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[Rolan7]

Ninjaedit: Oh come on, let's not open that barrel of rotten, partially disintegrated fish...

Does Scandinavia even import that from Germany now too?

[Helgoland]

Helgoland, you are the one who's literally trying to redefine socialism out of social democratism while not even removing the word from the term. That is some grade A history revision right there.

Look, even Wikipedia has separate portals for the two. And I do think it is advisable to distinguish between 'social' and 'socialist' - else this becomes 'Catholic Socialist teaching'. And that would definitely be revisionism.

By the way, having read into it, a couple years ago several Social Democratic parties withdrew from the SI in protest, and formed the Progressive Alliance instead...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Nonononono, that's precisely the difference between syntax and semantics: The former is the set of rules governing the symbols themselves, the latter is the assignment of meaning to these symbols. To be able to communicate at all you need to work out your semantics, because a lot of the time the structure of your thoughts is shaped by the way you choose your central concepts.

The issues with both the current social democracy/democratic socialism deal and the previous clusterfuck with atheism as a belief or a "lack of a belief" are both sourced in a syntax issue (the significance of the literal word order) alongside a semantics issue (what is socialism/belief). They overlap to some degree and are thus inseparable concepts, which means that "just moving words around" is something that matters semantically and can't be escaped.

Regarding the importance of using terminology that agrees with common and historic use, as far as that is possible: While I have a high degree of confidence in the brilliance of Bay12's minds, I do think that it would behoove us to consider what folks have come up with elsewhere and in earlier times. Redefining words without good reason introduces great obstacles here. In particular any discussion about leftist issues should at the very least be compatible with Marxist terms, simply because of his great influence on almost all thinkers that followed.

Ok, but why though?

We've clearly passed the point where obstacles can avoid being introduced and "Marxism" as a discussion term isn't benefited by being passed down as the root category of the Left like a religious doctrine. What do you do when people massively go astray of these "original" (that aren't original) precepts such as in Maoism, Anarcho-Communism, or even National Socialism (imnotsayingnazisareleftistsbutindefinitiontermsthishadaneffectherethereareconsequences)? The "Left" (and the Right) get obliterated by this as coherent context is shattered like a glass mug of pure ideology and we all hurt our feet-voices diving into an even deeper semantic pit of what all these offshoots are.

Like if you want Marxism to just be Orthodox Marxism you can just say so. This is an unnecessary rabbit hole.

[smjjames]

Yeah, shattered so much that you've got Maoist socialism, Leninist socialism, Stalinist socialism, Chavez soclailsm, Castro socialism, Ho Chi Minh socialism, Vietnamese socialism, even an American socialism spinoff.

...

I don't even know where this discussion is going atm.

[Helgoland]

Wait, so 'orthodox Marxism' is okay with you as a term? No, that can't be right - this is turtles all the way down. Here's a Stackoverflow question dealing with semantics vs. syntax. It's programming-focused, of course, but the distinction should be clear.

Let me put it another way: Why should we use 'socialism' so broadly that in effect it means 'everybody to the left of H-Dawg'? Especially if it goes squarely against established conventions.

Ninja: And that's not even speaking of the weirdness that is Liberation Theology...

[WealthyRadish]

Literally a semantic argument about the word semantic

[smjjames]

Blame it on the Republicans for repeatedly calling Obama socialist and obsfucating the term, so, it's kind of become a "whatever the heck you want it to mean" word. At least here in the US.

[misko27]

Yeah, shattered so much that you've got Maoist socialism, Leninist socialism, Stalinist socialism, Chavez soclailsm, Castro socialism, Ho Chi Minh socialism, Vietnamese socialism, even an American socialism spinoff.

You forgot Tito. The UDBA will be displeased.

[Frumple]

Blame it on the Republicans for repeatedly calling Obama socialist and obsfucating the term, so, it's kind of become a "whatever the heck you want it to mean" word. At least here in the US.

Oh, that pre-dates obama by decades. Straight outta' compton red scare, that one. In context of the US socialism is only one step from communism as a term, and a generalized invective with little to no specific meaning regardless.

Unfortunately for foreign socialists of whatever stripe, we americans have taken your word and fornicated  it into an indefinitely shaped pile of ill natured mush. Alas, it was a good word, lost before its time.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Wait, so 'orthodox Marxism' is okay with you as a term?

