Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain’t dead. Remember, don’t downvote for disagreements.
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There can be too much political correctness at times.
Related: I believe it’s ok, given certain contexts, to speak broadly and crassly to people who expect that. It’s ultimately ineffective and therefore bad to come off as an pretenscious arrogant know-it-all, correcting everyone’s grammar and word choices and any ignorance they have. I see some students in the labor movement and wonder if they’re capable of expressing their knowledge to typical joe worker, without injecting French, German or Russian, or losing their temper at some unintentionally offensive ignorance. We’re speaking broadly to regular people, don’t alienate them with your academic knowledge.
That doesn’t mean never correct crappy things people say, you can and should, but pick your battles. A climate scientist once told me, being correct isn’t enough.
A very valuable lesson, and it’s very fitting who said it
It’s less ‘too much pc’ and more ‘purity politics’ imo
There’s a great post on tumblr that really fuckin’ nailed it:
just a short reminder:
you can post a picture of a gun on facebook, because it is only a harmless picture of a machine that is solely built to kill people. definitely nothing that shouldn’t be shown in public
if you do post a picture if an exposed female nipple, banned, because guess what? that’s against the policy
I do feel like arguing semantics at almost all times steals some energy from the movement overall
I think we need to figure out how to make leftism more appealing to centrists, and particularly to the cis/straight/white/male demographic.
That is a controversial opinion here.
(And I agree with it. I don’t know what the way is, but I hope it can be found)
When you’re coming from a position of extreme privilege and you’re either a bit stupid or lack empathy or general social awareness being treated equally with “lesser people” (like women, brown people or people from particular religious backgrounds) can seem an awful lot like you’re being discriminated against.
I think you’re missing the point a bit. Liberal/centrist values are already to treat everyone equally, but not equitably. So when leftism comes in with suggestions for change, it looks to centrists like inequality. If you listen to centrists objections to leftism, this is what they say repeatedly, so I’m inclined to believe that is how they legitimately feel. This is why I think we need slightly different messaging/branding/whatever, or to talk about these issues in a different way, so that centrists actually understand what we’re getting at. It’s also not hard to find instances of leftists who, when angry, lash out at the majority – which while relatable, doesn’t help make leftism look appealing.
(By “majority” I mean the average joe, not billionaires.)
I think the first thing to do is to shift sentiment toward solving the problem of how to make things appealing to centrists and the apolitical. Let’s get “I agree – but that has bad optics so let’s focus on something else first” into our lexicon. Once the left is able to be more strategic about this, then I think we’ll gain a lot more strides. I have some thoughts about what that might look like, but it’s outside the scope of this post.
The white nationalist movement preys on alienated young white men (more than other groups). Creating avenues for including these people in our movement means less people we have to fight.
I’m not saying everyone is able to fit into our movement, or they may require so much education that we just don’t have the resources to depropagandize them, but as a mass movement, more is generally better.
100% agree. I honestly think that in ~2015, the left’s failure to appeal to young white men caused them to turn to the alt right. I think we scared them off with things like “check your privilege” etc., and should have focused more on getting them amped about class warfare.
Agreed 100%. I’m glad we’re collectively starting to realize this. It’s a bit late, but hopefully it’ll still do good.
Well, I posted about this in this topic because I think it’s not a perspective that’s gained traction. Please help spread the good word…!
I’ve been thinking of starting some sort of group to help with that goal-- would you be interested? I’m not sure what we could do, but I want to do something, you know? I figure the best impact I can have is to convince other people that I mostly agree with to adopt this approach, which is what I envision the group could help with.
I’m curious
DM me too pls :D
DM me. :)
Late is better than never
I’m a straight white male that leans left, and ya, I’ve had friends (who, it’s sad to say, are hard to talk to now) who were center go right because they were welcomed with open arms by the right and shat on by the left. Before Elon went on a rant about the dude trying to rescue those trapped kids, before Joe Rogan started leaning into the propaganda for ratings, and when Bernie had a chance, we were on the same page… But since trump got involved, Bernie got shut out, and (it’s obvious now) the rich started weaponising the media against us, we have very little media that we consume that’s the same.
I left reddit, rogan and switched to Lemmy and breaking points, and they have leaned in harder to Rogan and we’re drawn down the rabbit hole of tim pool. Everytime I’ve tried to reason with them I get “what about isms”, “the left is more violent”, “the left hates everyone”, and borderline conspiracy theory non-sense. Even my own mom was pretty center left when I was growing up and now she’s bought into the non-sense because that’s the media she sees.
The right tells good tales, and a lot of people on the left are gate keeping, so… Just by fact of barrier to entry the right is going to be easier to drift towards. I hope we get our shit together.
I think the most insidious part is that the far right feeds on men’s anger and negative emotions and just keeps telling them that if they go farther right, if they become more dominant alpha male, it’ll make all their negative emotions go away. And then when it doesn’t, they just keep pushing right.
As a person in that demographic it’s wild to me that leftism isn’t appealing… we’re supposed to just blame everything on everyone but ourselves I suppose?
The person on my left whispers about equality, and the benefits of social safety nets. The person on my right yells lies that equality means I have to give up things, and that social safety nets will be abused by people who want to steal the fruits of my labor. The person behind me (financially) says nothing, they’re too busy just trying to live. The person ahead of me points to the person behind getting food stamps and screams “how dare they take your taxes” while they quietly steal the actual fruit of my labor.
Any time leftism gets loud enough to get enough attention to appeal to anyone, rightism is already loudly complaining about the noise. If one doesn’t think about it too much, all they’ve heard is negativity about the left and positivity about the right. Call it brainwashing, gaslighting, or indoctrination, but rarely do the facts of both sides come to play. You have to work to find the truth of leftism while also working to ignore the bullshit being screamed from the right.
Fundamentally, what Centrists want is stability, for people to get along, to find solutions that the majority on both sides would agree with. For the status-quoish state of stability.
A Centrist would be a Liberal (as its defined today, and not how it was defined in the 70’s/80’s) before they would be a Leftist. They perceive Capitalism as a stable foundation of the society.
To get a Centrist to believe in Leftist ideals you’d have to try and show that Leftism is also stable, AND describe how the transition/change to Leftism on its own would not be an unstabilizing thing. And also how Capitalism is a dead-end alley for the species ultimately, and how its ultimately hurtful to a society by encouraging fighting and competition between its members.
