No no you don’t understand. It’s always the people with the least amount of economic power who are responsible for everything!
Yea but there’s so many of them! They must be getting controlled by some imaginary ruling class, or something
Exactly. They’re simultaneously responsible and irresponsible.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
I mean yeah, but how is this a shower thought?
I thought about it in the shower
You’re not even the Arse Assassin though
It’s not really it’s just Lemmy being Lemmy
Is in the US.
One of the most heavily propagandized cultures in the world and most of the people in it would swear that they don’t fall for propaganda or, even more ridiculous, that there isn’t any to fall for.
What I mean is here in the US we simp for the rich and hate the poor, therefore OP’s post really is nothing but a shower thought.
Seeing the downvotes I think people didn’t get it. Maybe that fancy European Education isn’t as good as y’all think it is 🤣
Yes I’m agreeing with you. People don’t love their oppressors for no reason, they’re culturally influenced to do so. The US is a pretty extreme example of it. Which is why it’s a shower thought to Americans; it requires a detached perspective to escape cultural preconceptions.
Also one of the aspects of fascism
The enemy or ‘other’ is both simultaneously weak and unworthy and should be defeated … and powerful and oppressive and is the cause of all problems.
That’s not just fascism, that’s any time people villify an enemy. That is said by both major US parties.
How exactly is this a shower thought? (I agree by the way, but how?)
I don’t think I’ve seen a legitimate shower thought on Lemmy ShowerThoughts.
I mean, who doesn’t think the dynamics of the society and power structures of the system and the injustice of it all during their showers? I personally find myself thinking about these, almost exclusively, on my showers. Is it an age thing, maybe?
Many of the weak and vulnerable are responsible for putting the rich and powerful into power though. Power is entirely a social construct. Bit of a paradox but that’s the way it is.
I think the white is referring to minorities being scapegoated, though. While absolutely some people vote against their best interests, they often don’t have the numbers to make change themselves (eg, trans and NB people are maybe 1% of the population but getting severely attacked right now) or the system is constantly trying to screw them over (eg, black people are a sizable chunk of the population, but there’s countless efforts to restrict their ability to vote and keep them poor).
The white?
Ahaha I don’t even know what that word was supposed to be and how it ended up as “white”. I meant to say “the OP”.
Lol np buddy
Oh like minority scapegoats. In that case disregard what I said.
It’s a pretty incredible trick to convince people that those who, demonstrably, have the least power in society are responsible for all of its problems. What’s that thing about how there has to be an enemy, and that enemy has to simultaneously be weak, wretched and inferior but also strong enough to pose a threat that justifies an authoritarian response? I forget who tends to do that…
Let us examine the couch movers analogy.
A) If two people, A and B, who can lift 25 lb move a 50 lb couch, and A does not try 100%, whose fault is is that couch does not get moved?
B) If A can lift 20 lb and B 30 lb, and A does not give 100%, whose fault is it then?
C) If A can lift 30 lb and B 20 lb, and A does not give 100%, whose fault is it then?
D) What if both can lift 20 lb?
E) What if A can lift 100 lb and B can lift 20 lb?
F) What if A can lift 20 lb and B can lift 100 lb?
G) What if A and B can both lift 100 lb?
I find it interesting that whose fault seemingly changes even if it is always assumed A is not giving 100% in all cases.
I think where this analogy falls short is that in reality it gets assumed everyone can lift the same if they just would give 100 %. And therefore one person always gets the blame since they are seemingly not giving enough.
Otherwise known as bootstraps.
The thing assholes always tell you they pulled themselves up by, conveniently ignoring their rich, connected family and friends that was the biggest factor in their success.
There’s also a difference between fault, responsibility, and ability to do something. They’re interrelated, but they’re not equivalent. If A is able to move 100 pounds, but not obligated to do so and not trying then A is able, but not responsible and not at fault. If A can only lift 20 pounds, works as a mover and gives their best effort then A is unable to move the couch, responsible for moving the couch, but not at fault as they’ve done everything they can do to move the couch. I could go on but my point stands: it’s a weak, reductive metaphor.
Seems more like one person who could lift the couch one handed is sitting on it yelling at the person who can’t lift it by themselves
Not necessarily. I think that lying requires intent. Someone could tell me something verifiably false without lying because they truly believe it to be true.
Ok, so you’re being lied to by proxy
I’m gonna have to steal that term for my own use
Well, yeah.
It’s not the powerless that made things how they are, it’s the powerful that shape the world.
It’s also worth noting that when you’re powerful but don’t have the votes it takes to do a thing you want, the shortest path to getting those votes is unifying people around being mad at some sort of scapegoat.
