You have spoken and I’ve heard your criticisms. I apologize for my reactionary comment and retract my position.
(I am unable to delete my comment as I am banned from that community due to this)
No one is perfect, we are all improving all the time, and I am no different.
Thank you for helping me identify an instance of liberalism which has remained with me since taught which I must correct.
Let there be catgirls
Hey, sorry for being too harsh myself but you did somewhat write like a troll would and thus I’ve answered the way I did, also I’m a bit of a swear abuser. Still I do believe you were harsh with your criticism and am now very happy to see you commit to self criticism.
Still do not let yourself forget that escapism can (it’s not inherently) be dangerous to comrades and take them away from revolutionary action as you’ve said. But that can only happen if the escapism becomes abused to the point of rejecting reality itself, because of a deeper issue they may face. This kind of rejection can lead away from revolutionary optimism and into depressive escapism, it also our duty to keep our comrades in check and help them in any difficulties they face or lest we may lose them. But if we are to attack their methods of escapism, we would only be attacking their remedies they use to “fix” their problems. Wrong remedies, yes, but still that’s not the problem but something else at the core causing this that needs to be helped.
It’s not to be called infantile, or other type pejorative but to be fixed and readjusted.
So even though your criticism from your point of view was not correct, I just wanted to share one that could be. Escapism is but a method, and the way it is used or abused is the thing that ought to be criticized properly and not outright rejected.
Cat girls in a situation of a comrade going through heavy troubles can be a helpful stall to give us time in helping them in better, more needed constructive ways.
You shouldn’t want to delete your comments IMO. There is value in discussion for posterity. I am glad this ended on an amicable note.
Real catgirl struggle session hours
The commies got me reading cat girl theory at night fr 😞
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I think it’s great that you’re able to apologize and learn from it, we’re all a work in progress! ;) Sometimes we get fed up and over-emotional, we all have bad days…
I tried to leave constructive comments. I do think people got angry a bit too quickly, though I understand why. It’s hard to tell the difference between someone bringing up an unpopular opinion and a troll these days, as trolls get better and better at pretending to be the former.
Also it was a very purposely tongue-in-cheek post so I apologize for it getting that heated
To clarify, I did mention neurodivergency and ableism, but at no point did I think you were ableist. I (and everyone else) has dozens of accidentally ableist brainworms sitting in our heads that will take an entire lifetime to tear out. Nor is it ableist to not like catgirls, I was specifically referring to the value judgement of activities as infantile. Not liking or disliking an aesthetic is completely valid. Disliking it because you think it’s infantile is valid, too.
The problem is that ableist ideas can use preferences like that as a shield for it’s actual nature. Therefore, when we see it as a discussion of “problematic preferences”, it obscures the actual flawed elements of someone’s opinion.
If I were to say that disliking catgirls is reactionary because of my preference for catgirls, that would be as flawed (and ironically reactionary) as saying that liking catgirls is reactionary because of my preference. But this isn’t a case of live or let live, or liberal “freedom”, it’s an example of how we need material roots behind our criticisms.
Very long rant about cat videos
I’m disappointed that the conversation got so heated, but mostly for selfish reasons (I think the anger was warranted, because infantile is kind of a rude word, you did apologize here and I appreciate it but I mean I just understood their reaction in the moment). I think you raised a very interesting point (that of the similarity of “cuteness” and religion as the opiate of the masses), which, I actually somewhat agree with.
But, rather than reflecting negatively on every positive emotion the proletariat has experience, what I do think is that this coincidentally raises a good criticism of the usual Marxist critique of religion- more specifically, the criticism of religion encouraging complicity.
I certainly could go the route of dismissing every ounce of relief that the proletariat feels as counter-revolutionary, and that would make some sense, as it is true that it technically makes it easier to live with capitalism. But I think that is flawed, and it is flawed in a way that is very prevalent in Marxist thought, and that a lot of Marxists don’t seem to notice.
