In fact, democracy’s present crisis is firmly anchored in a social matrix. It represents one strand of a broader, more far-reaching crisis, which also encompasses other strands—ecological, economic, and social. Inextricably entwined with these others, it cannot be understood in isolation from them. Neither freestanding nor merely sectoral, today’s democratic ills form the specifically political strand of a general crisis that is engulfing our social order in its entirety. Their underlying bases lie in the sinews of that social order—in the latter’s institutional structures and constitutive dynamics. Bound up with processes that transcend the political, democratic crisis can only be grasped by a critical perspective on the social totality.
My main gripe with essays like this is the lack of sound ideas on how to realistically move forward. “If everyone would…” just isn’t good enough, and won’t be without a cataclysmic upheaval or extraordinary luck.
The spread of ideas like these is very easy to manage. You provide an easier to understand scapegoat and lean on people’s laziness and mild preferences. Jewish people, for instance, have been extremely convenient for this, much to their detriment.
You can’t educate people that hate education and complex thinking, either. How could we resolve this?
That essay’s purpose was to lay out the problem; it’s pretty dated now and wasn’t as common in public discourse as it is now, but it still holds up for articulating the situation itself. I give people this one for what to do: https://effectiveactivist.com/intro/. People are building the world they want to see in the ways they can, consciously and unconsciously, premeditatedly and opportunistically. It is never the act of one person; it is a trend of actions. Act local, think global. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_globally%2C_act_locally It’s about radical acceptance of what you can and can’t do, and consciously doing it does you and the world around you a lot of good.
Lot of interesting stuff in there, thank you. I’ll have to dig through it at some depth later.
I will say one thing though. We may not have that much time. Progressive activism is fantastic, when you have a democracy. I think in order to preserve our democracy in the coming decade or two, however, we’re going to need a very political approach, the exact kind decried in the Harvard essay.
Just to avoid the risk of descent into large scale violence. Because I personally just don’t see the trends towards extremism stopping soon. Not that a counterfactual like this is good for much. We’re in unprecedented conditions, though.
Oh yes, history does repeat (see above). There is a boom and bust cycle here; regardless, you can only do what you can do, and if that is how you know you need to do it, go that way. Mine is teaching; I am too passive and weird for politics. I’ve got too many health problems for being a boots-on-the ground person. I am a small group 1:1 person, book nerd. So, I could not compete in those places, but maybe I can motivate others to do that or get them to make good voting choices, or otherwise. That’s what that guide is all about—finding your niche where you could do the most good, then seizing it.
History doesn’t repeat, but often rhymes. Twain’s quote better includes the effects of new technologies popping up all the time since the Renaissance, and sending things in odd, slanting directions sometimes.
Cheers though, I definitely agree we will need all sorts of people and methods. Just because in order to reach certain people, you have to be a certain sort sometimes. With enough perspectives and talents coming from the more cross-disciplinary approaches becoming more common, maybe we get outta this. Worth a shot anyway.
I mean, we did just find a new way to evaporate water. No small feat, people watched that process right in front of their faces for thousands of years. Just lacked the tools to see it.
And social conditions too, but yeah, ultimately.
That Harvard link covers that quite a bit!
My main gripe with essays like this is the lack of sound ideas on how to realistically move forward. “If everyone would…” just isn’t good enough, and won’t be without a cataclysmic upheaval or extraordinary luck.
The spread of ideas like these is very easy to manage. You provide an easier to understand scapegoat and lean on people’s laziness and mild preferences. Jewish people, for instance, have been extremely convenient for this, much to their detriment.
You can’t educate people that hate education and complex thinking, either. How could we resolve this?
That essay’s purpose was to lay out the problem; it’s pretty dated now and wasn’t as common in public discourse as it is now, but it still holds up for articulating the situation itself. I give people this one for what to do: https://effectiveactivist.com/intro/. People are building the world they want to see in the ways they can, consciously and unconsciously, premeditatedly and opportunistically. It is never the act of one person; it is a trend of actions. Act local, think global. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_globally%2C_act_locally It’s about radical acceptance of what you can and can’t do, and consciously doing it does you and the world around you a lot of good.
Lot of interesting stuff in there, thank you. I’ll have to dig through it at some depth later.
I will say one thing though. We may not have that much time. Progressive activism is fantastic, when you have a democracy. I think in order to preserve our democracy in the coming decade or two, however, we’re going to need a very political approach, the exact kind decried in the Harvard essay.
Just to avoid the risk of descent into large scale violence. Because I personally just don’t see the trends towards extremism stopping soon. Not that a counterfactual like this is good for much. We’re in unprecedented conditions, though.
Oh yes, history does repeat (see above). There is a boom and bust cycle here; regardless, you can only do what you can do, and if that is how you know you need to do it, go that way. Mine is teaching; I am too passive and weird for politics. I’ve got too many health problems for being a boots-on-the ground person. I am a small group 1:1 person, book nerd. So, I could not compete in those places, but maybe I can motivate others to do that or get them to make good voting choices, or otherwise. That’s what that guide is all about—finding your niche where you could do the most good, then seizing it.
History doesn’t repeat, but often rhymes. Twain’s quote better includes the effects of new technologies popping up all the time since the Renaissance, and sending things in odd, slanting directions sometimes.
Cheers though, I definitely agree we will need all sorts of people and methods. Just because in order to reach certain people, you have to be a certain sort sometimes. With enough perspectives and talents coming from the more cross-disciplinary approaches becoming more common, maybe we get outta this. Worth a shot anyway.
I mean, we did just find a new way to evaporate water. No small feat, people watched that process right in front of their faces for thousands of years. Just lacked the tools to see it.
Oh yes, and often, technology comes out of need. :)
https://futureoflife.org/guest-post/90-of-all-the-scientists-that-ever-lived-are-alive-today/