I really recommend reading Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing". The IDF knows what they are doing. The people of "Israel" know what they are doing. They may seek narratives to comfort their worldview, but they are not ignorant and simply "duped" into committing atrocities.
No real disagreement with you. For me the slight sadness is more just people that young have no real idea about anything. It doesn’t excuse any actions he takes that are part of something awful, but it is slightly more sad than if someone like Smotrich or Ben Gvir were killed.
When I think back to myself as a 21 year old I had all kinds of conflicting ideas and convictions, most of which got changed or adjusted as I experienced and learned more, but I’d be embarrassed to own some of the “opinions” I had at the time, in particular things I thought were de facto true politically that were simply societal brainwashing that I didn’t have the knowledge to shed yet.
Anyway, not really trying to rehab this particular “guy” (rimshot) just making a case for the possibility of feeling some sadness for these things.
Anyway, not really trying to rehab this particular “guy” (rimshot) just making a case for the possibility of feeling some sadness for these things.
I feel it too. I don't really feed any energy into it obviously and I'm not gonna advocate for empathy publicly to other people, for these genocidaires. But I can't help but think about how these fuckers could have just been relatively normal people if they hadn't been born into their genocidal society, how at one point they were innocent children, etc.
For every glimmer of empathy I feel about these dead jackboots I redirect that shit right into wondering how many innocent lives they have taken and how many more killings and atrocities they've been prevented from committing. I used to make a conscious effort to do this but now it's unconscious and the humanity I see is replaced with the real violence that person's photo abstracts
I won't shed a single tear over them ever lol. But it is just such a fucking shame. a literal shame on the west how many lives are lost or ruined and how many monsters we are creating.
Yeah I think you nailed it; the sadness is almost more about how they could have just not chosen this awful and stupid route in an alternate universe, and that’s sad, that you chose this and all the deaths that unfold because of this choice. But like you say, there are way more legitimate people to be empathizing with, like the endless victims of this behavior for one.
Thanks for sharing! This was a really interesting read, i agree with most of his ideas, and agree with you that it's a valuable tool for analysis of Israel and it's actions.
I do disagree with some of his conclusions though. I'm not gonna defend Bakunin for being antisemitic, but also anarchists just don't hold up ideologues in that way. (Except Kropotkin, no one is born cool except for anarchist Santa.) Bakunin had good ideas, Marx had good ideas, even Lenin and Stalin and Mao had some good ideas. But also, I've never met an (American) anarchist who wouldnt be the first to decry our own county and it's faults before pointing out the faults of other states. Mao hated landlords, Mao created the biigeest middle class in history. Alright, sure, Mao also murdered a lot of people and caused a lot more deaths. All states generate mass death.
The fundamental idea we hold is that the State exists to concentrate power and that concentrated power always corrupts the holders of it. "Corrupt" in this case meaning that human beings cannot resist the temptation to use power for self-serving ends. Recognizing that is also a historical and materialist position. If anything, its the MLs I meet in real life who are stuck-up literati. The anarchists I know are union organizers, artists, and activists. They're people of action.
Like i said, I agree with the premise and many of the conclusions, but I think he's still tempted into campism and trying to label anarchists as unserious and other liberal-lefts as essentially being captured by western capitalist ideology.
Its also just an incoherent strategy. So the workers will rise up and collectively self-actualize but then who will lead them into this? If spontaneous collective action was going to arise, then it would have. Historically, it seems like revolutions mostly require leaders and and up operating in microcosm to the system they are rebelling against.
Because it isn't about belief, it's about the operating paradigm that people use to live. That's why we seek "licensure" to do what we've been led to believe we want. Ideology is comprehensive, it provides means, expected ends, and modes of though and operation to enact them. The author identifies correctly that leftist tend to focus heavily on means (economic hardship, morality) and suggest that we must also focus on expected outcomes (convincing people they'll have a better life under the new ideology), but I think he crucially misses that people are indoctrinated into ideas and paradigms/worldviews/modes-of-existence. If we can't provide and indoctrinate people into a new mode of being, they will revert to old behaviors which will reenact the old ideology's outcomes and mechanisms.
For clarity, I'm a former anarchist, now Marxist-Leninist (have been ML for years, my anarchist days are a good while ago). That's going to color my disagreements, and Roderic Day as an ML's as well.
