Nothing I want to do is bannable for me saying it.
I just wanted empathy and a place to recontextualize failing to meet the increasingly hostile demands of daily life instead of the same blind toxic positivity that terminally individualizes all suffering and condescends empathy towards suffering outside of our immediate view while pathologically labelling every sign of collapse as just “the pendulum swinging one way before it comes back”.
while pathologically labelling every sign of collapse as just “the pendulum swinging one way before it comes back”.
I had a (actually relatively politically savvy, intelligent, thoughtful person who is aware of what’s happening) coworker try to say something like this to me a couple weeks back.
Like buddy I’ve been alive long enough to know what this pendulum you speak of looks like.
This ain’t it, boss. That’s pure copium.
It also ignores the fact that the pendulum doesn’t just automatically swing back to the left from momentum or whatever. It has to be clawed back, tooth and nail. Every single fucking time.
And it always ends up slightly further right when all is said and done and the next swing begins. Every time it goes less and less to the left until the entire fucking pendulum lives on the right.
None of those things you are indirectly gesturing at would do anything but hasten a collapse into a world even less welcoming to someone with a brain like mine.
This reads as too self-satisfied to believably come from someone who has to fight for anything. You know who you run into when you organize? People who are demoralized; a lot of them. It happens, and it especially happens now that we have liberals waking up who are bereft of language to describe a better world for themselves.
You’re also commenting this from a three-day-old, Australian account, and say you’re at the very least privileged enough to have been able to afford to leave the US, and feel comfortable not taking the risk of coming back to join in on any fighting. Is this a good example of someone who fights for the world they want to their full capactiy? Empathy is better than righteousness.
I don’t know if doomerism is a much healthier response than denialism.
Things can just stay kind of shitty for a long time, they can gradually improve at local levels. Though it is easy and not necessarily inaccurate to predict worsening conditions under fascism, the fact remains that fascism has never existed this way under these conditions, and US federal authority has always been expansive but fragile (which is why they are correct when they identify leftist and anti-imperialist movements in the metropole as an existential threat). There is no telling where this will go, or whether worse conditions wouldn’t present opportunities for real change that we currently don’t have.
They’ve been fighting for this for decades, and if they could, they would have already shut down all resistance. Fascism and capitalism is unsustainable – and increasingly unstable – and so the fight is over mitigation rather than victory.
I know fascism is unsustainable and will collapse itself, I also know I will likely not survive the period until it collapses and I am tired of people saying confidently that I will when people already don’t listen to me about how much I am already struggling.
You’re not alone. If you’re referring to mental health here, and potentially “checking out” just try to remember that you’re not the only one feeling this way.
Not that that helps on its own… Though sometimes just remembering that you’re not alone, and most importantly the fear you’re experiencing is real and valid, can actually help a little. More people should be this afraid. Maybe we’d actually do something.
These fascist fucks want you to feel despair. They want you to kill yourself so it’s one less “undesirable” that they need to murder themselves. Don’t give them what they want. Don’t make it easier for them.
I am aware of my mortality and where things are going, I am aware that the society I am in is trying to kill me, I am not in despair or thinking of hurting myself please don’t project that onto my words as others already have in this thread, it diminshes my voice not empowers it.
I become a victim to be pitied not someone to actually listen to the words of.
My life experience up until now coupled with how much more difficult things are getting everyday NOW…?
Also it is easy to look at people with similar brains to me with less privilege and support in my society and see that most of them are dead, in jail or broken down into pieces in some other way and then extrapolate the trendline for myself…?
The US is certainly a very demoralizing place to be vulnerable in; ever aspect of it is designed to make anyone who isn’t a wealthy property owner feel constantly threatened, let alone those who are threatened. I don’t know if anyone reasonable would argue that being vulnerable in the US isn’t a reason to feel cynical or pessimistic.
Unfortunately, that has also always been the case. It is much easier to imagine change from your actions now if you go back to learn what people went through to resist before, and still lived out lives that they expressed as fulfilling. We have far more tools at our disposal than people in the past did, and it is important to remember that we have those tools because many of them were willing to resist despite the overwhelming dread. I don’t know if I could say I’ve had lived experience that tells me things inevitably get better, but I have centuries of history that shows trying is never worthless.
It’s fair to feel that despair, but I’d rather do what I can to make that despair easier on others, and that also makes it easier on me. I see that you post very frequently about news on these events, maybe you’d feel more in control of the power afforded to you if you redirected that time and energy toward learning how people have resisted and are currently resisting, and what you can do to help with the time and energy that you have.
I see that you post very frequently about news on these events, maybe you’d feel more in control of the power afforded to you if you redirected that time and energy toward learning how people have resisted and are currently resisting, and what you can do to help with the time and energy that you have.
Don’t condescend me with the “stop focusing on negative news!” toxic positivity narrative.
