thoughts not yet fully formed but I have feelings about the Vaguely Socialist Resentful Doomerism that feels like the dominant politics in my microcorner of the Internet
the basic tenets of VSRD are:
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the ideal form of government is something like socialism (vague leanings toward anarcho-ish or ML-ish both fall under the VSRD umbrella, as long as they remain vague).
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due to the deeply entrenched, self-perpetuating power of capitalism and colonialism, plus a poor long-term outlook for humanity, we will never achieve this ideal form of government or anything close.
and, like, I'm not sure I fully disagree but it's a very depressing worldview that leaves few action items besides "comfort each other as we spiral down," and it's taken over a lot of online spaces I exist in to the point where people will outright correct someone who expresses any kind of hope about the future.
not ending this on a strong call to action, I'm definitely not trying to steer this towards "actually the Democratic Party has it all worked out and only needs you to Believe," but I think tying leftism so closely to cynicism is a mistake that needs to be untangled.
Building hope is one of the most challenging things to do but is absolutely necessary in order to motivate yourself to actually participate in any kind of successful organizing. Even if we are in the sunset of humanity we can still slow and ease that sunset so that there is less pain and suffering and a greater chance of rebounding in a healthy sustainable way with a way towards ecological healing.
Hope is not the same thing as uncritical faith in government institutions, non-profit establishments, or niche cults. A dash of skepticism is important. But doomerism paired with the correct critiques of society is not a recipe for a better world. The uninformed masses aren't taking any less political action but at least they aren't as depressed about the world they aren't trying to change.
I'm able to devote energy to union organizing because I truly hope we can win our contract demands and in doing so improve life for thousands of people immediately and even more people long term. I have hope because in Philly labor worked in solidarity with activist groups to out-organize fascists so hard we completely disarmed the threat. And if we had not had the hope to organize, we would have been overrun.
Sometimes at work our air conditioning will break and the jaded older staff will tell me not to even bother calling for a tech because the powers that be don't care about us and won't send a tech. But I insist on trying anyway and y'know what, we got the AC fixed. It's not about if the powers that be care about us. It's about if we have the chutzpah to force them to give us what we need anyway. Hope is confidence and strength. You have to be willing to try.
I'd also like to add to this that 'navel-gazing despair' is... kind of a luxury. Anguish at the state of things is a product being sold, by the kinds of big finance that continue to perpetuate that narrative. The daily global news cycle is an ACTIVE commodification OF privileged despair, of lamenting 'how much we have to lose' while ignoring that many just straight-up don't HAVE anything to start with. And this is a failure of empathy in a lot of ways. A lot of the most absolutely pernicious doomerism is from, bluntly, the exact same kind of middlebrow White Tech Dudes who dominate so much of the conversation in so many online spaces because they have the reach and clout to do so. Doom is the narrative being propagated, because doom sells to people who stand to lose out if the status quo changes.
I want to remind folks; not 20 years ago, you couldn't TALK about being queer in public in most places. Gay marriage wasn't even legal in the MOST progressive states, much less an active battleground issue everywhere in the USA. Big oil conglomerates were even more intractably entrenched. The realpolitik of constant foreign war was even more endemic. Having been born and raised in the South, the current rhetoric hasn't even really changed, they're just utterly mask-off about it now. That we are capable now of openly seeing the seams of these institutions does not mean shit is 'worse,' it means we can see the precise shape of the problem more clearly. Succumbing to despair is to succumb to the urge towards inaction.
I am begging people; accept that you deserve better than to be dragged under by the clawing grip of sorrow at the state of things. So much of this anguish is tied up in narratives of shame, and sin, and what we 'deserve' as a species. Let go of that. Put an end to self-terminating self-flagellation. Just because the world is in a rough state doesn't mean you can't make your corner of it better.
