No I’m not catastrophising.
The world is slowly lurching towards a fully fascist led America, India, Hungary, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Argentina.
Instead people are either ignorant or blaming “wokeism”* for their problems.
I have no clue what to do and this is literally a car crash in slow motion.
I’m despondent because I’m going to be crushed under the boot when the time comes and my morals get in the way of my survival instinct.
Humans are repeating the mistakes of the past. It’s just so anxiety inducing.
*Woke is a useless term promulgated by fascists to dog whistle the things they really want to hate - feminism, socialism, LGBTQIA+, immigration, brown/black people, equality and diversity.
I understand how you might feel this way. But a key difference to the early 1930s is that there are many large-scale protests against far right extremism in Germany. The elections in the Netherlands did produce a right wing tendency, but there is no government as of yet and the PVV is still pretty far away from fascism. The other three large winners of the election are not even that right wing. At least no more than the party that ruled for the last 15 years.
That said, I do kinda hope that this phase passes quickly and that people will start to finally get along and care about our fellow humans. Even though we never have.
The protests in germany give me hope that the german public finally resists against fascism instead of just letting it happen and then saying “there’s nothing that could have been done” afterwards
I expect the US will hold out for at least the next 4.5 years. After that, no promises.
4.5 years is optimistic with an election pending
I expect that the US will last five years, what’s the bet?
I hate to say this but I’ve honestly just gotten used to the idea at this point. I’ve been watching the people around me howling in support of fascism since about 2015 now and the more egregious these politicians crimes become the louder these idiots seem to howl for them. It’s been going so long that it’s just part of the background noise of day to day life now, and I’m tired of caring anymore. It’s fucking depressing.
How can we convince people now is the time to act? What more information do we need? I think most people are clinging to the idea everything is business as usual. As long as they can keep the lights on they wouldn’t want to upset the stability they’ve managed to make for themselves.
As a Russian who’s been thinking about what could’ve been done about Putin’s many moves towards authoritarianism, I say this: I don’t know. I dint think anyone knows either.
indsight is 20/20, so good luck trying to convince people to act now, before the far and distant future is here; it’s probably part of our nature to not be that much concerned with the long-term, as it’s the short- to mid-term that keeps us alive, i.e. fed, sheltered, hopefully healthy etc.
At this point, it feels like history is indeed very cyclical, at least society is, and now anyone left of outright fascism seems to be in minority, with many others either failing or refusing to recognise what’s likely coming. I don’t think it’s new, either - I’m sure people of our ages had things to compare their situation to during the Nazis’ rise to power and subsequent events, just like we look back to their times and wonder how in the world could we possibly let that happen.
It’s probably best to vote and to protest and to be politically active and all that, before the right-wing or some other authoritarian group manages to manipulate its way into your government, local or higher, and start doing all it can to make you not even think of voting or protesting or being politically active. The caveat is you just don’t have any guarantees that any of that is going to work.
What’s even more important to remember is the fact that we cannot come up with some universal solution that’s going to always work the best way possible in every political and economical and social circumstance. This is what makes recording history and experience so important - it will allow us and those that will be after us to analyse the multitudes of factors and tendencies that lead to things and hopefully figure out reliable and effective and predictable mechanisms for society to function and prosper in mutual respect, egalitarianism, support, etc.
My last take is probably a little controversial: I think we shouldn’t ostracise people we see as fascist or right-wing or authoritarian, etc., but rather be welcoming and supporting, giving them respect, community and opportunity to speak and be listened to with kindness and understanding; many turn to violent and inhumane ideologies because, well, they don’t value themselves, feel threatened, humiliated, afraid, or something along these lines. It doesn’t have to be true, because it’s about how people feel, and we must work with how people feel and influence that on emotional level so they feel like they being in a group that’s based on being “anti-woke” or just “anti-” something - that’s a dead end; they should feel like they belong to groups that envision future and prosperity, where people know they can be trusted and can trust, where they can respect and be respected. You may not like it, but you have to understand that the human psyche can be very flexible and eventually turn a person you could easily turn into a human-loving ally into a bloodthirsty fascist just because they couldn’t find their place anywhere else, so instead they’re easily picked up by a group that manipulates confused and lost people into a sense of community and belonging.
Fascism has to be the unappealing option for them, and that requires a mind healthy from trauma and loneliness, the lack of that feeling like you’ve been played and robbed of something you own - like some great historical period the mouthpieces promise to get you back into if you yell at teenage girls for wearing bright-colored hair and rainbow pins.
