Quite, contemplative; i've certainly had my fair share of lengthy and colourful debates, which may well have been no less colourful for brevity, with the foresight to define terms explicitly; i'm often comforted by the thought that it's as much about the journey :)
On Jun 29, 3:14 am, Contemplative <[email protected]> wrote: > An interesting difference in perception: My wife, who is from Russia with a > PhD in Economics just shakes her > head when she hears Americans use terms like socialism, communism.... > > Communism is a philosophy, socialism is an economic system sometimes based > on communistic philosophy. > > I got to thinking about how we use these terms, comparing communism to > democracy, socialism to free markets, > capitalism to anything we choose to term as something else. I, personally, > am unsure of what is being talked about > when these terms are used; not because they are imprecise terms, but because > we interchange them seemingly at > will. They take on different base meanings depending on the > conversationalists and the conversation. > > I am certainly no expert! My point is that these terms have slippery > meanings, and unless conversations that use the > terms begin with an agreed upon base understanding of any of them, the > conversation itself is slippery! (not a bad > thing, just a thing). :-)
