sv-wolf wrote:he truth is, I never know how to answer this question. In a historical sense ‘yes’ is a perfectly accurate answer. But saying it does nothing more than reinforce an ignorant prejudice, and conveys nothing about how I or others like me think. Most people who ask the question don’t care what you believe: they are just up for a hate-argument. Some are interested, but have a very cloudy idea of what they are talking about. And to be fair, why should they? No-one ever understood this area of thought by reading a newspaper or going to school. Academic courses on the subject fill student’s heads with a lot of commentary but few facts. (Never believe that academics are not as full of "crumb" as everyone else.)
It goes like this: if I say, ‘yes’, someone will either try to recruit my support for some god-awful Trotskyist or Soviet-style political ideology, or he will look at me as though I had just stepped in a very large pile of horse dodo. Political discussion at this level is generally a waste of breath. For guys like this it’s tribal. Political language is nothing more to them than a set of identity symbols - “I’ll tell you what, mate: I’m a ‘This’ and you’re a ‘THAT’.” To start any kind of conversation on these terms is to enter the whirlwind, where shreds of ego and fear go flying about in all directions.
So...are you a commie?
