I’ve worked out a complex dialectical framework with some comrades of mine that we apply in order to carry out the most precise and useful critical support:
You think this framework would be easy to follow but I keep running into people who believe if you say something is bad that means you’re trying to say that the person is bad, where if you say something is good then that means you’re trying to say the person is good.
And, obviously, all moral criticism is then directed at the immutable essence of the human soul which we all know is either good or bad ontologically. And anyone you like is a reflection of your own soul, which is ontologically and inherently good or bad.
That’s not everyone obviously but it’s enough people to be too many and it drives me nuts imo.
Yeah the constant conversation about DPRK or the USSR devolving into people using vague hypotheticals to try and essentially say “did you consider that human nature makes the soul of the country rotten?” is like the permanent, protestant-fatalism-brained argument that drives me up a wall.
Or certain people saying “well states are bad” like, no these are methods of organization and constructs that exist between the actions millions of people, you can’t essentialize those things. It’s like the same vibe as when Americans monolith foreign countries because they’re somehow unable to imagine they have political parties.
This isn’t bad, but you need some way to predict what people will do in the future. Will the stick by what they said they’ll do, or backtrack when it comes time to take action? If something new comes up, or some background issue springs to the foreground, how will they respond?
I remember the good and bad things they did in their past and the pattern of things people in positions similar to theirs throughout history. I call this dialectical goodbadism.
I’ve worked out a complex dialectical framework with some comrades of mine that we apply in order to carry out the most precise and useful critical support:
IF the action taken is good; THEN I support it
IF the action taken is bad; THEN I criticize it
I think the overall problem is that we often highlight the good actions of fascists, and highlight the mistakes of the American soft left
You think this framework would be easy to follow but I keep running into people who believe if you say something is bad that means you’re trying to say that the person is bad, where if you say something is good then that means you’re trying to say the person is good.
And, obviously, all moral criticism is then directed at the immutable essence of the human soul which we all know is either good or bad ontologically. And anyone you like is a reflection of your own soul, which is ontologically and inherently good or bad.
That’s not everyone obviously but it’s enough people to be too many and it drives me nuts imo.
It’s also how people view states!
Yeah the constant conversation about DPRK or the USSR devolving into people using vague hypotheticals to try and essentially say “did you consider that human nature makes the soul of the country rotten?” is like the permanent, protestant-fatalism-brained argument that drives me up a wall.
Or certain people saying “well states are bad” like, no these are methods of organization and constructs that exist between the actions millions of people, you can’t essentialize those things. It’s like the same vibe as when Americans monolith foreign countries because they’re somehow unable to imagine they have political parties.
This isn’t bad, but you need some way to predict what people will do in the future. Will the stick by what they said they’ll do, or backtrack when it comes time to take action? If something new comes up, or some background issue springs to the foreground, how will they respond?
I remember the good and bad things they did in their past and the pattern of things people in positions similar to theirs throughout history. I call this dialectical goodbadism.
We desperately need a 2 hour podcast on dialectical goodbadism