You’d also have to show Centrists that Rightists would understand that Leftism works. Centrists want both Leftists and Rightists to be ‘happy’ (loaded word I know, but you get the gist of what I’m trying to opine on).
No idea how to do all that, but IMO that’s what would need to be done. You’d have to get the Right on board with Leftism, and you’d have to show Centrists that moving to Leftism won’t be destabilizing to their current way of existing.
Best guess would be to appeal to common belief systems (safety, fairness, freedoms, respect) that all three pillars would have in common.
An overall generic example would be to prove to a Rightist that a hand-out to someone is not being unfair, but its just helping someone out until they get on their feet, and can’t be exploited, to try and “raise all boats” in society. And you’d have to tell some Leftists to stop trying to exploit the system, that they’re now back on their feet, and that they need to put in as much effort as everybody else does.
For Leftists/Rightists stop yelling across the divide at each other, and start talking to each other, trying to understand what is important to them, and see if both sides can meet in the middle on those things that are important to both. Centrists will be happy that the fighting has stopped, and then you’d have to be extra careful not to destroy that non-fighting in trying to move the center to the left.
Oh, and do all of this while we have freedom of speech and people purposely trying to shape the narratives towards what they just want and to F with everybody else. A.k.a., “Free Will is a Pain in the Ass”.
Thank you for coming to my 🧸-Talk.
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Centrists want the status quo, yes, but mostly just for themselves. This is why fascism starts with minority groups. Centrists will accept fascists “coming for the” communists/trans/migrants/etc, since it mostly isn’t effecting their status quo.
That’s not true at all. I know Centrists who care about everybody, and want everybody to be safe/happy/successful. They see it as a “floating tide raises all boats” kind of thing.
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But only in a kind of theoretical sense. They think the status quo is best for everyone, but it’s really only best for them. What is a more centrist sentiment than “our system may not be perfect, but it’s the best there is”? See Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” for an eloquent condemnation of “moderates”.
You’ll have to elaborate/defend that statement. I think you’re just imposing your own perspective/worldview without facts in evidence.
That would be said by Leftists about a Leftist-bias system, or Rightists about a Rightist-bias system. What you described is not just in the domain of the Centrist. There are many “systems” that groups of humans gather around, and each system may look very different from other systems.
I have not read this, so apologies if I get this wrong, but I will judge this sentence based on the overall message of your comment reply.
Being a moderate does not mean settling for whatever no matter what, no matter how harmful it is. Its about trying to have a consensus that most/all can live with, in how we run our society and how we act towards each other.
For example, if everybody agreed on Leftism, then should the middle of the Leftism population be condemmed (as they would now be the Centrists of Leftism)? Or Centrists of Rightism?
If human history teaches us anything, governing from the fridge/edges never works out well for everybody else.
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You aren’t exactly wrong in your first two quote-responses, I will give you that. “The Left” commonly answers the second with an idea called ‘eternal revolution’. The idea being that we cannot stop improving, or become so lazy in our ways that we begin to ossify into a form over function society.
I urge you to read the letter. It will raise your consciousness a hundred times more than any conversation you’ll have on Lemmy today.
https://letterfromjail.com/
I’ll take a look.
I think an awful lot of them actually have more leftish values, but they are convinced (and there is a huge self reinforcing bubble of that mentality, between media, politicians, and voters) that only the weakest, most watered down version of that can possibly succeed, politically.
I feel like one obvious answer is “stop being so eager to alienate cis straight white men”
I think this advice is not very actionable as is, and needs more digesting into more specific strategies.
Like, for instance: let’s avoid making people feel rejected by the left for having privilege, and instead focus on guiding privileged people so that they can use their privilege to help the cause.
I agree. I’m glad you made this post and are actually interacting in the comments to be constructive.
There’s a book I was introduced to last year called “good strategy bad strategy” that is worth a read, most of it’s somewhat obvious and a little dated as far as examples, but the framing of how to think about strategy is pretty solid. Its an easy read, and like most non fiction books, you get most of the meat in the first half.
I think a lot of conversation is “men go to therapy” but therapy alone isn’t enough? We kind of cast men off of having all the privilege in the world without recognizing that patriarchy hurts them too, and in lots of facets of their lives in a way that just going to a therapist once a week does not help.
Yeah, therapy is not a viable solution for broad societal issues
I think you should read J. Sakai’s Settlers. It explains this (in a US context) quite well and I think that it refutes the concept of just making leftism “more appealing” for people
I can read the book, but… I just don’t understand how leftism can be successful without followers.
That doesn’t make sense. You need to start with a correct historical and material analysis before you can approach anything else. Socialism is based on dialectical materialism, not gaining ‘followers’. Leftism is not a religion that aims to have many converts but rather should understand why neocolonialism and other such institutions would deincentivize white people from being leftists in the United States in the first place.
It’s all well and good for leftist individuals to achieve that understanding, but how can we effect change without more of the population being swayed to this ideology?
You still haven’t achieved that understanding. Ideology does not come about from ‘convincing’ or ‘swaying’ anyone. I once again suggest you to read Settlers to see why this thought process is flawed. I understand where you are coming from but the material precedes the immaterial
Tell that to the propaganda model. False consciousness is a real barrier which can, and has, dominated material class interests.
Propaganda functions with a pre-supposition of the initial dominance of the material over the immaterial. People are functionally motivated to accept specific ideological and social viewpoints where the material state encouraging that comes first. I think this article makes an interesting case for why this general concept is non-Marxist: https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
Very well, I’ll look at it.
Leftism is unpopular by definition, especially to the privileged classes. Leftism seeks to upend the status quo, and loss aversion is a problem.
Not that efforts can’t be made.
Where in the definition of leftism is it said that leftism is unpopular?
it’s manifested in our reality; only the liberal branch of leftism is permitted (particularly in the united states) while the other branches are openly denigrated by moderates and rightists alike and persecuted by our governments and militias.
That’s hardly definitional.
This really depends how you define “leftism”.
If you mean ‘whichever side of politics is left of the population’s center’ then sure, it can’t be a majority.
If you mean ‘whichever side of politics is left of the political center’ then that doesn’t imply it’s unpopular, and there’s direct electoral evidence of ‘left’ parties achieving a majority government.