This is why fascism looks the way it does
-
it emerges from a democracy in some sort of crisis
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it’s always that elites (a voting minority of powerful interests) need political support
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the way they always get it is by focusing anger on a scapegoat, with promises to punish them
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lemmy is so based 🙏
Except for me 😎 I am cringe
You do you
It’s not a matter of responsibility.
The rich and powerful won’t safe the world. If we don’t want to live in a world with so many natural desasters that there is no farming and only synthetic food, then things have to change.
The opposite of the rich and powerful are not the weak and vulnerable but almost everybody. It’s OK to let things happen but it’s also possible to change everything, maybe even in a week or two.
Only a Death-Eater uses absolutes.
- Gandalf or some shit
Currently watching Lord of the Harry Witcher right now and can confirm this.
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What exactly are you trying to say here? That—because some guy thinks all of America’s problems are rooted in the left automatically siding with the little guy—the rich and powerful aren’t actually powerful?
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No individual is responsible for everything. But there are a disproportionately small number of individuals with a disproportionately large amount of power over a lot of things that affect a disproportionately large number of people. And you can bet they talk to each other.
Who are these people?
Last time i heard this inane shit, it was the Jews, so just wondering if that’s still the case.
The CEOs/Presidents/Owners of major Oil companies and major food manufacturers.
Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Exxon, Suncor, BP, this is just off the top of my head.
Those ones and more. The jew bullshit (and the rest of Q anon) is there to keep us fighting each other so the problem doesn’t get fixed.
The CEOs/Presidents/Owners of major Oil companies
Are you one of those people that blames climate change on oil manufacturers?
major food manufacturers
This one’s way out of left field so I think it deserves its own explanation. The hell?
Question one: Yes. Watch the documentary Who killed the electric car for more. It’s old now, but it goes in to detail about how oil companies and car manufacturers took action to crush electric car development in the 90s.
People have wanted affordable alternatives to oil products for decades and these companies actively stifle progress in those areas.
Companies like Nestle pay minimal fees for our natural water sources then sell it back to us in plastic bottles. There was also the whole thing in the 70s where they fucked over a bunch of third world moms and a lot of babies died.
I’ll let you do your own browsing, but here’s the first source I found on the first one to get you started:
https://www.mashed.com/717227/nestles-water-controversy-explained/
But the claim here is just wrong. Being rich and powerful doesn’t make them automatically accountable for everything.
No, of course not. No one is responsible for everything.
But, as a very quick and simplistic example of what the post is saying, if someone hates immigrants because “they took our jobs,” that person is missing the very obvious fact that employers are the ones hiring people. Immigrants can’t “force” that. And of course even that employer is responding to pressures, both systemic and from above them.
Either you are being short-sighted or disingenuous. Of course they aren’t automatically accountable for EvErYtHiNg. But they are accountable for a vastly disproportionate amount of things that affect most people’s lives. Ya know, that’s how power works.
Can you name specific examples?
Can I name an example of how people in power affect others’ lives? Is this an actual question??
Pretty much the definition of powerful right? As in they have the power
You should do some reading into complex systems analysis. No one is putting everything on any specific individual. The system we live in acts similarly to a living being. It broadly seeks to exist in perpetuity and will do what it can to see that through. In our societal system the more money you have, the more powerful you are and the powerful implement systems to further expand and entrench their power. They’re benefactors of a violent and corrupt system that runs on exploitation and they have a responsibility to dismantle it. They never will so everyone else needs to do it for them.
The person who wrote that book is a political agent for the rich.
Anytime you’re told that group A is responsible for your problems rather than group B, you’re being lied to. Including this post
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Jokes on you, it’s pretty obvios, that anti trans laws in 3rd world shitholes like Texas appeared out of nowhere/were matirialised by aliens!11!1
You’re right people are responsible for things, you’re right that that’s obvious. In fact, it’s so obvious, it’s wrong of you to imply that my point suggested otherwise, because it obviously doesn’t. Your sentiment supports my comment, people are responsible for things, so if you have a problem with something, and you feel the need to blame someone for it, you should actually blame the right person. “The rich” are not a group of people united out of a common goal, and include all sorts of political and cultural sentiments, many of which you would support. Moreover, the post makes no suggestion as to what problems they’re talking about anyway, so you kinda just have to already believe “rich people” in general are the people responsible for any general set of problems you choose to believe. If you don’t see the flaw in this thinking, you’ve got a serious problem with political vitriol, and you need to stop blindly circle jerking everything you see on lemmy.
The sad thing is, I know you’d agree with me if I said the exact same thing in a thread blaming socialists or Marxists or something. My opinion that you shouldn’t blame general problems on a general group of people for the sake of hating on them doesn’t change based on context.
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