Isn't that how fascism got its start? The sentiment that socialists were ineffective and indecisive, and taking advantage of the vacuum left by conflicts between socialists and liberals...also that is as much on liberals refusing to compromise leftwards as the contrapositive
muddi
joined 5 years ago
Yeah I get it but that's what disappoints me. Like what I mentioned about Dune and Warhammer. Tolkien achieved something and kick-started a genre, but that genre turned out mostly to be about fantasy races fighting genocidal wars...not celebrating the wonder of mythology and fairy tales, at least in my opinion. At the very least, they could be more meaningful by being symbolic of something. But Tolkien already saw to that from the start
I like when authors are intentional about their stories like this.
People bring up Tolkien's "applicability not allegory" or death of the author, or just defend their treats against being apparently politicized. But people politicize, interpret, and re-mythologize things anyways. Tolkien's stories have been coopted by European nationalists to fight the "orcs" of the "East."
A similar thing with Dune, people fixate on the environment aspect or exaggerated brutality and oppression by imperialists hence Star Wars, Warhammer, etc. I guess. I find it weird. The point was or should be the struggle for liberation and the power of ideology.
Might as well be on the nose about things as an author IMO, seems annoying to deal with
Also: was Dune about Palestine? I thought it was inspired by Lawrence of Arabia, so the Arab Revolt. Maybe the Great Game
lol sorry by fantasy I didn't mean the genre or setting, but like Mary Sue type writing where communism wins just because the writer wants it to, bad choice of words there.
I'm trying to write some communist fantasy myself! I think leftist writers put in a lot of effort to understand the history and be realistic about it. I've never seen anyone just champion communism because it sounds nifty
What "book" are they talking about lol, what modern communist writes utopian apologia or fantasy?
(not the genre of fantasy, I meant like, fantasizing about communism as a dream rather than a real historical struggle)
Autobiographies like Guevara's are based on actual historical realities
The Dispossessed comes to mind, and the subtitle is An Ambiguous Utopia
They're definitely not talking about the magic system in Das Kapital right??
I think there must be or have been. Corporate policies always have strict measures to make sure fired employees don't take out their anger before they leave
Other thing I can think of is that not many people would be willing to throw away their lives or their loved ones' by doing something that can hurt them even more than losing their job (the brutal reprisal of capital). I can really only think of very desperate or disturbed people like the Unabomber
or people joining hands through unionization and striking where they can have more confidence and hope. Sometimes that erupts into real violence, like the Battle of Blair Mountain
There's a Buddhist parable about getting hit with two arrows. You could imagine it in a scenario where you are on a battlefield and are struck by an arrow. But for some reason you freeze up and stare at it, so you get hit by a second. You should have taken cover.
Another way, more secular if you prefer that, is shooting yourself in the foot. That only happens when you're not watching what you are doing or thinking.
Existential fear and the unknown unknowns aren't something that you should seriously be afraid of. They are fears of fears, that something potential may be potential. Two degrees removed from reality. At least something more immediately threatening, you can act against.
Those more abstract dangers are for humanity as a group to deal with. Tackling them as individuals will result in anxiety. Focus on more immediate problems, or find others to tackle the more abstract problems together, knowing you still might not achieve anything material just yet
But the fascists themselves at least claimed to be a third way beyond liberalism and socialism which they saw as ineffective right? Even before the petit bourgeois started backing them