask this one.

I believe I can make some time in my days to read theory, but my problem is that the times I have tried before I both:

1. Do not truly understand it.
2. Quickly forget.

This is obviously frustrating, especially for someone like me who wants to have an in-depth knowledge of Marxism. So I would like to ask those who both can remember and deeply understand the theory: how did you manage? What is your study method or methods?

Thank you.

Hello. This is my second question and probably the last in long because I don't want to annoy the subreddit with a million questions.

It's simple, and exactly what it says on the title. My guess is there's not inherently something contradictory between human enhancement and marxism, though transhumanism as a *movement* I guess is un-marxist.

My guess is that it's not contradictory because Trotsky once wrote this:

"More than that. Man at last will begin to harmonize himself in earnest. He will make it his business to achieve beauty by giving the movement of his own limbs the utmost precision, purposefulness and economy in his work, his walk and his play. He will try to master first the semiconscious and then the subconscious processes in his own organism, such as breathing, the circulation of the blood, digestion, reproduction, and, within necessary limits, he will try to subordinate them to the control of reason and will. Even purely physiologic life will become subject to collective experiments. The human species, the coagulated Homo sapiens, will once more enter into a state of radical transformation, and, in his own hands, will become an object of the most complicated methods of artificial selection and psycho-physical training. This is entirely in accord with evolution. Man first drove the dark elements out of industry and ideology, by displacing barbarian routine by scientific technique, and religion by science. "

I, for example, consider myself transhumanist mainly because I feel uncomfortable being fragile and biological, prone to disease, injury and death, things that could be reduced with technology. I have other reason, but it's perhaps controversial here, and I do not want to cause arguments.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch08.htm

That's all. I'll appreciate each answer. Thanks.

Hello. I'm someone who can't simply read Marx right now (I'm too busy with other things in my life), but leftcoms seems to be genuinely the only ones who have some idea of what they're saying, so I'm asking here.

My question is basically... This sub, for example has rules, against racism, homophonia, transphobia, and bullying, but from what I understand, Marxism considers ethics to be ideology/part of the superstructure... I'm not saying these things should be allowed of course not, but what I would like to understand, if marxism rejects philosophy and thus ethics, where do these basic standards of behavior come from?

Where would people in a communist society get their standards of "you should not manipulate someone else", "you should not sexually harrass someone"? Or simply wanting to do things in such a way other people don't suffer over them.

I guess I would also appreciate some reading on this for the future

I have another questions too but I'll leave it for a future thread.

Thanks.

Hello. This is a follow up to another post I made.

Basically, I find utilitarianism's basic idea (valuing of pain and pleasure) to be very convincing at first, and also the idea of extending moral concern to other, non-human species, yet because of thought experiments against utilitarianism (like the many sadists vs one victim, or the fact that utilitarianism can potentially justify necrophilia or rape as long as no one finds out) I can't really accept it.

Yet I still find judging acts by consequences to be the most straightforward form of moral judgement, so I was wondering about other, non-utilitarian forms of consequentialism and whether they're considered seriously in current philosophy circles.

Thanks.

For example, if there's someone who watches over an unconscious person without any family or friends and who can't feel anything and decides to do whatever they want to the body of that person (but not leaving any permanent harm to them)

Or a similar situation in the case of necrophilia.

How does this moral theory deal with that if there's technically no "pain" being done to the person?

I'm someone who considers myself a transhumanist, however I don't actually know how to explain things like:

Why would we even want "enhancements" (I know my reasons, but would want to know about others)
Whether an enhancement would be ethical or not
How transhumanism will affect politics and equality.

So, I'd like to be more informed in my own position. The one text I know and plan to read is "The Hedonistic Imperative" by David Pearce, not much else.

I'll keep this short and simple.

There's no conclusive evidence to conclude that there's any god(s), yet some religions expect us humans to sacrifice worldly pleasures, which are things we find comforting and help us deal with the harshnesa our life, for an afterlife, and in the case of christianity and islam you can get eternally tortured or at least separated if you didn't become a believer of these religions.

We're expected to sacrifice our freedom for an afterlife that's not even confirmed to exist, and tortured eternally if we made the wrong choice. As someone who still has anxieties about hell and such I feel it's honestly quite an unjust thing

Well whatever, those are my feelings and I wonder if anyone else feels the same

Edit: since some people are asking why do I care if I'm a non believer, I wrote this as response in a comment: "I'm a non-believer but I'm not completely sure about my position. Still, even if I was I can think this particular thing can be considered unfair for others."

I'm someone trying to learn math from the very fundamentals, and not only how to do things but why we do things in certain way. The problem is, I can't seem to find any book that assumes absolutely zero foreknowledge, instead the exercises are just given without the procedure being given, meanwhile I'd prefer a book that explains everything in great detail, even the most basic of things. I can do basic arithmetic but I feel extremely weak in it, so this is why I ask.

Thanks in advance for the answers.