Oppressorship

[Starbeam]

I was going to put this in the Venting Thread, but I realize this is better off on its own. The notions of oppressor and oppressed are too often framed as essential or unchangeable categories, meant to purify the planet based on passive privilege rather than active abuse. No, I do not enact punishment on people based on things beyond their control. Nobody should.

I'm not talking about the oppressed hating their oppressors. I'm talking about everything being on the table, including murder, deportation, and torture, as long it is done by the oppressed to the oppressor. That once one is born into an oppressor category, one must forfeit their safety for the sake of The Better People. In order for the world to be just, one group must be disposed of, forever. Like benifiting from privilege was the slight, or a choice. Demanding against that idea is somehow the same as colluding with the system in the first place. As if being alive is on the unfair luxury side of privilege, not the benign good luck side. This is/ was the logic behind the modern-day oppression of Mongolians, Wolf Children, Asian apologists of the United States nuking Japan, Foibe, the Rwandan Genocide. So their fears aren't just them being propagandized. I know the world we live in has the opposite problem, the point is i don't want this puritan(?) mentality to be a strong voice in any movement. I trust people here understand I'm not clamoring for the status quo or an equivocation.

Somehow, I'm supposed to just blindly trust everyone, no matter what they say. Why should anyone? Urging constant faith as a tenet is how you get cannon fodder at best and demagogues at worst. Is something being taught by "follow oppressed groups"? Do you know how many of us differ? Actual learning means being able to recreate things on your own, too.

Yes, I understand people vent and exaggerate, and to an extent this is nutpicking. I do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But I need to make clear this is not me trying to avoid hatred or feeling bad, but fear. Describing even bigotry as discriminatory hatred is foolhardy, it's discriminatory harm. That's why people say you can be sexist without realizing it; intentions don't fix problems. I'm fed up with discussions about this being bogged down with personal or even group sentiment instead of power. I'm also not here to stoke some unique blame on the oppressed, because part of my point is that literally anyone can act this way.

I don't speak as an oppressor fishing for sympathy. I'm trans, nonbinary, autistic, and I wasn't raised Christian (in America). I do not want an upended world where these categories rule without limit. There's this conception being oppressed will engender quick solidarity to any other oppressed group, for empathy's sake. It can happen, but just as often you can get collaborators and a new class of oppressors once the boot is taken off of their neck. Look at the recently-conservative voting patterns of American Orthodox Jews, some White and Mestizo Latinos, and the evolution of Morrissey's politics. I cannot just trust in my identity to make the world a good place. I swear, it's as if people think oppressors come from the Oppresseria lineage. And also once they're part of it, it's time to dispose.

[rotting bones]

This movement exists. It's the movement for human rights.

[Starbeam]

See, that's the thing. A lot of people I'm complain about say their actions are part of human rights or that oppressor peoples are wholly exempt. I don't know what to call this tendency, but it intermingles in all movements and I'm sick of letting it pass.

[linguistcat]

See, that's the thing. A lot of people I'm complain about say their actions are part of human rights or that oppressor peoples are wholly exempt. I don't know what to call this tendency, but it intermingles in all movements and I'm sick of letting it pass.

I mean, they're wrong, but that hasn't stopped people from claiming things if those claims made them feel justified.

[Raphael]

As I see it, there are really a lot of people with completely messed up political views in the world, in many different corners of the political spectrum. We can, and should, handle them by opposing them, calling them out, and refusing to support them. But I don't expect any of the different groups of people with completely messed up political views to go away any time soon. Depressing and enraging, but unfortunately a part of life.

So for me, the people whom Starbeam criticizes in this thread are simply one out of many groups of people with completely messed up political views in the world. I can completely understand letting off steam about them, though.

[Travis B.]