If you mean socialism and communism, they certainly aren’t unpopular by definition. If anything, their definition makes them a mass movement of the proletariat, the vast majority of a post-industrial society.
How it’s possible that the political movement that aim for the benefits of the 99% is unpopular by definition?
Identity politics may be unpopular by definition, but not leftism.
Because the status quo throughout history is an extremely small number of people getting the most benefits by far and everyone else getting screwed, and everyone seeing this as normal. People are used to it, while having everyone on relatively equal footing is new and therefore scary.
Are you active in any socialist parties?
I would like to be, but I just can’t figure out how to get involved in my area.
I was going to follow up with a sick zinger but instead I’ll just be normal, ha.
It is important to grow the left, to turn it from like 100-1000 people in a given city into 5-10%. I can agree with that motivation, as can the vast majority of socialists. Our aim is revolution, that doesn’t happen from just a few reading groups, it has to become more.
The entire country already caters to the demo you mentioned. Everything is ready-made for them. Many orgs are dominated by them, such as the DSA. You should not write off straight white cis guys but they are consistently the hardest to reach because they are dismissive of others’ experiences with oppression and have been more shielded from capitalism’s worst in their country, but tend to feel very entitled to an opinion about it.
Centrism is the only described characteristic that is a chosen identity and it is a political tendency, if you can call it that. It’s a person with no political development whatsoever, they just vaguely cobble together an incoherent mishmash of common liberal and reactionary ideas that they can’t really defend but they call themselves an outsider as if that means something regarding someone whose political life can be summed up as, “sometimes votes”.
So what would it mean to try to boost efforts to recruit straight white cis dude centrists? Because the first things that would come to mind for me are usually called tailism by socialists and has a long track record of failure in the US in particular, where the US had a gargantuan labor movement that was entirely scuttled by liberal cooption and playing straight white cis dudes off of marginalized groups. There were entire unions that were segregated or disallowed black membership, for example. Those were the easiest to coopt into the red scare and, once they were used to out and isolate socialists, were then easily undermined and shrunk when their anticommunist government came for labor a couple decades later, having no radical core remsining and no material leverage.
IMO the biggest problem is media. They report through a center-right lens and focus on sensationalism. So all people see of the left is the “check your privilege cis white boy” and “anarchists have burned down the entire city” BS lines instead of the vast aid efforts and daily work.
For years I’ve been hearing “the media has a left bias” though. I guess that’s left=democrat party, not left=leftist.
The fox news viewer see CNN as “leftist” and anything further as “The Commies”. CNN/MSNBC/whatever "liberal” orgs see themselves as the leading charge of the liberal movement and anything more progressive or actually leftist as “The Commies”.
Ehh, can’t expect anything short of that sort of bias from corporate media.
it will become automatically appealing to them the moment that is pays out economically for them. if they could afford more under a leftist politics, than under the current politics, people are gonna be all for it.
In theory it should have a strong monetary incentive for all but the wealthiest of cis/striaght/white/males. They just don’t realize that for some reason.
I can think of a good reason but i’m not sure whether you’re willing to buy into it.
people naturally don’t think of themselves as individuals. people think of themselves as a group/society.
People recognize that under a republican US government, they’re significantly more likely to go to mars and have prosperous offspring. while if they’re stuck on earth, a recession and decline is waiting for them. they can’t verbalize it and probably aren’t even rationally aware of it, but i guess they can feel it with their heart.
of course lots of you folks are gonna immediately chime in and say “nooo i saw a youtube video that explained that it’s impossible to live on mars”, and honestly, you should reconsider why you’re so eager to deny a topic that you’ve clearly not put in as much effort to think about than the people who actually do care about this project. and also, assuming it does work out; what will you do then? be ashamed of your wrong prediction? because if you’re not, that means you don’t stand to your prediction, and therefore the prediction is worthless. i’m not sure whether i was too direct about this and somebody perceived it as rude, but i’m tired of this feeling of being stuck. we need to think long-term again.
Is this mars thing meant to be an analogy or do you mean people literally think they will have a better life colonizing mars?
I’m confused, are you saying that most straight white men are not left… Because they all want to go to mars?
Yeah that is so out of the blue, I’m not sure what to make of it. I think most people don’t even realize SpaceX/Elon want to colonize mars.
It depends on the material conditions. Also there is a reason “centrists” even exist as they are now and appear to you as some kind of constant monolith. Or as Marx did put it “Ideas of ruling class are the ruling ideas”
That Trump is neither conservative (in any way) nor cares at all about any traditional Republican values
Trump and MAGA are regressive. They are hell-bent on taking this country back to the first half of the 20th century, in all the worst possible ways.
Most of them don’t even know what they want. They’re told what to think and simply can’t process anything on their own. Argue with one and you’ll be hard pressed to find an original thought, just regurgitations of what they’ve been told by fox news.
Perhaps it would be useful to build up from basics, asking them what issues actually affect their own life, and hopefully avoid all the hyperreality* culture wars of the media.
* https://assets.ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-in-USA-vs.-media-coverage.png
I’ve noticed this in that they can’t think of their own problems. They say “they’re teaching kids to be trans in school” but don’t talk to their actual kids about what they’re actually learning. They say “the inflation makes it impossible to buy groceries!” And they show the groceries with 3 cases of Mt dew because they don’t want to think about budgeting. They say “immigrants are taking our jobs” and live in rural Missouri where there’s 1 Latino in town. They aren’t thinking of problems that actually effect them, they think of the problems fox news tells them to think about.
Huh. Mid 20th century? But that’s when America transitioned to relatively high and progressive income taxes instead of relying on tariffs. It’s also when massive state spending on education lead to a large chunk of Americans being able to care about something other than themselves, a precursor to progressivism in America and the civil rights movement.
If anything, I think Americans appear to want to go back to the Gilded Age, known for its massive inequality, corruption, and excessive-wealth-flaunting.
He recently said something about the 20s and 30s. That’s when he considered America great, apparently.
I agree and disagree.
I believe he doesn’t actually care for anything but himself. He is racist and classist and what else. But I don’t think it dictates his politics as much as you might would assume. He wants power and through his own racism, he released that “vague” racism works, but mostly the creation of the “others”.
