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NeoliberalismKills wrote

There's certain things that one cannot simply agree to disagree about. Marxists and anarchists for instance. Either they're right and the revolution will never be possible by anarchist means or anarchists are right (of which I am one) and their efforts will ways devolve into authoritarianism. This is a gulf that cannot be bridged because failure is inevitable for one side or the other. Can a civil debate be had about why we believe what we believe? Sure. But somebody is right and it has significant implications for the future of a just society.

I am not as active on here as I would like to be so perhaps I am missing a particular situation.

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Zzzxxxyyy wrote

It’s also possible that neither are right. Ideologies are no better than the people who hold them. People who love authority will use communist or anarchist ideals to establish authority and will make rationalizations within their ideological framework to justify oppression. People who love freedom, equality and democracy can make a free society within a liberal capitalist framework. You’ll say it’s impossible, but if you look you’ll see examples.

All systems, no matter how sound the ideology, tend to authoritarianism as one generation is forced to cede power(and resists) to the next. The succeeding generations can be children, immigrants, economic classes, trades or industries.

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ehsbsh OP wrote

Its more of the labeling of anyone who has right wing beliefs as inherently bad that I am talking about. The infighting debate still seems civil, but whenever a right wing post comes along it's either banned or the poster is labled a fashist.

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

Probably because right wing beliefs revolve around the continued victimisation of vulnerable populations and a pathetic but virulent strain of self-pity. Why should I have any respect for the man who thinks capitalism is moral, borders aren't a prison, and some folk are worth more than others by dint of their birth rather than their deeds? And why should I feel bad when he cries that I'm being 'unfair' to him because I don't sugarcoat those realities? Aren't we supposed to be the fragile ones?

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ehsbsh OP wrote

oh im not disagreeing the right is fragile too (just look at how much is baned from r/the_donald), but all the things you described are just different views of how to run a society. Boarders may be jail to you sure, but to someone else they may mean something else.

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

Those views kill people. Take borders. They break apart families, hold people in poverty, and trying to escape them will get you gunned down. That's not a 'difference in opinion', that's someone abetting and supporting the oppression of another. And I have zero obligation to be kind to a person who would do such a thing.

According to a lot of people, what I am is a 'lifestyle' they don't agree with. And they express that disagreement with the wholesale rape and slaughter of my folk, something I have to live every day in anticipation of to defend myself or my family from. Their 'different way of living' revolves around destroying the lives of people like me so they can be comfortable in theirs. Am I being unjust in protecting myself and my way of life, given that it in no way infringes upon theirs, yet they've declared a culture war on us?

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NeoliberalismKills wrote

As I said above, and as GaldraChevaliere has also said, some visions are utterly incompatible. Right winger's vision of society is authoritarian and brutalizes the "Other." If you stand for solidarity and freedom then you oppose the right wing agenda. There is no agreeing to disagree. There's only agreeing to stand aside as they brutalize others. Always the powerless, of course, as they worship power.

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ehsbsh OP wrote

So if thats your view my point is why not just agree to disagree? No one is going to change their mind if both sides are so hard lined, so their is no point in hateing eachother over it right?

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GaldraChevaliere wrote

Their point of view literally is hating us, and acting on that hate with economic and physical violence. Their minds won't change, so if there's any sort of natural law, it'd be to defend ourselves.

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ehsbsh OP wrote

To some extreme ones sure, but im a lib-centrist and thats not my goals. That overgenralized

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GaldraChevaliere wrote (edited )

If you identify with centrism, you're essentially admitting to moral cowardice. By upholding the status quo and insisting on 'peaceful debate' between sides with a distinct power imbalance socially and politically, where the politically more powerful side has a vested interest in killing the weaker, you're still ultimately enabling that more powerful side regardless of your social policies, which ultimately serve only to keep you comfortable with yourself rather than pursuing any sort of genuine liberation.

The Left has hardly any more sympathy for the Center than it does for the Right, because the Center will always aid whoever has more power and even if that were us, many of us would still be appalled at how utterly cowardly and submissive that behavior is. I'd go further into depth, but I'm late as fuck for something, so I'll respond to your next post later.

E: Back. Consider the scenario of an old woman falling down and being unable to stand without her cane, which has skittered away into the street. She cannot save herself and she's calling for help, but most people are walking away. Of those people ignoring her, there will be essentially two rationales among them.

One subgroup, the 'extreme' one, will ignore her because they believe that to help her in her weakness would be to enable her weakness, and that if she deserved to walk, she would try to stand up herself. The other group, the 'moderate' one, simply don't want to get involved. They're too busy or they don't want to confront what they're seeing, so they just keep walking and hope that she'll eventually be helped or will find a way to help herself. The moderate group might even be afraid of the extreme group punishing or ridiculing them for stopping for the old woman, so they keep going out of fear.

To the old woman, there is no difference between these two groups, however much they may see a difference between themselves. To her, there is no 'extremist' or 'moderate', there are only callous young people who care nothing for her plight, and so ignore her and leave her in indignity. She might do everything in her power to get up, clutching at street lamps or crawling into the road to get her cane back, but each attempt is a dangerous and sapping endeavor that drains more of her strength for a minimal chance of escape from her predicament. There's even a risk that the extreme group will kick her cane away or step on her hands or push her back down again. So, as much as she is trying, she simply cannot stand up on her own without help.

The moderate, while convinced of his moral superiority to the extremist, still does the extremists' work by refusing to help the old woman, and thus rationalizes it to himself to be spared of the guilt and culpability for his inaction. Slowly but surely, he adopts the extremist's mindset that if the old woman truly deserved help, she would adequately perform to the moderate's expectations, and because she didn't (and couldn't), there must be nothing wrong after all.

Using this metaphor, you can see how this dynamic would apply to class and race relations. The overclass, believing the underclass deserves its suffering, will actively thwart attempts for the underclass to save itself, and the moderate in fear of the overclass will assist in this process, adopting the overclass's beliefs while trying to maintain a sense of morality in the scenario, which ultimately boils down to one of two beliefs. Either the overclass is too strong, or the overclass is righteous. Neither is a helpful mindset to the underclass, and so the underclass resents the moderate as much or even more than their oppressor, while the moderate cannot understand why.

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ziq wrote

It's probably healthy to hate the people whose boots are pressing on your skull.

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PerfectSociety wrote

but all the things you described are just different views of how to run a society

You could say that about basically every disagreement in politics. "Different view of how to run a society" isn't something to be minimized or trivialized. For a supporter of slavery and genocide, it's true that those are "just different views of how to run a society". That doesn't mean it's worth respecting that person or those views.

Boarders may be jail to you sure, but to someone else they may mean something else.

Again, you could say that about basically every disagreement in politics. For a supporter of slavery and genocide, those things mean something different to them than to me. That doesn't mean it's worth respecting that person or those views.

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ehsbsh OP wrote

allright, but it seems unfair to compare somthing like slavery to boarders.

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PerfectSociety wrote

Slavery is more deplorable, but Borders are also deplorable. The point is that "different views of how to run a society" aren't something to be scoffed at, nor considered trivial in deciding whether or not an individual is deserving of my respect.

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