Gwen

Dumbass in a dumb land

  • She/Her

I was born in the late Holocene and I've seen some shit



chirasul
@chirasul

well, see, there are a lot of things to consider. which things are good to buy, which words are good to say, which foods are good to eat, et cetera. how to be a good friend, how to be a good parent, how to be a good partner. things to consider which make the world a bit better. there are a lot of them! too many to think about at once, actually. you can usually only think about a few at at time. sometimes only one at a time.

so we invented society so that even if you weren't considering something, you can be sure that someone else is. and they can help you by considering something that you want to consider, but you forgot to, or you were too busy, or something. so it's very obnoxious when you can't rely on society to think about the things that are important, especially if society thinks about things that are unimportant, or bad. like when society sells you things that do not help you or the world very much. or when the behavior you have been taught does not help you or the people around you. it means you have to choose between what society is considering and what you are considering, instead of knowing that both you and society would consider the same things.

now the problem is that society is everyone, all the people, including you. so its hard to get society to think about the right things. but if you participate with as many people as you can, you can all work together to make society a little better at remembering which things are important to consider. then you will have more energy for having fun with your friends because society is taking care of you instead of making you do everything yourself.


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in reply to @chirasul's post:

this is such a lucid and compassionate way of putting it, and also helps explain why the "joining a group" part of leftist organizing ends up being such a huge goddamn relief in the long run. finding at least a subset of people who don't necessarily share your background, lived experiences, or blind spots, but who share enough of your values that you can trust them to be thinking about the things that matter, is incredibly grounding and can really lift you out of the "i personally need to have a take on every issue, developed in perfect isolation using only my own intellect and frame of reference" hell that capitalism and social media have created.

thank you! i find it very helpful to try and describe what is happening and what needs to happen in plain language, because people tend to get bogged down in labels, they get fixated on the symbols, and sometimes forget about what the symbols are meant to represent. and it makes it harder for them to share important ideas with people who don't understand the labels and symbols, or by people who have an adverse reaction to the labels and symbols but would otherwise be amenable to talking about what's important. brevity can be good but when it comes to the important stuff, i try to articulate it and build the idea from the ground up. because every person has the same basic needs, those needs are a great place to connect to people who may otherwise not be reachable. it's good to understand the issues but it is very important to work with people who are different than you but share enough of your values that you can work together to make society a little better