i remind myself of #fascist #spain under #franco and look at spain today
doesn't mean spain is utopia today
doesn't mean "it's going to be ok, relax"
it means getting better is real
but:
1. we have a lot fucking work to do
2. there is a lot of fucking suffering ahead of us
3. do not accept #pessimism #cynicism nor #capitulation
as long as we *fight* we can right this rotten ship
biggest ally of #maga:
lazy indifference
get off your fucking asses and fight
>>... the most typical character of the age is “the non-conformist conformist:” someone who says what everyone else says while flattering themselves that they are telling a bold truth that no else one has the courage to say. Well, it’s easy to be courageous in a crowd.<<
John Ganz is always worth reading.
Cynical Optimism
For the past decade, I've carried cynicism as a constant companion, always questioning the sincerity behind people's actions and suspecting that self-interest often motivates us. Yet, there was a time before 2001 when my outlook was very different—I was optimistic, trusted in people's innate goodness, and believed things would generally work out for the best. Today, I find myself somewhere between these two perspectives. My cynical side often reminds me that humanity frequently falls […]
Correct. Lazy cynicism is essentially weak misanthropy. It's pretty shallow and whiny, while pretending to be deep. And it's self-destructive at the "benefit" of feeling falsely detached and falsely superior
#Cynicism is the entitlement of the cringe clueless midwit
One could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
-- Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism)
#Wisdom #Quotes #HannahArendt #Cynicism #Lies #Politics #Totalitarianism
A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt
The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/7…
Tho sometimes you feel gullible, have you ever felt like, atleast sometimes, you feel as skeptical as this child about someone or something?
Once you start questioning the foundations of everything we were told to be true about our own society, many other societies & the whole world, once the mental map we built around how the world really functions starts crumbling, because you recognize all variables laid out by ruling class doesnt fit well as those pieces are artificially stitched-up & all thats holding everything together (other than organised violence of State that's there to protect ruling class interests) is the shared beliefs/delusions ruling class has created & most of us accepted without skepticism, so they can legitimize their domination over people, fellow animals & resources, once that starts, do you have this feeling?
Sometimes, no, a lot of times, esp when looking at systems of power, I fell like this child.
Many people outside the US – especially in Europe – criticize and laugh at Trump’s decision to rename the Golf of Mexico. But many of them have been using the word America as a synonym for the US for decades, even though they know – many of them were taught it in school – that such a use obscures a part of the world’s history – one that may not be so relevant to these people. Same attitude imo
A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities — all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves their own weakness.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/7…
I was snarky on tumblr, now I am mortified.
I should just... fall on my pen.
#cynicism
After pondering Cynicism a bit, I came across a TED talk about Stoicism. Appropriately, it doesn't have the hyped-up crowds and boosterism of so many TED talks, instead, it's an academic philosopher calmly lecturing on the history of Stoicism and how he thinks it is relevant to modern day. Also appropriate, it was delivered in Athens (but in English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhn1Fe8cT0Q
Massimo Pigliucci is becoming one of my favorite philosophers. I first encountered him over 10 years ago when he was working on evolutionary theory. He has a podcast about stoicism, that I'm looking forward to listening to.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/stoic-meditations/id1328933559
The reply from Kilkenny CoCo about the #SlowerSpeedsSaferRoads campaigns says the reduced speed limit applies only to L roads "outside Urban towns" (nice tautology) with the current 80km/h speed limit. No dataset. Of course, we as #OpenStreetMap Ireland (or even Kilkenny) don't have all the L numbers for all the roads in Kilkenny, but I guess that's our problem. #opendata #openstreetmap #cynicism
I just listened to an episode of the Science Quickly podcast (link below has both audio and transcript) and it was very uplifting!
"Can Hopeful Skepticism Replace Harmful Cynicism?"
White People Did It To Themselves
@Paulatics , absolutely not. You white people did this systematically over centuries. It was not just America.
