And often they’re pitted against workers on the side of the ruling class.
Doing a bullshit job to feed your family is defensible, doing an evil job is just stupid.
Just keep in mind your argument can be/ is used to defend brown shirt and military personnel commiting war crimes. We know memetically at this point that “just following orders” is not a valid defense. We need more people to actively choose not to become cops and not to become defense contractors.
Edit: just to push against the “sand in the gears” thing. We know that a lot of military actively hate their job and just believe they’re doing the bare minimum/dragging their feet to get paid. But they still get work done and add credibility to the institutions they work for.
See, I think all jobs are evil. Just because you’re not the one holding the gun doesn’t make you less culpable. You’re still serving the interests of capital and the state when you work, pay taxes, etc.
It’s certainly true that evil work supports hierarchy and should be opposed. But contextually how do we oppose it? If we could achieve 100% solidarity and get everyone to refuse to support these systems, they would end instantly. But let’s be real. If conscientious people isolate themselves from powerful positions in society, does that actually interfere with their fulfillment in any meaningful way? Or does it just fill those positions with people who are more ideologically invested in them and more likely to use that power against us?
First you have to win people over. And I think there is hope that even the fascist foot soldiers can be won over with the right messaging.
A lot of this comes down to a society that idealizes individualism to an extreme degree. We are focused on how we as individuals can evade moral culpability for our participation in an evil system, and that requires scapegoating someone we perceive as worse than us. But even if we convince police or soldiers or whoever to quit, that won’t protect people from harm. Instead we need to focus on building new organizational power that can get as many people as possible to oppose that harm in a concerted way. And in fact at the right moment I think we will want police, soldiers, arms manufacturers, etc. to participate, because those people have power and we need that power to win.
I’d rather have solidarity with the people the bombs get dropped on than with the people building the bombs. Include war profiteers in your “solidarity” and shifts it away from class lines and into nationalism.
Solidarity with victims is important. But my personal view is that fighting the state requires a broad coalition that includes people within the state’s social infrastructure.
War profiteers aren’t generally interested in fighting the state. But even to your point, obviously if you want to convince such people to fight the state, you should be criticizing their role as war profiteers. If you don’t call out what they’re doing for the evil that it is, then why would you expect them to “throw sand in the gears?”
Well, the reality is that most people in all professions have little to no interest in fighting the state. But the flip side is that there are some people from all walks of life that will be receptive, so assuming such people can’t be reached is locking important people out of the movement.
Criticism is important but I think it requires a different approach. If you tell people they’re evil they will not listen to you. Almost everyone’s worldview has “I’m a good person” at its foundation, and information that contradicts their foundational viewpoints will be rejected. So I think criticism should be focused on systems and organizations rather than this meme which focuses on individual responsibility.
I’m not “locking anyone out of the movement” by calling them evil war profiteers. If they want to join the movement, they can simply stop being evil war profiteers. I am simply telling the truth.
On the other hand, by welcoming and babying such people, you are alienating their victims. It makes it abundantly clear where your priorities lie. Why would a victim of these war profiteers want to be a part of a movement that whitewashes those who perpetrate or enable the violence they’ve suffered?
What is your vision for what “being part of the movement” would even look like for these people? Unless they’re taking direct action to sabotage and support their industry (in which case they will likely be caught and fired), they are undoubtedly doing far more harm there than they could possibly offset by voting or attending some protest.
I’m not saying it isn’t true. But I just think practically speaking, requiring all leftists to be morally pure nonprofit employees or whatever it is you think would be a more ethical way to survive under capitalism excludes a lot of people. Sure, they could theoretically still participate but if you treat them like shit they’re not going to.
These are huge companies that often have little ideas of what their employees are doing. There are absolutely ways they could be sabotaging their activities without getting fired.
Even if that were true, you’re simultaneously claiming that these people are willing to sabotage their company, and that they’d be alienated by saying that the work their company does is evil. That doesn’t make any sense.
I’m just saying it’s not tactically useful to point out their personal culpability. There are ways to criticize the company without focusing on the employees and I think they will find that more palatable.
What happened to worker solidarity?
People gotta eat. But some jobs do call you to at minimum throw some sand in the gears. If you’re not doing that then yeah fuck you.
