this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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Do as you wish. I think your take is ineffectual. But you're, of course, welcome to it. You'll just need to convince the people who are directly involved of the validity of your viewpoint. You will succeed, or live with what they do. But i think it's the latter, as people tend to ignore those who have strong opinions but aren't really willing to get involved.
Good luck.
I disagree. People like me protest. We are the ones who have pressured a pause, and still demand a ceasefire. And eventually an end to the apartheid. We will win in the end. Because love creates, and hate destroys.
It's not the duality you think it is. It's not love and hate, it's love and will. ..although hate may be involved for some, generally it's just survival and effective courses of action. Some situations have no effective courses of action, and there aren't enough loving people directly involved in the wielding of power to create new, mutually-beneficial courses of action using the insight that love can provide. So it continues in the best way people can see - which isn't always a clearly loving way.
You're welcome to protest. But when a person/group acting from love requests that a person/group acting from will do the job differently, but that person who loves isn't willing to apply their own will, it just rings hollow.
Hearts that appeal to power are just as culpable as powers that ignore their hearts. Period.
real Love - capital-L love - is capable of love and power, but isn't limited to either one. It gets hate, and yet knows the ineffectual nature of it. It seeks the best ways it can find, and implements them. It knows the tiredness of doing your best and finding no answer, and having to choose a course that's painful for yourself or others. It knows the joy of success when situations work out. It knows the sorrow of facing situations with no clear answer.
..and ultimately, it takes the criticism of those who don't understand the situation, and the emotional impact of the 'righteous' anger of those people who criticise, and uses it to learn and grow.
..and then continues on, because that's just another thing it can be, but isn't limited to being.
I like where you’re headed, though I ascribe more to materialism than existentialism. You might find this interesting.
My views in concept and praxis are a form of dialectics - However, i don't think Hegel was wrong to address the mind with it, nor do I think Marx was wrong to attempt to ground it in material reality. But Marx's conclusions aren't my own.
I utilize consciousness for direct and indirect action in life. It has a larger effect on objective reality than a materialist would generally credit, though not the absolute primacy credited to it by existentialists. But the Materialists and Existentialists are just another duality, each observing a layer of what is ultimately an infinitely recursive nested system of orders - a system that isn't quite chaos, but in which no specific implementation of order is comprehensive.
I'm not of the opinion that there is a definitive line between the internal and external realities. Rather, they form a kind of continuum, with the nearby bits being the next and prior things to become conscious of, and the faraway bits being the things I have already integrated, or that are so far removed from my current state that they are not yet noticeably relevant.
But isn't the place for society to two me what to do, nor vice versa. That's just one system directing another system. If it does so accurately, the other system responds. If it does so inaccurately, the other system does not respond. ..but that doesn't confer obligations onto either system.
Rather, personal need and sense of connection to society may cause an individual to act in favor of society, or for a society to act similarly towards an individual. Recognition of the benefits of harmonious living and of honesty may cause an individual or society to act accordingly.
But there is no obligation. There is only life, and death, what will be, and what will not. Fortunately, we tend to live longer when we find persinal meaning and value, and when we are in liveable circumstances. Sometimes, things get shitty, and we destroy them, or we break, or the circumstances break on their own.
Cultivating existences that one can enjoy, that one can share, is generally my jam. Trying to make things not exist isn't - but there's a time and pace for everything.