I can’t feel bad for other countries where white people are the political majority right now, like Canada or Denmark. Ethnocentrism is racism’s little brother, and fascism operates on ethnic boundaries. Historically, fascist regimes didn’t just target people of color—they also persecuted other groups within the ‘white’ population.
For instance, the Nazis targeted Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other ethnicities they considered ‘racially impure,’ despite many of these groups being ethnically white. Even within white-majority countries, divisions exist. In Canada, tensions between Anglophone and Francophone communities, or between Indigenous people and settler populations, highlight that ‘whiteness’ isn’t a unified category. Similarly, in Denmark, the history of Danish colonialism and the treatment of ethnic minorities within their own society complicate the notion of a homogenous white identity. Danish white nationalists, like others, may try to project a unified ‘whiteness,’ but the reality is much more fractured.
Furthermore, the colonial history of European powers, including Danish and British colonialism, has perpetuated ideas of racial superiority that continue to influence attitudes within white-majority societies. The legacy of this imperialism means that the effects of ethnocentrism are not confined by national borders, and the rise of white nationalism in one country can inspire it elsewhere. Even if white people are the majority, those who don’t fit the specific national or ethnic mold—whether in Canada, Denmark, or elsewhere—are often seen as the enemy.
The bottom line is that these ideologies didn’t arise in a vacuum—they were fostered by centuries of imperialism, nationalism, and racial segregation. White-majority societies, including Canadians and Danes, haven’t always taken responsibility for their role in creating these divisions. It’s hard to feel sympathy when the same structures that perpetuate oppression are allowed to persist, even among people who look the same but are divided by an arbitrary notion of ‘whiteness.’
Donald Trump’s suggestion to annex Canada and his attempt to take Greenland is a modern extension of the imperialist ideology that I describe. It can be seen as an expression of American ethnocentrism, treating Canada not as an independent nation but as an entity that could be absorbed into the U.S. without regard to the desires or needs of the Canadian people. This ties back to the idea that such nationalistic and imperial actions are rooted in centuries of racial and cultural domination.
You did it to your fucking selves. I am quite content to see white people eat their own. How many native people have you Canadians killed? The colonizers get colonized. How’s that for poetic?
TABLE OF CONTENTS & CHAPTERS
(Interesting list)
Chapter 1: Beyond Alarm, Toward Action
Chapter 2: Refusing to Abandon
Chapter 3: Care is Fundamental
Chapter 4: Think Like a Geographer
Chapter 5: Rejecting #Cynicism
Chapter 6: ‘Violence’ in Social Movements
Chapter 7: Don’t Pedestal Organizers
Chapter 8: Hope and Grief Can Co-exist
Chapter 9: Organizing Isn’t Matchmaking
Chapter 10: Avoiding #Burnout
Conclusion: #Relationships, #Reciprocity, and #Struggle
Conclusion: Beyond #Doom, Toward #Collective Action
Afterword: #Movements Make Life
Closing #Invitation
Reflecting on #Ideas
Self-Reflection for Organizers
Movement #Assessment
Resources
Direct Actions
Activist/Organizer Wisdom
Other Useful Resources
====================
Source:
Let This Radicalize You - Organizing and the Revolution of #Reciprocal #Care
#Book + #Workbook about #Care #Revolution #Climate #ClimateJustice #ClimateChange #Activism #DirectAction
#PDF of Workbook: 97Mb
Download Page
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1922-let-this-radicalize-you?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com
or Direct Download:
A great post on #Cynicism!
“Zynismus ist nicht smart. So gewöhnst du ihn dir ab” (Cynicism is not smart. That's how you get used to it)
@drahardja
thank you; I'm guilty of falling into the #nihilism / #cynicism trap and will do better.
I also like the #tipJar idea I saw earlier. Have a jar of ideas to improve things and post one of those instead of a cleaver snarky thing.
Thank you to @johentsch for bringing up the word #cynicism instead of #nihilism—that is a _much_ more accurate descriptor of the symptom I’m describing! I’ve edited the post to use that term.
nge? W
