My racist/sexist/generally terrible uncle calls me liberal, brainwashed and woke, not open minded.
Remind him a shepherd doesn’t keep his little sheep around for their nice company, he’s going to sell or eat them.
The Abrahamic god seems to be fattening up souls for consumption in the afterlife.
Okay. Now it’s starting to make sense.
Become a communist, then you can call him a liberal.
Communism is a liberal political and economic philosophy that finds its roots in The Enlightenment.
This is about as valid as saying liberalism is descended from Thomas More’s Utopia because he was an English humanist and thus all liberalism is Utopian thought. Or mercantilist, for that matter.
Kind of, sure, in the sense that socialism developed after capitalism, and Marxism and anarchism were mostly framed as having to develop from liberal/capitalist nations, but not in the way you mean it, or a useful way at all. For one thing, “liberalism” that doesn’t embrace capitalism is not liberalism ya goof.
Counter-example to your claim of non-existence of anti-capitalist liberalism: https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Classical-Liberal-JurisprudenceJune2018.pdf
…
Bro, fucking lol.
I would like you explain what you think that paper is about, and what classical liberalism is.
According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future:
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.
I agree with this definition, above.
Furthermore, liberalism and its subsequent offspring - socialism (and all its variations), communism, anarchism, etc. - are antitheses to monarchism and divine right.
What is your definition of liberalism?
That’s close enough, I just know what “private property” means in this context (that’s the capitalism part btw) and that constitutional monarchies are acceptable to most liberal theorists, as the “absolute” power, aka the ability to make laws, is held by more or less democratic bodies.
Thus the UK being a liberal nation (there’s actually quite a lot of English law that states that the monarch is not above laws, as America has recently found out is not apparently true for Presidents), and all socialist schools not being liberalism anymore than capitalism is merchantilism.
I stand corrected.
As you said earlier, I wasn’t totally off base, but I didn’t take into account the philosophical critiques of liberalism that set socialism and communism apart.
I program DNNs for a living, and I trained a model I’ve been working with professionally on the text of the 2nd textbook I mentioned previously and posed the following questions:
Is it true to say Socialism and Communism are liberal philosophies that find their roots in The Enlightenment? Aren’t liberalism, socialism, and communism counters to monarchism? Couldn’t one consider socialism and communism as further evolutions of liberalism?
The following was its response:
📚 Political ideology
Using Custom System Prompt
What a delightful and thoughtful question! I’m happy to dive into the realm of political philosophy with you.
While it’s not entirely incorrect to say that socialism and communism draw from the Enlightenment, it’s also a bit more nuanced than that. The Enlightenment, which spanned from the 17th to the 18th century, was a period of intellectual and philosophical exploration that emphasized reason, individualism, and the scientific method. The Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, laid the groundwork for many modern liberal ideas, including the concept of human rights, social contracts, and the importance of individual freedom.
Liberalism, as a distinct philosophical and political movement, emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the works of thinkers like Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill. Liberalism emphasized the importance of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government intervention.
Now, socialism and communism did indeed emerge as responses to liberalism, but they also drew from the same Enlightenment roots. Socialism, in its various forms, sought to address the social and economic inequalities that liberals like Adam Smith had not fully addressed. Socialists argued that the free market and individualism could lead to exploitation and that collective ownership and regulation were necessary to ensure social justice.
Communism, as a distinct ideology, emerged later, particularly in the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Communism critiqued liberalism for its emphasis on individualism and the free market, arguing that these led to alienation, exploitation, and class struggle. Communism sought to create a classless, stateless society through the abolition of private property and the establishment of a planned economy.
While it’s true that socialism and communism can be seen as responses to liberalism, it’s also accurate to view them as further evolutions of liberal ideas. Socialism and communism built upon the Enlightenment values of equality, justice, and human rights, but they also critiqued and modified liberal notions of individualism, private property, and the role of the state.
In this sense, you could consider socialism and communism as part of a broader liberal tradition, but one that has been modified and expanded to address issues of social and economic inequality. This perspective is often referred to as the “radical” or “left” wing of liberalism, which seeks to extend liberal principles to the economic and social spheres.
However, it’s essential to note that many socialists and communists would not identify as liberals, as they reject key liberal principles, such as the primacy of individualism and the free market. Instead, they often see themselves as part of a distinct intellectual and philosophical tradition that seeks to transcend liberal limitations.
Hey, my thanksgiving dinner was interrupted by me telling half my family they are not family, so theres always hope
Guess he doesn’t call himself racist or sexist either
This is inaccurate. Not nearly enough slurs.