Atrocities are atrocities, and just because the people doing them are the 'right' people and the victims are the 'wrong' people does not make them any more right. This is reflected in my views on things such as the expulsion of ethnic Germans at the end of WWII or the exodus of Jews from the Middle East -- just because someone is an ethnic German or a Jew (in the case of the Jewish exodus) does not make atrocities against them any more right than atrocities against, say, Jews or Roma (in the case of the Holocaust) or Palestinians. (And I do consider the Jewish exodus to be an atrocity -- sure, it may have not involved much in the way of overt murder, but Jews were pressured to leave the lands in which they had lived for centuries solely for being Jews.) This can be extended to the present day with things like the Gaza War, where the fact that Palestinians have been subject to genocidal conditions does not somehow justify the killing of innocent Israelis, whether at its outset or in the form of subsequent murders of hostages.

[rotting bones]

See, that's the thing. A lot of people I'm complain about say their actions are part of human rights or that oppressor peoples are wholly exempt. I don't know what to call this tendency, but it intermingles in all movements and I'm sick of letting it pass.

If you know people abusing human rights language to perpetuate oppression, you might want to report them.

Note that Marxists traditionally opposed human rights.

[Starbeam]

See, that's the thing. A lot of people I'm complain about say their actions are part of human rights or that oppressor peoples are wholly exempt. I don't know what to call this tendency, but it intermingles in all movements and I'm sick of letting it pass.

I mean, they're wrong, but that hasn't stopped people from claiming things if those claims made them feel justified.

Yeah, anyone can claim anything, the point isn't their opinion. And obviously awful things can sprout up anwhere. I guess I'm trying to narrow down a way to describe this specific attitude without doing other stupid problems myself

Note that Marxists traditionally opposed human rights.]

I'm curious to what the situation here is. Do any current Marxists follow this pattern?

----
In any case, I also have trouble talking about this problem because I don't want it co-opted by anyone not interested in ending current oppression and similar conservative/ centrist types. Or start enabling people focussing on approval from oppressed groups rather than not being murdered or tortured

[rotting bones]

I'm curious to what the situation here is. Do any current Marxists follow this pattern?

As far as I'm aware, all existing parties that describe themselves as Communist support authoritarianism in the form of "democratic centralism" and oppose human rights. There might be confused individuals bucking this trend who continue to support Communism. That's why (edit: among other reasons) I call myself a democratic socialist.

[Starbeam]

I meant that if they don't support human rights, what are their beliefs on the subject of undeserved cruelty instead?

[rotting bones]

I meant that if they don't support human rights, what are their beliefs on the subject of undeserved cruelty instead?

Marxists think "rights" are post hoc justifications reflecting material power relations in society. The state that's monetarily supported by property owners uses the language of "rights" to increase profit margins. IIRC Marx said something like: wood gatherers could once go into forests to gather firewood. After the "rights" lawyers came in, the property rights of forest owners were asserted, forcing the wood gatherers to slave away in factories or starve. Today, the situation is beyond satire. Apparently corporations have the same "rights" as people.

To the extent that rights sometimes protect workers, that's because property owners fear violence if they are not respected. According to Marxist materialism, rights are derived from this fear of violence, and all rights are lumped in with property rights. Like property owners, wood gatherers wouldn't respect property rights either if they didn't fear the gendarme's bayonet. What appears in retrospect as the natural order is a state of sublimated violence: children who grow up under its chilling effect can no longer imagine other possible worlds, making perpetual violence appear as a state of peace. Therefore, the only way to increase the so-called "rights" of the working class is to make property owners fear them.

There is no concept of justice in this worldview, only nature red in tooth and claw. What redemptive value is there is strictly teleological: After the workers rise up in revolt, the cruel subjection that the proletariat labors under will be abolished, and all men will apparently become free workers somehow. How would that happen? Don't ask. Be flexible, and respond to the moment. Like I said, crazy.

Given this worldview, no one is coming to save you. The enemy will give you no quarter unless he "respects", i.e, fears, you. The only recourse for people suffering cruelty is to unite with others in a similar predicament and march against their oppressors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xjONUGUnlw

PS.

IIRC Marx said something like: wood gatherers could once go into forests to gather firewood.

I believe this is what I was thinking of: https://marxists.architexturez.net/arch ... /10/25.htm Whether it says what I summarized, I'm not sure. I only remember reading somewhere that this is the publication where Marx stopped being a radical liberal and became "Marxist" for the first time.

