Does one have to be an iconoclast or revolutionary these days to be validly left? I consider myself to be left of center, and very much in favor of progressive policies.
However I find myself being disagreed with quite often, mostly for not advocating or cheering violence, "by any means possible" change, or revolutionary tactics. It would seem that I'm not viewed as authentically holding my view unless I advocate extreme, violent, or radical action to accomplish it.
Those seem like two different things to me.
Edit: TO COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, OR ANYONE ELSE CALLING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIETY
THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN'T MEANT FOR YOU.
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Slavery, Decolonization, worker rights, women rights, black people rights, "Put any word here" rights,etc..
Many of those have been accomplished by protests, that led to changes in law, that led to changes in society. Some by war, yes.
None by revolution, that I'm aware of. None by anarchy, that I'm aware of. In most cases revolution seems to throw things the other way, back into slavery, back into repression.
This is ahistorical, really. Revolution has historically happened in progressive movements beyond brutal previous conditions, whether it be the Haitian Slave Revolt, the French overthrow of the Monarchy, the Russian overthrow of the brutal Tsarist regime, the Cuban revolt against slavery and fascism, and more.
I think you would do well for yourself by studying history of revolutionary movements.
So you're telling me none of those lead to more brutal oppression than before?
If you just want to limit it to Haiti, Cuba, and the USSR, then yes each of those revolutions led to a vastly more humane society than the previous one. It also depends on who you're asking. Tsar Nicholas II certainly didn't see the Soviet Union as an improvement. Cuban plantation owners with dozens of slaves didn't see socialism as an improvement. There are winners and losers in history, the losing side usually isn't going to be pleased.
And who loses in a revolution? In a successful socialist revolution it's the capitalist class, colonizers, slavers, the previous bureaucracy, regional landlords. The USSR went from a backwater literal peasant kingdom to a space faring modern country within a single generation, despite a famine and despite the brutal loss of life in WW2. It's very easy to say the country that sends women to school to become nuclear engineers is not as brutally oppressive as the country with a monarch that forcefully sends women to become nuns. How do you determine oppression? Go look at things like literacy, child mortality, education, home ownership, access to clean water, and what kind of occupations women have. By those metrics, socialist revolutions typically and vastly reduce oppression.
Some have, yes, but of the ones I listed, absolutely not.
Revolution isn't an action, it's a consequence of failing and unsustainable conditions. You don't do a Revolution, it happens and you can participate in it.
Ye think slavery, worker rights, and decolonization was done merely by protests and by the mere will of liberalism?
♫ They say in Harlan County, there are no neutrals there: you'll either be a union man or a thug for J. H. Blair — Which side are you on, which side are you on? ♫
yeah you're never going to improve as a person. just vote blue no matter who and try not to think about all the violence your empire requires to maintain itself.
Undialectical take, people are constantly changing. Now it may take a lot of quantitative changes for the qualitative affect of not having their head in their ass to come about given how far in there it is, but..
you're absolutely right but some people just cry out for bullying
What client is that?
connect for lemmy!