Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Carrie Shanafelt (carrideen@c18.masto.host)'s status on Friday, 31-May-2024 03:27:05 JST Carrie Shanafelt

   I know Althusser (*caveat*), but his insight that there is nothing outside of ideology (which for him is actions that support power, not beliefs) is undervalued. I'm so tired of obviously fascist patriarchal oppressors telling us they're "critical thinkers not ideologues" when they obviously do everything to uphold power as it is. You can't step outside of ideology without stepping into another ideological system. Better to know what system you are promoting rather than "unwittingly" back evil.

   • Embed this notice
     Carrie Shanafelt (carrideen@c18.masto.host)'s status on Friday, 31-May-2024 03:27:02 JST Carrie Shanafelt

     in reply to

     This is why the social justice movements of Occupy and BLM have been so powerful--they are guided by specific questions and policy changes that are about improving the lives of workers and minoritized people. So of *course* they are the movements that have been demonized as not having goals or an endgame--because their endgame would necessitate the end of the unchallenged, unmitigated right of the investor class to exploit suffering infinitely. "Hey, that's my moral chaos you're dismantling!"

   • Embed this notice
     Carrie Shanafelt (carrideen@c18.masto.host)'s status on Friday, 31-May-2024 03:27:03 JST Carrie Shanafelt

     in reply to

     Americans are obsessed with the romance of revolution, of violently saying no to power, but because they are rarely clear about what they support instead of *this*, it devolves into chaos and rule of the cruelest every time. When you step outside the law to demand justice, you have to know what other than the law gives you meaning and guides your vision of the future. Not every resistor should be forced to invent their own dream of the universe; they fight for something not just against *this*.

     Bill repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Carrie Shanafelt (carrideen@c18.masto.host)'s status on Friday, 31-May-2024 03:27:04 JST Carrie Shanafelt

     in reply to

     One of the reasons I'm grateful for my Baptist upbringing is that it offered me an alternative ideology to step into when I was told to support police or military or capitalism or racism. I know that many Baptists have lost our roots in resistance, because they cannot or will not understand what The Pilgrim's Progress is modeling. The entire thing is about rejecting oppressive ideologies because you have a *different* motivation for everything you do than capitalists and oppressors.