In fact, I love the idea of a false consciousness-- that we view the marxist ideal of people coexisting harmoniously in community without the need for coercive legal systems as ludicrous, only because we're evaluating it with a capitalist mindset-- it's virtually impossible to argue against. It challenges our convictions as being particularistic rather than truly objective. It even explains why communities which start off with communist ideals often degenerate into authoritarian regimes or revert back to capitalism; it's simply because people don't believe in it deeply enough to evolve from having an individualistic capitalist attitude to a more altruistic and egalitarian one. there are dictators, because they pursue selfish ends under the pretense of upholding communist principles. Maybe it's naive, but is it really impossible to believe that if we all truly put our minds to it, altruism can become the new status quo?

It's so much more positive to see people as blank slates, having their mindsets and life orientations influenced by the environment they live in, instead of believing that everyone is inherently selfish or bad and hiding this under the euphemistic celebration of individualism and autonomy.

Having said that, I really don't see how we can ever attain the communist ideal now that we're so deeply rooted in our capitalist history that we can't see past it anymore. we're all stuck in the prisoner's dilemma-- no one is willing to be the first to sacrifice for the common good, because we worry that the other will default and take advantage of us. perhaps when communities were much smaller, such cooperation would have been more possible to attain. but with modern societies, I guess this would be virtually impossible; that is why communism has become so condemned in practice for its inevitable collapse into totalitarianism.

OKAY. I need to stop procastinating and continue doing things which are actually important.