Do you have solidarity with cops?
To some extent yeah. That doesn’t mean I support what they’re doing but they still workers.
And often they’re pitted against workers on the side of the ruling class.
Doing a bullshit job to feed your family is defensible, doing an evil job is just stupid.
Just keep in mind your argument can be/ is used to defend brown shirt and military personnel commiting war crimes. We know memetically at this point that “just following orders” is not a valid defense. We need more people to actively choose not to become cops and not to become defense contractors.
Edit: just to push against the “sand in the gears” thing. We know that a lot of military actively hate their job and just believe they’re doing the bare minimum/dragging their feet to get paid. But they still get work done and add credibility to the institutions they work for.
See, I think all jobs are evil. Just because you’re not the one holding the gun doesn’t make you less culpable. You’re still serving the interests of capital and the state when you work, pay taxes, etc.
It’s certainly true that evil work supports hierarchy and should be opposed. But contextually how do we oppose it? If we could achieve 100% solidarity and get everyone to refuse to support these systems, they would end instantly. But let’s be real. If conscientious people isolate themselves from powerful positions in society, does that actually interfere with their fulfillment in any meaningful way? Or does it just fill those positions with people who are more ideologically invested in them and more likely to use that power against us?
First you have to win people over. And I think there is hope that even the fascist foot soldiers can be won over with the right messaging.
A lot of this comes down to a society that idealizes individualism to an extreme degree. We are focused on how we as individuals can evade moral culpability for our participation in an evil system, and that requires scapegoating someone we perceive as worse than us. But even if we convince police or soldiers or whoever to quit, that won’t protect people from harm. Instead we need to focus on building new organizational power that can get as many people as possible to oppose that harm in a concerted way. And in fact at the right moment I think we will want police, soldiers, arms manufacturers, etc. to participate, because those people have power and we need that power to win.
I’d rather have solidarity with the people the bombs get dropped on than with the people building the bombs. Include war profiteers in your “solidarity” and shifts it away from class lines and into nationalism.
Solidarity with victims is important. But my personal view is that fighting the state requires a broad coalition that includes people within the state’s social infrastructure.
War profiteers aren’t generally interested in fighting the state. But even to your point, obviously if you want to convince such people to fight the state, you should be criticizing their role as war profiteers. If you don’t call out what they’re doing for the evil that it is, then why would you expect them to “throw sand in the gears?”
Well, the reality is that most people in all professions have little to no interest in fighting the state. But the flip side is that there are some people from all walks of life that will be receptive, so assuming such people can’t be reached is locking important people out of the movement.
Criticism is important but I think it requires a different approach. If you tell people they’re evil they will not listen to you. Almost everyone’s worldview has “I’m a good person” at its foundation, and information that contradicts their foundational viewpoints will be rejected. So I think criticism should be focused on systems and organizations rather than this meme which focuses on individual responsibility.
I’m not “locking anyone out of the movement” by calling them evil war profiteers. If they want to join the movement, they can simply stop being evil war profiteers. I am simply telling the truth.
On the other hand, by welcoming and babying such people, you are alienating their victims. It makes it abundantly clear where your priorities lie. Why would a victim of these war profiteers want to be a part of a movement that whitewashes those who perpetrate or enable the violence they’ve suffered?
What is your vision for what “being part of the movement” would even look like for these people? Unless they’re taking direct action to sabotage and support their industry (in which case they will likely be caught and fired), they are undoubtedly doing far more harm there than they could possibly offset by voting or attending some protest.
I’m not saying it isn’t true. But I just think practically speaking, requiring all leftists to be morally pure nonprofit employees or whatever it is you think would be a more ethical way to survive under capitalism excludes a lot of people. Sure, they could theoretically still participate but if you treat them like shit they’re not going to.
These are huge companies that often have little ideas of what their employees are doing. There are absolutely ways they could be sabotaging their activities without getting fired.
Even if that were true, you’re simultaneously claiming that these people are willing to sabotage their company, and that they’d be alienated by saying that the work their company does is evil. That doesn’t make any sense.
I’m just saying it’s not tactically useful to point out their personal culpability. There are ways to criticize the company without focusing on the employees and I think they will find that more palatable.