I disagree that the state exists to "concentrate power," as in accumulate more and more power. The state instead exists to protect the ruling class of a given society. This coincides with the formation of states historically, as they arose as class society arose. From that point, I also disagree with the notion that serving ones own class interests necessitates corruption. If the proletariat holds power over the state and uses it in its own interests, then this is both logical and a good thing. In China, for example, after the proletariat took power and wielded the state against the landlords and existing capitalists, life expectancy doubled:
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This is why class analysis is so important. In socialist states, throughout history, life expectancies, literacy rates, democratization, the rights of women, education and healthcare guarantees, and more have all skyrocketed. The violence that comes from revolution and protecting the revolution isn't because the proletariat used states to do so, but instead because class struggle does not cease overnight. Corruption exists into socialism, but this is not an insurmountable obstacle, and is instead something a healthy socialist state must keep in check, same as any other societal problem, as the state withers away gradually.
The author isn't suggesting that people's way of thought isn't colored by how they live and exist, but rather that this is essential to understanding this. You can spread ideas, but you cannot "brainwash" people, for good or bad. They have to realize their own class interests to avoid falling into false consciousness, and this can be agitated for by those of us that have already undergone transformations (forever incomplete, and always transforming) in how we think. We have to bring people over.
The fundamental idea we hold is that the State exists to concentrate power and that concentrated power always corrupts the holders of it. "Corrupt" in this case meaning that human beings cannot resist the temptation to use power for self-serving ends.
Would you be interested to learn that Marxists also hold a version of this as one of their most central ideas? States are instruments by means of which one class dominates another, they exist for no other reason. The point of Marxism is not that we can have Good Kings who will pursue altruistic justice, but that by having the working class, the majority, in power by means of proletarian democracy, the majority will use its power for its own selfish interests.
The success of these projects is another issue, as both Lenin and Stalin recognized some of the bureaucratic issues in the Soviet Union and Mao literally started a second civil war against the bureaucrats (that he resoundingly lost), but that's not really the point in question.
So the workers will rise up and collectively self-actualize but then who will lead them into this? If spontaneous collective action was going to arise, then it would have. Historically, it seems like revolutions mostly require leaders and and up operating in microcosm to the system they are rebelling against.
This is also basic Marxism, though it's worth noting of course that spontaneous collective insurgencies do happen pretty often historically. Regardless, this issue of the fact that we can't just rely on spontaneous mass action is central especially to Lenin's theories regarding the "vanguard" and discussions about how to bridge this apparent gap between masses and vanguard are some of Mao's most important contributions as well.
I really recommend reading Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing". The IDF knows what they are doing. The people of "Israel" know what they are doing. They may seek narratives to comfort their worldview, but they are not ignorant and simply "duped" into committing atrocities.
No real disagreement with you. For me the slight sadness is more just people that young have no real idea about anything. It doesn’t excuse any actions he takes that are part of something awful, but it is slightly more sad than if someone like Smotrich or Ben Gvir were killed.
When I think back to myself as a 21 year old I had all kinds of conflicting ideas and convictions, most of which got changed or adjusted as I experienced and learned more, but I’d be embarrassed to own some of the “opinions” I had at the time, in particular things I thought were de facto true politically that were simply societal brainwashing that I didn’t have the knowledge to shed yet.
Anyway, not really trying to rehab this particular “guy” (rimshot) just making a case for the possibility of feeling some sadness for these things.
I feel it too. I don't really feed any energy into it obviously and I'm not gonna advocate for empathy publicly to other people, for these genocidaires. But I can't help but think about how these fuckers could have just been relatively normal people if they hadn't been born into their genocidal society, how at one point they were innocent children, etc.
For every glimmer of empathy I feel about these dead jackboots I redirect that shit right into wondering how many innocent lives they have taken and how many more killings and atrocities they've been prevented from committing. I used to make a conscious effort to do this but now it's unconscious and the humanity I see is replaced with the real violence that person's photo abstracts
I won't shed a single tear over them ever lol. But it is just such a fucking shame. a literal shame on the west how many lives are lost or ruined and how many monsters we are creating.
Yeah I think you nailed it; the sadness is almost more about how they could have just not chosen this awful and stupid route in an alternate universe, and that’s sad, that you chose this and all the deaths that unfold because of this choice. But like you say, there are way more legitimate people to be empathizing with, like the endless victims of this behavior for one.
Thanks for sharing! This was a really interesting read, i agree with most of his ideas, and agree with you that it's a valuable tool for analysis of Israel and it's actions.
