Something white folks like me from "middle class" backgrounds really need to fucking deal with is that privilege isn't just the advantages that put us a little ahead or give us a little more comfort or space or whatever.

[artemis@dice.camp]

The thing that has me fired up today is really my own myopia.

I think most of us who are relatively comfortable simply do not comprehend the scale of oppression we are already dealing with. I do not think we speak realistically about it. Not even me. Certainly not me.

I don't think we are telling ourselves the truth. Even if you can see that everything is on fire, that doesn't mean you're not wearing rose-tinted glasses.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis the point is always to kick the problems down the road to future generations.

my dad does this regularly, saying stuff like "why should i pay for someone else's kids' education?", while he has grand-children. he compartmentalises this nonsense take by saying "well they live in BC not Ontario".

[artemis@dice.camp]

I am still living a lie.

I am still mentally investing in the fiction that things are mostly alright.

I am still counting hypothetical costs over real, current costs.

I am still enjoying the privilege of a "peaceful" life, where I am "graciously" allowed access to the simple necessities of survival that are withheld from others, that are taken from others by force.

Ladies, gentlemen, & other beings: there are people our society deems "non-people" & they are being exterminated.

[artemis@dice.camp]

As a queer, disabled woman I am well aware of my own marginalization. I am aware that I am very close to being designated a "non-person" too, but I have NOT experienced the dehumanization I have been speaking of in this thread.

Perhaps someday I will.

But for now...I am coming from a place of comforts I don't even recognize as comforts, because they ought not to be "comforts" at all, but basic rights.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis there is a certain kind of defeatism built into incrementalism.

too much is never enough in capitalism, so there is no upper threshold for how many oppressed is too many.

by the same measure, they will say "not enough people will ever agree to abolish capitalism, and if they did then we'd have [incidental music] evil, terrible *COMMUNISM*. you don't want *that* do you??", as if we all agreed in the first place that capitalism is a good idea.

[artemis@dice.camp]

This thread is light on "action items", because to be honest, my main "action" here is: keep looking, keep paying attention, don't let noise & distraction make you lose sight of the nightmare of oppression you are living in. That's what I'm trying to do.

Possible solutions & strategies abound. I don't necessarily have any I am focused on right at this moment, because I am looking at myself & the world & asking why I feel about it how I do & why I allow myself to be soothed & comforted.

[artemis@dice.camp]

Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" & "aware" still believe things that are more comfortable than they are true, sometimes.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis i think that is one of the core principles of so-called "centrism". believing that you are smarter than the average bear, and therefor all of your opinions are Correct, no matter how much bullshit they are founded on.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis

there is a lot of magical, terminated thinking that goes into keeping people thinking this way, and a lot of it comes from The Tragedy Of The Commons, which is a pile of white supremacist bullshit. picking one thing and sticking to it is definitely not on the menu because as soon as you start challenging incrementalists on this bullshit, they'll derail and change the subject to some other bullshit because completing that thought would mean challenging any of their unfounded assumptions.

[artemis@dice.camp]

This is my reckoning with the fact that while I choose not to be a "white liberal", that is how I have been situated in life.

I have been given a false view of the situation. I cannot see—without effort—the extent of the suffering already going on.

I am still removed from it. I still have a certain type of comfort & so do most of the people I know.

[artemis@dice.camp]

I'm starting to get the idea that the reason the Jesus character in the Gospels always told rich people to sell everything they have & follow him is that without surrendering the things which shelter you from oppression, you will always be at risk of downplaying it, because you will not experience what others do, not really.

I'm not advocating for vows of poverty, but it sure does make some sense: as long as there is comfort, we can avoid confronting the worst truths.

[artemis@dice.camp]

This "comfort" is no sin, no moral failing, but it does make us susceptible to the lies of the oppressors as they minimize & disguise the blood & death on which the Empire is built.

We struggle to see with clarity, because we are still tucked away & sheltered from the worst of it.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis that is one of the struggles of ending white supremacy, and why all white people are racist. as Kim Crayton has said many times, white people will always manage to defer to white supremacist mediocrity because it's what we were raised in. it is our default, and a very difficult default to escape because we've never known anything else.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis

if they dared to answer the questions "why does it cost lives? who makes it cost lives?" they would be staring at themselves in a mirror. that idea horrifies "Good People", who can never be seen believing in or doing anything Bad.

it was never on the "Good Germans" to stop nazi oppression, because it was always simplified and waved away as a government policy that politicians just couldn't get right for some mysterious reason. the same bullshit plays out in Canada and USA politics too, every fucken day.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@artemis that's why awareness is really not enough. land acknowledgements are a great example of that. we are aware that the land we stand on is stolen, but what are we doing about it?

[artemis@dice.camp]

We think we've "got it". We think we understand because we can analyze the systems & point out the faults.

But how well do we comprehend it all, really when there is suffering we more or less forget? It is hidden from our eyes. It is inflicted on people we do not regard with respect. We imagine it is in some way inevitable or cannot be helped.

And as long as it goes on, all pretense of "good order" is a fucking lie.

[artemis@dice.camp]

If today's words are a little harsher than sometimes, it's in part because "yours truly" is saying the things that she needs to hear herself.

The true extent of violence & oppression in this country, the true cost, is not compatible with how I see the world around me.

So one of the steps I've got to take as I learn what it means to resist oppression is to make myself look with open eyes, & believe & understand the things I see. We all do.

[knowprose@mastodon.social]

@dalias @artemis I think that's fair to write. I was just doing some writing about the 'adjacent possible'... and when I saw this thread I wanted to point out that we generally choose our prisons and do our best to decorate them well.

Freedom itself is an illusion; agency is not. And what we're really discussing, I think, is that agency. That sovereignty of the soul.

The clean slate only works if we can shape a better version of the cage of freedom.

We deserve better. We all do.

[tattie@eldritch.cafe]

@artemis this thread is great and I have boosted it.

One thing that's coming up for me, tho, is... I'm starting to think the dichotomy between "revolutionary" and "incrementalist" is a false one.

Like, I could be accused of being an incrementalist because I believe in voting as a solution.

You may raise an eyebrow and say "but voting hasn't worked so far, has it?" And yeah. Left-wing votes are cancelled out by right-wing ones, and further swamped by a big mass of shrugging centrists. Left-wing parties fall to entryist career politicians beholden to corporate interests, and judges and upper chambers stand in the way of progressive changes.

So. Armed revolution then. But that needs an overwhelming buy-in from the populace. (That or military support, but that's a coup, and those tend not to go great.) So we need a massive consciousness raising effort to get people on-side...

But... then... maybe we could try the whole voting thing at that point? ‍️ Get proper leftists primaried, then vote then in.

Then if you get a clear majority of leftist politicians in power, the line between "incremental change" and "revolution" becomes blurry. Tax rates can be raised overnight. UBI implemented. Utilities socialised. Police forces defunded. Upper chambers reformed. Prisons shut down. Why go gradual if you don't have to?

...at the threat of which upheaval maybe the system does rebel against the will of the people. And maybe some shots will need fired then. Just to confirm that, yes, we're fuckin serious.

It's like. Voting is, always has been, the implicit threat of force. The provable demonstration of superior numbers at the ballot rather than battlefield.

Whether the force is actual or implied, consciousness-raising is the first step. Arguing over whether voting will or will not work feels premature at this stage. Maybe we try it and have backup options too.

[rogerparkinson@mastodon.nz]

@artemis that's a very interesting way to look at it. I, for one, am way too comfortable these days.