(August 13, 2015 at 8:05 pm)abaris Wrote:Wow there Sherlock - I listen to my friends because I trust them and care about them and since the feeling seems reciprocate I believe they won't lie to me until otherwise proven. To understand an ideology an adherent is worth a thousand times more than any scholar. I have met national-socialists even though I am not friends with them, and trust me, the way outside scholars describe racists and the way they describe themselves and why they are like that is completely different, it's like saying an historical study of Christianity allows you to understand all of it without listening to priests and believers themselves.(August 13, 2015 at 7:58 pm)Dystopia Wrote: My primary source before quoting the wiki is a marxist friend of mine, who I assumed to be correct because he is very devout and reads all kind of marxist literature - Mistakes are more likely because when you hear something from someone you may eventually forget parts or even confuse things, so I apologize for that.
Well, here's a revolutionary thought. Maybe not listening to your Marxist friend and take his words as fact, but to real historians, who actually spent years at University to learn the ropes. And spent additional years doing research on certain matters.
I'm honestly amazed that people think they know all about history. But they wouldn't apply the same standards to a field like medicine. Or would you listen to your friend with the same credulity if he was a fan of medicine and read a lot of books about it?
Are you kidding me? If I want to know about marxism, I can easily ask my few marxist friends or my former political science professor, both of whom know what they're talking about. Do you expect me to go to the bookstore and buy a book on medicine anytime a doctor tells me to take X or Y pills, or should I trust that, because they're doctors, they know what they're doing?
There's a difference between being a fan or sympathizer and being a full Marxist yourself, it is a transition that changes your life and your worldview and can have horrible repercussions like your work performance (for example when you realize capitalism sucks you stop caring about working properly because you don't want to feed the system) - A devout Marxist, as well as a devout anything that understands what he or she is, is more than qualified to talk about their ideology, it's history and repercussions. My stepdad being someone who is slightly fascist and lived during the dictatorship taught me more about fascism and censorship than teachers did.
Oh, and usually when someone tells you something you forget bits of it or mentally alter some parts because your prejudices are always there, so naturally my first exposition of the census taking place in the USRR was not fortunate, but I corrected it later and it turns out it matches what other people told me, despite not being expert Historians
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you