Communism and the Charitable Instinct: An Ex-Communist Perspective.
31 January 2018 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
from my perspective as a child very
clearly the validity of communism really stood or fell with the same claims to validity the Catholic Church often uses because the charitable instinct was so strong in me there was this tendency to judge communism against charity is the social function of cheerio are you trying to help other people or not and keep it all the way we'll remember my father had real kind of rage and sorrow my mom took that whole generation from the Vietnam War specifically the Vietnam War and you know for my parents and for a lot of people their age their response to the Vietnam War had nothing to do with charity it was real hatred and rage and so it was a real sense they wanted to destroy the United States they wanted an angry fist you know and I didn't see the world I mean I think they were wrong to see it that way also I mean I think they were both incorrect and morally wrong to see it that way but you have to roast a lot of those people got involved loving left-wing politics and they didn't have any in charitable Moto's and it wasn't at all like the way I felt as a child seeing images of poor and starving people on television I mean as a child I never saw that in real life but in real life you'd see maybe homeless people on the street see people living in poverty a different situation the image of poverty and starvation and then the question of what do we do from here and you know the other question which is definitely links to veganism why doesn't anybody else care about us yen hey guys this is being recorded in very strange circumstances I'm gonna read and reply to a comment since me on patreon from Theo Theo is not just a fan or a supporter he's really a super fan sometimes I quote myself and I can't find the quote and he knows what video I'm quoting like where is the video where I said this about this topic or something so Theo knows my material really well one of the reasons for that is that he has been doing some kind of archive work I'd say he's been looking around a lot at what's been going on in the vegan movement and he's been kind of piecing together links to different articles by different vegans and different websites in different videos and so on my best girl melissa is sitting here just off camera next to me she can chime in at any time anyway so Theo writes quote I don't know the timeline of your journey into vegan activism - well I know you've had an affinity for charity ever since you felt betrayed by parents and doctrine aiding you into communist ideology sometime around when you were studying Buddhism doing him Terran aid etc so I'll read the rest of this paragraph this is an interesting point so he's saying that I've had an affinity for charity charity work and this is somehow linked to growing up with parents who were communists and my own rejection of communism um so I had a longtime friend and frenemy called Philip who you know some stories about they and Philip grew up with Christian parents and he felt that he was indoctrinated into a form of Christianity despised and they were not I'm I don't know if anyone can be called a normal Christian but they were not quite normal Christians it has to be said they liked going to Nigeria not just to do sherry work but because they liked the really hardline extreme form of Anglican frost in Christianity got out there they didn't find Christianity harsh enough no biblical enough whatever II want to say and I think probably homophobia and so on played a role in that so that was where they feel comfortable was as being white missionaries in in that part of Africa anyway but I said to Philip before when he was complaining to his own parents I said you know possibly if we had switched families at Birth you know if he had been raised in my family I wouldn't raised his family ironically that's quite possible I would have accepted my parents ideology just because the charity aspect meant so much to me I think that was really almost an instinctive thing you know from childhood and forward for me you know like I can't say that was something ever thought about oh yes ma'am why does charity matter to me so much I think for many people it is I don't know if that's worth ten percent of the population or 50 percent of the population but I mean the beset concept of doing the best you can trying to help others I mean to give you an example how did you feel babe when you were a kid and you saw someone who was mentally [ __ ] saw someone or interacted saw someone on the street like not in the news you know what I mean when I was a child I felt very strongly when I met interact with mentally [ __ ] people including people like born with Down syndrome so severe forms of retardation not not some minor thing I really wish that could help them I felt this terrible yearning to want to try to help them and the powerlessness of knowing I couldn't and also knowing that you know in terms what your parents teach you you're told by your parents and teachers to keep your distance and not without reason you know you a little kid is probably dangerous for you to interact with her play with mentally disabled people so you know that for me I think I had that out the gate I had that out when I came out the box that came that from day one you know I don't think that was something taught to me known the other it so look I mean other kids also if they had parents who were communists would have responded to and questioned other aspects of the ideology not just the the charity aspect but from my perspective as a child very clearly the validity of communism really stood or fell with the same claims to validity the Catholic Church often uses so over there was a really crappy mainstream movie The Da Vinci Code okay so I saw like five minutes of that movie