I am alive and motivated, I am not in despair stop projecting despair onto my honesty and awareness about collapse and how it intersects my mortality… I don’t have to be positive about this and I am done letting people lecture down to me about it.
but I have centuries of history that shows trying is never worthless.
When did I EVER say not to fight or that fighting is useless?
Stop trying to force me into this collective need to hallucinate that everything will somehow turn out ok and that the only alternative to that is paralyzed despair, it is suffocating and reflects your or someone else’s fear of mortality not mine. My fear of mortality compels me to be unable to suffocate silently nor hold on to a belief I am not being suffocated… while I am being suffocated.
I think the connection is in the “things will get worse,” and “I’ll die before they get better;” which I am confident is fair to read as despair or dread. If it reads as condescending to express empathy with your outlook, I don’t know if that says much about what I’ve actually said. Even in this comment, you assumed that collapse is inevitable (or even the worse outcome, which is interesting) and that this is directly linked to your mortality. Though you certainly seem like you’re threatened by the state, the words you’ve said are conducive to an outlook of hopelessness not because of inevitability, but because of apathy.
I can tell this is coming from a more liberal perspective, which often results in the construction that a less desirable world is often perceived as an undesirable or even intolerable world. You’d be far from the first “left-leaning” liberal to come to Lemmy and express this kind of perspective, because most people in the US are purposefully neglected the political literacy or historical memory to imagine a system that does not look like this one that isn’t “regressive,” I.e. a “collapse.”
There are people in the US right now who are living (and resisting) in an apocalyptic collapse of their society, and I’m asking you to consider whether what you’ve experienced truly warrants this kind of construction of the future that views their struggle as worthless or toxic (whether or not you meant to, that’s what this narrative does).
You admitted several times you are projecting despair onto me, I have stated I am not in nor do I endorse despair.
There are people in the US right now who are living (and resisting) in an apocalyptic collapse of their society
What about my words denies their agency?
Even in this comment, you assumed that collapse is inevitable (or even the worse outcome, which is interesting)
What are you on about?
^ this is nearly indisputable evidence of collapse, if you want to deny the future with a religious sort of faith because you need to for your own health fine but don’t drag me through the mud while you do it.
One last thing, you are a fool for thinking this collapse is good, collapse is always a violent, indiscriminate and chaotic process even when what is collapsing is “bad” or parts of a system have already collapsed.
I hate neoliberalism with a passion, but that doesn’t mean I think it collapsing like this is good.
I came here specifically because I was tired of people telling me everything was going to be ok, we are not ok and things are going to get much worse.
Well, don’t talk about doing something about it. They might ban you. 🤫
Nothing I want to do is bannable for me saying it.
I just wanted empathy and a place to recontextualize failing to meet the increasingly hostile demands of daily life instead of the same blind toxic positivity that terminally individualizes all suffering and condescends empathy towards suffering outside of our immediate view while pathologically labelling every sign of collapse as just “the pendulum swinging one way before it comes back”.
Bruh, get out of my brain.
I had a (actually relatively politically savvy, intelligent, thoughtful person who is aware of what’s happening) coworker try to say something like this to me a couple weeks back.
Like buddy I’ve been alive long enough to know what this pendulum you speak of looks like.
This ain’t it, boss. That’s pure copium.
It also ignores the fact that the pendulum doesn’t just automatically swing back to the left from momentum or whatever. It has to be clawed back, tooth and nail. Every single fucking time.
And it always ends up slightly further right when all is said and done and the next swing begins. Every time it goes less and less to the left until the entire fucking pendulum lives on the right.
What about the things you wish other people would do for you?
None of those things you are indirectly gesturing at would do anything but hasten a collapse into a world even less welcoming to someone with a brain like mine.
Well, I hope you have the world you’re willing to fight for.
This reads as too self-satisfied to believably come from someone who has to fight for anything. You know who you run into when you organize? People who are demoralized; a lot of them. It happens, and it especially happens now that we have liberals waking up who are bereft of language to describe a better world for themselves.
You’re also commenting this from a three-day-old, Australian account, and say you’re at the very least privileged enough to have been able to afford to leave the US, and feel comfortable not taking the risk of coming back to join in on any fighting. Is this a good example of someone who fights for the world they want to their full capactiy? Empathy is better than righteousness.
I’m afraid I disagree entirely with you. Thank you for your words.
Can’t say that’s surprising. You don’t have to admit it, but you should seriously consider it.
Fuck Off
Nothing on earth will make that happen.
Sure, than continue to undermine the things you care about with a righteous and naive attitude towards violence you self defeating fool.
On Lemmy? Hasn’t been my experience (though I’m sure it varies by instance)
Do it here. Call for death.
I don’t know if doomerism is a much healthier response than denialism.
Things can just stay kind of shitty for a long time, they can gradually improve at local levels. Though it is easy and not necessarily inaccurate to predict worsening conditions under fascism, the fact remains that fascism has never existed this way under these conditions, and US federal authority has always been expansive but fragile (which is why they are correct when they identify leftist and anti-imperialist movements in the metropole as an existential threat). There is no telling where this will go, or whether worse conditions wouldn’t present opportunities for real change that we currently don’t have.