There’s this assumption that the proletariat can be radicalized into effectively robots, who do not experience any emotions, and crave nothing but freedom. This is provably untrue with literally the most simple test- just examine your emotional state of an average day and you’ll notice that a vast quantity of it is spent not craving freedom. Because freedom is an abstract, albeit useful, concept that is pretty low on our priority list, even when it’s supposedly the most important thing to someone. Tons of necessary biological functions and cravings completely supersede it, and while they can be suppressed temporarily, that takes energy and sometimes even actual training.
Unfortunately for those of us who want to be revolutionaries driven only by our yearning for freedom, one of these is the human drive for pleasure. We can suppress it and subvert it and bypass it in many different ways, but it always comes back as some kind of coping mechanism. It can even return as the desire for self-satisfaction from denying oneself.
While there might be some way, in theory, to overcome this, expecting every member of a socialist movement, let alone vast swathes of the proletariat, to give it up just so they can feel more motivated for revolution doesn’t make sense.
In fact, this is seems to be the root of the issue with most Marxist’s criticisms of religion (and by extension, other forms of “opiates of the masses”) come in. Rather than criticizing the actually ideologically complicit elements of it (the idea that suffering is virtuous, the implication that you do not need to proactively solve your own problems), religion becomes problematic because it provides relief, the idea being, that without that relief, the proletariat would want revolution more. And that’s true, but it’s also very silly.
The proletariat wanting revolution if they didn’t have the relief of something doesn’t mean anything. It’s a silly “what-if” scenario that people use to convince themselves to pursue a fruitless goal, and it’s a “what-if” that could be applied, with equal validity, to a lot of other very silly ideas.
It not a good idea (to be clear, this is all about our current material conditions- it might be at some point) to get rid of cat videos because it provides relief to the proletariat, for the same reason it is not a good idea to start destroying food stores to try and agitate them. Both are just fantasizing about the proletariat lacking something and then revolting, an understandable fantasy, but one that is very impractical to accomplish.
We would have to commit vast swathes of man-power to destroy the means of cat video production, likely fight actual, lethal battles against Pinkerton forces, and most importantly, piss off a huge amount of the proletariat at once to get it done. This would cost a massive amount of effort for literally no upside, because the proletariat definitely would be discontent, but mostly discontent with us.
Even if we magically could remove cat videos from existence, the increase in class consciousness might not be that large. I theorize that finding relief in things is a constant psychological response that humans have, and we’d basically be playing whack-a-mole with random cultural phenomenons
You’re trying to change the material conditions to be worse so that the proletariat revolts, but if you can change material conditions, why not just revolt then and there?
I don’t think people would’ve gotten mad if he didn’t go around insulting leftists for liking catgirls, calling them infantile or even denigrated anime-liking or furry comrades for “partaking” in, quote-unquote, “non-beneficial and even harmful activities”.
This guy acted as if revolutionaries were all perfect little angels sent by God who never as much as done “non-beneficial” or “non-harmful” activities and always dedicated their lives into spreading socialism and only doing “beneficial” activities. Like I mentioned previously, Stalin passed on the boof many times in the past, Che/Fidel smoked cigars and Engels drew art that could be considered pornography to some (as example, does the nude art of her wife come to mind?).
I understand the reaction, I was just selfishly lamenting the lack of further analysis
I was also just somewhat trying to be nice, because someone admitting they’re wrong on the internet is super rare
Honestly if you were this civil in your earlier comment surrounding Catgirls and didn’t go around insulting leftists for liking or having an interest in them, I wouldn’t have to be this harsh with you.
I banned you for three days, it’s going to expire in a day anyway. I was wondering if I was being too merciful with the punishment as this was the first time I ever had to ban someone; but glad to see that I wouldn’t have to regret my decision.
I’m glad you were able to see the light, but I really wonder what caused you to change your mind this quickly. Is it because you were getting rebuked left, right and center by everyone in the comments?
Is it because you were getting rebuked left, right and center by everyone in the comments?
Honestly, if I thought I was in the right and was rebuked this hard, I’d panic a little bit, too. You’ve made your point, though, and he’s obviously sorry, so I don’t think there’s any purpose in pursuing the argument.
