Every liberal does it too, from center right radlibs to far-right “conservatives”: the most extreme right fringe liberals hate the mainstream liberals for not being bigoted enough, the mainstream libs hate the radlibs for not being cruel enough, and the radlibs hate the left for not being chauvinist enough.
Denouncing chauvinism in particular is like a liberal moral event horizon, a cardinal sin against their self-interested belief in the righteousness of the imperial hegemon that keeps the treats flowing at gunpoint.
Liberals put a very high value on awareness of problems yet distrust people that want to do something about them.
As the official pod puts it, liberals live in a world full of victims but no victimizers
I wouldn’t put it like that, it’s more that they don’t see doing nothing as political, and consider being aware of the problem or even minor donations as a sufficiently positive action.
I just had flashbacks of Kony 2012
I still think of that from time to time
it was the greatest presidential campaign in history
Its nice that she became a supreem court justice.
I was off the Internet in 2012. What’s Kony 2012?
Some warlord in Africa named Kony and there was this huge viral campaign to like, make people aware that he existed? I think he was already out of power by the time it got going or something. Really weird
Uganda even said “we don’t really need your help, we got this”, Kony was so inactive at the time, many believed he was already dead. And he never rose again, the Lord’s Resistance Army is all but eradicated.
Huh odd
no more half measures walter
liberals: the symptoms are bad, but the causes are so good
Did someone say Jon Oliver?
deleted by creator
Dw this is the struggle session of the month, something new will happen next month
i think we can probably make the switch to arguing about if parades are gentrification
September is coming up soon. We could argue about the merits of pumpkin spice culture.
We already had a really good session about pumpkin spice, I think that thread held a record for most comments until federation happened, and it was just one dude going off the rails
Followed by a daily megathread on said PSL
tfw you have a struggle session about struggle sessions. Never change weirdos.
Next month we’re switching to being exclusively a VR chatroom.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Which happens every 6 months “ugh I wish I could stop hearing about X” then 2 weeks later its gone
except X which we will have to hear about until we die
Yeah same. It’s like being on Reddit again
So much drama everywhere; I had to find a picture
liberals despise anyone and everyone with better politics than themselves.
That blows up on Hexbear whenever someone gets mad at vegans for talking about the actual cost and harm done by the meat industry.
People were mad at the vegan comm because they were aggressive and confrontational dicks to everyone on the site while using the patina of veganism as an excuse.
Its why most of those very same vegans are all mostly banned off the website for their behaviors.
Its one thing to advocate for veganism, its another thing to for example call someone a “r*pe enjoyer” to a sexual assault victim for drinking milk in a thread completely unrelated to veganism.
Its one thing to advocate for veganism, its another thing to for example call someone a “r*pe enjoyer” to a sexual assault victim for drinking milk in a thread completely unrelated to veganism.
Hexbear, pondering how it is perceived on other instances:
yeah, the defederation drama is probably a good opportunity for self-crit
Ngl I kinda miss the chaos vegans
They certainly made the website spicier
Thus of olde: get that slave labor out of my face, bloodmouth!
Thus now: uwu wat a nice looking honey biscut, no thanks, I don’t want one…
Begone bloodmouth thyne impure imbument habitations are foule, a blasphemy against creation and cause many ill portents for our beastly companions
Its one thing to advocate for veganism, its another thing to for example call someone a “r*pe enjoyer” to a sexual assault victim for drinking milk in a thread completely unrelated to veganism.
I may have missed the worst of that; I wouldn’t have said that myself.
I had not seen any recent examples of that, but the "vegan spoke up, how uncivil" thing percolates from time to time without anything near the insult you mentioned.
It was pretty much the only other experience with meeting other vegans on this site tbh, I was legit excited about more vegans being on the site…up until they started posting lol.
Some hilariously unhinged statements did come from them like:
Hunger isn’t a real thing. It doesn’t exist. If you make conscious decisions about what to eat based on an informed view of nutrition, you will still feel hungry. It’s not some magic signal telling you that you’re not getting enough nutrients, it’s a dumb feeling that exists in your head. You ignore it, and it goes away. The feeling of hunger cannot harm you.
and
Delusions may or may not go away if you ignore them, I have no idea, I’m not knowledgeable on that topic. What I can tell you for sure is that hunger does go away when you ignore it.
It was pretty much the only other experience with meeting other vegans on this site tbh, I was legit excited about more vegans being on the site…up until they started posting lol.
I’m kind of glad I either tuned it out or was just not in those subsections. I believe you when you say that happened and I remember some vegans talking about the mass bans and not liking those, but the context of what got them banned was lost.
Hunger isn’t a real thing. It doesn’t exist. If you make conscious decisions about what to eat based on an informed view of nutrition, you will still feel hungry. It’s not some magic signal telling you that you’re not getting enough nutrients, it’s a dumb feeling that exists in your head. You ignore it, and it goes away. The feeling of hunger cannot harm you.
Delusions may or may not go away if you ignore them, I have no idea, I’m not knowledgeable on that topic. What I can tell you for sure is that hunger does go away when you ignore it.