[rotting bones]

How would that happen? Don't ask. Be flexible, and respond to the moment. Like I said, crazy.

I guess the best excuse I can come up with for Marxist polemics is that it's some form of ominous positivity therapy: https://youtube.com/shorts/7m5gpWtPX4k

Edit: I suppose that, since Marxism is a theory about sums of money and where they go, it's not easy to translate into digestible slogans.

[Travis B.]

I should note that anarchists are against the concept of 'rights' because they believe that 'rights' only serve to protect one from the state, and once the state is abolished no one will need 'rights' anymore.

I personally disagree with this conception because I believe that people also need protection from their fellow person, that the state is not the sole source of oppression, and that a societal structure composed of workers' councils or a syndicalist union is effectively a new state of sorts even if it is more democratic than the states that came before it. (This is a large part of why I now consider myself a democratic socialist rather than an anarchist.)

[rotting bones]

a societal structure composed of workers' councils or a syndicalist union is effectively a new state of sorts even if it is more democratic than the states that came before it. (This is a large part of why I now consider myself a democratic socialist rather than an anarchist.)

Like I said before, your scheme disenfranchises non-workers. Don't you think non-workers will suffer if they have no representation in government? Possible scenario: Once the initial idealism has faded and society has re-entered its resting state, the needs of non-workers will matter less to the government, lowering effective demand. Then people will have difficulty finding work again. Why not just ask everyone what goods and services they want, and create government jobs to provide them?

[Starbeam]

Marxists think "rights" are post hoc justifications reflecting material power relations in society.

When i said (human) rights, I meant as in "shoulds", ideals on what is the right way to do things; a prescription. I wasn't referring to encoded rights, or "mays", what people are formally allowed to do; a description

I am not wholly against laws and legalism, what i am against is social analyses that are limited by them. It's why i hate statements like "illegal genocide", 1) it implies the law should be the center of ethics (if only it were legal, then genocide would be good somehow *eyeroll*) and 2) implies nothing could happen above it (powerful entities make the law after their actions, for their benefit)

To the extent that rights sometimes protect workers, that's because property owners fear violence if they are not respected. According to Marxist materialism, rights are derived from this fear of violence, and all rights are lumped in with property rights. Like property owners, wood gatherers wouldn't respect property rights either if they didn't fear the gendarme's bayonet. What appears in retrospect as the natural order is a state of sublimated violence: children who grow up under its chilling effect can no longer imagine other possible worlds, making perpetual violence appear as a state of peace. Therefore, the only way to increase the so-called "rights" of the working class is to make property owners fear them.

I actually agree with this premise in the sense of it describing our world, with the added point that plenty of people are high on this supply even if they could do something different. Also, I'm not particularly against it myself, in a prescriptive sense. The point in wielding violence like this is to prevent others from doing the same. The more people have this kind of violent control, the less likely anyone can abuse it

What confuses me is how this relates to my screed above. Is this that whole "passively benefiting from privilege is violence" horseshit? There is no such thing as an ignorant passive abuser, drives me insane. It is only an excuse to abuse people for things beyond their control. Nothing else. I find these revolts aren't always at who they need to attack, but just whoever's there. Still, i completely understand this happens and not to hold oppressed groups to a higher standard. The problem is when anyone starts justifying it as benign or even necessary, rather than, in broad terms, forgivable

But if the connection is actually something different, let me know

Given this worldview, no one is coming to save you. The enemy will give you no quarter unless he "respects", i.e, fears, you. The only recourse for people suffering cruelty is to unite with others in a similar predicament and march against their oppressors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xjONUGUnlw

I cannot watch the video right now, but I want to say at least some of my points while i've got downtime at work before i do. I'll make another post to get back to you

[Travis B.]

a societal structure composed of workers' councils or a syndicalist union is effectively a new state of sorts even if it is more democratic than the states that came before it. (This is a large part of why I now consider myself a democratic socialist rather than an anarchist.)