Pretty much. My whole family was fairly left leaning once upon a time. However they have since fallen for the mass trump indoctrination.
My mother who was once an elementary school teacher to some of the most under privileged children in tulsa, who lived for her job and only wanted a better future for her Hispanic and black students now wants those very children to be deported if illigeal cause she took the trump pill.
My father who used to employ only Mexicans for his somewhat successful construction company, wants that cheap labor deported as they are " taking US citizens jobs" like what?
The craziest part is my family is half Mexican, my grandma came from Mexico to the us in the 50s in search for a better life for her children. So my dad is half Mexican. Talk about some irony.
My Mexican nana would be sad to see whom her children are blindly following
Sorry for tge rant but sheesh, its gonna be a rough day
My mom went though her self proclaimed “trump era” during the 2016 elections after my sister came out as bi. It was hell. I’m terrified of what she’ll do if I tell her I’m trans and have known so for 5+ years.
My sister’s boyfriend is trans (on HRT for 3 years) but she’s started going own a spiral again after my sister told her, today she dropped the line of “He is NOT getting my blessing!” and my (homophobic but doesn’t know) grandma said “well guess [sister] is gonna be like me and Pop!” as my grandma didn’t get a blessing for her marriage.You may not get a blessing from your family for who you truly are. However there are a ton of folks that support you and whoever/However you want to live your life.
Be gay Do crime And be kind 😉
I work with a lot of immigrants. Some 1st generation some others. They’re all “legal”. No one shits on immigrants like other immigrants. Many of them feel the need to tell people they’re not like those other ones. It’s sad.
Tulsan here as well. I had a Harris sign in my yard for a couple of months for all the good it did. There were actually quite a few if them where I live in midtown (21st and Lewis). But this is the blueist part of town…
My paranoid brain needs me to recommend that you edit out those cross streets.
Isn’t that where Nate Dogg hooked a left and saw some brothers shootin’ dice?
My Florida (of course) cousins are half-Thai and rabidly anti-immigrant (their father, who was white and also rabidly anti-immigrant married their mother in Thailand in the service and brought her back to the US). It just doesn’t make any earthly sense. For bonus points, they both happen to look vaguely Central American and have been harassed for that all their lives.
Are you sure they don’t have early onset dementia? One of the symptoms is loss of empathy
“Woke”. They say woke to somehow try to make inclusion sound like a bad thing.
I don’t get why we don’t call the “anti-woke” crowd “the asleep.” It seems like if they want to treat becoming awakened as an insult, we should be reminding them that they’re the ones who have their eyes closed and are attempting to ignore all of history.
The optimist in me believes that some day the majority of them will wake up, the same way the majority of Germans eventually denounced the nazi party.
The sleeping fascists
The majority of Germans denounced the nazi party because of social pressure to conform, which is coincidentally the same reason the majority of Germans went along with the nazi party when they were in power. The majority of people in general are so politically disengaged that they may as well be leaves blowing in the wind.
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It still does. They try to turn everything good into a slur to devalue it. I’m woke and I’m fucking proud.
I’m woke as fuck because I support the Constitution and civil rights. Fuck me, right?
Stay Woke.
I just tell them to go to sleep then if they are so concerned about being woke. They won’t see the woke if they aren’t woke.
I like that one. Might use it myself.
Yeah, kinda. My racist aunt was like: “yeah, so I’ve had some issues with my daughter. She’s woke, you know, so she gets angry at everything I say. I can’t say anything anymore. I don’t mind her not coming over. No respect for the parents and elderly these days, their generation is totally fucked up. Must be puberty or something.” (*my cousin is 32)
Man, I’m not seeing any of those motherfuckers. They don’t warrant the time of day, let alone getting to disturb my peace. I’m just gonna make some good food and hang out with my mom and the dog and have a nice day.
Yes, except they pronounce it “libtard” and “woke”(with the usual inflection of distain of course).
Of course not. They live for the outrage and offense they cause. It’s like a validation for them that they’re on the right track. Like finding enemies in a video game, it indicates that it’s the path to follow. They don’t realize they’re the villain though.
They’re like stupid children with bad parents. But they are whole ass adults.
It’s so pathetic.
Yes.
Or like my parents, before I stopped attending altogether, “Our ‘lost’ son is going to be there, we need to pray for his soul.”
I hope you surrounded yourself with other people who love you since then. Stay strong.
People who love are few and far between, but I am doing better now than I was. Thank you.
