I've only been on this website for a short time so I know this looks sus im not trying to start arguments or something im just uncomfortable with something ive been seeing
ive been looking around and seeing things in posts and i would like to say that many of them make me very uncomfortable it is very common to see posts/topics idk that seem to be kind of glorifying revenge and hurting people disproportionately hatred for bourgoisie is justified but the people talking about and detailing torture make me really uncomfortable (saying things like detailing cruel and unusual punishments) because i have a hard time not involuntarily putting myself into the shoes of others even when they have nothing in common with me
ive been trying to tolerate it because i assumed this was part of what "dirtbag left" meant, being unapologetic and willing to advocate for things that are unappealing and not "civil" so become confused when people brought up the dumb will smith incident because it was just a slap, barely anything but lots of people seem to disapprove of it for being childish and immature i understand this viewpoint but i dont get why these two exist simultaneously i was starting to see the appeal of simply just advocating for "fuck around and find out" violence against the bourgoisie and nazis and obvious bigots but when the same principle is applied to others who are making ableist jokes it's bad
it comes across as people only caring and advocating for violence against people that affect them personally, and not people who affect others negatively i dont care about will smith (rich jerk) but i don't understand how that doesn't apply to me. why are people advocating for violence in ways that are arguably justifiable but make people uncomfortable just talking about them, but if i were to hit someone for making fun of me stimming or something that would be bad?
was all of the wall/torture/grenade pit stuff sarcastic or is the stance that its only ok to commit violence against people that affect the entire proletariat instead of just a part? (i know will smith probably isn't part of the proletariat i just don't understand how him being in the wrong doesn't also translate to proletariat members hitting people for making fun of them and family members and their own conditions)
i also don't know how to feel because a lot of the time it's very hard to control things that are considered violent actions i understand that as a general principle i should avoid them but in a situation like with the will smith thing (lots of people, someone making fun of someone i care about , probably lots of stress because award ceremony) i could see some kind of meltdown happening and me flipping out or doing something a lot worse, i know that's bad, and i avoid doing things like that but also lots of people have conditions that make that more likely so i have a hard time not sympthaziing. i also don't understand why making fun of someone to the point of self-harm or emotional harm is ok but hitting them isnt,, and in a world where nobody seems to care enough to actually help deescalate (and usually takes the side of harassers if they're "funny" enough) what else your even supposed to do? nobody taught me this and i wish they did
honestly, the Will Smith shit doesn't matter, and the people posting about it are caught up in the screaming of the spectacle which demands you have an extremely emotionally invested take in every tiny non event that happens. these are not deeply thought out ideas and opinions, I would not compare it to peoples personal politics of revolutionary violence
maybe it doesn't matter but it comes across weird to say that one should "never use violence" (especially when IMO making fun of someone's autoimmune disorder is totally a justifiable reason to get pissed and hit someone, though i think it shouldn't be done on someone's behalf unless they ask you or something that was toxic masculinity) and then advocate systemic violence
its either ignorant of a large portion of human interaction, that being that people fight (and we can't just ignore this we need to fix the underlying causes not try to repress fighting, people are going to do it anyway) or its believing that individuals shouldn't care about personal insults at all (when people with ADHD and stuff typically can't control that so that doesn't make sense)
see, you're gettin in the weeds of it. this was a non event that play on peoples experiences as all social media becomes this bubbling cauldron of takes, counter takes, screams of lived experiences. a guy hit another guy he has known, personally, for years, and then he said sorry. don't take it as some huge point about ADHD, toxic masculinity on a societal level, and the legitimisation of violence for some things and not others. I can promise you,all you're going to find in this situation is irritation, anxiety, and people disagreeing with you who also think they're doing the right thing for social justice by having the take they do.
the best advice I can give is walk away from any talks about it, find something that destresses you, and try to have a nice day where you relax and don't let the anxiety get to you. and if you do want to engage in conversations about these things, don't do it via the lense of the hot topic of the week where people see everything through this warped paradigm of mass hot takes on a topic, talk about it in a space and time where people want to look at these things for what they are, not what tweet did they see first that framed the whole debate for them and you're bad because you disagree.