I appreciate the quoted bits of Hexbear history. Maybe some of the site’s cultural reactions toward vegans are more than lingering
cliches. Unfortunately.I actually saw that comment first hand and it was in the middle of a thread I was in and I got so fuckin mad. As someone who has been food insecure myself for most of my life and currently cannot afford a kitchen and will be hungry till I get to work and heat up my little bowl of 3 bean chili honestly seriously fuck that person that said that and I am glad they are gone.
I remember that last bit haha
Yeah I remember getting those replies when I started talking about how hard it was for me to eat enough, so I empathised with those who had the opposite issue.
Only to be told hunger isn’t real lmao
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Everyone should be vegan
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
There’s also some really really good alternatives that are actually cheaper. Especially if you can find a discount store. Though in a similar note I am really lucky in that I work in one of those discount stores.
None of the problems I’ve seen with vegans has been about the harm of the industry. We’re all aware of exploitation. The issue arises around some posters making it a very personal, individual attack on others rather that seeing that diet is also a place where capitalism has wielded its force. Calling someone that is on your side politically on many of the issues of the day a blood mouth doesn’t win allies
None of the problems I’ve seen with vegans has been about the harm of the industry.
I’m not so sure when all of the concern against caring too much gets brought up anyway.
Calling someone that is on your side politically on many of the issues of the day a blood mouth doesn’t win allies
Neither does smug “dae le vegans annoying scolds”
statements against vegans that generally aren’t even wrong about their takes at a material level.I’m just saying, you can be right about something but do it in a way where you alienate everyone.
If only they had more @Civility@hexbear.net they’d stop getting raged at for daring to exist in a visible way on the internet.
Let’s set aside the people that were going to rage at you for daring to exist, because they’re not really who matter and you’re not going to change their minds.
I mean yeah, maybe the bit account @Civility@hexbear.net does have some kernel of truth where being civil builds solidarity and wins people over and gets people to change instead of just screaming at them and then getting ignored.
looks at a clock. The numbers 1-12 are replaced with the words “STRUGGLE SESSION”
Good heavens, just look at the time
Even bringing up the tendency for struggle sessions summoned someone very concerned about uncivil veganism.
does have some kernel of truth where being civil builds solidarity and wins people over
Who decides where the line of civility is and who prevents that line from mysteriously drifting toward favoring the status quo and its default positions?
instead of just screaming at them and then getting ignored
That line I just mentioned being arbitrarily drawn? It’s already being drawn, by you, here.
🥰
😤
civility for thee:
civility for me:
we can’t tell the libs not to expect civility from us and then flip the script when the shoe is on the other foot. same as we tell the libs: look past the aesthetics to the actual content.
😔
😤
Yeah it’s a bad argument here when applied to libs and it’s a bad argument then as well. This notion that they’re mad at us because secretly know we’re right is pure self-aggrandizing puffery.
ya, it seems much more likely that federated “libs” despise OP/us because OP is/ we are incredibly rude to them, and in OP’s case, have a really uncharitable psychological theory about how they are secretly mad at us, rather than just concluding that such libs simply have different (and wrong) appraisals of facts and values.
I’ve always thought that the dirtbag left should be incredibly tactical about it’s dirtbagness. The fact that we didn’t entirely remove incivility from our toolbox was fantastic and certainly set us apart and up for a rollicking good time, but it did become a bit one note.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk rip www.reddit.com/r/TweeLeft
I’m generally on the same page, but then I look at how other instances are treating Lemmygrad, how reddit snuffs out even the most respectful leftist comments, how cops respond to peaceful protests, etc.
The buttoned up approach has value, but so does what we’re doing.
Oh yeah, the real power in the dirtbag approach was it refused to give deference to mores of politeness that those in power insisted were due to them (despite being entirely unearned and used to run interference for absolutely abhorrent decision-making).
I don’t see it nearly as useful when applied to randos online though.
It can definitely backfire. But it’s impossible to know what online randos will respond to (people change their minds in different ways) and some folks do respond to having their bullshit called what it is.
Also important to remember the lurkers, who vastly outnumber us humble posters, and who are not going to be as turned off by hostility as the person on the receiving end of it – especially when right next to the hostility you have someone making a more conventional argument.
I think the actually more salient issue is that, we’re openly having fun clowning on these morons. Lurkers see us having an absolute ball and opt to join in. Recall that you can point to the origin of this online subcurrent as a mishmash of SomethingAwful and largely apolitical ‘weird twitter’.
I think you make a good point.
Also, is that not how most groups think of their “enemies”? “We’re better and they know it, thats why they do bad thing”
Fucking thank you lmao, hexbear was starting to get all smug redditor like in the comments.
struggle session also happened a week before federalification with the question of whether or not troops or veterans should be ostracized. a.k.a, ATAB.
Yes, poor people are coerced into military service because they are systemically pressured into having few other options.
No, that doesn’t mean “shoot and cry” in any way makes the shooting more justified.
