William Lindsey :toad:
“There are two paths people can take when faced with the proliferation and polarization and hatred in their societies. They can dig their trenches deeper, or they can reach across the lines to stop a new cycle of destruction, knowing that solidarity, love, and dialogue are what the strongman most fears."
~ Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (NY: Norton, 2020)
William Lindsey :toad:
This does not surprise me, since I see it happening, too, right here on my Mastodon feed, have seen this pattern in the past as important elections near. The trolls come out from under rocks and go on the attack, and they frequently represent themselves as fellow progressives-liberals who are, they need to let me know, more enlightened and better than I am. And who have a right to treat me with disdain, as the enemy — to treat me with contempt.
William Lindsey :toad:
I belong to two statewide groups promoting the campaign of Harris-Walz. One is in a state I don't live in, and is a group for Harris-Walz women in that state. I was invited to it by a kind friend as an honorary member.
Solidarity. Reaching across dividing lines. Making the circle bigger.
In both groups, I'm now seeing people complain about how some members suddenly seem intent on attacking each other — on displaying hostility.
William Lindsey :toad:
"Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people. Such increased sensitivity makes it more difficult to marginalize people different from ourselves by thinking, 'They do not feel it as we would,' or 'There must always be suffering, so why not let them suffer?'"
~ Ibid.
William Lindsey :toad:
Here's something I've noticed in the build-up to several important elections in recent years:
On social media, hostility, destruction of solidarity, frequently picks up precisely at this time, often with people who claim they're promoting progressive or liberal ideals tearing away at others who are also clearly promoting progressive or liberal ideals.
What's this trolling about, I wonder? Trolling is obviously what it is.
William Lindsey :toad:
"In my utopia, human solidarity would be seen not as a fact to be recognized by clearing away 'prejudice' or burrowing down to previously hidden depths, but, rather, as a goal to be achieved. It is to be achieved not by inquiry but by imagination, the imaginative ability to see strange people as fellow sufferers."
~ Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989)
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