Juice
Imma take issue with this.
You’ve rephrased, and essentially reformulated Paolo Friere’s famous and enlightening quote, “Equality feels like oppression to the oppressor.” Does having privilege make one an oppressor? In some cases, it most certainly does but I would disagree that coming from privilege makes one an oppressor: history is full of examples of people from the oppressive ruling classes risking or sacrificing everything to fight against oppression and restore equality. I am privileged but equality would not feel like oppression to me; or if it did I would have to self criticize harshly since I spend so much of my time and energy fighting against oppression and for equality. And this is what your rephrasing has done, it has eliminated the class aspect from Friere’s formulation; furthermore it isn’t connected to anything. So when you say this in isolation you create a privileged other. Friere on the other hand was fully aware of the dialectic between the oppressed and their oppressors, and scientifically worked out his thesis: through dehumanization of the oppressed, the oppressors lost their own humanity. While oppression had to be fought, first the oppressed had to restore their own humanity by restoring their own subjectivity. Once they had liberated their minds, and in fact through this process they would become organized in such a way to organize their bodies as well. This is the perceived nadir of the oppressors, the equality that feels like oppression. However, in its final stage this equality restores the humanity of the oppressor, in fact it is the ontological mission of the oppressed to restore the humanity of the oppressors. this final synthesis of the dialectic is not inevitable however, and the whole enterprise is based on education. “When education is not liberating,” he said, “it is the dream of the oppressed to become the oppressor.”
I don’t know what that deleted comment was, probably some hateful bs, but was your comment intended to educate, and set others on the path of education?
I see, so the “other guy” is perfectly mentally acute and sharp, has a functioning memory and strategic mind able to keep track of many shifting variables that are related to planetary existential crisis, environmental collapse, active genocide, the proliferation of global and national fascism and eradication of basic rights in favor of corporate profits, and any number of other urgent and dire circumstances; but he just has a little bit of a stutter.
Fuck Trump, don’t vote for him, vote for the Democrat even if it is just to democratically choose which enemy you would rather fight. But come on this is so disingenuous and unserious. None has ever decided to vote because someone was smug to them on the internet. If anything it has the opposite effect; but keep on pushing that rock, Sisyphus, it’ll stay up there some day
The point of the meme isn’t about whether you personally would want to sleep with someone who is trans, and whether that makes you a good person or not, its about how the first, second, and last thing a lot of people think about wrt trans people is whether they are fuckable or not. Its not good to objectify people, if you do it is transphobic/sexist/racist/whatever dehumanizing. But if you see trans people as people, and respect their gender, their right to express themselves openly even if you aren’t sexually attracted to them, then this meme will never be a problem for you. And if you feel personally attacked by this meme, try and figure out why, because it’s probably not about you. Don’t be a creep isn’t that complicated, folks
Noone believes that people have full freedom with no context, no extenuating circumstances. What makes arguments like this seem convincing is how uncommon it is for people to think dialectically.
Here’s a very good essay that steps through all of the different parts of the problem, and looks at different views historically. https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1898/xx/individual.html
To the hard deterministic explanation that “something always came before,” it asks “what is the role of the individual in history?”
This excerpt isn’t a substitute for reading the whole essay but it makes a point pretty concisely:
But let us return to our subject. A great man is great not because his personal qualities give individual features to great historical events, but because he possesses qualities which make him most capable of serving the great social needs of his time, needs which arose as a result of general and particular causes. Carlyle, in his well-known book on heroes and hero-worship, calls great men beginners. This is a very apt description. A great man is precisely a beginner because he sees further than others, and desires things more strongly than others. He solves the scientific problems brought up by the preceding process of intellectual development of society; he points to the new social needs created by the preceding development of social relationships; he takes the initiative in satisfying these needs. He is a hero. But he is not a hero in the sense that he can stop, or change, the natural course of things, but in the sense that his activities are the conscious and free expression of this inevitable and unconscious course. Herein lies all his significance; herein lies his whole power. But this significance is colossal, and the power is terrible.
Healthcare please