😠
yeah… I was a liberal once, and it was definitely informed in large part by wanting to be “good” and correct. I became kind of a debatelord for a minute there. But, what I didn’t do, was shit my pants and demand the mods ban them when it became clear I was on the wrong side of something, I lived and learned and moved on (generally leftward). You gotta be able to take the L sometimes.
deleted by creator
Or even an embarassed angry loss, as long as you have the self restraint to shut up about it when you’re too upset to engage critically and not just react. I’ve had plenty of those, some on this very website. Once I caught a ban from a comm, and you know what? I was pissed about it, but I just made a new account and moved on. And looking back I think they were mostly right. The key is to not shut your brain off at the first sign of conflict.
I know it’s not exactly a new observation, but I think that on the internet, bad faith and snark is more or less an assumed default, which incentivzes people to take maximalist positions and never back down even a bit, because posting has become such a zero/sum game.
Liberals are incapable of understanding politics.
Period.
They’re used to only dealing with some form of Fox (or Fox Business) Conservative. Like, thats the only other form of politics they can fathom outside of some vague adherence to “smart government.” And when it comes to “getting stuff done” they think it’s just a numbers game: just get enough good Libs elected and things will be gooder, or some shit.
Like, forget war - which for some reason Libs can’t wrap their heads around that war is fucking bad. What’s the Lib response to climate change or failing healthcare or inexplicable income gaps? Vote harder? California is a Super Majority D state. Obama had Congress sewn up for 2 years. Conservativism is effectively dead where the majority of people live. So what’s the endgame? When does shit get better?
And that’s where Libs are left with an identity crisis because to admit any one little (but really fucking big) thing is beyond repair is admitting there are systemic problems that cannot be solved with the only tool in the shed: voting. And that’s basically the Lib version of staring into the abyss.
Everything a Lib knows is a fucking lie.
Liberals are incapable of understanding politics.
Moralists don’t really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child’s toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.
What do you mean? I mean they (liberals) definitely do have beliefs, just incoherent and inadequate ones.
here’s the full quote:
Moralists don’t really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child’s toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn’t change — not even incremental change. It is control. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
it’s a quote from disco elysium
Ah okay I’m an idiot non-gamer lmao
For liberals, war is a purely economic calculation whose criteria of justification are decided by whether or not they contravene principles whose evolved historical function is the preservation of capitalist social relations and the imperialist world system (whether the liberal in question is a mystified rube or a demonically englightened ghoul). Similarly, criteria of success or failure in war is based on economic calculation. Look at the U$ yankkkie defences of their proxy war in Ukraine: “no Americans are dying, it will weaken the Russian economy, we must secure our interests”. Of course we also know, as evidenced spectacularly by the U$ terrorist bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, that the key objective is always the preservation of U$ economic hegemony, keeping a competitor economically disadvantaged, taking their economic customers in Europe and forcing them into economic dependence on America LNG.
It’s not always that what they know is a lie. Liberals often do know quite a bit, especially the more ghoulish ones. Most of them, yes, are rubes in a lot of respects. But the most basic normative axioms of their thought are detached from reality in a particularly striking way.
Of course when they fail by their own criteria (see: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, etc…) they are never honest about this and use mental gymnastics to avoid responsibility, because that matters more, because the legitimacy of their views must be defended at all costs. This is inculcated into liberals as a matter of liberal cultural necessity because if it wasn’t, they would not be able to adequately defend those same capitalist and imperialist socio-economic systems they rely upon and in terms of which they determine their own self-worth.
Totally. I think it’s more accurate to say, the legitimacy of Liberal thought is a lie; however, it’s up to the individual Liberal to acknowledge the fallacies and contradictions. Most will just ignore it.
Which do you want, smart government or common sense? Those are the only two choices.
this ain’t it fam. it’s the same smug armchair psychology we dunk on redditors for doing.
Hexbears can have a little smug armchair psychology. As a treat.
That’s called being a leftcom, and we ban them for being annoying pedants
I don’t know. Look at how much Democrats define themselves by being not Republicans. Hell,
essentially ran on “nothing will fundamentally change [compared to the Obama years].” He was the generic “not Republican” candidate!On the interpersonal level, it’s pretty common to excuse one’s own shortcomings with “at least I’m not like that fucking guy,” especially if that fucking guy is the only other point of comparison. Imagine you aren’t a very good worker but always skate by because the only other employee is even worse. What are your thoughts going to be on a new worker who comes in and does the job even decently?
In the past 50 years there have been only 2 elections where the Democrats had any effective platform besides “we’re not that fucking guy”.
oh yea 
Thank you lol
for any lib lurkers, i recommend reading liberalism: a counter-history by domenico losurdo
In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery.
Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyès, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today’s politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.
The English translation reads really weirdly, or at least the one I have. I’ve never felt so often that I’ve lost the beginning of a sentence by the end of it. But it’s worth the effort, once a thread starts getting pulled it becomes easier to grasp where the sentences are going and gets a good flow
Yeah I read it in Italian and having then seen the English translation is does seem like the translator was not going for maximum clarity.