But I think his activities are deeply based in traditional republican values. That is why project 2025 exists. Republican think Tanks created it. You could argue that those aren’t republican values but e.g. they pushed for a horrible school system for decades. Trump doesn’t actually care about it, but he follows the plan because it aligns with government deregulation which he likes.
To your second point, I think you’re somewhat right about that. However it’s a weird mix of traditional Republican values and this new Nationalism. Republicans were traditionally for a small federal government (except military of course)
Abortion is not a moral hazard at all. Most people who might exist don’t. The whole “everyone agrees abortion is awful…” shit is obnoxious. I legitimately do not care. I am far more concerned about the lives of actual children. Once we seriously tackle that issue, we can move upstream, and this should be viewed as both incentive and a purity test for those who pretend to care about the “unborn.”
I’ve thought this for a long time. Until every living person has virtually every one of their needs met at virtually all times, abortion isn’t even on the table as something to worry about. We have a responsibility for what we have already, not some potential human that has plenty of other ways they would never make it to adulthood.
Agreed.
Couldn’t care less about fetuses. I do care about the people carrying fetuses and their quality of life, however.
If they are so pro life I’d expect them to support universal healthcare but they very rarely do.
I am unsure about when it stops being moral to terminate a foetus/baby. I think it’s somewhere between 6 and 14 months, but that’s just my gut feeling. Some people are astonished that I would even consider that it could be after birth, but it’s not like any sudden development occurs at the moment of birth.
I agree with my mom. 25 years is good.
For context she said that when I wasn’t 25 yet.
I agree with the following: If your mother tries to kill you, and dies themselves instead as a result of the conflict, they have no right to complain.
You mean other than breathing its own air and no longer being physically connected to its mother’s womb? I’d call that pretty significant. I would argue that the moment it breaths its first breath on its own rather than as a part of its mother’s uterus, it becomes a murder victim, not an abortion.
I don’t really see why breath is special.
Okay, to put it another way:
Once the child is born, it stops being literally a part of its mother and instead becomes an individual.
I suppose to me, one’s moral weight is in their mind. If someone has no mind – such as a brain-dead patient – then they aren’t really a person. Seeing as there’s no reason to believe there’s an immediate jump in neural development in a baby at the moment of birth, I do not believe it’s a special moment for the baby in a moral accounting sense. So I don’t think the baby becomes more intrinsically worthy of life at the precise moment it draws its first breath.
(For the parent, of course, it is a special moment, and in particular new options are available outside of the keep-or-abort dichotomy.)
As for being an individual, I don’t really see how the child’s autonomy is relevant. It’s still fully dependent on its parents and society and could not function on its own regardless, so this is a fairly arbitrary step on the road to autonomy.
The problem that i see with that is the following: Assume a child has little neural activity (which, btw, is not true at all; children and newborns often have higher neural activity than grown-ups), but assume for a moment that a child had little neural activity, and therefore would be less worthy of preservation.
Now, somebody who has migraine, or has repeated electrical shocks in their brain, might be in a lot of pain, but has probably more neural activity than you. Would you now consider that since they have more neural activity, they are more worthy of life than you are? And what if you and that other person would be bound to the tracks of a trolley problem? Wouldn’t it then be the ethical thing to kill you because you have less neural activity?
I don’t mean to say that neural activity ∝moral weight. I am merely asserting that something without neural activity at all (or similar construct) can’t be worth anything. This is why a rock has no moral value, and I don’t need to treat a rock nicely.
I am less confident – but still fairly confident – that consciousness, pain, and so on require at least a couple neurons – how many, I’m not sure – but creatures like tiny snails and worms probably aren’t worth consideration, or if they are then only very little. Shrimp are complex enough that I cannot say for sure that they aren’t equal in value to a human, but my intuition says they still don’t have fully-fledged sentience; I could be wrong though.
The strongest evidence that shrimp don’t have sentience is anthropic – if there are trillions of times more shrimp than humans, why am I a human and not a shrimp? Isn’t that astoundingly improbable? But anthropic arguments are questionable at best.
haha yes i agree with that :D
my personal (kinda spiritual) take on this is that we are conscious because we are “nature’s soldiers” and we’re fighting the greater cause of life itself. That is what our consciousness is targeted at and what gives it justification in front of the world.
I apologize, I just realized I got mixed up with a neighbouring debate regarding animal welfare lol. Thus the shrimp.
It’s dependent on a caretaker, but not necessarily on its own mother. Neural development also does take a big step starting at birth because the baby is now receiving stimuli.
This is gonna be a fun thread
Perhaps “not a person” isn’t the right way to put it. More like “already passed away.” I was being a bit provocative, sorry.
Regarding stimuli – fair enough, that is a good argument actually. But to me that indicates a “kink” in the graph of their moral worth; it ought to resemble a point where they start gaining moral worth, but not a point where they immediately have it.
Of course, this is all very speculative, vibes-based and handwavey. I don’t know how to define someone’s moral worth – which is precisely why I don’t see why birth is special to one’s moral worth.
Fair enough. I think you’re right to question these things; people have very strong opinions with hard lines here, but I don’t think there’s always solid reasoning for why some things that may seem like an obvious hard line are considered one.
It is always moral if the woman doesn’t want the baby. Sometimes you don’t even find out you’re pregnant until it’s 7 weeks or so
While I think this is mostly true, I think there are some potentially problematic “edge cases”, for example do you think it would be moral for someone to abort all girls until they eventually have a boy?
I don’t like that but I don’t think they’d be nice to the girl if it was born either, so maybe it’s for the best
Is it moral to kill a 2-year old because the parents no longer want it?
I’m sure that abortion is fine for the first few months. After that, I am unsure either way, but I don’t feel strongly enough to wish to see abortion rights curtailed at all. So this is largely academic.
A 2 year old is a baby, an unborn fetus is a fetus, an extension of the parent. It doesn’t have thoughts, feelings, communication, and I would always value the parents life over its own.
If you give away a 2 year old you don’t really have to do much, but if you want to give away a 7 week old fetus, you still have to carry it to term, deal with discrimation and discomfort, deal with any medical issues that may arise, go through the extremely painful procedure of giving birth.
Just as you cannot be forced to donate your organs after death to help save countless lives, you cannot be forced to go through so much pain and trouble just to give birth to a life that doesn’t exist yet.
Let’s put aside 7-week old fetuses, as we both agree it’s fine to abort those.