They’ve been fighting for this for decades, and if they could, they would have already shut down all resistance. Fascism and capitalism is unsustainable – and increasingly unstable – and so the fight is over mitigation rather than victory.
I know fascism is unsustainable and will collapse itself, I also know I will likely not survive the period until it collapses and I am tired of people saying confidently that I will when people already don’t listen to me about how much I am already struggling.
deleted by creator
You’re not alone. If you’re referring to mental health here, and potentially “checking out” just try to remember that you’re not the only one feeling this way.
Not that that helps on its own… Though sometimes just remembering that you’re not alone, and most importantly the fear you’re experiencing is real and valid, can actually help a little. More people should be this afraid. Maybe we’d actually do something.
These fascist fucks want you to feel despair. They want you to kill yourself so it’s one less “undesirable” that they need to murder themselves. Don’t give them what they want. Don’t make it easier for them.
I am aware of my mortality and where things are going, I am aware that the society I am in is trying to kill me, I am not in despair or thinking of hurting myself please don’t project that onto my words as others already have in this thread, it diminshes my voice not empowers it.
I become a victim to be pitied not someone to actually listen to the words of.
I see, so, how do you know that?
My life experience up until now coupled with how much more difficult things are getting everyday NOW…?
Also it is easy to look at people with similar brains to me with less privilege and support in my society and see that most of them are dead, in jail or broken down into pieces in some other way and then extrapolate the trendline for myself…?
The US is certainly a very demoralizing place to be vulnerable in; ever aspect of it is designed to make anyone who isn’t a wealthy property owner feel constantly threatened, let alone those who are threatened. I don’t know if anyone reasonable would argue that being vulnerable in the US isn’t a reason to feel cynical or pessimistic.
Unfortunately, that has also always been the case. It is much easier to imagine change from your actions now if you go back to learn what people went through to resist before, and still lived out lives that they expressed as fulfilling. We have far more tools at our disposal than people in the past did, and it is important to remember that we have those tools because many of them were willing to resist despite the overwhelming dread. I don’t know if I could say I’ve had lived experience that tells me things inevitably get better, but I have centuries of history that shows trying is never worthless.
It’s fair to feel that despair, but I’d rather do what I can to make that despair easier on others, and that also makes it easier on me. I see that you post very frequently about news on these events, maybe you’d feel more in control of the power afforded to you if you redirected that time and energy toward learning how people have resisted and are currently resisting, and what you can do to help with the time and energy that you have.
Don’t condescend me with the “stop focusing on negative news!” toxic positivity narrative.
I am alive and motivated, I am not in despair stop projecting despair onto my honesty and awareness about collapse and how it intersects my mortality… I don’t have to be positive about this and I am done letting people lecture down to me about it.
When did I EVER say not to fight or that fighting is useless?
Stop trying to force me into this collective need to hallucinate that everything will somehow turn out ok and that the only alternative to that is paralyzed despair, it is suffocating and reflects your or someone else’s fear of mortality not mine. My fear of mortality compels me to be unable to suffocate silently nor hold on to a belief I am not being suffocated… while I am being suffocated.
I think the connection is in the “things will get worse,” and “I’ll die before they get better;” which I am confident is fair to read as despair or dread. If it reads as condescending to express empathy with your outlook, I don’t know if that says much about what I’ve actually said. Even in this comment, you assumed that collapse is inevitable (or even the worse outcome, which is interesting) and that this is directly linked to your mortality. Though you certainly seem like you’re threatened by the state, the words you’ve said are conducive to an outlook of hopelessness not because of inevitability, but because of apathy.
I can tell this is coming from a more liberal perspective, which often results in the construction that a less desirable world is often perceived as an undesirable or even intolerable world. You’d be far from the first “left-leaning” liberal to come to Lemmy and express this kind of perspective, because most people in the US are purposefully neglected the political literacy or historical memory to imagine a system that does not look like this one that isn’t “regressive,” I.e. a “collapse.”
There are people in the US right now who are living (and resisting) in an apocalyptic collapse of their society, and I’m asking you to consider whether what you’ve experienced truly warrants this kind of construction of the future that views their struggle as worthless or toxic (whether or not you meant to, that’s what this narrative does).
You admitted several times you are projecting despair onto me, I have stated I am not in nor do I endorse despair.
What about my words denies their agency?
What are you on about?
^ this is nearly indisputable evidence of collapse, if you want to deny the future with a religious sort of faith because you need to for your own health fine but don’t drag me through the mud while you do it.
One last thing, you are a fool for thinking this collapse is good, collapse is always a violent, indiscriminate and chaotic process even when what is collapsing is “bad” or parts of a system have already collapsed.
I hate neoliberalism with a passion, but that doesn’t mean I think it collapsing like this is good.