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.
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.