larping will always be a problem in political forums, but taking away the "you're gonna get banned" incentive to act like a reasonable person is only going to lead to incredible insufferable larping, and it's already trended in that direction.
any version of leftism that is not primarily centered around empathy is useless and will lead to nothing positive. unfortunately in isolated internet communities too many peoples' version of leftism is about extreme edge and fantasizing about violence
I think delegitimization of anger as a genuine, valid emotion is just as toxic than anything you could be referring to. You wanna be empathetic? Try to understand why people would be edgy and "fantasize" about violence, don't just label them as LARPERS. I mean our hegemonic powers constantly push for docility in the populace in the face of their constant application of violence abroad and domestically. When your experience is largely made up of people preaching empathy while practicing control and violence, is it unreasonable to have doubt about the true nature of people's supposed "empathy" (which in my mind tends to be be prescriptive moralizing in how people tend to use the term)?
You don't overcome cynical violence and abuse of power by doing it yourself. You have to offer a real alternative. Fantasizing about violence against those you dislike is just succumbing to your emotions and desires rather than devising a real plan to counter such evil.
"Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it.
The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid. Everyone knows this is true, but few can put it into practice.
Therefore the Master remains serene in the midst of sorrow. Evil cannot enter his heart. Because he has given up helping, he is people's greatest help.
True words seem paradoxical."
Lao-Tzu
I think the whole notion of succumbing to or existing outside of your emotions is bullshit. There's no escaping your emotions, they will always inform your experience and beliefs just as much as "truth" (as if that notion could exist outside of the confines of emotions). What are you hovering over us with your magnaminity? Why don't you give me an unemotional reason as to why violence is inherently "evil" in all scenarios? Or maybe an unemotional definition of evil? Your supposed serenity is impossible, a conceptual coping mechanism for dealing with the violence of human relation. Your docility only enables the violence of others, the ones who preach docility and democracy and civility while circumventing it at every opportunity.
Your case is that because it is impossible to fully ensure that your decisions are not influenced by your emotions, then there is no point attempting to behave logically?
In your personal life, are there not many scenarios where you feel emotionally Y thing but know logically X thing?
I'm not advocating for you to detach yourself of emotions. I'm advocating for you to make your decisions with the idea that the way you feel emotionally may not necessarily lead you to the right action for your goals. In this case, just because you're angry and want to take drastic action to change things doesn't mean that such violent action is necessarily correct. Simply being aware of that idea and keeping it in mind when making your decisions will help you make better decisions.
My point is that there is no logic that exists outside of the emotional conscious experience. Your concepts of logic are informed through experiences and teachings that coincided with emotional experience (which both emerges from and informs said experiences and teachings). When you use the term logic it's the reified concept of logic that is detached from the processes of knowledge and belief formation (which includes emotional content) through which it arose. The concepts of what is a "correct" or "better" decision cannot be separated from the experiences which informed these concepts and those experiences involve emotion. I don't advocate for impulsivity. I advocate for understanding that emotion is involved in every aspect of being and understanding, not just immediate experience. Anger is not purely impulsive and if you want to be empathetic, be understanding of people's anger - it is not some impulsive aberration
"Empathy is important" and "fascists must be crushed" are statements that can coexist.
Most inclinations towards violence you see here are not out of a belief that such things are necessary to bring justice and pursue egalitarian goals, they're just out of pure anger. You can see so many throughout history committing great violence because they wanted to and for no other reason. They always have a justification, but this isn't the real reason they did it. They simply had an inclination towards violence and then they created a justification for it so they could pursue their inclination. If you're not constantly introspecting into what the actual best strategy is in each certain scenario, you will just succumb to your emotional inclinations, rather than positively furthering justice.
Will violence be necessary at some point to genuinely transform our society? Probably. However, the best way to further leftism today is to build solidarity, help working people, and support unions. Going out and killing bill gates won't do anything, and posting on a forum for 5 hours a day about going out and killing bill gates certainly won't either.
Is kinda cringe and unmarxist 😳
Another unfortunate quality of internet leftist forum users is that they tend to stray away from making arguments as to why things are bad and wrong and go more towards arguing how things do not fit within the in group. This is a perfect example. What is the fundamental reason that leftism should not be centered around empathy? You do not care to argue it. You only say "it's not marxist," in an attempt to paint yourself as being in the realm of what people who post to chapo.chat are supposed to believe, and myself as not being within that realm. Marx isn't automatically correct about everything. Maybe you think he's correct on this issue. So you should say what he argues, if you agree. But instead you say "marx doesn't agree, therefore you must be wrong," without providing any kind of evidence. It's a pretty helpful case study as to why people stay stuck within their in groups, never learning anything or converting anoyone new.
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it's not tactical advice. it's a distinction between genuinely caring about helping people and just wanting to tear shit down because youre pissed
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scolding account age on a two week old forum lmao
Many of us are skeptical of brand new accounts criticizing the forum, because there's a team of wreckers constantly spamming the site with a thousand sockpuppets and occasionally concern trolling.
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do you not see how this retort is completely useless? there are very few people in the world who can claim to be "experts" about revolutionary politics, and even they dont have many or even a significant amount of definitive answers. im just a guy with a philosophy degree who thinks a lot. my credentials dont matter. im making a claim. if you dont give a shit about me you can ignore my claim. but saying im not enough of an "expert" to make that claim is just a waste of time and discourse. just dispute the claim.
You prescribe action based on axioms like "any version of leftism that is not primarily centered around empathy is useless and will lead to nothing positive" - but you don't actually make an argument for why. It's grandstanding, it's not useful. It comes off as self righteous.
I make the argument pretty heavily in my comments. If you aren't operating with the idea "All people are defined by their circumstances. Nobody deserves to suffer. Nobody deserves to die" in mind, I believe you will come to flawed decisions.
doesnt need to be. i can read this forum for 10 minutes and see people fantasizing about nuking israel, beating racists to death, etc etc
All people are defined by their circumstances. Nobody deserves to suffer. Nobody deserves to die.
If killing a bad person really helps to better our society, then so be it. But most of the time, you're just killing someone because you want to, because you're filled with hate, and you're using a political movement as justification for an action that has no justification. It is extremely ironic how many leftists can want to dismantle the entire prison system and simultaneously support beating people to death.
Any action taken to harm someone should be taken with incredible care and calculation, and should never be something to be glorified.
responding to a dissenting argument by telling them to read more is ironically very anti intellectual.
I mean, live-action-roleplaying isn't really a thing you can do online, is it?
But I do agree at least to an extend with you, there is a lot of talk about restorative justice in leftist circles - and a simultaneous cheering-on of retributive justice when it happens to happen... Which does seem somewhat dissonant. I think it helps to remember that no community is a monolith and people might just not partake in some discussions, letting people have their fun with cheering on a Nazi-Puncher.I fantasize about violence and make gulag and guillotine jokes. On an online forum it's a way to vent and have absurdist fun. IRL I reject violence except in self defense and I do agree tha there is a general empathy problem