Like I said before, your scheme disenfranchises non-workers. Don't you think non-workers will suffer if they have no representation in government? Possible scenario: Once the initial idealism has faded and society has re-entered its resting state, the needs of non-workers will matter less to the government, lowering effective demand. Then people will have difficulty finding work again. Why not just ask everyone what goods and services they want, and create government jobs to provide them?

'Worker's council' in a way is a set phrase -- I personally envision councils for every way people would organize themselves into groups of interests, e.g. councils based on the neighborhoods in which people live regardless of whether they are workers per se. I honestly would de-emphasize organizing society as a whole on the basis of workplaces per se for the very reason you give, even though I very strongly believe that enterprises internally must be organized directly democratically in a council-structured fashion. (This is part of why I am not a syndicalist myself.)

[Travis B.]

Why not just ask everyone what goods and services they want, and create government jobs to provide them?

My problem with this exact formulation is that it is essentially state capitalism with guaranteed employment, differing from the system under, say, the USSR in that five-year plans from above are replaced with plebiscites.

I support something vaguely similar in supporting the production of things with very low marginal cost, e.g. software and recorded music, but the differences are in the details -- e.g. the means of production would be owned by the workers rather than the state and production would be organized on the basis of democratic worker cooperatives heavily subsidized by the state as determined through democratic means* rather employment by the state.

* Note that this would not necessarily be through a plebiscite alone, e.g. for things like software and downloadable music download counts would be factored in.

[rotting bones]

When i said (human) rights, I meant as in "shoulds", ideals on what is the right way to do things; a prescription. I wasn't referring to encoded rights, or "mays", what people are formally allowed to do; a description

I am not wholly against laws and legalism, what i am against is social analyses that are limited by them. It's why i hate statements like "illegal genocide", 1) it implies the law should be the center of ethics (if only it were legal, then genocide would be good somehow *eyeroll*) and 2) implies nothing could happen above it (powerful entities make the law after their actions, for their benefit)

Marx thought people derive meaning from from their work, but workers are exploited and overworked by threatening them with unemployment ("reserve army of labor"). He thought mankind should unite as a community and raise productive capacities so that everyone can afford to be a dilettante. People these days have a hard time believing that Marx promoted any kind of freedom, so I Googled the quote from The German Ideology:

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

United as a community and with plenty for all to share, he thought there would be no more victims suffering dispossession, so there would be no rational incentive to attack others. He thought the struggle of the working class to abolish the proletariat is the only way to make this happen.

So: attacks should cease once the underlying material conditions have been abolished by sword and hammer. Is this what you are asking about?

Is this that whole "passively benefiting from privilege is violence" horseshit? There is no such thing as an ignorant passive abuser, drives me insane. It is only an excuse to abuse people for things beyond their control. Nothing else. I find these revolts aren't always at who they need to attack, but just whoever's there. Still, i completely understand this happens and not to hold oppressed groups to a higher standard. The problem is when anyone starts justifying it as benign or even necessary, rather than, in broad terms, forgivable

But if the connection is actually something different, let me know

Why not? Royals thought it's normal and natural that the fruits of the land would come to them. The fact that their soldiers were effectively seizing them from the peasants and bringing it to them was conveniently forgotten at the moment.

Of course, royals were expected to violently defend their honor. Today that's not the case, but scions of wealthy houses can still passively benefit from income derived from exploiting workers out of their line of sight. But if they are comrades, Marx thought it's common sense not to attack them.

Some people benefit from not being racially profiled, I guess? But it depends a lot on the individual's position. I know my life was ruined in some ways because I was a lower middle class Muslim in India. I don't know the details elsewhere.

In case it wasn't clear, Marx thinks that if you are being dispossessed, you should unite with your comrades and strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. I've heard American Communists organize into racial cells (like the Black Panthers) to prevent discrimination. There are white cells too. The cells then unite to fight the common enemy.

It saddens me that any of this is a thing, from the violence to the racial segregation, but if it's the only realistic alternative for some people... shrug.

I cannot watch the video right now, but I want to say at least some of my points while i've got downtime at work before i do. I'll make another post to get back to you

It was a song for rhetorical effect. LLM translation:

Awaken, Dispossessed

Awake—awake—awake, O dispossessed!
You who starve, who languish in chains.
The workers have sounded the call today;
A new promise of freedom has been raised.