I am pretty sure a 3-month-old fetus does not have thoughts or feelings to any significant extent. I am less sure about an 8 month old fetus; a lot of people who are 8 months pregnant do think their fetus has started to develop a personality. Regardless, I don’t see any particular leap in thoughts and feelings from just prior to birth compared with just after birth; at least, I don’t see why such a leap should occur at the moment of birth.
I don’t think being forced to donate organs is a good metaphor – at least, I don’t intrinsically value post-mortem bodily autonomy. A better metaphor I think would be being forced to do something in order for another person to live. Consider a Saharan desert guide on a 1-month tour for some clients. Once the tour begins, it would be morally reprehensible for the guide to abandon the clients to the elements; they must bring the clients out of the desert safely, whether they want to or not. It should be a bright-line case, because the lives of the clients rely on the guide, and the guide got them into this situation.
I don’t see 7-week old fetuses as being people; their lives are below my consideration. I do see an 8.5-month baby as being close in moral value to a 2-week old baby – I don’t know what that moral value is, but either killing both is fine, or killing neither is.
I can’t believe this word doesn’t seem to have made it into any part of this thread, but I think you’re looking for viability: the point where a fetus can live outside of the womb. This isn’t a hard line, of course, and technology can and has changed where that line can be drawn. Before that point, the fetus is entirely dependent on one specific person’s body, and after that point, there are other options for caring for it. That is typically where pro-choice folks will draw the line for abortion as well; before that point, an abortion ban is forced pregnancy and unacceptable, after that point there can be some negotiation and debate (though that late into a pregnancy, if an abortion is being discussed it’s almost certainly a health crisis, not a change of heart, so imposing restrictions just means more complications for an already difficult and dangerous situation).
There has been discussion somewhere in this tree about viability, but the word itself wasn’t used. Viability also has another meaning: the potential to someday be able to live outside the womb. I actually think the latter is more important morally speaking than the former. In a reasonable world, I would think that sensible pro-lifers should agree that if the foetus is doomed one way or another, why prevent an abortion? (Not that pro-life policies in e.g. Texas are sensible.)
But viability as you define it doesn’t mean much to me. Consider the earliest point at which the foetus is viable (could potentially survive outside the womb), versus the day before that. On the day before, the parent has the option to wait one day, at which point the foetus will become viable. Now compare this with a different situation: for the price of $20, a certain drug can be used to save a foetus’ life. Would you agree that in the latter situation, the foetus is already “viable”; it just needs a little help? If you agree with this, and since waiting 1 day is a similar cost on the behalf of the parent as paying $20, this means, the day before the foetus becomes viable, it’s already “viable” – the word has no meaning.
(If you disagree, and you think that the necessity of $20 drugs before the baby becomes viable means that it’s okay to abort it, I find that to be a strange morality, and I’d like to learn more. Or perhaps you think there’s something fundamentally different between waiting 1 day and paying $20.)
It’s the last one, the “wait a day” option and the “pay $20” options aren’t equivalent. If it’s still a day away from viability, it isn’t viable yet, but if it’s $20 away, it is. You may be of the opinion that waiting a day isn’t a big deal, or is only $20 worth of hardship, but that’s not your choice to make for others.
You’d think ending a doomed pregnancy would be a simple matter even for pro-lifers, yes. They often don’t consider the issue, or assume that it’ll always be clear-cut and obvious in every circumstance, or worry that any exception will be used as a loophole.
The 2 year old can exist separately from their parent. A fetus can’t, in most abortion cases.
I don’t see how this makes killing a 2-year old worse than killing an 8-month old fetus.
Let’s keep separate these two things: the worthiness of the child to live, and the worthiness of the parent to have bodily autonomy. It seems to me that you’re making the observation that the 2 year old does not violate the parent’s bodily autonomy. Or are you asserting that because the child has independence, it is more intrinsically worthy to live?
It’s not about the development of the fetus, it’s about the woman’s autonomy. So long as it’s still inside her, her right to choose takes priority over its right to live, full stop.
Why do you assert this? Based on what moral framework? Is it morally okay to abandon a baby to the elements after birth, in favour of the autonomy of those who would raise it?
I’m not going to engage with you on the topic of a women’s right to choose, or the meaning of bodily autonomy. On the off chance you’re not a troll, good luck with your research on this very well documented political debate.
Based on the moral frame work that no person has a right to another person’s body parts. We don’t take organs from people who haven’t explicitly said they’re organ donors even after death, because that axiom is held so high. If I accidently hit you with my car, I have no legal obligation to donate a kidney to you to save your life.
I agree that axiom does lead to absolute certainty that fetuses can be aborted at any month. I don’t agree with the axiom though. If I sign up to, say, share a kidney with somebody to keep them alive for 8 hours in some kind of bizarre medical procedure, I don’t believe it’s acceptable for me to shrug and change my mind halfway through. See also the metaphor about the Saharan desert guide in the adjacent thread.
Bodily autonomy is different than “freedom to go about your life as you see fit”. Carrying a baby and giving birth come with risks and responsibilities and it changes your body. All of this risk is for the baby at the expense of the mother.
Analogy: let’s say someone needs a kidney transplant or they will die. Turns out, you’re the only match. Donating a kidney is not risk free and your body will be changed for the rest of your life. Should you donate? Yeah, probably. Should you be legally forced to? Absolutely not.
To me, this analogy completely solves the issue. I can say that life begins at conception and still say that bodily autonomy is a right. It doesn’t matter if the fetus/baby is a person yet, as long as the mother’s body is being used to sustain them, then it’s the mother’s choice.
Let’s put aside legality, as that’s separate from morality. I am not claiming that abortion should be illegal.
My claim is that intrinsically the morality of killing the fetus just before birth ought to be similar to the morality of killing the fetus just after birth. It’s true that there is another term in the moral equation (whatever you think that is) based on bodily autonomy of the parent, which has a dramatic change at the moment of birth. I also believe that this bodily autonomy term ought to be less than the value of a grown adult life (maybe not of a fetus though). In other words, it’s worse for someone to die than it is for someone else to temporarily lose some bodily autonomy.
