No actually I take it back I don't hate him I hate his beliefs about how to govern a country clearly socialism does not work.— scott (@scmcarp) December 28, 2017
Now, scott here has said something dumb. And not just because it's a run on sentence. And not just because Obama is not and was not a socialist.
No, it's because scott thinks he is saying something that has meaning but he absolutely isn't.
"Clearly socialism doesn't work."
We hear shit like this a lot. Now, just to be clear, in this post we are not taking a stance regarding socialism itself; merely to this empty kind of rhetoric tossed around by the lazy-minded. People do it all the time: say things that sound like they have meaning, but are actually lacking (wholly or in part) actual semantic content. Like anytime some jingoistic doucheballoon starts ranting about "freedom."
That's all well and good, Jimbob, but freedom from what? "Freedom" means nothing absent context, and scott m. carp's nugget of wisdom up there is no different. It might sound meaningful, but so do the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven. Then you try to break it down and go "wait a minute..."*
Scotty thinks he's saying something about the world when he claims that socialism doesn't work. Hell, he probably thinks he's saying something important. But really he's saying nothing. Or nothing worth engaging, anyway. "Socialism doesn't work" is just plain meaningless by itself, and it's impossible to even consider it as a useful hypothesis until scottastic does us the favor of doing a few things...
Scottington must define "socialism." First to demonstrate that he knows what the fuck he's even talking about, and second because "socialism" is a broad term and it would be nice to know specifically what he's referring to.
Scott-free must clarify what he means by "work." Socioeconomic systems are not simple things like cars or lightbulbs. "The car doesn't work" has meaning in a vacuum: "The car is not turning on." (Though admittedly even that can be more complex than we're presenting.) What does "work" mean in the context of something as vast as an entire country? Does he mean that socialism doesn't create desirable outcomes? Then what are his desired outcomes? Does he mean it's inferior to other systems? Then what systems, and why?
Once Mister Scott has defined his terms clearly, then he must actually provide evidence that whatever he means by "socialism" does not whatever be means by "work." Then his claim might actually have some semantic content. Until he does, he's stuck down inside the Bullshit Bin.
*We are not denigrating Stairway. It fucking rocks.
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| Schyeah it does. |
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