I agree with your controversial take, however it’s important to note that a lot of this fascist rhetoric relies on misinformation which is spread far quicker and further than the truth. And the neofascism that has taken hold is very in-group oriented (i.e. the concepts that the in group is by definition morally virtuous and thus can do no real harm, whereas the out-group is the opposite) which is difficult to break down with logic and rhetoric. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but in terms of conversion (purely as a metric, i don’t mean to be oberly reductionist) it will always be one step forward three back. And if they people don’t approach a conversation in good faith it can be downright impossible to get them to even fathom a differing perspective. What I’m saying is that the new breed of fascists rely solely on dogma and groupthink, and have been trained to reject any rebuttal or outside perspective. They took what the old fascists did well and optimized it and trained people in it for the past 70+ years.
Well, at least that will take your mind off global warming. Which is good since we have already hit 1.5°C of warming.
1.5 and we’re just getting started! Let’s goooooo! It’s incredible what humans can do when we work together 🔥👏🏻🔥👏🏻🔥
You are a horrible person to make me laugh so hard at our folly
I’m only 18 and I’m already so fucking tired of existing in this world, seems like everything is going downhill and I’m just gonna be forced to live in an authoritarian dictatorship world where all the air is full of toxins and the water is full of plastic
I hate thinking so negatively about the future but the more the world seems to crumble around me the more I feel like we might be one of the last generations of humans that got to experience civilisation for a long time.
The planet is dying, fascism is spreading, the tensions are rising, and everyone has nukes! woo! future!
On the positive side a world ravaged by nuclear war could solve both problems!
Yay.
*cough* Posadism *cough*
TIL. The Federation already exists. We just aren’t communist enough to get the immortality beam and reality bomb engine.
TIL. The Federation already exists.
Weelll except for the nuclear first-use policy.
Although all in all that’d sort of track, too
It worries me too and I’ve been thinking a lot about margaritas, I’ve been sober for four years so its troubling thoughts of alcohol are creeping back in. I don’t know what else to say. Need a hug?
Need a hug?
Wish I could give one
May i present to you:
the antifacist handbook, free to download/read (in different formats like pdf/epub/html/plaintext):
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mark-bray-antifa-the-antifascist-handbook
Thanks for this, reading now.
I’ve also been busy reading the history of the rise of the Nazi party particularly the SA.
It’s scary (scary is not a strong enough word for the combined emotions of frustration, anger, fear, anxiety) how close current USA events are replicating the original rise of Nazi Germany.
Even current German events are replicating the rise of Nazi Germany. But many people are too blind to see…
It’s happening in France too. Are the fascists roaming the streets to beat leftists and Arabs in your country too?
Woke is a hijacked term by the facists it literally means to be socially aware of the problems faced by different people in a society
I have hope for Germany. The past few weeks we had enormous protests(over 3m people protested in total) and multiple petitions against fascists and the AfD(the party that literally want to deportate everyone who isn’t “German”(this means even if you have a German passport, but came from another country youre going to get deportated)) had blown up. Their youth organisation is now officially a right wing extremists organisation. I still have hope, that we may save our country before it’s to late.
I don’t have hope for a Germany that vocally supports a fascist, genocidal regime (hint: it rhymes with Smisreal).
Hi, Why do you think India is a fascist country? I believe its the most democratic country ever. However looking forward to your perspective.
Anything I have learned from history classes is that this cycle of fascism/dictatorship and democracy has always been going on, people are dumb -> they choose fascists -> fascist gonna fasc -> ppl get fed up -> uprising/protests -> government overthrown after tons of bloodshed -> some sort of constitutional bind on rulers/elections -> some peace -> dumb ppl forget everything and chose fascists again -> repeat
I think you forgot the part where capitalism makes peoples life worse and worse, while at the same time conservative media blames the left for it, even if they are the cause.
Because in the End people dont vote for fascists because its funny, but because they believe they can get them out of a shitty situation (Fascism doesnt do that obviously, but people get blinded by propaganda).
We wouldnt have this issue today if politicians werent all neoliberal and actually cared about poor people.
You need history classes that cover more than the little fart of time known as the 20th century.
Well I only studied the history part which was mandatory in my school, so it was naturally not very in-depth or far back, only standard topics like the World wars, french and russian revolutions etc
Don’t forget Belgium, specifically in Flanders.
Man shut the fuck up, you’re clueless
The fascist party is polling at 30% the party they split off in the 70s is polling at 20% it’s not good.
If only this was that simple. A “Democratic country” doesn’t just wake up one day vote for a bad guy and become fascist. This has been happening all over the world for last few decades. All the past politician created few policies out of fear, out of ignorance, out of greed, and out of malice that edged us towards this. And now most of the people have accepted this blatant abuse of our freedom, our privacy, our democracy as just part of life. There is nothing that anyone can do to stop this. Because we don’t bother reading EULA because we don’t demand the companies the governments to do better we just sign away our rights our freedom because we have better things to do.
Why do you think this is? What are the root causes?
