This thread is an exemplary case of how "we" (that is, liberal-minded minions uncritically parroting the talking points of the bourgeoisie) inhibit any social and class consciousness from sprouting in the proletarian mind.
The original post, titled “Nothing worth having in life comes easily”, goes as such:
Yes it does. Yes it fucking does. For SOME people. Some people were born into rich families. Money is worth having, and money came easily to them. [...] Some people are born white. Not being discriminated against must be nice. I could go on. You get the fucking point. Why do people on Reddit keep repeating this blatantly false platitude? There are countless of examples of people in this world who didn't have to work for shit, yet many things came easily to them.
As you might expect, the comments went on the offense to discredit OP's sentiments, in different manners.
The first category of comments involves invoking "life" as some natural order of things which is beyond human control, ergo it must be accepted.
I get what you mean life is unfair sometimes.
Life sucks and then we die.
>Life is 100% unfair. Full stop. Get used to it.
This defeatist attitude just dissuades any doubts in one's mind regarding the viability of the current system.
The second category includes comments that deny any exteriority to OP's sentiments and focus on their own personal ailments:
Some people get so fixated on being victims of society that they seem to give away their own power to change their lives.
This post is somewhat delusional. Highly suggest to not compare your insides to other people’s outsides or you’ll always come away with a distorted perception. There are so many false assumptions in here I don’t know where to start but if you wanna pity yourself and put others on pedestals - knock yourself out.
Being mad and jealous, letting negative emotions permeate through every facet of your mind will make it better. Keep going.
They're basically saying: “the world is fine, the problem is you; and you should feel bad for feeling otherwise.”
The third category involves comments that dilute the importance of wealth and socioeconomic status:
Every privilege you mentioned comes with its own set of problems.
It might not seem like it, but everybody has the same amount of issues as everyone else.
Dating, money, and privilege aren’t the meaning of life.
An obvious case of blatantly gaslighting people struggling to survive when they realize the unfairness of capitalism.
And an honourable mentions goes to those talking down white supremacy and systemic racism!
Agreed except for the white comment. Every race gets discriminated against, just in different ways.
Oh good more hatred of White people this will surely solve this loser's personal problems.
Oh, if you are born white don't worry, there will be plenty of people who will discriminate against you. One of the major political parties sanctions it. It's socially acceptable. There's plenty of people like you. You get the point.
Well white people get discriminated against and this is all very victim mentality based.
There are many other arguments, but you get the point. They all share the same motive: the annihilation of any hint of social consciousness. It is tragic because, more often than not, it is the oppressed who are gaslighting themselves and not the bourgeois and capitalists. The latter outsource even the labor of propagating their foul logic and arguments to the proletariat.
there's this idea that i see in online leftist spaces, that amerikans reject socialism because they see themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires", but i think that's an oversimplification that isn't fully accurate. sure, some of them believe it, but there are also many who are self aware enough to know that it's not likely to happen for them, even with hard work. but the reason why these people reject socialism or egalitarian policies more broadly, is that they're aware on some level that society is structured by hierarchy. their rejection of socialism is about want to maintain this hierarchy, because even if it might be screwing over all of us in the lower 50-70%, at least they have a place in society they can think of as stable (even if it might not be as stable in reality as they think).
You're absolutely right in your observation. I believe there is a stoic attitude of sorts that pervades the logic of the average worker under the western capitalist system. The supposition is that the latter is outside of one's control, so there is no point in trying to change it; it is rather more useful to change one's own feelings towards it. Absolutely no compromise: either you accept it as part of "nature", or you spend the rest of your life suffering (mentally).
USA citizens in particular have been continuously consuming anticommunist propaganda for a century, to the point where it became inconceivable to imagine a system other than the capitalist mode of production. And so, despite being cognizant of its severe injustice, they were led to believe that they can only cope with it. In fact, the sample of comments above clearly demonstrate this: these people are in exactly in the same spot as OOP, yet their ferocious attack against their fellow proletarian serves as their coping mechanism.
Is this reversible? Perhaps it could be, but we are facing a multi-billion propaganda machine that knows no exhaustion.