I have no more faith in this Democracy (and I mean globally). To the point where I literally cannot bring myself to participate in the silent acceptance which is voting.
Edit: to prevent this from sounding like my Edgelord Master’s thesis, as I see it, Democracy is now one two things:
a lie we’ve been fed from the very start
a noble idea which has been twisted and corrupted beyond any recognition
In either of those cases, it feels like I’m being forced to pull the lever and decide who gets killed by the tram. So I choose to never again touch the lever as long as the death of something is the only outcome.
The whole thing with the “trolley problem” is that blood is on your hands regardless. Not touching the lever doesn’t stop the trolley and can lead to more death.
In the recent voting case not pulling the lever put lgbtq, disabled, immunocompromised, minorities, Ukraine, remnants of democracy and a habitable planet on the tracks. The other track had Palestinians and could have been shifted away with enough protest.
Oh, no, had I the chance to vote in the USA (not American), I would’ve voted for anyone who wasn’t a Trump adherent, just to prevent The Orange Man from participating in the unfolding of history any more than he already has. Don’t get me wrong, I’m frustrated and disillusioned, not stupid.
But in other places, such as my country, we’re well past the point of that choice even being on the table.
As much as I can. Truthfully, there’s not much of that going on around these parts, but yes, I try as much as I can to find ways to act against the choices with which we are presented nowadays.
To be clear, I am not against Democracy as a fairer-than-most political system, my meaning was related to the Democracy-that-is. Just like I appreciate Socialism, but not Stalin’s brand of such.
I think it’s still good to go vote to keep the worst from happening and to improve the circumstances for emancipatory struggle.
But I also think voting is one of the lesser important levers, compared to activism, organizing, unions and so on.
Both, giving up using levers and cosplaying trying by just voting for a shitty neoliberal mess and watch them making people frustrated enough to vote for trumpf and not doing anything else are irresponsible at the end of the day
Normally, I’d agree with you in regards to voting, but this endless cycle of always choosing the lesser evil while the obvious and truly necessary solutions are either underrepresented or not even represented at all (depending on country) is an exercise in futility and only ever serves to obfuscate the goalposts, like digging our own hole. Feels like the illusion of choice nowadays. Maybe this would’ve been effective given a lot of time, but with the accelerating degradation of socio-economics and the planet itself, I strongly believe we’re just wasting time dancing around the problem.
I always at least cancel my vote when there’s nothing to choose from so they can’t use my name for voter fraud (we’ve had thousands of dead people showing up in voting registries and skewing the numbers, this is how bad things are around here), but that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing in the past decade, with a few notable exceptions which didn’t affect things in the long run. What we now have on offer are: a combo of lukewarm buzzwords pertaining to climate protection (while changing as little as possible) with regressive social policies on the “Left”, a not-quite-Fascist, or a straight-up Fascist. Yes, here as well! Yay!
I agree with you that civic action is the most important element nowadays, can’t wait for the day when more people’ll pick up on that.
So, yeah. I don’t normally like to do this, but Plato may have been right, unfortunately. At least as far as the contemporary context is concerned.
I feel everything you say. We need radical critique, grab things by their roots, stop dancing around.
But thinking, and I guess platon (as a pro philosopher) didn’t cover that, is mostly dialectical with doing, with everyday social practice. IRL they don’t seperate as the cognitivist and voluntaristic understanding of enligthment implies.
I have no more faith in this Democracy (and I mean globally). To the point where I literally cannot bring myself to participate in the silent acceptance which is voting.
Edit: to prevent this from sounding like my Edgelord Master’s thesis, as I see it, Democracy is now one two things:
In either of those cases, it feels like I’m being forced to pull the lever and decide who gets killed by the tram. So I choose to never again touch the lever as long as the death of something is the only outcome.
The whole thing with the “trolley problem” is that blood is on your hands regardless. Not touching the lever doesn’t stop the trolley and can lead to more death.
In the recent voting case not pulling the lever put lgbtq, disabled, immunocompromised, minorities, Ukraine, remnants of democracy and a habitable planet on the tracks. The other track had Palestinians and could have been shifted away with enough protest.
The Palestinians were on both tracks.
Oh, no, had I the chance to vote in the USA (not American), I would’ve voted for anyone who wasn’t a Trump adherent, just to prevent The Orange Man from participating in the unfolding of history any more than he already has. Don’t get me wrong, I’m frustrated and disillusioned, not stupid.
But in other places, such as my country, we’re well past the point of that choice even being on the table.
so then what else are you doing? are you out protesting, boycotting, participating in mutual aid?
As much as I can. Truthfully, there’s not much of that going on around these parts, but yes, I try as much as I can to find ways to act against the choices with which we are presented nowadays.
To be clear, I am not against Democracy as a fairer-than-most political system, my meaning was related to the Democracy-that-is. Just like I appreciate Socialism, but not Stalin’s brand of such.
I think it’s still good to go vote to keep the worst from happening and to improve the circumstances for emancipatory struggle.
But I also think voting is one of the lesser important levers, compared to activism, organizing, unions and so on.
Both, giving up using levers and cosplaying trying by just voting for a shitty neoliberal mess and watch them making people frustrated enough to vote for trumpf and not doing anything else are irresponsible at the end of the day
Normally, I’d agree with you in regards to voting, but this endless cycle of always choosing the lesser evil while the obvious and truly necessary solutions are either underrepresented or not even represented at all (depending on country) is an exercise in futility and only ever serves to obfuscate the goalposts, like digging our own hole. Feels like the illusion of choice nowadays. Maybe this would’ve been effective given a lot of time, but with the accelerating degradation of socio-economics and the planet itself, I strongly believe we’re just wasting time dancing around the problem.
I always at least cancel my vote when there’s nothing to choose from so they can’t use my name for voter fraud (we’ve had thousands of dead people showing up in voting registries and skewing the numbers, this is how bad things are around here), but that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing in the past decade, with a few notable exceptions which didn’t affect things in the long run. What we now have on offer are: a combo of lukewarm buzzwords pertaining to climate protection (while changing as little as possible) with regressive social policies on the “Left”, a not-quite-Fascist, or a straight-up Fascist. Yes, here as well! Yay!
I agree with you that civic action is the most important element nowadays, can’t wait for the day when more people’ll pick up on that.
So, yeah. I don’t normally like to do this, but Plato may have been right, unfortunately. At least as far as the contemporary context is concerned.
I feel everything you say. We need radical critique, grab things by their roots, stop dancing around.
But thinking, and I guess platon (as a pro philosopher) didn’t cover that, is mostly dialectical with doing, with everyday social practice. IRL they don’t seperate as the cognitivist and voluntaristic understanding of enligthment implies.