Please note that I’m not sure that the intrinsic value of an 8-month-old fetus is equal to that of a full-grown adult. If a newborn baby’s life is intrinsically worthless outside of future potential – say, because they don’t have sentience – then there is clearly zero problem with an abortion at any stage. But most other people think a newborn baby’s life is equal to that of an adult, and I think you can more or less substitute “newborn baby” for “8-month old fetus.”
In your analogy, I do think that the moral action is to donate one of your two kidneys. It’s an even better analogy if it’s only a temporary donation of the kidney somehow, and a yet better analogy if you had caused them to be in this predicament. In the case of a several-months pregnant person living somewhere with easy abortion access, the analogy is improved further like so: you had previously agreed to lend them your kidney, but you change your mind during the critical part of the surgery when it’s too late for anyone else to sub in their kidney (we can relax the stipulation that you’re the only match in this case; this is because I believe life is fungible at inception).
I mostly agree with you on the morality of abortion. The only problem I have with your analysis is with the temporary nature of pregnancy. There are risks in pregnancy that can have permanent consequences. Even if the birth goes off without a hitch, the mother is often left with weight gain, stretch-marks, and a risk of post-partum depression. Incisions are often needed to widen the birth canal and sometimes a C-section is required which is major emergency abdominal surgery. These risks are entirely taken on by the mother.
If we look at morality as having things people should do, and things people must do, only the musts should be law because the shoulds can be more open to interpretation. I wouldn’t assign my morality onto others. I would classify going through with a pregnancy as a should.
The analogy still works because the temporary loan of the kidney might have permanent consequences afterward. And it’s only an analogy. I still think those possible side-effects (save for the truly serious ones) don’t outweigh the death of a grown adult. Again, I’m not claiming that a grown adult is the same as a fetus.
I make this rather strange argument because I actually am a tentative proponent of post-birth abortions – but most people think such a concept sounds so outrageous that they assume I must be trolling. It’s generally only something people are open to considering after they can be convinced that there isn’t much of a difference between killing a fetus and killing a newborn.
I dislike criminalization at all because if a doctor at any point has to consider if they can prove that an abortion was medically necessary in a court of law, I find that to be a violation of their ability to care for their patient.
Fair enough, that’s unrelated to morality though. I already don’t wish to see abortion criminalized.
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If i was aborted I wouldn’t care, because I would be aborted.
that doesn’t make them right btw. hitler was democratically elected too; the majority isn’t always right.
Do they present any actual arguments? That’s what would be interesting, because that is something that can be discussed.
As someone who was in a supportive relationship with a transgender person for 3 years and who personally struggles associating with my own gender (masculinity was never my thing lol), I never really got into the stating my gender pronouns.
I get why it’s done for the times it matters and can do so in a sensitive space, but I get the sense it’s usually done as public compliance (like a cis neolib as an email sig), which can lead to shallow support or worse, resentment. What we ultimately need is more genuine contact with people different from ourselves because that helps reduce “othering” a group.
Oh, but I do tend to default to “they” out of old internet habits. Always disliked the assumption all gamers are men.
I don’t do it either, but i’m an older queer so i see it as painting a target on my back.
That, too. Things have regressed, it is definitely a target now.
It makes me uncomfortable to state my personal pronouns. Years of growing up as a woman on the internet makes me not want to reveal my gender, even when it’s obvious (like in person).
Sounds like my sister and a good friend of mine, the latter who prefers playing games as a male character to avoid the attention. I totally get where you’re coming from on that.
Ima be honest. I just don’t fuck with pronouns. I’ll typically use they even if I know what their preferred ones are. That or whatever feels better for what I’m talking about.
You are describing intentional misgendering. That’s against our instance rules, so make sure you use preferred pronouns for folks who display them.
Can using neutral pronouns be misgendering? I was always under the impression that they’re universally applicable regardless of the other person’s gender
Yes, if you are aware of someone’s preferred pronouns and choose to ignore them.
It’s arguably ignoring their preferences, but how is it misgendering? they/them is gender neutral-- it implies nothing about their gender at all.
It does when you only do it for trans people. This is a common thing that a lot if trans people have experienced so it kinda comes across as being “PC” while not acknowledging their identity.
I suppose that’s fair. Most people I know who do this do it for cis people as well though.
Consider the scenario where you meet a man. You know his name is Bradley (either through mutual friends or whatever), but he introduces himself as Alex. You can call him Bradley, and it would be technically correct, but it would be slightly rude when he has explicitly given his preferred name as Alex.
I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s more like referring to him by another title such as “a friend of mine” or “a guy I met at the mall yesterday” etc.
That’s a false equivalence. A name is a unique identifier while pronouns serve only a mechanical linguistic purpose.
I would argue calling all they/them is the opposite of misgendering. “They” has no gender. It is neuter.
“Intentional non-gendering” seems sensible and inoffensive. No chance of misgendering anyone.
I have met one person (in real life) who uses she/he pronouns. I asked if I can call her they and she said no. I don’t know what to make of this, personally, as I’m unable to understand it, but I do try to abide by her request. I suspect she is an outlier though.
I’m a gender abolitionist philosophically, so I get what you are saying and I would also prefer for everyone to agree to adopt using gender neutral language and be done with it. But we should still respect the preferred pronouns of others, because it isn’t up to you or me to force that choice on everyone else. It’s not much different from a Republican (for example) refusing to use she/her towards a trans woman. For some folks their pronouns are super important to them, so imo it’s just disrespectful not to use them when they are stated.
I always assumed “they” could be used no matter what?
I do think stating pronouns at the beginning of conversations is a bit clunky, but in almost every internet interactions (including email),having a reference to someone’s pronouns helps both when they’re trans and when it’s faceless. Like if someone’s has a gender neutral name, it can save confusion between a group message or email chain to be able to refer to them with the right pronouns.
I’ve heard that use case before, and it’s fairly reasonable in a faceless contract. Funny enough, my father is a perfect case study, his name is rather unique and one letter off from a common feminine name so he gets misgendered quite frequently as a cis man (plus, to make matters worse, hes very insecure about his masculinity and is sensitive about being called a sissy because his father abused him).
Thinking on his use case, it might help him to have pronouns at work, but according to him people pick up on his pronouns almost immediately because they hear it from a co-worker in reference to him, there is almost never a completely blind email despite it being a rather large city hall. In other words, only people who misgender him are spam. While pronouns wouldn’t have stopped the abuse and bullying growing up, the culture of acceptance behind the trend probably would have.