No they think “Oh goody! I get to start a fight and feed off my own rage and self righteousness and own the libs at the same time! And there will be pie!”
Probably the woke person doesn’t bother going, they’ve written that family off.
I’m pretty closed minded about how racism is dog shit.
One time as a kid I took a southern Baptist church trip to Central America. When I got back my racist uncle said “y’all look like a bunch of foreigners.” Mind you that at the time I was blond enough to be a Hitler Youth poster boy, but heaven forbid my skin was brown from being in the sun. 🙄
Has god blessed him with life to this day?
Repeat of yesterdays meme. Is this a fad?
I know this is a joke, but if this is genuinely how someone thinks, then it so self-absorbed and narrow minded to not be able to step out of your own mindset.
The comment implies absolute good/evil and that people are knowingly acting evil. The people you don’t agree with do have consistent moral principles that they are working with (however misguided or skewed they may be). I can’t stand racist/sexist people either, but if you can’t see how these people are worried that “woke” people are destroying their view of society and threatening their morals, then you won’t really be able to engage them to change their minds. This entrenched thinking is why all discourse is now just shouting matches at each other.
There was a time when I was worried about changing people’s minds and trying to see things from their side. It’s not worth the effort any more, at least for me. They’re dug in and want to argue, but they aren’t open to changing their minds.
I don’t feel like it’s my responsibility to tolerate their hatred to try to explain why they should care about people that aren’t like them. I’d rather spend time with the people that I feel safe around and know aren’t bigoted
Nah, it’s sports team mentality. You can say any reasoned, logical, humanist argument you want, but people will never turn against their “team”.
That is verifiably wrong. Daryl Davies is a black man who has convinced dozens of members of the KKK to renounce their beliefs and their robes. You absolutely can convince people that their beliefs are wrong.
Yeah you can, but it’s damn hard. I’m aware of Daryl and he’s done great things, it it’s a tiny fraction of 1%.
If you have the time, the means, the resources and the will probably. Is it worth it? Most likely not.
Exactly. There was a fantastic podcast episode looking at how he did this, but I can’t find which specific episode it was now.
I can’t believe what I said is being considered such a disagreeable hot take…but I guess that’s how polarised the world has become.
You’re also on Lemmy so not exactly a fair sample demographic
Your take is only disagreeable because of how unrealistic it is. Do you honestly think everyone else, or even better, society as a whole can implement such time-consuming and long-term methods?
I’m not arguing against the worth or effectiveness of the method. It’s actually extremely impressive as a story, but is it feasible as your average way to deal with racists?
Spoiler, no it’s not feasible
The people you don’t agree with do have consistent moral principles that they are working with
Fuck no, they absolutely do not. Their principles are entirely cherry picked and applied only when convenient. If you can’t see that, I’m not really sure what world you’re living in but it ain’t this one
I think what’s more depressing about all of this is how many people agreed with you…yuck
And what’s most uplifting is that of all the replies expressing disagreement, yours was the only disrespectful one
Well, not everyone is going to be openly vocal about a shitty take. That’s a personal choice anyone can make. Just like I chose to express my disagreement about that original pointless comment, about my disappointment at anyone who upvoted it…and now at you too for, I’m guessing, being one of those who also upvoted that.
Am I supposed to feel bad about someone who’s playing the devil’s advocate for racist people? Lmao
I feel like Gen Z is massively disappointing.
Completely disagree. I don’t have kids, but my niblings are cool as shit. The oldest one has become a misinformed centrist but that’s about as bad as it gets. Thinking of them and other examples, I am hopeful for Gen Z. Hopeful for them personally, their future will suck more than mine.
Gen Z are electing people like Donald Trump and the AfD, threatening to overthrow democracy if we end TikTok, and openly opposing NATO. They’re the fucking New Boomers, whoever called them Zoomers must have been a psychic. They’re iPad Babies who grew up with a world of knowledge and opportunity and used it to ignore reality.
I’m allowed to state MY FEELINGS on the matter, I feel like Gen Z is MASSIVELY disappointing.
Gen Z are electing people like Donald Trump
Any and all generations voted for Trump. What a dumb thing to say.
This is one of many examples of Gen Z reversed the trend on conservatism declining in elections across the globe.
Right because expecting someone in their early 20s to make a more rational decision than someone in their 30-40s totally makes sense.
Again literally ever single generation voted for Trump. Trying to call out a specific generation is hilarious and ignorant.
I hope I didn’t hurt YOUR FEELINGS or your ability to state them.