This piece really hits home for me. So much of this hyper-fixation on individual liberties and freedoms is making so many people forget about the greater collective. What use is there for "constructive criticism" when it never focuses on or targets the current systems of oppression that drives so much of the social conditioning and material realities people experience and deal with? Focusing on lambasting people for engaging in the social structure before them, rather than working to educate, inform and message in effective ways to try and help them see another perspective, really and truly feels antithetical to what the Socialist movement is all about.
What you wrote here stood out to me as well:
"On an individual level, this eschewing of materialism in favor of moralism manifests in the idea that if a person has backwards beliefs, they actively chose to be bad because they were born that way. If they’re bad they can never become “good” — they are permanently marked. An over-emphasis on the morality of individual choices that render a person “good” or “bad”, but cloaked in intellectual radical language is a poorly disguised surrender to the status quo."
Hasan's emphasis on 'rehabilitation over incarceration' feels like it can be applied more broadly as well, especially in this particular area. Why lock people away (brand them as irredeemably "bad") for disagreeing with you, when you can engage in a rehabilitative process that helps educate another person and perhaps, gets them to see another perspective as being possibly legitimate? Tying things back into the assassination of UHC CEO Brian Thompson is another great entry point that I fully agree on. Like you said, that moment showed us just how many people in this country understand and recognize "social murder" - providing us an opportunity to use this moment for education and proper guidance. Some people just need a little push in a positive direction, and us Socialists should be looking for any and all opportunities to provide said push.
Another wonderfully articulated and written piece Scarlet! Your writing is leaving me with plenty of things to think about, so I'll be looking forward to any and all pieces you publish going forward!
Thank you! I totally agree with you. I definitely falter in this arena on the dopamine machine hot take app at times, but we would all benefit from trying to spend more time explaining and less time reacting. After all, all of us were libs at one point right? All of us didn't do better until we knew better. It's important to not only preach to the choir but also work on bringing the curious over to our side.
Yeah, it really can be a tricky balance with how reactionary many of these platforms are (I certainly succumb to it myself as well). We sure were. That was before I started listening/explaining more than lecturing/reacting, and that's been a guiding principle in me ever since. Your first piece really hammered home that idea of bringing the curious over to our side, and that's what I'm aiming to do with far more grace, patience, compassion, and empathy moving forward.
Re: "You cannot dismantle the concept of whiteness by getting enough white people to feel really bad about it when the structure of society exists in a way that whiteness is a tool by which to divide the working class."
I would say that "whiteness" is not the divisive force so much as the divisive forces are often anti-Blackness, ableism, transphobia, misogyny, and the practice and perpetuation of harmful ideologies that allow for abuse and harm.
I think there is a misunderstanding on the left with with regards to the requirements of oppressed groups, and that often times, oppression as a divisive force make "unity" not possible.
Being correctable, I think for many, comes from a place of self-love and belief in others ability to change for the better.
And in being correctible and making changes, we are better for it as a collective, if our goal is liberation for all, including the most marginalized.
To go into further detail on observations I have had with regards to many leftists struggling to be correctible, many Black people on Twitter have pointed out instances of anti-Blackness from non-Black leftists on Twitter.
As someone who is non-Black, I have seen many Black people on Twitter point out that they may have to confront internalized anti-Blackness in themselves, and expect that non-Black people also confront with willingness and care any anti-Blackness they demonstrate.
However, I have seen multiple instances online and offline of people being unwilling to receive correction from Black people regarding being anti-Black.
The unwillingness to be correctible and the perpetuation of oppressions is what is divisive.
Re: "Instead of talking about why so many companies have investments in a genocidal settler state, we end up fixated on which individuals are bad people for buying Starbucks"
I believe you are framing this as a binary and I do not believe it should be. Honoring boycotts or making an effort to boycott, with consistency, to divest from harmful institutions does make them weaker.
Moving beyond Starbucks, I think many of us in reimagining a different world, need to extend our behaviors to not just boycotting businesses, but changing the way we view our futures.
The current world, as we know it, cannot exist if we want change.
Having investments, 401k's, mortgages, "savings for the future", working to build your "career" all affirm the current systems not only economically, but also requires that we visualize ourselves existing in the current context.
I think lapses in "boycotting" or divestment can be addressed by trying again and practicing and visualizing the motivation behind why we are taking such an action, but at the end of the day, if the current system exists 30 years from now, and we are still alive and healthy, and marginalized groups continue to experience genocide and oppression, we failed and probably didn't want collective liberation in the first place.
Thanks for the reply. I think you're misunderstanding a bit what I'm trying to get at. My point is that we spend too much time zooming in on things like individual responsibility at the expense of zooming out and trying to understand the systems that create these problems. I don't think it's binary, however we spend a lot more time on individuals who step out of line than on the people perpetuating and profiting. We can hold our comrades to certain standards of course, but we should train our fire on the system the majority of the time. For example if we just say "you're evil if you use doordash" but don't bother to explain why these apps harm workers and attack the profiteers we aren't going to be able to move the needle. If we call out antiblackness but fail to explain the ways that the system benefits from it's proliferation we will be less effective at combatting it. We have to try to get the masses to see how they are being used to perpetuate their own exploitation so we can focus their ire towards the ruling class. Thank you for reading!
I strongly agree with you. I will call out "Anti Blackness" but also "Anti Whiteness". Both are social poison. I believe that both are promoted to divide the workers.
Reading you has been a breath of fresh air. Thank you, comrade.