Ironically, he won’t do the pronouns because he’s a bit conservative leaning. And his alcoholic, homophobic ass certainly didn’t do me any favors when I dated a transgender person.
Which is, ironically, what the pronoun-stating thing was supposed to avoid. Personally I agree that it’s not really necessary, and that it actually is a form of compelled speech.
That progressive people should prioritize economic equality ahead of social issues.
They go hand-in-hand, though, and moreover “true economic equality” isn’t possible when humans vary wildly in needs and abilities, hence Marx’s whole attack on the so-called “equalitarians.”
They do not, as evidence by the last two decades of “progressive” politics here in the US.
The US has not had either, truly.
This country would need another 250 years of progressive policies to undo the social and economic damage it has done through racist policy. 20 years of progressive politics can’t undo 2.5 centuries of racial exploitation and division.
Let’s not forget additionally that the USs elected “progressive” politicians for the last two decades fall right of center by world standards as well. If the US would like to actually make progress (hint: it doesn’t, our geriopatrikyriarchy LOVES genocide and exploitation of smaller nations) they’d have to start by not calling the conservative party the left, and not calling the Nazi party the right.
This nation has its head in the political sand so deep it can’t even see its own nose anymore, it will be well collapsed and already rebuilt before it realizes it’s a different nation run by different people.
you can’t learn much about leftism from the USA
I’d argue nearly every single social issue is an economic one. Abortion? Anti-abortion laws are intended to force people to have kids they can’t afford, making them desperate for work to keep their kids fed and clothed. Racial equality? I mean, do I need to say more than the fact that most minorities are statistically poorer? The only one that can be argued is purely social is Trans people, and I simply can’t fathom letting people die for being who they are, or ignoring the blatant attacks on them from the right.
The left has become so focused on illegal immigrants and identity politics that they have abandoned working class economic issues and rural white voters and it has cost them elections.
If the left you’re talking about is the dems, no the fuck they aren’t. Dems aren’t the ones constantly putting forth bills about Trans people. The most any dem has done is post some milqtoast “trans rights” sticker or something.
But I agree I think the dems shouldn’t have justified the fear mongering about immigrants when the right started screeching about it. But that’s also on news orgs justifying it.
Yeah it seems it’s conservatives who are the ones who like to obsess and make it the topic of discussion to make their followers think it is the left’s primary platform of focus.
And then they also fixate on entertainment like games or movies to further play up how everything is woke as though it’s the left politicians making all that.
And it’s because that’s really the only compelling thing they have to play up to their followers who too make it their entire identity of conflict, since their other policies aren’t working class friendly.
It can not be stressed enough that every single other policy they have is damaging to the working class. I think that’s why they push on transphobia so hard, because it’s the only one that doesn’t.
Yup.
Are these elections in the room with us right now? Mind naming a single “election” that the left was “lost” over illegal immigrants?
Can’t care about your neigbors when you still have to worry about your own mouth to feed.
Nonsense – people frequently help others even during disasters, wars, and other precarious times.
And you’re not going to miss a days pay to protest or vote when you know neither candidate gives a shit about your health and well-being.
When you look at revolutions the tipping point was always the threat of going hungry and losing your home. That makes everyone desperate.
Y’all don’t need to keep adding things to lgbtq or lgbt+. The q or + takes care of everything
I think this is a better argument that “queer” is the best catch-all phrase. Honestly, come to think of it, if we can phase out LGBT in favour of “queer” entirely, then that gives republicans a harder time to separate the T.
I’m working on transitioning to using They/Them pronouns for everyone since they’re completely neutral and fit every context. If your preference is Xe/Xem, I respect that—but unfortunately, my brain just doesn’t have the bandwidth to keep track of multiple pronouns consistently. You get They/Them.
I agree with the mental bandwidth. I’m fine with he/him, she/her, they/them. I’ll also tend to default to appearance, though I will try and correct if asked to do so.
I’ve yet to find anyone who wasn’t also an arsehole who has an issue with this. That includes places where seeing an obvious male in a dress could equally be someone taking their first steps away from norm, or just a guy that likes wearing dresses. Also, neither was seen as unusual at the event.
I’m aro/ace and honestly same. I refuse to use any longer acronym because to me it sounds silly.
In a similar fashion, I’m also not a major fan of the pride flags with more than the rainbow. It’s fine for special occasions in order to draw attention to a cause that needs it, but not as the default. Adding black stripes, the trans flag, and intersex flag all at the same time seems ridiculous to me, and it only invites other groups to feel left out. Adding the black stripes, the trans flag, the intersex flag, or whatever to the flag for some event, protest, or personal reason is great but imo we shouldn’t permanently muddy the flag like that.
I am very very very left wing, BUT I can get really annoyed with a lot of those “on my side” advocating for the most idealist of all idealism, as if it’s a contest. Feels like a competition of “who’s the bestest and mostest leftist of all”. You scare people away and - not justifying it - but I get why some people get upset with “the left” because of this…
Lenin wrote a great book about such people and their failures to get anything done.
Everytime I see someone say this I know without a shadow of a doubt that they’re a centrist liberal.
Lmao this thread is full of “very/hard far left” who then present very cold for a far left takes or are straight out libs.
wrong, I support the green party (multi-party system, you should try it)
Lol, thanks for proving my point
no, we have another party for that in Belgium (Vooruit). Groen has a leftist program
Groen are center left liberals.
With a program that’s more leftist than the actual left party, yes
Oh? Tell me more about their program to overthrow the liberal state and wrestle control of the means of production away from the owning class.
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So, Social Democrat. I wouldn’t call that “left wing,” in that it isn’t a Socialist platform. It would be “left” in comparison to the status quo, but not enough to be “very very very left wing.”
It would be if you’d compare their program to that of the other left parties here
As I said, left of the status quo, but not on the left.
That intellectual property, both copyright or patents, doesn’t serve its theoretical purpose and just acts as a legal shield for the monopolies of big corporations, at least in our capitalistic system, and it limits the spread of information
In theory, a musician should be protected against abuse of their music. In practice, all musicians need to be on Spotify through one of the few main publishers to make any decent money, and their music will be used for unintended purposes (intended for their contract at least) like AI training
In theory, patents should allow a small company with an idea to sell its progressive product to many big corporations. In practice, one big corporation will either buy the small company or copy the product and have the money to legally support its case against all evidence, lobbying to change laws too. Not to mention that big corporations are the ones that can do enough research to have relevant patents, it’s much harder for universities and SMEs, not to mention big corporations can lobby to reduce public funding to R&D programs in universities and for SMEs.
