Every liberal does it too, from center right radlibs to far-right “conservatives”: the most extreme right fringe liberals hate the mainstream liberals for not being bigoted enough, the mainstream libs hate the radlibs for not being cruel enough, and the radlibs hate the left for not being chauvinist enough.
Denouncing chauvinism in particular is like a liberal moral event horizon, a cardinal sin against their self-interested belief in the righteousness of the imperial hegemon that keeps the treats flowing at gunpoint.
Liberals are incapable of understanding politics.
Period.
They’re used to only dealing with some form of Fox (or Fox Business) Conservative. Like, thats the only other form of politics they can fathom outside of some vague adherence to “smart government.” And when it comes to “getting stuff done” they think it’s just a numbers game: just get enough good Libs elected and things will be gooder, or some shit.
Like, forget war - which for some reason Libs can’t wrap their heads around that war is fucking bad. What’s the Lib response to climate change or failing healthcare or inexplicable income gaps? Vote harder? California is a Super Majority D state. Obama had Congress sewn up for 2 years. Conservativism is effectively dead where the majority of people live. So what’s the endgame? When does shit get better?
And that’s where Libs are left with an identity crisis because to admit any one little (but really fucking big) thing is beyond repair is admitting there are systemic problems that cannot be solved with the only tool in the shed: voting. And that’s basically the Lib version of staring into the abyss.
Everything a Lib knows is a fucking lie.
Liberals are incapable of understanding politics.
Moralists don’t really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child’s toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded.
What do you mean? I mean they (liberals) definitely do have beliefs, just incoherent and inadequate ones.
here’s the full quote:
Moralists don’t really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child’s toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn’t change — not even incremental change. It is control. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
For liberals, war is a purely economic calculation whose criteria of justification are decided by whether or not they contravene principles whose evolved historical function is the preservation of capitalist social relations and the imperialist world system (whether the liberal in question is a mystified rube or a demonically englightened ghoul). Similarly, criteria of success or failure in war is based on economic calculation. Look at the U$ yankkkie defences of their proxy war in Ukraine: “no Americans are dying, it will weaken the Russian economy, we must secure our interests”. Of course we also know, as evidenced spectacularly by the U$ terrorist bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, that the key objective is always the preservation of U$ economic hegemony, keeping a competitor economically disadvantaged, taking their economic customers in Europe and forcing them into economic dependence on America LNG.
It’s not always that what they know is a lie. Liberals often do know quite a bit, especially the more ghoulish ones. Most of them, yes, are rubes in a lot of respects. But the most basic normative axioms of their thought are detached from reality in a particularly striking way.
Of course when they fail by their own criteria (see: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, etc…) they are never honest about this and use mental gymnastics to avoid responsibility, because that matters more, because the legitimacy of their views must be defended at all costs. This is inculcated into liberals as a matter of liberal cultural necessity because if it wasn’t, they would not be able to adequately defend those same capitalist and imperialist socio-economic systems they rely upon and in terms of which they determine their own self-worth.
I thought it was because, despite wanting things like universal healthcare and welfare supports, they don’t want to let go of capitalism. I’m not from here, and not all the way to where you are, but that’s my outside view.
That’s fairly inside view actually, I don’t think most people one’d describe as “not all the way where we are” are that aware
I understand what you’re saying, and I guess that’s true and why I’m asking these questions.
despite wanting things like universal healthcare and welfare supports, they don’t want to let go of capitalism
That’s called social democracy. It is fed by imperialism and shits out a labor aristocracy. The capitalist class uses social democracy in the imperial core to appease the workers and postpone revolution. But it requires exporting suffering to the “developing” (colonized) world.
You see this in the so called “nordic” countries. People will admire the nordic countries without questioning how imperialism keeps them afloat.
Thanks for the response. That second map is really helpful to put into perspective how much my country (the US) is screwing me, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around the bottom section.
A few questions if that’s okay:
The capitalist class uses social democracy in the imperial core to appease the workers and postpone revolution.
What is the imperial core?
But it requires exporting suffering to the “developing” (colonized) world.
Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it’s cheaper?
Sorry if these questions sound dumb. I’m a liberal with dreams of socialism in my head, but Hexbear makes me feel like maybe I don’t understand what those dreams actually mean, so I’m trying to get a better understanding.
Just to add a bit of context, there’s a quote about how ‘fascism is imperialism turned inward’.