Lol agreed, definitely a translation attempting like a word for word/as close to the original wording as possible. My brain can think ok in romance language structure but not if the words are english. Still glad it exists and it’s not like I could do better from Italian
slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery
What’s that song from Sesame Street?
I’m reminded of that Bo Burnham song, How The World Works
I’ve had parts of that song stuck in my head for like a year now, particularly the verse:
And private property’s inherently theft
And neoliberal fascists are destroying the left
And every politician, every cop on the street
Protects the interests of the pedophilic corporate eliteit’s very funny how he turned from Funny Internet Guy #4812 to a communist and probably the only actually good video essay I’ve ever listened to dealt with him and the views in that video are a core jigsaw piece in my personality and thinking
The problem with libs is that they beleve ideas make history. Once you put yourself in that mindset the chauvinism becomes more reasonable.
The west is the richest so they have the best ideas. Since the liberal idea set is self evidently the best the other countries are backward and their idea sets should be replaced.
In reality the reason the west has been richer for the last 3-4 hundred out of 10-14k years of agriculture has les to do with ideas or western culture and more to do with geografic and demografic realities, that are too comlicated for this post. So the libs are wrong.
It also has to do with those conditions you mention allowing for the development of modern capitalism, the military and technology advantages (in some important instances like military and navigation) and the fact that the capitalist mode of production once it starting developing had an advantage over others and incentivized aggressive imperialist expansion.
A fantastic book related to this is Robert Brenner’s Merchants and Revolution
I havent read that book. But i know brenner is a good economic historian and have recommended some of his other books in here before so thanks for the recommendation. I will get to it once i have some free time.
Eestern military technology only got ahead of the rest of the world in the mid ninteenth century. So it does not seen like a reason. Naderan armies for example are comparable in logistics and volume of artillery fire to napoleonic ones. The military argument is valid only in america and australia. And even then the role of germs in creating a demographic gradient seems to have been more important. We also know of cases like yermak were his oponents had the same military technology but there is a clear demographic gradient.
I disagree that imperialist expansion is a feuture of capitalim. Instead i thik imperial expansion becomes viable once the elites in a given society face crowding. This should appliy to feudalistic, pastoralist or mercantile societies. We could argue that highly urban mercantile societies have proportionally more elites than say more rural ones. But this may not be neccesarily the case when comparing with societies with pastoralist economies.
0The role of imperialism is to prolong or/and delay the cannibalistic phase. The discovery of america allowed europeans time to avoid demographic collapse. Even then by the early 19th century england was per capita the poorest it had been at any other point in history. Thats a sure sing that it was under enormous material contradictions.
I as for pre industrial capitalism. It applies to many societies with an agrarian base at diferent points in time many of these regions likley had larger urban fractions than all but the most urbanised regions of early modern europe. In this part i have to stress the postan thesis, that labor and class relationships (in this case wage labor and proletarization) are a result of productive finctions wich in any pre industrial setting are demoraphically driven(and to some extent affected by artificial selection on plant and animal domesticates). And not the other way around as brenner states.
The most important thing is that liberals believe that just making good statements and public signals (like “I am voting for Democrats and Democrats are good because I say so and when I vote for them I am a good person by definition”) makes you good and is the most important action someone can do. Sure, I supported the Iraq war and exploit my employees and steal wages from them, but I have this great lawn sign that makes me a good person.
Drunk out at a brewery the other night me and a friend were ragging on this lib about how shit Obama was and when he couldn’t find a way out he just started stating loudly and repeatedly that Obama was hated by americans “because he’s a SMART BLACK MAN.” Like dude sure but we’re talking about fiscal policy here wtf are you doing? Liberal ideology is a radical experiment in self-perpetuating sloganeering
Same energy as libs saying “If you don’t like Hillary/Warren/Sinema, it’s because you’re a misogynist”
And they’re not wrong that these people get hate for racist/misogynistic reasons, but they also get a lot of well deserved hate based on their policy decisions. Funnily enough he essentially said that Warren would’ve ushered us into a new golden age if she had won in 2020, to which my response was even Joe fucking Biden couldn’t pass legislation through this senate wtf was she going to do?!
You have no social awareness and dude is a gender neutral term actually
Average liberal I’ve seen around here. It’s like going back in time 10 years on reddit.
im sorry but dude should absolutely be a gender neutral term.
but i definitely wont die on this hill
Do you fuck dudes? What do people assume when you tell other people that you fuck dudes?
Dude is not a gender neutral term and you will find very few trans people that think it is.
i’ve always called everyone dude, but I see what you mean. i’ll #bebest
Can’t believe Good Burger would lie to me like this!
My partner was assigned female at birth and is non-binary. They referred to themselves as dude on a daily basis even before coming out/transitioning.
They’re welcome to do that for themselves. It’s still not ok to use it for people explicitly stating she/her and then to turn into the biggest smug shitlord imaginable about it being gender neutral when called out and told not to do that, or to call a person “socially unaware” for requesting correct pronoun use.
