live in more rural area but desperate to minimize parasitism, i can barely donate to palestinians as much as i’d like cause my dream job has low pay sadly and i’m stealing more than providing by not giving up everything to them
i want to do things to enemies to vent my anger
do you believe friedrich engels to have been a parasite? do you believe souphanouvong to have been a parasite?
again, marxism does not preach asceticism or seclusion from a society you did not create! marx himself critiqued such attitudes in “the poverty of philosophy”!
it is not a productive approach to belittle one’s own contributions and self-flagellate over perceived imperfections. whatever negative impact you may have materially on others is utterly microscopic in comparison with the bourgeoisie, which is the enemy of both you and your fellow workers in the global south.
so have some priorities, as well as self-respect.
you can argue yes to those questions given they both still relied on goods obtained via imperialism though, like yes the impact they had on the movement is huge but foe example, a simple meal still was obtained by the suffering of the global south if that makes sense which is what i think about every time i consume sustenance
Moralistic self-flagellation doesn’t advance the cause of the revolution or help the global south.
marxism is not moralism; it does not demand of us to swear a moral oath and uphold it like some kind of political vestal virgins. when lenin was in switzerland, he still ate, did he not?
yes, on a rational level, we may analyse how our own consumption affects others, and it is indeed correct to try to reduce harm to the best of one’s ability, but ultimately individualist approaches are ineffective compared with systemic ones, and self-flagellation is an individualist approach.
you did not create or choose colonialism, or unequal exchange! any benefit you may receive from its existence does not paper over the fact that you are yourself exploited and have a common class interest with all other workers on this planet, not to mention the fact that the main cause of harm and the main benefactor of those systems is not you, but the capitalist!
also, i would like to push back against the notion that people in the first world have been “given” the benefits from capitalism:
–michel parenti
even third-worldist analysis does not condemn global-north workers morally! it merely seeks to analyse, explain, and criticise certain political realities and bring to light the additional difficulties and injustices third-world people have to face. but no global-south revolutionary would ever deny you the title of worker or perceive you as an enemy on the same level as they perceive the capitalist.
to love and help others, it is helpful to love and help yourself.
but why wouldn’t they is what i don’t understand
i’m sorry, but i don’t quite get what your question is referring to. could you please elaborate?
like why wouldn’t global southerners condemn all of the global north after all we’ve done and continue to do, it’s only logical to me cause i’d do that if i were in their shoes
the problem is that you are holding yourself to an idealist standard.
as i said in a previous comment, we should reject the leap from “i (marginally) benefit from an unjust system” to “i should hate myself, and people harmed by that system should condemn me as a person.”
guilt isn’t the same as accountability. feeling bad may acknowledge harm, but self-condemnation by itself leads to nothing good and only causes harm to yourself and the movement. a more useful question is: “what do i participate in, what power do i have, and what can i do with others to change it?” that points towards political solidarity and material change, rather than treating self-hatred as proof of moral seriousness.
“i’d condemn myself in their shoes” is projection, not evidence. it assumes people harmed by imperialism would all respond alike, and that your imagined reaction tells you what they actually think. people in the global south are not a single moral tribunal. some may (in my opinion wrongly) view you with dislike; others may be more intelligent and focus criticism on actual governments, companies, institutions, or particular actions. their views deserve to be heard as specific views, not guessed at or generalised.
don’t make harmed people responsible for condemning or absolving you! listen to particular people and movements without expecting moral judgement or expecting one person to speak for everyone. take criticism seriously, but don’t turn it into a verdict that you are irredeemably bad.
you are not guilty by birth or geography! you don’t need to hate yourself to oppose imperialism. you only need to understand your position, listen without expecting to be judged on moral grounds, and act with others against the structures causing harm.
Because it’s immaterial to suggest the majority of the global north can just do something about it. It’s almost religious in a way to do so, that they’re evil inherently. It also denies the real suffering of the proletariat class and the lumpenproletariat too, something that will became ever more apparent in the coming future as the empire contracts. You’re also blaming Proletarians for the conditions and relations laid upon them, which is something Lenin described the Bernsteinites of having the symptom of
So you should starve? Brother, regardless of whether or not you eat that specific meal, it will not change the overall exploitation you’re talking about. It’s like trying to get people to become vegan to save animals; that’s nice, but the means of production under capitalism will still produce that cow to live a horrible birth, raised in cramped spaces, and eventually slaughtered. No amount of individual action can ever change the structural inequalities and exploitations. You’re worrying over and emphasizing an extremely idealist view of you as a human, that is taking up more and more of your mental capacity that can be used to actually organize or do whatever you desire. You’re not wrong, but you’re pushing away any productivity that you actually desire. Not trying to be rude if it seems that way. Give yourself grace.
wonderfully put! but i just wanted to let you know that she goes by she/her pronouns.
should i starve? i mean my gut says maybe, but my brain says to at least try an imperialist-only diet first /lh