It helps to think of the imperial core as like a hierarchy of layers. The US ruling class is at the top of this hierarchy, and the ruling classes of other imperialist nations are next. As the contradictions of capitalism continue to pile up, there is a cannibalization that starts at the furthest periphery. This started with colonization/exploitation of the global south. But over time this has become less effective for various reasons (BRICS being the new big one). There’s a lot of mechanisms the core uses to affect it’s desires on the periphery (IMF conditioned loans, sanctions, embargoes, currency manipulations, capital flight, etc). As these mechanisms are dulled, the exploitation in the periphery starts to encroach up the layers of the hierarchy over time.
The 2014 coup in Ukraine was a clear step along this path, but it was not the first one by any means. Balkanization was one of the earlier ones, as was Greece. So this is something that will continue as BRICS and other elements of multipolarity increase around the world and particularly in the global south. Capital wants profits via exploitation, and if the profits in the global south become marginal due to the eroding of capital’s power, then capital finds new places to exploit. Often that means turning inward.
You’ve gotten some good answers so I just want to say thanks for asking these questions and genuinely trying to learn. There’s been a lot of stubborn people who won’t listen to anything they don’t like on here recently but there’s also been plenty of open-minded people like you, and it makes me glad to see that
What is the imperial core?
The countries that are the center of (neo)imperial exploitation of the global south, ie the US and its other economically developed allies. So mostly the US, Canada, UK, EU, Australia, New Zeland, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. YMMV a bit on who counts, some EU nations are very poor and exploited by the more powerful ones. So Its probably better to say “Western Europe” than “EU”. Its a complicated issue, especially since the two Asian countries I listed are both exploited and exploiting at the same time. But they’re both developed and capitalist enough, as well as closely aligned with the west enough, to probably count. (I’m not super well read on this issue and may not be the best person to answer this ,but this is the sense I’ve gotten from talking to other socialists).
Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it’s cheaper?
Yes those are good examples! Not the only things, like another example are the general actions that the IMF takes with developing countries, or the way the banana industry tries to run South America, but you pulled two examples that are very good out of your hat even at the level you’re at so that’s pretty impressive.
ETA: Also thank you for asking these questions with genuine intellectual curiosity.
What is the imperial core?
The “first world”. Countries which historically industrialized first, were able to colonize less “developed” countries, and thus have a more or less stable economic advantage in terms of dictating an unequal trade regime. This is the true reason wages and cost of living are lower in the “developing” world. These countries were basically opened up to international trade at gunpoint, forced to rapidly industrialize, and forced into being a source of cheap labor and resources for the imperial core.
i recommend this video on the broader subject of imperialism
or this one to a lesser extent
Does this mean things like mining lithium, or exporting labor to other countries because it’s cheaper?
yes
Sorry if these questions sound dumb.
there are no dumb questions
ok we show up
my frustration with vegans is that i’ve seen them derail other activism for their pet cause. like, sure, ecology matters. don’t try to shoehorn it into my fucking solidarity work. don’t hold up discussions about labor organizing to focus on whether we should be support workers in leather boots.
I disagree. People dislike vegans because vegans (understandably) often get angry over an atrocity that other people don’t see as an atrocity and insist on being abusive to people who disagree on subjective matters.
Libs don’t dislike us for getting angry, they dislike us for a range of reasons, including disagreement on objective facts, contradicting material interests, subjugation to capitalist propaganda, etc. We shitpost and get mean, but I don’t see us being abusive to people unless good faith discussion has already been long tried and failed.
I won’t at all deny that society has historically been a lot more hostile to vegans than vice versa. I grew up a vegetarian me whole life and that got enough of that unwarranted abuse as it is. But I’ll be honest, in my personal experience, I’ve met about a hundred vegans who weren’t bothered to talk about it (but were frequently harassed by others for their veganism anyway), five vegans scream abuse at me, and between zero and one who wanted to engage in a conversation or saw me as someone to be convinced. I just think it’s a different kettle of fish.
yeah… I was a liberal once, and it was definitely informed in large part by wanting to be “good” and correct. I became kind of a debatelord for a minute there. But, what I didn’t do, was shit my pants and demand the mods ban them when it became clear I was on the wrong side of something, I lived and learned and moved on (generally leftward). You gotta be able to take the L sometimes.
Or even an embarassed angry loss, as long as you have the self restraint to shut up about it when you’re too upset to engage critically and not just react. I’ve had plenty of those, some on this very website. Once I caught a ban from a comm, and you know what? I was pissed about it, but I just made a new account and moved on. And looking back I think they were mostly right. The key is to not shut your brain off at the first sign of conflict.