while washing dishes and change the channel honestly honestly I'm telling the truth about watch that movie I'd have no shame but I remember that was on TV and some circumstance like that and in at least the movie version the main character confronts this representation at sorry this is representative of the Catholic Church and he sort of says you know your church is built on lies and the representative of the Catholic Church she's a cardinal or a deacon or something he's some reasonably ranking person he says back that his church washes the feet of the poor and feeds and houses the homeless and this is their claim to legitimacy now I remember I just laughed at that at the time it was just ridiculous what when you donate money to the Catholic Church do you want to know what percentage of it goes to feeding the poor and what percentage if it goes to housing you know clerical scholars and priests and nuns in some kind of luxury and you know I'm not hating you just can't kid yourself what do you what are you paying for you paying for the the Pope to live in luxury are you paying for the poor to live in poverty if you wanted a charity it was the vote Delvin the poor it wouldn't look anything like the Catholic Church right at its desired ever Fogerty but that was always striking to me and then only when I was a a teenager but late in my teenage years and I was in university I read that book by Karl Popper so the particular book by Karl Popper has a tough title the title is the poverty of historicism a bunch of his other books have catchy titles just not that one and therefore the first time I saw someone openly talking about the extent to which Catholicism and communism really had things in common you know in terms of their appeal and that resonated with me too I could see you know this is this is this is a really meaningful critique of both frankly anyway something that I've said to you recently was kind of a family secret also was the extent to which my father was drawn to Christianity and for maybe ten years of his life really believed in Christianity I always thought that was very telling that the same people were seduced by communist extremism not moderate communism or seduced by Christianity and I don't think ever told you this story but I met one professor in China and she didn't admit it to me she admitted to my ex-wife and then I heard from her that she had she had a period where she had lost faith in communism and she briefly went over to what she considered formally converting to but she started going to church she was being seduced by basically american-style Christianity and she said directly because it made the same kind of promises it had the same kind of appeal for her you know so she wasn't sleepwalking to that it wasn't like somebody else's analysis so there is an interesting kind of parallel there but again I started this by saying and I'll do humility that kind of charitable instinct I think was so important to me that it's quite possible if I'd been raised by Christian parents even crazy Christian parents even specifically my friend Phillips crazy Christian parents that I would have found so much value and the charity side of what they were doing that I don't know I don't know what I would have done you know I don't know what direction I would take that in but you know the claims to charity and the part of communism are pretty paper-thin um I've never heard anyone really try to justify for example the American war in Vietnam as charity like to really justify like why are you bombing Vietnam is charity I've never heard someone who really tried to justify the American war in Afghanistan this charity was another parallel thing and the Communists had the same problem the Communists also invaded Afghanistan they convinced me conquered Afghanistan people now forget they had their own history so that they overlap in that specific example and to look at any of those but that's only one example but to look at any of those episodes in the history of of communism in Russia or in China it's very hard to give a charitable reading to them so that really is like a pond or a play on words but uh you know hey I'm not I'm not joking around for no reason here so there's an interesting point Theo is opening with here so again coming back to Theo's letter to me he says quote I know you've had an affinity for charity ever since you felt betrayed by your parents a doctor in you into a communist ideology and I kind of see that the other way around because the charitable instinct was so strong in me there was this tendency to judge communism against charity is the social function of Chery are you trying to help other people or not and keep it all the way we'll remember my father had real kind of rage and sorrow my mom took that whole generation from the Vietnam War specifically the Vietnam War showed at that animal Jo tanomo Joe's father also totally ruined by the Vietnam War me a lot of people were in that generation and you know for my parents and for a lot of people their age their response to the Vietnam War had nothing to do with charity it was real hatred and rage and so a real sense they wanted to destroy the United States they wanted an angry fist you know and I didn't see the world I mean I think they were wrong to see it that way also I mean I think they were both incorrect and morally wrong to see it that way but you have to grow us a lot of those people got involved in loving left-wing politics and they didn't have any in charitable motos and it wasn't at all like the way I felt as a child seeing images of poor and starving people on television I mean as a child I never saw that in real life but in real life you'd see maybe homeless people on the street see people living in poverty in different situations but you see when I was a kid baby this may be true for you too there were a lot of images especially of Ethiopia Ethiopia was