I do disagree with some of his conclusions though. I'm not gonna defend Bakunin for being antisemitic, but also anarchists just don't hold up ideologues in that way. (Except Kropotkin, no one is born cool except for anarchist Santa.) Bakunin had good ideas, Marx had good ideas, even Lenin and Stalin and Mao had some good ideas. But also, I've never met an (American) anarchist who wouldnt be the first to decry our own county and it's faults before pointing out the faults of other states. Mao hated landlords, Mao created the biigeest middle class in history. Alright, sure, Mao also murdered a lot of people and caused a lot more deaths. All states generate mass death.
The fundamental idea we hold is that the State exists to concentrate power and that concentrated power always corrupts the holders of it. "Corrupt" in this case meaning that human beings cannot resist the temptation to use power for self-serving ends. Recognizing that is also a historical and materialist position. If anything, its the MLs I meet in real life who are stuck-up literati. The anarchists I know are union organizers, artists, and activists. They're people of action.
Like i said, I agree with the premise and many of the conclusions, but I think he's still tempted into campism and trying to label anarchists as unserious and other liberal-lefts as essentially being captured by western capitalist ideology.
Its also just an incoherent strategy. So the workers will rise up and collectively self-actualize but then who will lead them into this? If spontaneous collective action was going to arise, then it would have. Historically, it seems like revolutions mostly require leaders and and up operating in microcosm to the system they are rebelling against.
Because it isn't about belief, it's about the operating paradigm that people use to live. That's why we seek "licensure" to do what we've been led to believe we want. Ideology is comprehensive, it provides means, expected ends, and modes of though and operation to enact them. The author identifies correctly that leftist tend to focus heavily on means (economic hardship, morality) and suggest that we must also focus on expected outcomes (convincing people they'll have a better life under the new ideology), but I think he crucially misses that people are indoctrinated into ideas and paradigms/worldviews/modes-of-existence. If we can't provide and indoctrinate people into a new mode of being, they will revert to old behaviors which will reenact the old ideology's outcomes and mechanisms.
For clarity, I'm a former anarchist, now Marxist-Leninist (have been ML for years, my anarchist days are a good while ago). That's going to color my disagreements, and Roderic Day as an ML's as well.
I disagree that the state exists to "concentrate power," as in accumulate more and more power. The state instead exists to protect the ruling class of a given society. This coincides with the formation of states historically, as they arose as class society arose. From that point, I also disagree with the notion that serving ones own class interests necessitates corruption. If the proletariat holds power over the state and uses it in its own interests, then this is both logical and a good thing. In China, for example, after the proletariat took power and wielded the state against the landlords and existing capitalists, life expectancy doubled:
This is why class analysis is so important. In socialist states, throughout history, life expectancies, literacy rates, democratization, the rights of women, education and healthcare guarantees, and more have all skyrocketed. The violence that comes from revolution and protecting the revolution isn't because the proletariat used states to do so, but instead because class struggle does not cease overnight. Corruption exists into socialism, but this is not an insurmountable obstacle, and is instead something a healthy socialist state must keep in check, same as any other societal problem, as the state withers away gradually.
The author isn't suggesting that people's way of thought isn't colored by how they live and exist, but rather that this is essential to understanding this. You can spread ideas, but you cannot "brainwash" people, for good or bad. They have to realize their own class interests to avoid falling into false consciousness, and this can be agitated for by those of us that have already undergone transformations (forever incomplete, and always transforming) in how we think. We have to bring people over.
Would you be interested to learn that Marxists also hold a version of this as one of their most central ideas? States are instruments by means of which one class dominates another, they exist for no other reason. The point of Marxism is not that we can have Good Kings who will pursue altruistic justice, but that by having the working class, the majority, in power by means of proletarian democracy, the majority will use its power for its own selfish interests.
The success of these projects is another issue, as both Lenin and Stalin recognized some of the bureaucratic issues in the Soviet Union and Mao literally started a second civil war against the bureaucrats (that he resoundingly lost), but that's not really the point in question.
This is also basic Marxism, though it's worth noting of course that spontaneous collective insurgencies do happen pretty often historically. Regardless, this issue of the fact that we can't just rely on spontaneous mass action is central especially to Lenin's theories regarding the "vanguard" and discussions about how to bridge this apparent gap between masses and vanguard are some of Mao's most important contributions as well.