This piece really hits home for me. So much of this hyper-fixation on individual liberties and freedoms is making so many people forget about the greater collective. What use is there for "constructive criticism" when it never focuses on or targets the current systems of oppression that drives so much of the social conditioning and material realities people experience and deal with? Focusing on lambasting people for engaging in the social structure before them, rather than working to educate, inform and message in effective ways to try and help them see another perspective, really and truly feels antithetical to what the Socialist movement is all about.
What you wrote here stood out to me as well:
"On an individual level, this eschewing of materialism in favor of moralism manifests in the idea that if a person has backwards beliefs, they actively chose to be bad because they were born that way. If they’re bad they can never become “good” — they are permanently marked. An over-emphasis on the morality of individual choices that render a person “good” or “bad”, but cloaked in intellectual radical language is a poorly disguised surrender to the status quo."
Hasan's emphasis on 'rehabilitation over incarceration' feels like it can be applied more broadly as well, especially in this particular area. Why lock people away (brand them as irredeemably "bad") for disagreeing with you, when you can engage in a rehabilitative process that helps educate another person and perhaps, gets them to see another perspective as being possibly legitimate? Tying things back into the assassination of UHC CEO Brian Thompson is another great entry point that I fully agree on. Like you said, that moment showed us just how many people in this country understand and recognize "social murder" - providing us an opportunity to use this moment for education and proper guidance. Some people just need a little push in a positive direction, and us Socialists should be looking for any and all opportunities to provide said push.
Another wonderfully articulated and written piece Scarlet! Your writing is leaving me with plenty of things to think about, so I'll be looking forward to any and all pieces you publish going forward!
Thank you! I totally agree with you. I definitely falter in this arena on the dopamine machine hot take app at times, but we would all benefit from trying to spend more time explaining and less time reacting. After all, all of us were libs at one point right? All of us didn't do better until we knew better. It's important to not only preach to the choir but also work on bringing the curious over to our side.
Yeah, it really can be a tricky balance with how reactionary many of these platforms are (I certainly succumb to it myself as well). We sure were. That was before I started listening/explaining more than lecturing/reacting, and that's been a guiding principle in me ever since. Your first piece really hammered home that idea of bringing the curious over to our side, and that's what I'm aiming to do with far more grace, patience, compassion, and empathy moving forward.
Re: "You cannot dismantle the concept of whiteness by getting enough white people to feel really bad about it when the structure of society exists in a way that whiteness is a tool by which to divide the working class."
I would say that "whiteness" is not the divisive force so much as the divisive forces are often anti-Blackness, ableism, transphobia, misogyny, and the practice and perpetuation of harmful ideologies that allow for abuse and harm.
I think there is a misunderstanding on the left with with regards to the requirements of oppressed groups, and that often times, oppression as a divisive force make "unity" not possible.
Being correctable, I think for many, comes from a place of self-love and belief in others ability to change for the better.
And in being correctible and making changes, we are better for it as a collective, if our goal is liberation for all, including the most marginalized.
To go into further detail on observations I have had with regards to many leftists struggling to be correctible, many Black people on Twitter have pointed out instances of anti-Blackness from non-Black leftists on Twitter.
As someone who is non-Black, I have seen many Black people on Twitter point out that they may have to confront internalized anti-Blackness in themselves, and expect that non-Black people also confront with willingness and care any anti-Blackness they demonstrate.
However, I have seen multiple instances online and offline of people being unwilling to receive correction from Black people regarding being anti-Black.
The unwillingness to be correctible and the perpetuation of oppressions is what is divisive.
Re: "Instead of talking about why so many companies have investments in a genocidal settler state, we end up fixated on which individuals are bad people for buying Starbucks"
I believe you are framing this as a binary and I do not believe it should be. Honoring boycotts or making an effort to boycott, with consistency, to divest from harmful institutions does make them weaker.
Moving beyond Starbucks, I think many of us in reimagining a different world, need to extend our behaviors to not just boycotting businesses, but changing the way we view our futures.
The current world, as we know it, cannot exist if we want change.
Having investments, 401k's, mortgages, "savings for the future", working to build your "career" all affirm the current systems not only economically, but also requires that we visualize ourselves existing in the current context.
I think lapses in "boycotting" or divestment can be addressed by trying again and practicing and visualizing the motivation behind why we are taking such an action, but at the end of the day, if the current system exists 30 years from now, and we are still alive and healthy, and marginalized groups continue to experience genocide and oppression, we failed and probably didn't want collective liberation in the first place.
Thanks for the reply. I think you're misunderstanding a bit what I'm trying to get at. My point is that we spend too much time zooming in on things like individual responsibility at the expense of zooming out and trying to understand the systems that create these problems. I don't think it's binary, however we spend a lot more time on individuals who step out of line than on the people perpetuating and profiting. We can hold our comrades to certain standards of course, but we should train our fire on the system the majority of the time. For example if we just say "you're evil if you use doordash" but don't bother to explain why these apps harm workers and attack the profiteers we aren't going to be able to move the needle. If we call out antiblackness but fail to explain the ways that the system benefits from it's proliferation we will be less effective at combatting it. We have to try to get the masses to see how they are being used to perpetuate their own exploitation so we can focus their ire towards the ruling class. Thank you for reading!
I strongly agree with you. I will call out "Anti Blackness" but also "Anti Whiteness". Both are social poison. I believe that both are promoted to divide the workers.
Thank you for your writing.