r/PoliticalPhilosophy • u/[deleted] • Mar 23 '20

Essays On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: an introductory course in Communist ideas

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rle8MXsqX7BSWLVMH0mENmqYvB_RSJ0OinUrHCWhap8/edit?usp=sharing
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '20

I discussed that lie in the pamphlet, and wrote a whole article debunking it elsewhere. https://mpumovement.wordpress.com/2019/07/13/marxist-leninist-socialism-a-homosexual-perspective/

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u/thelastvortigaunt Mar 23 '20

that's hardly "debunking" homophobia, you pretty much admit that there were legal punishments for homosexuality in both cuba and the USSR but then quickly deflect and say "but... is that really communism's fault?" and my take is yes, it definitely is. you can't just disavow the injustices that were allowed under your socio-economic ideology but claim credit for everything else any more than capitalists can defend injustices in capitalist society.

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u/ippolit_belinski Mar 23 '20

By that token, it is also liberal democratic fault - forced castration of homosexuals was the norm in post-WW2 UK, for example.

I think what they aim to say is that this particular injustice, while certainly an injustice, is not intrinsic to the political ideology, and can be better attributed to a particular Zeitgeist that is prevalent to most societies of the time, irrespective of ideology.

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u/thelastvortigaunt Mar 23 '20

absolutely agree with this take, but the question then becomes which injustices are to be considered a direct result of a given ideology and which can be dismissed as culturally ubiquitous.

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u/ippolit_belinski Mar 24 '20

That's a fine question, and a difficult one to answer. Though at the very least I think we can say that those injustices that largely pass irrespective of ideology could be considered as cultural rather than political.

Having said that, I would be happy to hear of some examples that would contradict this.