the kind of sterling example of poverty maybe for your generation into Haiti so you would have been pretty young with the earthquake in Haiti happened or something you know this kind of thing I'm just giving me my choir did a tribute concert oh yeah like raise money yeah but anyway the image of poverty and starvation another question of what did we do from here and in my case so my family was poor back then - I told you I just talked about this my mom and my mom was when we're down to earth better than my dad it wasn't like I was looking at those questions to the perspective of someone born to you know wealth and privilege with a lot of options it was looking at it as someone you know that again my family got more and more money as time went on after that like while I was in university kind of period yeah end of yeah really while I was a university but anyway um you know I was looking at as someone who was basically you know poor and powerless in Canada but poor by Canadian standards and wondering what can I do what can we do and you know the other question which is definitely links to veganism why doesn't anybody else care why am I the only person you know why I'm on the person moved by those things you know which obviously a lot of children go through that you know whether it's accurate or not whether or not the things that move you really do move a lot of people or not so he says sometime around when you were studying Buddhism and doing humanitarian aid you started a tumblr and running articles on veganism so look these things overlap I mean back when I was involved in Buddhism and doing the direct humanitarian work I identified as strictly vegetarian I didn't use the word a vegan I'd never really seen or heard the word vegan around I remember the first time I ever heard the word vegan that's another story I just won't tell in this video in a sense it's like I say all the time I understand people not even thinking about veganism not being motivated be vegan if you're actually finding the cure for cancer or if you're actually deployed in a war zone in the army you know if you're doing something you're so passionate about so back that I'm a strictly vegetarian I refuse to buy leather for example I did own leather I would I would end up buying secondhand leather or something I was trying not to but buy leather I believe that that dairy and eggs were immoral but I would eat something like a cross all that invisibly contained those things and obviously in Cambodia not all that often unless you live in the cross song this directive the Phnom Penh Cambodia anyway um you know but actually indeed the fact that I was engaged with Buddhism and doing humanitarian work that made me it was a counterbalance to say it's like working on the cure for cancer got something you're passionate about and that's about making a pause the difference in the world and so I wasn't really thinking about veganism that much although my own values and choices had already taken me out of the way 90% of the way towards [Music] ablution
clearly the validity of communism really stood or fell with the same claims to validity the Catholic Church often uses because the charitable instinct was so strong in me there was this tendency to judge communism against charity is the social function of cheerio are you trying to help other people or not and keep it all the way we'll remember my father had real kind of rage and sorrow my mom took that whole generation from the Vietnam War specifically the Vietnam War and you know for my parents and for a lot of people their age their response to the Vietnam War had nothing to do with charity it was real hatred and rage and so it was a real sense they wanted to destroy the United States they wanted an angry fist you know and I didn't see the world I mean I think they were wrong to see it that way also I mean I think they were both incorrect and morally wrong to see it that way but you have to roast a lot of those people got involved loving left-wing politics and they didn't have any in charitable Moto's and it wasn't at all like the way I felt as a child seeing images of poor and starving people on television I mean as a child I never saw that in real life but in real life you'd see maybe homeless people on the street see people living in poverty a different situation the image of poverty and starvation and then the question of what do we do from here and you know the other question which is definitely links to veganism why doesn't anybody else care about us yen hey guys this is being recorded in very strange circumstances I'm gonna read and reply to a comment since me on patreon from Theo Theo is not just a fan or a supporter he's really a super fan sometimes I quote myself and I can't find the quote and he knows what video I'm quoting like where is the video where I said this about this topic or something so Theo knows my material really well one of the reasons for that is that he has been doing some kind of archive work I'd say he's been looking around a lot at what's been going on in the vegan movement and he's been kind of piecing together links to different articles by different vegans and different websites in different videos and so on my best girl melissa is sitting here just off camera next to me she can chime in at any time anyway so Theo writes quote I don't know the timeline of your journey into vegan activism - well I know you've had an affinity for charity ever since you felt betrayed by parents and doctrine aiding you into communist ideology sometime around when you were studying Buddhism doing him Terran aid etc so I'll read the rest of this paragraph this is an interesting point so he's saying that I've had an affinity for charity charity work and this is somehow linked to growing up with parents who were communists and my own rejection of communism um so I had a longtime friend and frenemy called Philip who you