You already heard how I feel about terms as advocacies - that's how this conversation started. But if you aren't willing to burn the dictionary and focus on specifics you can at least have a personal association of the semantics of a word, even if nobody else can be trusted to adhere directly to that association. The way you talk about Marxism suggests you want it to be non-evolving in definition: based in the actual flesh-sounds of Karl Marx until humanity goes extinct.

Let me put it another way: Why should we use 'socialism' so broadly that in effect it means 'everybody to the left of H-Dawg'? Especially if it goes squarely against established conventions.

It's Hill Dawg, and why should the word socialism be subject to infinite regression of revolutionary fervor? Because that's what happens when you try to do this and before you know it binga-bang-man you shot all the kulaks again oh god there's blood everywhere.

There's nobody to establish universal conventions. You can only learn an individual's context as separate from the generalities of the words, which is the reason why everything that tries to put more power in the hands of workers contains grains of socialism (which is known by the State of California to cause cancer) as a word that can hope to mean anything.

Definitions that are more specific yet universal for that, at least in ideology, are crazy because of the inherent subjectivity. Which again is why conversations ought to be policy based. Ideology is flavor.

[scriver]

Helgoland, you are the one who's literally trying to redefine socialism out of social democratism while not even removing the word from the term. That is some grade A history revision right there.

Look, even Wikipedia has separate portals for the two. And I do think it is advisable to distinguish between 'social' and 'socialist' - else this becomes 'Catholic Socialist teaching'. And that would definitely be revisionism.

Nope, that doesn't have the same context and history as the usage in social democratism. That would just be deliberate obtuseness from your part.

By the way, having read into it, a couple years ago several Social Democratic parties withdrew from the SI in protest, and formed the Progressive Alliance instead...

Which was done because they didn't want to share a room with non-democratic entities, not because they had any problem with socialists or socialism:

The Progressive Alliance is a network which is open to progressive, democratic, social-democratic, socialist and labour parties and party networks.

Wait, so 'orthodox Marxism' is okay with you as a term? No, that can't be right - this is turtles all the way down. Here's a Stackoverflow question dealing with semantics vs. syntax. It's programming-focused, of course, but the distinction should be clear.

Let me put it another way: Why should we use 'socialism' so broadly that in effect it means 'everybody to the left of H-Dawg'? Especially if it goes squarely against established conventions.

We should use socialism in such a way that it covers the paths socialist ideology took, which includes the Nordic models and social democracy.

The question I think we should ask is why do you want to define socialism in such a way that it excludes all democratic and/or non-revolutionary socialist ideologies? Why would you want to revise history to such an extent, while still appropriating the successes of social democratic thought?

[smjjames]

We should use socialism in such a way that it covers the paths socialist ideology took, which includes the Nordic models and social democracy.

The question I think we should ask is why do you want to define socialism in such a way that it excludes all democratic and/or non-revolutionary socialist ideologies? Why would you want to revise history to such an extent, while still appropriating the successes of social democratic thought?

Except that socialism went through a radiative speciation that would rival the Cambrian Explosion.

Okay, Cambrian explosion is an exaggeration here, but point is, as MSH made earlier with his glass mug of pure ideology, socialism splintered into a thousand shards. And that's including the Republicans adulturated definition of it.

[Lord Shonus]

It is almost like socialism is primarily basic common sense theory that has proved to be extremely complex to work out in practice, and often comes wrapped with extra baggage that is far less universally appealing.

[Reelya]

There's also the fact that Helgoland wants to use Socialism as a Synonym for Communism, clearly. Which as well as being revisionist (wikipedia article History of socialism is a good overview) is also redundant. Why does socialism need to mean the same thing as communism? We already have a word for that.

The communists themselves made a distinction there, which is why both terms were thrown around: they meant different things. In Marx's version (which is not the originator of the term socialism btw) he talked about socialism and communism as different stages. Therefore there's no theoretical reason to equate them, and since Marx didn't coin the term, there's no need to limit the label socialism to Marx's definition.

[scriver]

We should use socialism in such a way that it covers the paths socialist ideology took, which includes the Nordic models and social democracy.

The question I think we should ask is why do you want to define socialism in such a way that it excludes all democratic and/or non-revolutionary socialist ideologies? Why would you want to revise history to such an extent, while still appropriating the successes of social democratic thought?

Except that socialism went through a radiative speciation that would rival the Cambrian Explosion.

Okay, Cambrian explosion is an exaggeration here, but point is, as MSH made earlier with his glass mug of pure ideology, socialism splintered into a thousand shards.

Yes, and what of it? It's all shards of socialism.