I disagree about the focus on individual choices, these are institutional and systemic forces at play.
But I agree the term is imprecise. And westerners don’t have a good enough track record avoiding reactionary deviations to be trusted with imprecise language.
I disagree about the focus on individual choices, these are institutional and systemic forces at play.
True. And individuals are making selfish choices rhat sustain these systems and institutions.
But I agree the term is imprecise. And westerners don’t have a good enough track record avoiding reactionary deviations to be trusted with imprecise language.
My goals include minimizing suffering. We are each in different positions, we each have different choices available to us. It is worthwhile, maybe even necessary, for us to strive to make the best choices we can, choices that will benefit everyone the most. I admit it is not easy, which is why cooperation is so important. Religion divides us based on what we want to be true instead of what is measurably most likely true.
We are limited by our physical forms, brains included. But I have seen enough to stake my life on the idea that we can do better than we are doing, and we should; the sooner we respect reality, the more lives we can save.
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
There’s a dialectical relationship between the individual and the system, but the system is the dominant variable. Zionism exists as it does because critical masses of people in key positions make individual decisions that support it, and they make those individual decisions because of a complex network of systemic influences on them, from the material (they financially benefit from stolen land/resources) to ideological (their worldview justifies and selects for variables that reaffirm Zionism) to social (their peer groups and trusted others are Zionist), et cetera.
Out of all of those influences and any I didn’t list, material interests tend to dominate, with the other influences usually being subordinate to them. People have a strong (but not inevitable or deterministic) tendency to justify or orient their worldview around how their bread is buttered.
Ideologies like Zionism are superstructural, meaning they’re downstream of and oriented around the systemic engine that they subsist on. At the core of Zionism isn’t Jewishness, it’s settler-colonialism, which would function and has functioned very similarly regardless of the set-dressing/religion it coats itself with.
You can try to, one-by-one, ask people to act against their own interests and hope the idea spreads and they all individually decide to change. But mass movements need to be primed by changing material circumstances in order for the ideas to resonate with a critical mass of people.
To clarify, I don’t want to sound like a determinist, where there’s nothing we can do but sit back and watch systems play themselves out. Just that historically, the most effective movements have built on mass organization and consciousness, rather than scattered individuals spontaneously changing their minds. Coordinated systems of people have disproportionate power, like a hammer is more effective than the innumerable molecules that comprise it.
Working to help organize oppressed groups is usually more progressive because they’re primed by their material conditions to be progressive, unlike the oppressors or those that benefit from the oppression.
To clarify, I don’t want to sound like a determinist, where there’s nothing we can do but sit back and watch systems play themselves out.
I am a determinist, and also I think it is morally reprehensible to do nothing while innocent people are being murdered. Our choices are not some magical product of free will, they are biological inevitabilities. But we evolved our feelings for good reason.
Just that historically, the most effective movements have built on mass organization and consciousness, rather than scattered individuals spontaneously changing their minds.
We live in the information age. We can talk to each other faster than ever. It’s why the fascists keep poisoning social media, they fear it.
I think we need to get ahead of the curve. They are ahead of us in some ways. We need to subvert their plans and their backup plans. We need to move faster than they think is possible, faster than they can keep up with.
Easier said than done, admittedly. But maybe we can use the speed of information to our advantage.
Also, in context… Is “Jewishness” an institution, a system? I think it’s a descriptive category humans came up with for humans. Race is kind of arbitrary.
I disagree about the focus on individual choices, these are institutional and systemic forces at play.
But I agree the term is imprecise. And westerners don’t have a good enough track record avoiding reactionary deviations to be trusted with imprecise language.
True. And individuals are making selfish choices rhat sustain these systems and institutions.
My goals include minimizing suffering. We are each in different positions, we each have different choices available to us. It is worthwhile, maybe even necessary, for us to strive to make the best choices we can, choices that will benefit everyone the most. I admit it is not easy, which is why cooperation is so important. Religion divides us based on what we want to be true instead of what is measurably most likely true.
We are limited by our physical forms, brains included. But I have seen enough to stake my life on the idea that we can do better than we are doing, and we should; the sooner we respect reality, the more lives we can save.
There’s a dialectical relationship between the individual and the system, but the system is the dominant variable. Zionism exists as it does because critical masses of people in key positions make individual decisions that support it, and they make those individual decisions because of a complex network of systemic influences on them, from the material (they financially benefit from stolen land/resources) to ideological (their worldview justifies and selects for variables that reaffirm Zionism) to social (their peer groups and trusted others are Zionist), et cetera.
Out of all of those influences and any I didn’t list, material interests tend to dominate, with the other influences usually being subordinate to them. People have a strong (but not inevitable or deterministic) tendency to justify or orient their worldview around how their bread is buttered.
Ideologies like Zionism are superstructural, meaning they’re downstream of and oriented around the systemic engine that they subsist on. At the core of Zionism isn’t Jewishness, it’s settler-colonialism, which would function and has functioned very similarly regardless of the set-dressing/religion it coats itself with.
You can try to, one-by-one, ask people to act against their own interests and hope the idea spreads and they all individually decide to change. But mass movements need to be primed by changing material circumstances in order for the ideas to resonate with a critical mass of people.
Wow! Very well put.
I still think it makes a difference, like adding a little more kindling so a campfire is easier to light.
We all need to think more about our choices and their consequences. We must break the cycle of abuse. It’s not easy. I wish I knew how.
Thank you for your responses. 🙂
To clarify, I don’t want to sound like a determinist, where there’s nothing we can do but sit back and watch systems play themselves out. Just that historically, the most effective movements have built on mass organization and consciousness, rather than scattered individuals spontaneously changing their minds. Coordinated systems of people have disproportionate power, like a hammer is more effective than the innumerable molecules that comprise it.
Working to help organize oppressed groups is usually more progressive because they’re primed by their material conditions to be progressive, unlike the oppressors or those that benefit from the oppression.
Thanks for the discussion!
I am a determinist, and also I think it is morally reprehensible to do nothing while innocent people are being murdered. Our choices are not some magical product of free will, they are biological inevitabilities. But we evolved our feelings for good reason.
We live in the information age. We can talk to each other faster than ever. It’s why the fascists keep poisoning social media, they fear it.
I think we need to get ahead of the curve. They are ahead of us in some ways. We need to subvert their plans and their backup plans. We need to move faster than they think is possible, faster than they can keep up with.
Easier said than done, admittedly. But maybe we can use the speed of information to our advantage.
Also, in context… Is “Jewishness” an institution, a system? I think it’s a descriptive category humans came up with for humans. Race is kind of arbitrary.