Agreed, I’m just saying some areas of the world are different when it comes to certain words being gender-neutral or not, and that there is no “one-size-fits all” definition of what phrases are gender neutral. I’m obviously not going to call someone dude who doesn’t want to be called that, but I also think that there should be some level of understanding that there are people who will slip a gender-neutral “dude” into conversation without any malicious intent to misgender anyone - because yes, I have grown up around plenty straight men who would have said “yes” to the “do you fuck dudes?” question.
The thing about social issues is that they change by society. In certain cultures where I live, it’s normal for cis women to be addressed as ‘dude’. The term is considered gender neutral by default in those circles, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was increasingly recuperated in more youth spaces.
It’s obviously different if someone uses it in a gendered context (e.g. ‘a dude’, ‘i fuck dudes’), that’s offensive and horrible to misgender with, and obviously it’s a dumbass gamble to assume it will be received as neutral when talking with new people. And, of course, this doesn’t excuse the moron who plays the “I have a friend who is fine with me saying this” routine. But what that user said isn’t as absurd as it may sound, because there are legitimate societies, some which are my day-to-day life even, where it already is neutral.
They were an unironic Guaido stan too lol. I spammed a bunch of links of Guaido getting owned until they stfu
Funniest shit ever. This will make no sense to new comrades we make going forwards, forever an esoteric joke of a person lost in time.
Ughhh. This one really kills me, because usually it’s cis people saying this to trans people, telling them that they’re wrong. Like, would you do that to someone of a racial minority who told you something you said was a slur? Probably not.
I’ve even seen people say that their “transwoman friend” [sic] said it was okay. As if that makes it okay for everyone. It’s like they think they have some kind of weird “misgendering pass.”
Their trans friend who is just trying to make sure they don’t turn every single social relationship they have into an uncomfortable battle and is probably capitulating because it’s easier rather than dealing with their shit.
Look, if they thought our politics were better, they’d agree with us. So it’s something else.
deleted by creator
I had mormon missionaries try this tact with me, that at some point ‘deep down’ I knew that their truth claims were correct. I don’t consider this a workable model, as it basically gives up the game, and forces us to work backward. ‘Knowing deep down’ or ‘at an emotional level’ is a common colloquialism but it seems to reifying a sort of compartmentalized cognition where there are multiple cognizers within and individual knowing different things and not communicating, which I don’t buy.
I’m not even convinced cognitive dissonance is an actual thing, as it presupposes humans have a need for logically coherent world views, and given that 99% of humans are not even acquainted with the rules of formal logic nor do they use them in arriving at their individual beliefs, I don’t see any reason we should experience discomfort when those rules are broken by our beliefs. The psychological studies that I’ve read that seem to show cognitive dissonance exists could just as plausibly show that people get uncomfortable when their views are publicly interrogated under some formalized system, which is already pretty obvious.
‘Knowing deep down’ or ‘at an emotional level’ is a common colloquialism but it seems to reifying a sort of compartmentalized cognition where there are multiple cognizers within and individual knowing different things and not communicating, which I don’t buy.
We know they know we’re right, though, because they’ll tell us when our ideas are separated from the material changes that are required to implement them. Ask a lib what they think of:
- Universal healthcare
- Public education
- Mass incarceration
- Rights to basics like food and housing
- Wars of aggression
You’re probably going to get supermajorities on roughly the same page as us, at least when they’re speaking in the abstract. They do value many of the things we do.
The problem, of course, is when someone whispers “property values” or “the price of gas” in their ear. Suddenly all those good intentions vanish because it could conceivably be a threat to their own material conditions. We know they know that’s wrong, too, because libs lionize people who put what’s right over what’s profitable.
I don’t disagree that they agree with the moral righteousness of any policies (or oppositions) in a vacuum, they just deny that vacuum exists, which they are of course right to do. Take universal healthcare or public housing or anything else, their position is typified by saying “it would be great if we could have this, but we can’t, because there would be worse moral tradeoffs if we did”. The quintessential examples for this are universal healthcare stifling innovation and immiserating hundreds of thousands of workers.
Now are those objections true? No, but they believe them, and that’s how they can see their position as being the more moral of the two.
deleted by creator
The cognitive dissonance thing is something I’ve been mulling on for a while as well, kinda neat to see a take on it that helps me sort out some thoughts.
it seems to reifying a sort of compartmentalized cognition where there are multiple cognizers within and individual knowing different things and not communicating, which I don’t buy.
People abuse it for their convenience and it oresents epistemological problems, but the dynamic you seem to be describing g is absolutely a real thing. Minds are not indivisible.
oresents epistemological problems
That’s putting it lightly. Brains are not indivsible, and you can absolutely overlay a divisible conceptual schema (id, ego, superego, whatever) onto the mind, but as a functional unit for interaction and access, minds are indivisible. I can’t walk into another part of my mind like I can walk into a different room. If I could, who is doing the walking? This model seems to posit a sort of Inside Out scenario where we’re actually a constellation of different cognizers, which I don’t buy.
