woodenghost

The idealist would look at patriarchy, racism and capitalism and naively conclude, that at some point our thinking went wrong. That the wrong ideas got popular, because people just happens to be wrong about them. A constructivist idealist might propose changing how we think about stuff to change these bad ideas.

A materialist, would realize that, patriarchy, racism and capitalism are more than bad ideas but really oppressive power structures with very real grounding in material contradictions in the way society is materially reproducing itself. As such, attacking them merely in the realm of ideas without also changing those structures, is doomed to fail.

For example the current rise of fascism, which threatens trans people, is not solely a consequence of people believing bad ideas, but a reaction of the ruling class to the growing crisis tendencies in a falling empire, which the materialist can ultimately trace back to things like the tendency of the rate of profits to fall. That's why fascism will never be defeated under capitalism.

However, you can still think of constructivist techniques as useful tools for deconstructing oppressive structures and narratives, even while being a materialist.

The Marxist author Silvia Federici in her work "Caliban and the Witch" explains how emerging capitalism needed to enforce a gender binary, sexism and the separation of wage labor in the factories and unpaid reproductive labor at home (reproducing the ability to work). She treats it as a form of primitive accumulation similar to the enclosure of the commons and colonialism. This helped to provide capital with the push to get started and also served to divide the working class.

Ah, that makes sense, thanks for taking the time!

And just to come full circle:

Baalbek, named after Baal, is an ancient city in the Beqaa plane in Lebanon. It was known as the bread basket of the Roman empire. The Romans build the largest temples outside of Rome there and allowed worship of Baal to continue in the large entrance building in front of the Jupiter temple. The temples stood in good condition for centuries and are now under threat by IDF bombing, which has already come as close as 500 meters, while every building in the city has been declared a target and it's people ordered to evacuate.

She will and after that eat some noodles.

Good effort comment, thanks! Are you sure about merit based evaluation for MJ? Wouldn't people just strategically exaggerate their grades?

MJ encourages honest evaluation because exaggerating grades can backfire if too many others don't follow suit.

I guess I don't quite understand this point. Why wouldn't everyone exaggerate grades?

Dolphin liberals would just tell all the dolphins to give dolphin Harris an excellent grade, insisting she was excellent in comparison to dolphin Trump. (Sorry to break out of the thought experiment.) So this:

This can help identify when all candidates are weak

wouldn't happen when all the dolphins try to game the system. Did I misunderstand?

You said, all your feelings start bubbling up. So that sounds like more feelings come to the foreground other than existential dread. Maybe those are important too. In that case you could ask yourself what kind of feelings those are and maybe try to just sit with them and notice how they go away or become less intense after a while.

Existentialist philosophy recommends accepting existential dread/anxiety/absurdity as the only way to live an authentic, free life in which we might eventually build our own meaning. Monist philosophies (like mystic tendencies) emphasize the interconnectedness of things and maybe find comfort in seeing separation as an illusion.

Any way, accepting your feelings without judgement is good in general. And like others said, mindfulness based meditation might help.

Disclaimer: in case of existing traumas, mindfulness meditation can be dangerous to try alone, as it might cause people to relive their trauma. And in case of depression, it might not be enough on its own without cognitive behavioral therapy or addressing underlying causes.

Wow, I do the exact same thing sometimes! Also watched allot of Star Trek. It's not ideal for me, because it's not a calm topic, but if I can't help thinking about these things anyway, might as well. How does it work for you? Any tips, what (else) to think about when falling asleep?

It's just that normal gravity on earth feels exactly like being in an accelerating elevator in space. So you can't tell the difference from the inside. Like in the elevator you can ask them, whether you're still on earth or accelerating in space. Einstein used this thought experiment to develop the general theory of relativity.

Basically Einstein thinking about that weird feeling you get in your gut when an elevator starts upwards led to him concluding that mass bends spacetime making light from distant stars go in curves around the sun, which was confirmed during the next available solar eclipse.

White liberals will absolutely pick up guns and kill their enemies. It's us. They kill socialists all over the world. They don't see Nazis as their enemies, because they are not. Fascism is a natural extension of the bourgeoise state in times of crisis. There is no fundamental material contradiction between fascism and liberalism, only ideological differences.

These "right wing christians" are a militia that's responsible for the infamous massacre of Sabra and Shatila, supported by Israel. The so called "Lebanese Forces" fighters were mostly made up of the Kataeb party, which was founded, after their leader visited Nazi Germany and, deeply impressed, modeled the organization after the brwon shirts, with Nazi salut and everything.

So the US counting on literal fascists again for their regime change operation. No surprise, I guess.

That's some good news!

It's often like, exchanging biting polemics in theory and wholesome support in praxis.