Why acts like this shooter's are not just wrong but counter-productive & stupid

[yurbud]

Assuming this guy had any kind of political motive, which is still up in the air.

Early on in the War on Terror, I wondered what the commies thought about terrorism, and stumbled across this quote by Trotsky. By citing it here, I imply to agreement with any other communist thought. It was just ironic that one of our enemies nailed this idea.

Before I read it, I was mystified by terrorism since if it was committed on the perpetrator's enemy's home turf, it would galvanize and unite the enemy's people who might otherwise have pockets sympathetic to their cause.

After reading this, these lone wolf acts seem stupid in terms of the effect on the perpetrator's side too:

"

The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm

[Igel]

1. Hmmm....

It's like saying that yeah, it's wrong to accidentally drop a JDAM on a compound and kill a bunch of women and children, but the real reason to avoid it is that it makes victory all the harder.

If victory isn't rooted in morality, then it's just lust for power. Those who lust for power and think morality will follow of its own accord because, well, they're just such swell people, regardless of what they do, tend not to become benevolent rulers. Even if they manage to hold off their oppression, eventually they get upset with non-compliance, when their utopia isn't realized, and knuckle down. The best that the people get is a brief moment of respite between despotisms.

Consider Trotsky's situation. It was fine to write that in 1911. In Der Kampf. But the next 20 years, and the 10 beyond that. The scale of the oppression, of the purges, the coups intended to spread "benevolent" socialism as they re-established the empire, the extent and depth of the distortions required of the human psyche and the way it corrupted the population is quite unnerving. It made the tsar's reigns seem quite enlightened. I mean, the Soviet government even took out insurance with Lloyd's of London for the labor capacity on board the ships carrying political prisoners labor camps in the Siberian Far East, in case they were lost at sea. (Of course, some will only see that Lloyd's is mercenary for actually providing coverage. At least it doesn't provide coverage for deaths in the actual camps themselves.)

Morality doesn't get you power; but power doesn't make you moral. Utilitarianism tries to get around morality, but it's still buried in the assumptions: If you're trying to get the greatest good for the greatest number of people, you need to make assumptions about what's "the good" and what values it expresses.

As an aside, considering the strength of the socialist movement around WWI in Germany and shortly thereafter, as well as the vaguely popular socialist roots of national socialism (which really did start out as socialism, but not state socialism or revolutionary socialism), I have to wonder if My Struggle wasn't playing off of The Struggle.

[yurbud]

2. thanks for the very thoughtful response. I include the pragmatic angle because the morality...

is usually pretty clear, but some people need the other argument as well.

He also made a point that it's different if it's a mass uprising and obviously has a different effect if done by the state.

The state locking up a dissident or leaker is far more effective than some lone wolf terrorist kidnapping a public official.

A pragmatic angle on Stalinism I just read somewhere recently: considering that several western countries invaded Russia after the revolution to try to restore some sort of capitalist system, that could produce the kind of paranoia and defensiveness that activates the lizard brain and makes a "strong" leader like Stalin look like a wise choice even though in the long run he was more dangerous than the external enemies.