That’s the thing though, there’s an undercurrent of “actually it’s responsible adulting to do bad things, sweaty” to it. They have thought terminating defense mechanisms that respond to exposure to uncompromising ethical positions on things they have proudly compromised on with rage. Fascists worshipped the suffering and death that their actions brought to everyone including their own ranks. Far right liberals believe that brutal subjugation and abuse is “responsible leadership,” believing it to be bad but necessary. Mainstream liberals tie their brains in knots to ignore the suffering capitalism and the brutal violence it requires causes, finding justifications for inaction. Radlibs reflexively move towards the mainstream and concede and capitulate to it, and have been trained to be enraged by anyone who does not.
I mean when we respond with PPB they probably think we’re angry too and are thought terminating. Which usually I am, internet debates are dumb, I just want my trans folks to be living good lives free of discrimination, adequate housing, and with free healthcare that resolves their dysphoria. Everything I believe is bent around that and frankly idgaf how it happens so long as it does
If the liberals somehow do it tomorrow I’d be stoked, but history shows they’re incapable of it, whereas what I described is actively underway in Cuba and even areas less developed on trans rights like China simply because they care a lot about housing and food access
there’s an undercurrent of “actually it’s responsible adulting to do bad things, sweaty”
I mean that’s how it looks on the outside, but it’s and understandable conceit on the inside. You can, with a sufficiently complicated yet wholely coherent and individually reasonable set of premises justify things like sanctions that are going to starve a bunch of children. When you or I come along to cut the Gordian knot and say “starving children is bad and unallowable axiomatically”, they will object, once again self-consistently, that we can’t do that because even worse outcomes will happen if we don’t starve the children.
There’s also plenty of this to go around on the left. Pop quiz: should the Romanovs have been gunned down in cold blood? (The answer is no), but once again, with a sufficiently complex set of premises and inferences you can justify machine gunning a tsarevich.
You can, with a sufficiently complicated yet wholely coherent and individually reasonable set of premises
Those premises are that a talking head or oped told them it was the responsible if unpleasant thing to do. You’re just describing layers of propaganda and contradiction-deflecting defense mechanisms: they know the costs of austerity and hegemony are wrong so they recoil from learning about the details and latch on to prevaricating bullshit from some propagandist to wear it as a shield. They want to believe that their team is good, and censor their consumption of information to stop that from being challenged.
Those premises are that a talking head or oped told them it was the responsible if unpleasant thing to do.
Yes the way we form our beliefs and vocabularies is largely contingent on our experiences and sources, be they Thomas Kuhn, Michael Parenti, or Tucker Carlson.
You’re just describing layers of propaganda and contradiction-deflecting defense mechanisms:
That’s what these look like from the outside, but from the inside they look like, and for all intents and purposes, are, eminently reasonable and defensible justifications for thinking the things they think. In certain meaningful ways, we don’t even live on the same planet as them.
they know the costs of austerity and hegemony are wrong so they recoil from learning about the details
How do they know this? We know this, but I don’t think we can assign this knowledge to them. If we ask them this, their just as likely to say it’s regrettable, but on consideration, morally preferable to the alternatives.
You can, with a sufficiently complicated yet wholely coherent and individually reasonable set of premises justify things like sanctions that are going to starve a bunch of children.
They would not need to justify starving children unless they knew starving children was wrong. Compare libs to reactionaries here: the latter will openly say “yeah kill all them [slurs], I don’t care” at the drop of a hat, even when we aren’t at war with one of the Bad Countries. You need to bombard libs with endless propaganda for months before they come close to that.
I’m also not sure that propaganda justifies horrors like starving children so much as it diverts blame. Ask a lib if food shortages in the DPRK are the result of sanctions and they won’t tell you it’s sadly necessary, they’ll tell you we don’t sanction food, so if people are hungry they should blame it on their government.
I’m also not sure that propaganda justifies horrors like starving children so much as it diverts blame. Ask a lib if food shortages in the DPRK are the result of sanctions and they won’t tell you it’s sadly necessary, they’ll tell you we don’t sanction food, so if people are hungry they should blame it on their government.
It’s only propaganda external to their frame of reference; internally it’s nuance. The whole point of ideology in the Zizekian meme sense is that it’s invisible and totalizing from within the system, and only becomes apparent when one ideology is replaced by another, which is why we can see it for the propaganda that it is (at least from our frame of reference).
They think the problems are bad but the causes are good.
I think most of them can tell they’re the conservative in every conversation and they dun like it
To me it’s the age old frustration of just not having a shared set of fundamental beliefs or even a meaningfully shared vocabulary. To them, we’re using a bunch of words incorrectly and using them to arrive at inallowable conclusions.
which is why debate doesn’t work. no one can fit an entire description of the way they view the world into a forum post.
That’s why I insist on fitting my entire Quinian web of belief into 90 comment long argument chains. It still doesn’t work of course but no one ever doubts that I ate my wheaties after reading one of those bad boys.