And, last but not least important, access to content, think of politically relevant movies or book, depends on your income. If you are from a poorer country, chances are you cannot enjoy as much information and content as one born in a richer country.
I would love to see IP law burned to the ground. A more realistic goal in the meanwhile might be to get compulsory licensing in more areas than just radio.
I believe it does function in as it does in theory, but the justification to the public is what you list as “in theory.” Regulations like IP laws are only allowed to pass because they support the profits of those who hold the IP.
And to add to that, scientific papers should be published in open-access journals, instead of Wileys et al. And Universities could run and host these journals, as it is part of their core duty: To preserve and spread knowledge.
Essentially, universities and libraries seem to have a lot in common. Both preserve and spread knowledge.
You mean like with copyright (IP) laws?
Patents and copyright originated to protect everyone. Charles Dickens complained that his books were rampantly copied. Without them any invention by the little guy would be immediately stolen and ramped up into production at levels the little guy can never match. Why would I work on anything if it can just be stolen with no legal protection? Universities and SMEs constantly issue patents, if they can’t commercialize them themselves they can license them to someone who can.
What? The internet is full of free info.
The real issues are things like:
Insanely long copyright periods. Sorry but your grandkids/Disney shouldn’t profit from your work. 70+ years later.
Patent camping. Either do something with it or lose it.
Patent lawsuit factories. The patent office makes money off of fees and is too quick to hand out patents that are overly broad or trivial. You have business that just hoard patents with no intention to use them except to sue others.
the anti-work movement has been a blight on communism
I feel like it has the wrong name. But it is a baby step for many toward anticapitalist ideals.
Work is good, and can be beneficial. Working a job you hate because if you don’t you’d starve is awful and should be done away with.
Do you see it as a waste of time or a distraction? I see it as a gateway drug.
I believe that the stance against nuclear power (specifically, nuclear fission, as opposed to radioisotope power used by spacecraft) by greens undermines the fight to stop global warming, and that many of the purported issues with nuclear power have been solved or were never really issues in the first place.
For instance: the nuclear waste produced by old-gen reactors can be used by newer generations.
I fully agree that nuclear SHOULD have been part of the solution. I disagree that it should now be part of it. We have lost too much knowledge regarding nuclear power to lack of investment. We no longer have time to rebuild that to get it online. Hopefully it can become part of the solution eventually, but 10-20 years is now far too long to wait.
Yeah same. It makes the elections quite annoying because I agree with the local green party in almost every other way. But to me nuclear power is an important way to get reliable green energy. Something that still provides energy when the wind is not blowing and the sun isn’t shining. And to me some of the arguments feel way too “feeling based” instead of facts based. That its unsafe or dirty.
Preferably we’d have fusion, but until we manage to get that going I think nuclear fission is a decent alternative. Not forever, but for the coming 50-100 years until we find a better alternative.
The DNC is the primary obstacle to progress and no progress is possible between now and when they go the way of the Whigs because of the rigged duopoly system.
The real question is how do they end? My hope is for a national dem and maybe a republican to break off to something like the working families party, something that exists, works at the ground level, but can be boosted by the optics of national politicians drawing attention to it.
I’m far left, but I believe that any citizen should be allowed to own any gun.
For what it’s worth, the far left (internationally) is traditionally pro-gun. I wouldn’t know what positions are about any citizen and any gun, but I wouldn’t be surprised either to hear a socialist advocate for it.
Obligatory:
I dont know who told you leftists don’t like guns, we like guns plenty. It’s liberals who don’t like guns. Us leftists know sometimes you got to throw a bomb into the carriage of a tzar. We leftists knowwhen you go on strike you should bring a gun with you, cuz the Liberals going to try to use the National Guard to murder you.
Eastern front of ww2 made so much more sense to me when I realised the left could also have guns.
That’s the far-left stance, generally.
Why any? Why not pistols or rifles with small magazines?
Stop out-woking one another, it’s okay to be right silently in order to bring in fence sitters.
If someone says, “my spirit animal told me late-stage capitalism is evil” welcome them to the club with open arms, focus on how you’re alike and trust them to work out their faux pas over time spent among like-minded peers.
Also cultural appropriation ≠ exploitation, we can stop clutching our collective pearls over these faux pas.
I vote we move to a new term, “cultural plagiarism,” which more clearly relates to e.g. a white person stealing a black musician’s work (as opposed to covering it and giving credit and royalties, which should be fine!)
In the spirit of my post, I’m glad you see a disparity in the term cultural appropriation like I do.
In the spirit of clarifying what I mean, cultural appropriation is using elements of another culture. What you described is exploitative, is very serious, and not what I’m referring to.
But I appreciate your input all the same.
I figured your objection to the term “cultural appropriation” is that people use it to refer to exploitative things as well as what I view as innocent things like a professional dancer who is white dancing to an anime song or something. That’s why I proposed a new term, to help differentiate these things.
Yes! I love it, thank you for that follow up. That’s exactly what I mean.
Cultural appropriation is specifically a method in which suppressing groups deny the cultural heritage of oppressed around. To call it a faux pas is ridiculous and ignorant
Respectfully, I disagree with your definition of cultural appropriation, but i agree it’s wrong to deny others the right to identify with their heritage or cultures.
Cultures borrow from one another, it’s just the nature of having multiple societies in proximity. I would argue (outside of the realm of exploitation) more often than not, cultural appropriation doesn’t come from a malevolent place, nor does it restrict anyone from otherwise enjoying their own heritage and culture. Some 9 year old wearing a Halloween costume of a Disney princess that isn’t their own race isn’t the crime we make it out to be. Worst case scenario it’s a faux pas, best case scenario, that kid took an interest in a group of people they are not familiar with and learned about them.
Also, as another commenter pointed out, the term cultural appropriation is used to cover a wide variety of offenses, so this disagreement could potentially come from that.
Edit: clarity
I’m really appreciating how much restraint y’all guys are showing with the downvotes. Thanks everyone.
I’m a pro-downvote extremist and you’ve just made an enemy for life