Why is MN pro-labour?

[CanNeverDecide]

I'm relatively new here, only posted a couple of times.

Not hard to notice it's all a bit hard core left on here...

Why is that? Genuinely curious to know why this particular cohort of people that have come together are pretty much all left wing.

Plato was also in favour of censoring books and art and stuff, so that the proles weren't tempted to get involved in the things that only philosophers understand.

Alibabaandthe40nappies - I think some of it is like the offense some (SOME! DON'T START ANOTHER TANGENT) Christians on here take on Atheist threads. If someone doesn't agree with you it is difficult for them not to see you as stupid or bad. Anyone clever and good would agree with you wouldn't they?

And I've read The Republic

Jux, I am with you, I don't agree with everything that Plato said. I don't agree with certain champions of the left like Bertrand Russell who hold Plato in great regard and denigrate Aristotle. But, I do realise that Plato was a genius and had many profound insights.

I don't like the Republic, Bertrand Russell and his ilk love it. It still informs the political thinking and objectives of some people today.

Claig - I've read Plato (Well not ALL Plato). The idea of Paltonic Forms as he formulated it - that they are the base of reality - is patent nonsense. In the informal sense that is is often used it just means 'idealised abstract'. I don't like his semi-fascist political ideology either. Some of his epistomology is not bad though.

Claig - I'll start an AIBU.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/959102-to-think-that-Plato-was-full-of-shit?rnd=1273050 403174

Wot's innit?

Don't be hating on my vernacular.

oojimaflip you are right, it is almost like a religious fervour.

ooojimaflip, we agree on something then. I don't like his semi-fascist political ideology either. I also don't like the left-wing Bertrand Russell and HG Wells who think it is great stuff. I haven't been on AIBU for a while. It takes up too much time. I will be back on it after the elction.

I think it goes all ways - it is genuinly difficult to understand that good, clever people can believe different things to oneself.

The eugencist HG Wells? I've not much time for his political philosophy either. Politics and Society have moved on a lot since the early 20th century - neither the left or the right are quite the same as they were then - indeed the usefulness of left/right to define political differences has been somewhat undermined since then.

(there are 4 posts on AIBU to think that Plato was full of Shit? already!)

I disagree with you. The same ideas exist now only they are hidden and disguised. Human nature and human thinking doesn't change much over time. That is why we still learn by reading the great thinkers of the past. Mandelson was a communist, Darling was a Trotskyite, Lionel Jospin, the former prime minister of France, was a member of a secret Trotskyite cell. The neo-cons all come from a Trotskyite background (that's why they are called 'neo', they are new to the right and all come from a leftist background). Marxist professors still teach the younger generation the same old bullshit. These ideas are then dressed up in different clothes but are essentially the same. Alos many of these ideas go right back to Plato and left-wingers like Bertrand Russell carry the torch and keep the flame alight.

Claig - but don't you see you are agreeing with me? You are showing how these ideas have evolved over the years. I evolved from a fish. This does not mean I am a fish.

I think what 100times said on the other thread is apt about the Tories: 'deeply pragmatic and proudly without ideology.' That's what I like about them - they are pragmatic. Labour is too full of ideals; we don't live in Utopia; the country (UK) is not an experimental lab in which to try out your political ideas, and that is what it has seemed like to me. I believe in the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' way of life. Labour have changed things because they can not because they needed to.

Of course, there has to be a moral framework to protect the vulnerable and to give people a leg up when they need it; but we need to be practical about the scale of the problem and how we can fix it.

That's why I always preferred Aristotle to Plato. The world of forms is fine, but practical it ain't.

it isn't. the demographic of mumsnet is classic Conservative/ Liberal material.

ther are some paricularly vociferous pro-labour posters, and right now, seemingly, more than usuual.

and Labour as it currently stands is not recognisably socialist [[http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010 political compass here] very interesting blurb at the bottom of that page showing the political meanderings of the Big 3.

and I thougt Thatch was Great. what a woman! Shame we don't have anyone like that to vote for now (you know, someone who believes what they're sayng, and didn't have it chewed over by a PR think-tank first?)

what I am saying is, ideas don't change much. New thinkers add on little bits here and there, but the core beliefs continue. Mandelson et al. still study the writings of Lenin and Trotsky. The revolutionary socialists still crack open 'Das Kapital' to see what their hero thought, however long ago it was written. Some of them are still secretly trying to implement his ideas, but they dress up in suits and use spin doctors to sell the same old lies.

work this time

scaryteacher, the ideals that the left proclaim are not their true goals. If you strip away the spin and peel off the mask, you discover their true ideals and it is a nasty sight.

Claig Please, enlighten me. What are the left's true ideals? Why is it a nasty sight?

Claig - hang on I'll start a new thread for you....

That's why I vote Tory Claig.