This is why I fit my worldview into a series of pictographic depictions
i still think analytical philosophers were right to focus so much on clarity of language, the average disagreement with a liberal is entirely as you said - a fundamental disagreement on premise acceptability.
-style debate doesn’t work, but rhetoric (or dunks, in the parlance of our times) can.
It’s material conditions. They can absolutely know, on some level, that our politics are more morally correct (what I guess you mean by “better”) but also know, on some level that their politics benefit themselves personally more. They’re siding with the politics that personally benefit them, and getting angry at the ones that are more correct but would mean they don’t continue to benefit from exploitation of others if implemented. Then there are other people who might even themselves benefit more if all exploitation were ended but have bought into the arguments made by those further up the ladder.
They can absolutely know, on some level, that our politics are more morally correct
What’s the proof of this?
They’re siding with the politics that personally benefit them
Every engaged political actor does this. There’s no material benefit to being a leftist in the west, but it does feel good living by your principles. Liberals simply don’t share the same principles, they aren’t secretly thinking they are morally inferior or whatever.
There’s no material benefit to being a leftist in the west
I disagree somewhat. If we’re to believe this map posted further up in the thread, any average person who does not live in one of the blue countries would benefit from global communism:
The US, Germany, the Nordics, and most of eastern Europe is a large portion of the West’s population.
I think that how this potential benefit is weighed against the real possibility of sacrificing one’s life, and potentially entire communities, for a revolutionary cause, instead of simply staying out of trouble and trying to survive, is the more challenging and important issue than a lack of class interest in socialism.
Even in the blue countries, the possibility of living an unalienated life with meaningful control over one’s work, community, and society could be more appealing in the abstract for many than simply making more money in a rotten, alienating system. There’s more benefit in socialism than simply meeting one’s basic needs, as important as that is. The problem for anyone is actually working towards a point where that possibility becomes real. That entails danger and instability.
Good points, in the long term communism does materially benefit most people. And there is some benefits in the current day to be a leftist in the west, like being part of a community and finding meaning in life beyond the market.
no more half measures walter
I thought it was because, despite wanting things like universal healthcare and welfare supports, they don’t want to let go of capitalism. I’m not from here, and not all the way to where you are, but that’s my outside view.
despite wanting things like universal healthcare and welfare supports, they don’t want to let go of capitalism
That’s called social democracy. It is fed by imperialism and shits out a labor aristocracy. The capitalist class uses social democracy in the imperial core to appease the workers and postpone revolution. But it requires exporting suffering to the “developing” (colonized) world.
You see this in the so called “nordic” countries. People will admire the nordic countries without questioning how imperialism keeps them afloat.
Thanks for the response. That second map is really helpful to put into perspective how much my country (the US) is screwing me, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around the bottom section.
A few questions if that’s okay:
The capitalist class uses social democracy in the imperial core to appease the workers and postpone revolution.
What is the imperial core?
But it requires exporting suffering to the “developing” (colonized) world.
Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it’s cheaper?
Sorry if these questions sound dumb. I’m a liberal with dreams of socialism in my head, but Hexbear makes me feel like maybe I don’t understand what those dreams actually mean, so I’m trying to get a better understanding.
You’ve gotten some good answers so I just want to say thanks for asking these questions and genuinely trying to learn. There’s been a lot of stubborn people who won’t listen to anything they don’t like on here recently but there’s also been plenty of open-minded people like you, and it makes me glad to see that
What is the imperial core?
The countries that are the center of (neo)imperial exploitation of the global south, ie the US and its other economically developed allies. So mostly the US, Canada, UK, EU, Australia, New Zeland, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. YMMV a bit on who counts, some EU nations are very poor and exploited by the more powerful ones. So Its probably better to say “Western Europe” than “EU”. Its a complicated issue, especially since the two Asian countries I listed are both exploited and exploiting at the same time. But they’re both developed and capitalist enough, as well as closely aligned with the west enough, to probably count. (I’m not super well read on this issue and may not be the best person to answer this ,but this is the sense I’ve gotten from talking to other socialists).
Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it’s cheaper?
Yes those are good examples! Not the only things, like another example are the general actions that the IMF takes with developing countries, or the way the banana industry tries to run South America, but you pulled two examples that are very good out of your hat even at the level you’re at so that’s pretty impressive.
ETA: Also thank you for asking these questions with genuine intellectual curiosity.
and France
I said both “EU” and “Western Europe” but I can see how we’d want to like especially stress France.
Also, tbh, Macron irritates me.
They refuse to get the fuck out of Niger, even though people of Niger demand it.
Just to add a bit of context, there’s a quote about how ‘fascism is imperialism turned inward’.
It helps to think of the imperial core as like a hierarchy of layers. The US ruling class is at the top of this hierarchy, and the ruling classes of other imperialist nations are next. As the contradictions of capitalism continue to pile up, there is a cannibalization that starts at the furthest periphery. This started with colonization/exploitation of the global south. But over time this has become less effective for various reasons (BRICS being the new big one). There’s a lot of mechanisms the core uses to affect it’s desires on the periphery (IMF conditioned loans, sanctions, embargoes, currency manipulations, capital flight, etc). As these mechanisms are dulled, the exploitation in the periphery starts to encroach up the layers of the hierarchy over time.