Shatter the ancient, rotting customs of wrong—
Rise up, people, every one!
End this wretched poverty and wail;
Pledge your life and death to the cause.

The final struggle starts today, comrades;
Come, let us march shoulder to shoulder.
Sing “The Internationale,”
For it will knit all humankind together.

[Raphael]

To get really deep into pedantic philosophical nitpicking, I don't believe in inherent rights. But I do believe in rights where it's generally good if a place is run in such a way that people there can usually rely on having those rights. I'm very fond of my right to take part in a discussion like this one, for instance. But I don't think such rights should include to right to own things, except when it comes to stuff like clothes or furniture.

[rotting bones]

To get really deep into pedantic philosophical nitpicking, I don't believe in inherent rights. But I do believe in rights where it's generally good if a place is run in such a way that people there can usually rely on having those rights. I'm very fond of my right to take part in a discussion like this one, for instance. But I don't think such rights should include to right to own things, except when it comes to stuff like clothes or furniture.

Marx thinks states only give you rights when it fears consequences from not giving them. The noble sentiments are only there as attempts at manipulation to earn more profit. From the wood gathering article I linked to above:

But it is superfluous to expose these sophistries. Let the spokesman be so good as to tell us himself how worldly-wise people judge humane phrases. He makes the forest owner address the following reply to the farm owner who displays humanity:

"If some ears of corn are pilfered from a landowner, the thief would say: 'I have no bread, so I take a few ears of corn from the large amount you possess', just as the wood thief says: 'I have no firewood, so I steal some wood.' The landowner is protected by Article 444 of the Criminal Code, which punishes the taking of ears of corn with 2-5 years' imprisonment. The forest owner has no such powerful protection!"

This last envious exclamation of the forest owner contains a whole confession of faith. You farm owner, why are you so magnanimous where my interests are concerned? Because your interests are already looked after. So let there be no illusions! Magnanimity either costs nothing or brings something in. Therefore, farm owner, you cannot deceive the forest owner! Therefore, forest owner, do not deceive the burgomaster!

This intermezzo alone would suffice to prove what little meaning "noble deeds" can have in our debate, if the whole debate did not prove that moral and humane reasons occur here merely as phrases. But interest is miserly even with phrases. It invents them only in case of need, when the results are of considerable advantage. Then it becomes eloquent, its blood circulates faster, it is not sparing even with noble deeds that yield it profit at the expense of others, with flattering words and sugary endearments. And all that, all of it, is exploited only in order to convert the infringement of forest regulations into current coin for the forest owner, to make the infringer of forest regulations into a lucrative source of income, to be able to invest the capital more conveniently -- for the wood thief has become a capital for the forest owner. It is not a question of misusing the burgomaster for the benefit of the infringer of forest regulations, but of misusing the burgomaster for the benefit of the forest owner. What a remarkable trick of fate it is, what a remarkable fact, that on the rare occasions when a problematic benefit for the infringer of forest regulations is given a passing mention, the forest owner is guaranteed an unquestionable benefit!

Earlier in the article, he says that traditionally, all the rights enjoyed by the poor were "indeterminate" in character. These do not enter into the "conscious organization" of the state:

In regard to civil law, the most liberal legislations have been confined to formulating and raising to a universal level those rights which they found already in existence. Where they did not find any such rights, neither did they create any. They abolished particular customs, but in so doing forgot that whereas the wrong of the estates took the form of arbitrary pretensions, the right of those without social estate appeared in the form of accidental concessions. This course of action was correct in regard to those who, besides right, enjoyed custom, but it was incorrect in regard to those who had only customs without rights. Just as these legislations converted arbitrary pretensions into legal claims, insofar as some rational content of right was to be found in those pretensions, they ought also to have converted accidental concessions into necessary ones. We can make this clear by taking the monasteries as an example. The monasteries were abolished, their property was secularised, and it was right to do so. But the accidental support which the poor found in the monasteries was not replaced by any other positive source of income. When the property of the monasteries was converted into private property and the monasteries received some compensation, the poor who lived by the monasteries were not compensated. On the contrary, a new restriction was imposed on them, while they were deprived of an ancient right. This occurred in all transformations of privileges into rights. A positive aspect of these abuses -- which was also an abuse because it turned a right of one side into something accidental -- was abolished not by the accidental being converted into a necessity, but by its being left out of consideration.

