I've been noticing this more and more, there's an insistence that pointed economic or environmental criticisms of some consumption habit, usually almost exclusively partaken by the upper middle class and wealthier people, must actually secretly be a purely cultural critique. I'm sure these guys work for Exxon or some shit, lmao.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The synthesis is getting people motivated to fight to change the system.

      Sure. Yelling "stop going on cruises and sit at home reading a book" doesn't seem like that'll get the job done.

      A condition for averting climate catastrophe is a broad feeling that we have individual responsibility for our consumption, so that frustration with the system (I’ve got to drive to get to work!) spills out into mass activism.

      I don't see a shortage of willingness among people to take personal responsibility at various levels. But a ton of that enthusiasm is diverted into consumerist activities and grifts. Whether we're scolding people about recycling or scolding them about plastic straws and grocery bags or scolding people until they install solar panels on their roofs, there's a fixation on individual actions that never seems to make a dent in industrial activity.

      Individualism in the face of cataclysm breeds overconfidence on one hand (I'll be climate change proof if I just live in a Tiny Home!) and defeatism on the other (Why even bother with any of this shit when the coal fired power plant next door produces more waste in a day than I could produce in a lifetime of Rolling Coal from a monster truck?)

      I see the scalding-people-online shit as an anxiety release mechanism rather than any kind of dialectical synthesis. You'll have as much luck telling people to "Read Settlers" ad nauseum.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          people want to find some way to justify to themselves how excess consumption is somehow negotiable

          It isn't a question is negotiation, as individual consumers aren't in control of industrial projects.

          they need to be cajoled, scolded, and tire-slashed the rest of the way to the finish line.

          Haranguing random schmucks over their consumption habits does nothing to change the fundamental functions of productive capital.

          why are you talking about killing the bourgeois so much

          Except you're not. You're talking about ethical ways to take a vacation

            • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              they’re in control of buying cruise packages and plane tickets lmfao

              I haven't purchased a cruise ticket in nearly a decade and yet the amount of emissions cruise liners put out have only gone up, roflmoa.

              Neither do I have the luxury of taking the train when I need to leave Texas. Houston to NY is a three day Amtrak ride. I can't even get to Colorado without a car, and that's a full 18 hours driving. teehee

              democratic forces also aren’t nothing

              They are in a kleptocracy

              and finally, consumer choices on their own aren’t enough but convincing people that this matters is everything

              People are already convinced. They just don't have agency or direction to do anything about it. Even the conversation about wind-powered cruise liners is moot when no cruise liner is willing to experiment or invest in the technology.

              I already explained the material side but also marxism doesn’t give you a license to do arbitrary harm as long as it has no world-historical impact.

              Marxism gives you an understanding of the dialectical forces driving human society. Its not a license to do or not do anything, any more than a degree in Chemistry is a license to burn things.

              What you're implying is Leninism/Maoism. And that is a big thing we're never allowed to talk about because :fedposting:

              Which is really where all this terminates. Any conversation about opposing climate change at a practical scale has to involve the kind of mass mobilization of communities to rebel against their immediate material conditions. Like, not just to abstain from buying plane tickets but to actively dismantle airports. Not just to abstain from driving cars but to shut down gas stations and highways. Not just to abstain from electricity but to actively shut down power plants.

              Nobody on here (or anywhere in the First World) has any plan on how to do that. And even just whispering the idea is enough to get you crushed under a pile of FBI jackets.