know some stories about they and Philip grew up with Christian parents and he felt that he was indoctrinated into a form of Christianity despised and they were not I'm I don't know if anyone can be called a normal Christian but they were not quite normal Christians it has to be said they liked going to Nigeria not just to do sherry work but because they liked the really hardline extreme form of Anglican frost in Christianity got out there they didn't find Christianity harsh enough no biblical enough whatever II want to say and I think probably homophobia and so on played a role in that so that was where they feel comfortable was as being white missionaries in in that part of Africa anyway but I said to Philip before when he was complaining to his own parents I said you know possibly if we had switched families at Birth you know if he had been raised in my family I wouldn't raised his family ironically that's quite possible I would have accepted my parents ideology just because the charity aspect meant so much to me I think that was really almost an instinctive thing you know from childhood and forward for me you know like I can't say that was something ever thought about oh yes ma'am why does charity matter to me so much I think for many people it is I don't know if that's worth ten percent of the population or 50 percent of the population but I mean the beset concept of doing the best you can trying to help others I mean to give you an example how did you feel babe when you were a kid and you saw someone who was mentally [ __ ] saw someone or interacted saw someone on the street like not in the news you know what I mean when I was a child I felt very strongly when I met interact with mentally [ __ ] people including people like born with Down syndrome so severe forms of retardation not not some minor thing I really wish that could help them I felt this terrible yearning to want to try to help them and the powerlessness of knowing I couldn't and also knowing that you know in terms what your parents teach you you're told by your parents and teachers to keep your distance and not without reason you know you a little kid is probably dangerous for you to interact with her play with mentally disabled people so you know that for me I think I had that out the gate I had that out when I came out the box that came that from day one you know I don't think that was something taught to me known the other it so look I mean other kids also if they had parents who were communists would have responded to and questioned other aspects of the ideology not just the the charity aspect but from my perspective as a child very clearly the validity of communism really stood or fell with the same claims to validity the Catholic Church often uses so over there was a really crappy mainstream movie The Da Vinci Code okay so I saw like five minutes of that movie while washing dishes and change the channel honestly honestly I'm telling the truth about watch that movie I'd have no shame but I remember that was on TV and some circumstance like that and in at least the movie version the main character confronts this representation at sorry this is representative of the Catholic Church and he sort of says you know your church is built on lies and the representative of the Catholic Church she's a cardinal or a deacon or something he's some reasonably ranking person he says back that his church washes the feet of the poor and feeds and houses the homeless and this is their claim to legitimacy now I remember I just laughed at that at the time it was just ridiculous what when you donate money to the Catholic Church do you want to know what percentage of it goes to feeding the poor and what percentage if it goes to housing you know clerical scholars and priests and nuns in some kind of luxury and you know I'm not hating you just can't kid yourself what do you what are you paying for you paying for the the Pope to live in luxury are you paying for the poor to live in poverty if you wanted a charity it was the vote Delvin the poor it wouldn't look anything like the Catholic Church right at its desired ever Fogerty but that was always striking to me and then only when I was a a teenager but late in my teenage years and I was in university I read that book by Karl Popper so the particular book by Karl Popper has a tough title the title is the poverty of historicism a bunch of his other books have catchy titles just not that one and therefore the first time I saw someone openly talking about the extent to which Catholicism and communism really had things in common you know in terms of their appeal and that resonated with me too I could see you know this is this is this is a really meaningful critique of both frankly anyway something that I've said to you recently was kind of a family secret also was the extent to which my father was drawn to Christianity and for maybe ten years of his life really believed in Christianity I always thought that was very telling that the same people were seduced by communist extremism not moderate communism or seduced by Christianity and I don't think ever told you this story but I met one professor in China and she didn't admit it to me she admitted to my ex-wife and then I heard from her that she had she had a period where she had lost faith in communism and she briefly went over to what she considered formally converting to but she started going to church she was being seduced by basically american-style Christianity and she said directly because it made the same kind of promises it had the same kind of appeal for her you know so she wasn't sleepwalking to that it wasn't like somebody else's analysis so there is an interesting kind of parallel there but again I started this by saying and I'll do humility that kind of charitable instinct I think was so important to me that it's quite possible if I'd been raised by Christian parents even crazy