That's a good perspective. I'm thinking as creatures of habit, when immediate stressors ease, most people revert to their default, which is usually how their childhood caregivers conditioned them. I believe that's why Southern Reconstruction failed, fascists were readily accepted as "the good ones," and we settle for concessions, rather than change, then fail* to guard those, so we ended up here in naked fascism, again.

Perhaps I'm too cynical and could lean into a little more faith in people.

[–] Malkhodr@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think I've seen enough people evolve that I think people are in fact creatures of habit, but that habit can change and be trained which is what tends to make Communists. For myself at least, I'm not sure I was able to properly call myself a communist until I began trying to apply dialectical materialism to everything, and it became a habit.

Though on the topic of construction, I'd argue it failed due to no real political will amongst the ruling class to pursue racial equality. The Northern bourgeoisie didn't have any interest in racial equality, they opposed the instituation of slavery. The wildly different organizations of production between North and South led to abolitionism being the most rational position to convert black slaves into wage workers.

Though after the war, I'd argue that slavery was socialized. So the profits were not just localized to the slave master, but became another tool of the bourgeois state. Sorry that was tangent, it's just been a topic ice been thinking of recently.

Personally, I don't have much faith in people as much as I have faith in my observations. I've seen enough people shift rapidly in my lifetime (to either side of the political spectrum) that I generally think it's an inevitable feature of history.

Heck, one if my uncles, whose a massive MAGA supporter and who talks about the woes of communism, recently told us that he thinks the problem with this country is capitalism. He did so after visiting Vietnam and saying "here, we are surviving, over there, they are living" even after he kept brining up that the country was so poor.

Frankly I think he's gotten roped into the rhetoric of the ACP, but honestly it's an improvement to before I guess.

Wow this is just a rant now isn't it, apologies for going on so long.

[–] Maeve@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wow this is just a rant now isn’t it, apologies for going on so long.

Please don't apologize. I vacillate, but I do entirely understand, understand, working on overstanding. I've been musing this for years, I just feel sorry for the planet and myself, periodically. I've been meaning to get out of the house, and have been checked at every turn, lately (although interrupted sleep certainly also lends itself to petulant moods).

Earlier today, ("Elsewhere I wrote!"), after these musings:

Maybe a pinch of optimism can't hurt... We managed to get here from the caves. We do need to pay as much attention to the inner work as we pay to the outer work, though. Maybe that's our next evolutionary leap.

I appreciate you refusing to let me wallow in despair and probably self-pity, if I go deep inside and honest. It does none of us any good.

Edit to add: and you're not wrong, but Idk about the ACP. Sounds like Neonazism, to me.