These legislations were necessarily one-sided, for all customary rights of the poor were based on the fact that certain forms of property were indeterminate in character, for they were not definitely private property, but neither were they definitely common property, being a mixture of private and public right, such as we find in all the institutions of the Middle Ages. For the purpose of legislation, such ambiguous forms could be grasped only by understanding, and understanding is not only one-sided, but has the essential function of making the world one-sided, a great and remarkable work, for only one-sidedness can extract the particular from the unorganised mass of the whole and give it shape. The character of a thing is a product of understanding. Each thing must isolate itself and become isolated in order to be something. By confining each of the contents of the world in a stable definiteness and as it were solidifying the fluid essence of this content, understanding brings out the manifold diversity of the world, for the world would not be many-sided without the many one-sidednesses.

Understanding therefore abolished the hybrid, indeterminate forms of property by applying to them the existing categories of abstract civil law, the model for which was available in Roman law. The legislative mind considered it was the more justified in abolishing the obligations of this indeterminate property towards the class of the very poor, because it also abolished the state privileges of property. It forgot, however, that even from the standpoint of civil law a twofold private right was present here: a private right of the owner and a private right of the non-owner and this apart from the fact that no legislation abolishes the privileges of property under constitutional law, but merely divests them of their strange character and gives them a civil character. If, however, every medieval form of right, and therefore of property also, was in every respect hybrid, dualistic, split into two, and understanding rightly asserted its principle of unity in respect of this contradictory determination, it nevertheless overlooked the fact that there exist objects of property which, by their very nature, can never acquire the character of predetermined private property, objects which, by their elemental nature and their accidental mode of existence, belong to the sphere of occupation rights, and therefore of the occupation right of that class which precisely because of these occupation rights, is excluded from all other property and which has the same position in civil society as these objects have in nature.

It will be found that the customs which are customs of the entire poor class are based with a sure instinct on the indeterminate aspect of property; it will be found not only that this class feels an urge to satisfy a natural need, but equally that it feels the need to satisfy a rightful urge. Fallen wood provides an example of this. Such wood has as little organic connection with the growing tree as the cast-off skin has with the snake. Nature itself presents as it were a model of the antithesis between poverty and wealth in the shape of the dry, snapped twigs and branches separated from organic life in contrast to the trees and stems which are firmly rooted and full of sap, organically assimilating air, light, water and soil to develop their own proper form and individual life. It is a physical representation of poverty and wealth. Human poverty senses this kinship and deduces its right to property from this feeling of kinship. If, therefore, it claims physical organic wealth for the predetermined property owners, it claims physical poverty for need and its fortuity. In this play of elemental forces, poverty senses a beneficent power more humane than human power. The fortuitous arbitrary action of privileged individuals is replaced by the fortuitous operation of elemental forces, which take away from private property what the latter no longer voluntarily foregoes. Just as it is not fitting for the rich to lay claim to alms distributed in the street, so also in regard to these alms of nature. But it is by its activity, too, that poverty acquires its right. By its act of gathering, the elemental class of human society appoints itself to introduce order among the products of the elemental power of nature. The position is similar in regard to those products which, because of their wild growth, are a wholly accidental appendage of property and, if only because of their unimportance, are not an object for the activity of the actual owner. The same thing holds good also in regard to gleaning after the harvest and similar customary rights.

In these customs of the poor class, therefore, there is an instinctive sense of right; their roots are positive and legitimate, and the form of customary right here conforms all the more to nature because up to now the existence of the poor class itself has been a mere custom of civil society, a custom which has not found an appropriate place in the conscious organisation of the state.

Man the guy could blather on. Why did he rant so much?