Human stupidity and malice – they’re an infinite resource that just keeps on taking. We’ve gotten this far despite ourselves, not because
We’ll see how it shakes out this year, but here are some positive thoughts…
2017 was the high watermark for facism’s popularity in the US. They couldn’t help themselves and went masks off in Charlottesville, and their movement has never recovered.
Facism’s rise is always reactionary to rising socialism. If the rural petite bougausie and the New York Times are pushing for facism then that’s because they are worried workers are gaining power and will come to take what they have. They’re worried we are getting organized and winning victories.
Conservatives are currently extremely demoralized. Go check out their boards and discords. I’ve never seen them this universally depressed. Then don’t think they can win and they aren’t excited at the prospect of trying only to fail.
Hmmmm I also frequent white supremacist sympathising discord and my general take away is that they are more desperate and more willing to take violent action to align reality with their views.
Of course this is only anecdotal so it’s kind of a moot point.
I’d be more confident in your opinion if there wasn’t a prevailing view that America will reelect Trump.
If trump isn’t elected it may not even stop fascism though.
Hitler was jailed before he rose to power, trump could very easily do the same. If I’m going to be optimistic about anything it’s the fact that Trump is very old and may not survive prison or the presidency for an extended period.
Let’s start with this: Can you do anything personally to save the world? I’m not talking incremental personal improvement rainbows and butterflies horseshit, I’m saying can you personally do anything to stop what is clearly a catastrophic trajectory?
If you can, do it. If you can’t, which I believe nobody can at this point, it’s time to stop worrying and live the life you have left.
Spend more time outside, learn to paint acrylics, go get some pussy.
Why torture yourself and live in misery? Why allow all the evil people trying to terrorize you to succeed? Fuck that noise.
Read this, it’ll help: https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
“You can’t do anything to personally fix this, so you might as well not worry about it”
I fucking hate this mindset. This mindset is the reason we are in this position. We can’t just sit idly by and silently watch the right implement fascist policy and say “well, they were gonna try anyways, nothing we can do I guess”.
Go do something then, dumbass. Bc you won’t.
How do you expect to change someone else/world when you can’t even change yourself?
Behold, the unconscious class, pontificating about inner peace and enlightenment from their ivory tower of unearned privilege and willful ignorance
Its not about ignorance but being aware. Realising you can’t change the external situation so you change what you can control.
So you instead choose silent complicity with injustice and evil? I can’t change geopolitics sure, but at the very least you can bear witness and raise your voice to make others aware. And then somebody else who sees that issue, might have the power to change something.
If we all said “Damn that sucks for George Floyd, but police unions and politicians are big and scawy institutions- let’s do absolutely fucking nothing and go on with our lives” that is moral bankruptcy.
Stop digging and admit you don’t care about others dude, there’s no good way out of this hole you built
Right now. I no longer have the energy to do what you say. The only thing I CAN do as individual is focus on my self.
I care about others, I also donate to charities, i care about.
Idk what you mean by “hole i built”, it’s not that serious as you are taking it to be.
I can’t change your opinion about me (if you think, I’m evil) no matter how much I scream and yell. Everyone else sticks to their own positions in life, you and I are no different. It’s hard to change someone else or make a difference without influence/power.
That’s why its better to try and spend energy and time to create the life you want to live. Maybe then something can change and you may have the power to influence a small community/people.
Think globally, act locally
I don’t think you’re evil, but this attitude is part of the problem that enables terrible people to get away with horrific acts. “Why didn’t the Germans stop the holocaust?” can be explained a lot of ways, but complicity and silence feature throughout the answers, along with the ghouls who encouraged it
For a while I did exactly as you are doing. I was super involved in tracking and witnessing police abuses and misconduct, watching the drip-drip-drip while the country sat idle - and you’re right, it’s super depressing to see an obvious issue and be unable to change it. I did step away for a while when it got overwhelming, but me ignoring a problem, simply permits those abuses to continue without criticism or exposure.
I have the social, geographic and ethnic privilege to not be routinely affected negatively by the issues in the world, but I refuse to turn that to mute complicity
You are 100% correct. But…
For me, I don’t have the time to think globally.
I’m an 18 year old Asian male teenager - Middle Class Family.
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I need to make money - help my parents financially hoping to retire them earlier. These are the closest people I can help. My loved ones
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I have to stay in shape, fit and healthy (for the work I’m in)
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Trying to work on my business for passive income.
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Dealing with personal stress, issues and finances. (I’m in physcotherapy)
Do you still think as an individual, I have enough energy left to think about stuff that won’t help me and my family.
You say that you used to think like me. That does not mean you’re better or worse than me. It just means our priorities as individuals are different.
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No I’m not catastrophising.
2024 is going to be the beginning of the end of us all
Yeah, I don’t know about that.
Catastrophizing doesn’t mean the same thing as acknowledging the severity of a problem.