I can clearly see you're quite anxious about this, and there's nothing wrong with that. the things you feel are legitimate worries, it's just not productive to focus on them in such a charged situation where you will not get a fair discussion about them.
What I notice is that people will unironically support someone like Will Smith, but when pressed on how escalating violence is a bad thing, they'll retreat to "oh it doesn't matter why do you care anyways?" Or what's worse, they'll double down and say how they would "throw down" or whatever in real life, which I highly doubt. There's no way they'd be that stupid to risk going to jail just cuz someone insulted their momma or whatever. Or risk getting decked by someone much bigger or stronger than them.
i would "throw down" in real life in that i would get angry and hit someone without thinking about consequences because htey just insulted someone who's dear to me based on a disability they have
obviously it's bad for me but saying it's morally wrong and simultaneously defending cruel and unusual punishment in general seems hypocrticial
Re. cruel and unusual punishments:
You're correct. But these are all hypothetical. If I heard that Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos tripped and got their genitals caught in a laundry press, I would laugh hysterically. I wouldn't have it in me to torture someone in that manner, however, and frankly I'd be suspicious of anyone that did; at least towards common-or-garden chuds and assholes. They are people too, after all, albeit in need of re-education.
Often these calls to violence are directed at reactionaries, if not dyed-in-the-wool Nazis. Look at the violence they advocate on a daily basis, like what Greg Abbot is trying to do to trans people. For them this is a fight for survival, so I'm not going to quibble if they wish death upon him.
The jokes about the Barbara pit, wall, guillotine, etc all occupy a kind of semi-ironic space.
I was a bit wary of advocations to violence when I first started going on r/cth back in the day too, because I was always told violence was wrong. I rarely lashed out, even when I was bullied at school, and violence just isn't in my nature. After a while, I just got used to the advocations of violence in these spaces.
The desensitisation after immersion in a semi-ironic environment is kind of how extremism was able to spread on 4chan, which I brought up on r/cth once but they didn't appreciate the comparison, for obvious reasons.
For the record, I'm still not a killer, or even more violent than I was. I just understand why some people are driven to violence now.
Same. I'm not a fighter, I don't want to fight. But I do understand why others fight and will fight. I've always been the background support kind of person anyways. I'd be worse than useless on the front line lmao. And the ones fighting the good fight need food, medicine, theory etc. that's where people like us come in. It takes all types to make a better world.
Have some theory, on the house: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1849/05/19c.htm
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable.
ok, so I shouldn't care about beating someone up who insults a family member because "you ask no compassion from me"?
i dont care whos being tortured or killed or shot or blown up, i dont have any control over feeling empathy or putting myself in their shoes. its not because irealte to nazis its because i have an anxiety disorder, i wish people would just not post about violence if they hate the aesthetic of violence so much
You are free to interpret theory through your own lens of experiences, but I take this excerpt to mean that violence is justified against those who are actively doing structural violence against/inspiring stochastic terrorism against the working class.such violence is inherently an act of self defence.
i think my concern goes so far as that i think it's not good to do cruel and unusual punishment
i won't really judge anyone who does it, because i understand why theyd do it to a billionare, but i would rather we not if that makes sense
i don't really care about shooting Jeff Bezos when it would take almost nothing for him to just step down and not keep being a tyraniccal monster
I definitely feel a lot of what you are saying, ethical points aside, it can also be pretty embarassing and reddit when people do the silly LARP shit, it mirrors conservative facebook and is just as bullshit. That said. I abhor violence and wouldn't actually want it to happen, especially since I live there now, but if I'm not allowed to call for the complete levelling of the United States of America through conventional and nuclear weaponry, the mercy-killing of the masses of its population, and the complete obliteration of its culture and institutions in a century of foriegn military occupation, I'm just gonna use another website cause thats what I want to post
I've been thinking about this and I want to respond somehow, but the more I think on it the more I feel like you're already reflecting in a more productive way than it would be useful for answers on. The twitter world kinda prevents people from being able to have mixed feelings or confusion about stuff, but in IRL that's totally okay and not a problem at all.
