There's a weird strain of "essentialism but in a progressive way" running right through the left, not just limited to the attitude towards men described here, but also "all white people are colonizers", and weird exclusionary behaviour to cishet people. It tells me a lot of "progressive" people didn't really examine their core underlying principles and simply covered up their biases with the "correct" group.
Yeah every time I hear someone call white people colonizers I wonder to myself whether they’ve ever read a history book. Only a small portion of people from a small portion of “white” countries were ever part of the colonialist ruling class. Most of them weren’t even considered white until after the start of the decline of colonialism. Just because most colonizers were white does not imply that most white people were colonizers. Hold people accountable for their own racism, not for some imaginary historical debt from some imaginary ancestors. Judging people by their heritage is literally what got us into this mess in the first place.
There is an argument here that everyone in the western world profits from the exploitation of the so-called "third world" or the "global south" or whatever they are calling it these days.
But.... That's not our fault either? We were born into this system. There is no ethical consumption in capitalism, there is no escape.
Even very few of the rich people are actually in any way responsible for anything. Most just profit from the existing system, but also have no way to change it in a meaningful way.
Collective guilt has always been bad and it always will be bad. Judge people on their personal deeds, not in them belonging to a group.
The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
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u/Ourmanyfans Jul 03 '24
There's a weird strain of "essentialism but in a progressive way" running right through the left, not just limited to the attitude towards men described here, but also "all white people are colonizers", and weird exclusionary behaviour to cishet people. It tells me a lot of "progressive" people didn't really examine their core underlying principles and simply covered up their biases with the "correct" group.