The 2014 coup in Ukraine was a clear step along this path, but it was not the first one by any means. Balkanization was one of the earlier ones, as was Greece. So this is something that will continue as BRICS and other elements of multipolarity increase around the world and particularly in the global south. Capital wants profits via exploitation, and if the profits in the global south become marginal due to the eroding of capital’s power, then capital finds new places to exploit. Often that means turning inward.
But over time this has become less effective for various reasons
Like the connectedness of their internet and the ability to share with many others when a company is exploiting resources?
Thanks for the in depth explanation. I had to read it a few times, but I think I understand. It’s so complicated, all the things the wealthy elite can do to change the outcome of things. What you said were strictly institutional, but they can do a lot of things to affect the way the public views these actions and their effects too.
The main reason imperialist exploitation becomes less profitable over time is pretty analogous to why domestic exploitation becomes less profitable over time. We call it the tendency for the rate of profit to fall.
Profit always comes from the exploitation of labor and natural resources. Over a given cycle of production, a capitalist exchanges money for capital and labor, then sells resulting commodities for a profit that stems from the difference in what they paid for the labor and natural resources and the value added to the commodities over that cycle of production, i.e. profit. In a domestic scenario, each time a cycle of production happens, the capitalist will earn some profit that they will invest in more advanced means of production for the next cycle of production, cutting down the necessary labor to produce whatever commodities it is they are producing. At first, this gives them an advantage over other capitalists, but soon other capitalists will invest to adopt the same techniques, and what we call the socially necessary labor to produce this commodity will be reduced in accordance to the amount of capital invested. However, as I said earlier, profits always come from exploitation of labor and natural resources; if capitalists reduce the amount of labor that goes into each commodity they will be conducting less exploitation and the rate of profit is reduced.
Lenin described how that process took place in Europe in the turn of the 20th century, the formation of various capitalist cartels stabilized the situation a little bit as capitalists realized that as they competed with one another they were cannibalizing themselves, so they decided to divide up their countries between various cartels which could hold prices artificially high and not suffer as much from the falling rate of profit. However, this only lasted so long, and eventually capital needed to open new frontiers to begin new cycles of production, and facilitated by the advance of finance capital the advanced capitalist countries of Europe began dividing the world between themselves. But over the time same process took place, immense amounts of capital have been invested in imperialist projects which has also led to a falling rate of profit. Capital needs to renew itself continually by finding new ways to increase exploitation. Nowadays that usually means war and financial services (i.e. the type of imperialism Lenin described).
YouTube search: Yellow Parenti
Here’s the “Yellow Parenti” speech @Pandantic@midwest.social , originally titled “US Interventionism, the 3rd world, and the USSR”.
A certified banger from 1986, smack dab in the middle of the Reagan years, when the USSR still existed. I relisten to this lecture at least once a year, Parenti is incredible
Holy shit I just wrote up a whole big long comment and accidentally deleted it. I will recreate it later on PC.
Thank you for sharing this, it was really great to listen to. I will respond more later… 😖
Been thinking about what he said about guerilla warfare: “Why do we support the guerillas there” (Ukrain), “and fight against guerillas there?” (Vietnam).
What is the imperial core?
The “first world”. Countries which historically industrialized first, were able to colonize less “developed” countries, and thus have a more or less stable economic advantage in terms of dictating an unequal trade regime. This is the true reason wages and cost of living are lower in the “developing” world. These countries were basically opened up to international trade at gunpoint, forced to rapidly industrialize, and forced into being a source of cheap labor and resources for the imperial core.
i recommend this video on the broader subject of imperialism
or this one to a lesser extent
Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it’s cheaper?
yes
Sorry if these questions sound dumb.
there are no dumb questions
Just popping in to say good on you for engaging in good faith.
That’s fairly inside view actually, I don’t think most people one’d describe as “not all the way where we are” are that aware
I understand what you’re saying, and I guess that’s true and why I’m asking these questions.
yeah just wanted to point out you’re kinda selling yourself short here
I just love the image of some liberal consciously thinking “I hate anyone with better politics than me,” like the idea that they’d label their own politics as worse than leftism
I think the contempt just manifests as cognitive dissonance.
In the manner MLK wrote in his Birmingham letter, paraphrasing: I agree with your aims but not in the manner you seek change through.
Their politics are informed from a position of privilege, strength, idealism, and at best, sympathy. Not solidarity. So sympathy-but-not-solidarity compromises the efficacy and urgency of political demands and action. An expectation that a large protest is the equivalent of forcing the state to capitulate or concede to popular demand; protests are expected and in action treated as a regulated parade/rally that neither threatens property nor order. It is supposed to be “virtue signalling”.
Anything that transcends cosmetic protest is treated as civil insurrection.
All this talk of federation but no replicators. Fuck this shit