Christian parents even specifically my friend Phillips crazy Christian parents that I would have found so much value and the charity side of what they were doing that I don't know I don't know what I would have done you know I don't know what direction I would take that in but you know the claims to charity and the part of communism are pretty paper-thin um I've never heard anyone really try to justify for example the American war in Vietnam as charity like to really justify like why are you bombing Vietnam is charity I've never heard someone who really tried to justify the American war in Afghanistan this charity was another parallel thing and the Communists had the same problem the Communists also invaded Afghanistan they convinced me conquered Afghanistan people now forget they had their own history so that they overlap in that specific example and to look at any of those but that's only one example but to look at any of those episodes in the history of of communism in Russia or in China it's very hard to give a charitable reading to them so that really is like a pond or a play on words but uh you know hey I'm not I'm not joking around for no reason here so there's an interesting point Theo is opening with here so again coming back to Theo's letter to me he says quote I know you've had an affinity for charity ever since you felt betrayed by your parents a doctor in you into a communist ideology and I kind of see that the other way around because the charitable instinct was so strong in me there was this tendency to judge communism against charity is the social function of Chery are you trying to help other people or not and keep it all the way we'll remember my father had real kind of rage and sorrow my mom took that whole generation from the Vietnam War specifically the Vietnam War showed at that animal Jo tanomo Joe's father also totally ruined by the Vietnam War me a lot of people were in that generation and you know for my parents and for a lot of people their age their response to the Vietnam War had nothing to do with charity it was real hatred and rage and so a real sense they wanted to destroy the United States they wanted an angry fist you know and I didn't see the world I mean I think they were wrong to see it that way also I mean I think they were both incorrect and morally wrong to see it that way but you have to grow us a lot of those people got involved in loving left-wing politics and they didn't have any in charitable motos and it wasn't at all like the way I felt as a child seeing images of poor and starving people on television I mean as a child I never saw that in real life but in real life you'd see maybe homeless people on the street see people living in poverty in different situations but you see when I was a kid baby this may be true for you too there were a lot of images especially of Ethiopia Ethiopia was the kind of sterling example of poverty maybe for your generation into Haiti so you would have been pretty young with the earthquake in Haiti happened or something you know this kind of thing I'm just giving me my choir did a tribute concert oh yeah like raise money yeah but anyway the image of poverty and starvation another question of what did we do from here and in my case so my family was poor back then - I told you I just talked about this my mom and my mom was when we're down to earth better than my dad it wasn't like I was looking at those questions to the perspective of someone born to you know wealth and privilege with a lot of options it was looking at it as someone you know that again my family got more and more money as time went on after that like while I was in university kind of period yeah end of yeah really while I was a university but anyway um you know I was looking at as someone who was basically you know poor and powerless in Canada but poor by Canadian standards and wondering what can I do what can we do and you know the other question which is definitely links to veganism why doesn't anybody else care why am I the only person you know why I'm on the person moved by those things you know which obviously a lot of children go through that you know whether it's accurate or not whether or not the things that move you really do move a lot of people or not so he says sometime around when you were studying Buddhism and doing humanitarian aid you started a tumblr and running articles on veganism so look these things overlap I mean back when I was involved in Buddhism and doing the direct humanitarian work I identified as strictly vegetarian I didn't use the word a vegan I'd never really seen or heard the word vegan around I remember the first time I ever heard the word vegan that's another story I just won't tell in this video in a sense it's like I say all the time I understand people not even thinking about veganism not being motivated be vegan if you're actually finding the cure for cancer or if you're actually deployed in a war zone in the army you know if you're doing something you're so passionate about so back that I'm a strictly vegetarian I refuse to buy leather for example I did own leather I would I would end up buying secondhand leather or something I was trying not to but buy leather I believe that that dairy and eggs were immoral but I would eat something like a cross all that invisibly contained those things and obviously in Cambodia not all that often unless you live in the cross song this directive the Phnom Penh Cambodia anyway um you know but actually indeed the fact that I was engaged with Buddhism and doing humanitarian work that made me it was a counterbalance to say it's like working on the cure for cancer got something you're passionate about and that's about making a pause the difference in the world and so I wasn't really thinking about veganism that much although my own values and choices had already taken me out of the way 90% of the way towards [Music] ablution