I know there are lots of everyday moments of humans being kind to each other, but do you have any good examples on a wider scale to counter that capitalist realist idea?

I usually try and invoke the fact that humanity for hundreds of thousands of years lived in tribes where they had to co-operate or they would die and that "human nature" is just the product of the system under which you live, but are there any better examples you've found to convince your lib acquaintances?

I feel like one of the major hurdles towards getting somebody to become a leftist is the idea that humanity can, if organized democratically and if properly educated and with the right ideas of solidatory instilled, create a better system than the capitalists or technocrats have created. It's easy to look around and superficially see everybody as bumbling idiots or greedy assholes, particularly if you're socially atomized and apathetic, and so conclude that the working class, if left to it's own devices, would infight and crumble.

Or is this just one of those axiomatic things where if somebody you know believes it, it's very difficult to make them not believe it through historical examples unless they do major soul searching after a personal crisis?

  • Tormato [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Continues along:

    “If we become increasingly apathetic in modern times - well, so do fish on river banks, after a little while. Our children often come to resemble apathetic fish - except that fish can't play guitars. And what do many of our children attempt to do? They attempt to form folk societies, which they call "communes." They fail. The generation gap is an argument between those who believe folk societies are still possible and those who know they aren't.

    Older persons form clubs and corporations and the like. Those who form them pretend to be interested in this or that narrow aspect of life. Members of the Lions Club pretend to be interested in the cure and prevention of diseases of the eye. They are in fact lonesome Neanderthalers, obeying the First Law of Life, which is this: "Human beings become increasingly contented as they approach the simpleminded, brotherly conditions of a folk society."

    Only possible in a socialist system, in which inter-personal relationships are not commodified as we currently are overwhelmed by today.

    Carlin speaks pretty profoundly about this subject too. Will see if I can find some stuff later…