this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Soulists do not believe in social contract theory. The social contract was invented by Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, the "father of liberalism". Locke was a capitalist. Soulists are anarchists. We don't like liberals.
When it comes to Soulists, you're more likely to find utilitarians among our ranks. We punch Nazis not because Nazis violate the social contract, but because Nazis threaten to bring genocide and war. While a social contract theorist would happily deal with a Nazi who was polite, well-mannered, and followed all the rules, a Soulist would not. A Soulist would pull out the baseball bat and tell the Nazi to get the fuck out, no matter how well the Nazi follows the social contract.
Clearly not what happens in practice though given the events that've transpired over the past weeks caused by a soulist forcing their reality of support for liberalism/the party of polite fascists.
Well, I don't know if you read My article about supporting Biden, but I made it very clear that any support for the Democrats should be fake, not real. I think that's generally how other soulists feel about the issue too. Nobody wants to genuinely support the Democrats, it's just a means to prevent genocide. I for one take genocide very seriously and can't do nothing about it. If I'm understanding the other side's position on this issue, I think this might be an issue of us disagreeing on the inaction vs inaction problem. See, I view making a choice not to act as a form of action. Morally equivalent to an action of equal effect. It seems to Me that a lot of the more moderately inclined people on this issue who prefer inaction, are doing so because you think a slightly bad action is worse than a really bad inaction.
So we're back to utilitarianism as the deciding factor. The soulist only cares about the consequences. They don't care if one choice means doing something and one means doing nothing. But the deontologist has personal rules against doing a bad thing. Doing nothing, that's fine. And if nothing turns out to have a worse outcome than something, so be it. The utilitarian disagrees. They'll sacrifice their principles to achieve a better outcome for the victims of genocide. They only care about the result.
So which tenet of soulism decides which group of people is worth genociding for another?
Fortunately, no such situation has come up yet. Biden is not threatening any people that Trump isn't. So favouring Biden over Trump does not subject any additional people to genocide in comparison with inaction. That means we've never had to choose to harm some people to save others. It's always been a straightforward situation of harming more people vs less people, with the smaller group inside the larger one.
If you'd like to switch to asking tricky questions, though, I've got one for you. How many lives is inaction worth? How many people have to die as a result of your choice not to act, before action becomes preferable? Is the difference a billion people? A million? A thousand? One? If you knew doing nothing would kill a million people, and doing something would kill a thousand, would you let a million die to keep the blood off your hands?
So which tenet of soulism decides which group of people is worth genociding for another?
They're not two different groups of people. It's a large group, and a small subset of the first group.
See, you lost me before with subjective reality and dropping useful nomenclature tools but, I do have to agree a lot with you on the utilitarianism and ethics of choice.
My allegiance to humanity (and any potential non-human sentience) is the most important part of my ideals. Critical analysis is also vital to choose the action most beneficial (without falling into the "ends justify the means" trap frequently seen in M-Ls). Inaction IS absolutely an action. In cases like the US elections, the data show that inaction and anti-electoralism have the same net result as supporting fascists.
The system in place offers two outcomes: a neoliberal + moderate + center-left party or a facist + theofascist party. While (neo)libs almost always ally with fascists over leftists every chance they get, they are objectively less likely to inflict the levels of human suffering that fascists will (and there is no concrete evidence supporting accelerationism). Any action or inaction is going to lead to one of these two in this system it is the fallacy of Denying the Correlative to suggest otherwise, based upon all available data. Anyone suggesting inaction or effort to support a spoiler to harm the chances of the neoliberal party is just saying that their personal moral high-ground and ideology is more important than the lives of Palestinians, Iranians, Jordanians, minorities in the West, other leftists, LGBTQ+ people, and humanity at large that would be harmed under a theofascist regime. All possible outcomes include continuation of ongoing genocide, the neoliberals might apply pressure to halt it, the theofascists would accelerate it and have verbalized the desire to bring a nuclear apocalypse to fulfill their doomsday cult prophecy.
Thank you, I agree with a lot of what you said in your comment, though I'd like it if you used My preferred pronouns when talking about Me. Also, non-human sentience isn't a hypothetical, it's here. I'm a nonhuman. We soulists are fiercely supportive of otherkin rights, which is the right of someone assigned human at birth to change their species identity to align with what they feel. Humanity is a social construct.
Please clarify. I am not aware of using any pronoun but the non-gendered, second-person object/subject pronoun "you". I'm not having other forms in the English language clearly come to mind.
I suppose I should perhaps be more specific. By "hypothetical, non-human sentience", my meaning was intended more in line with "hypothetical sentience of synthetic or non-human biological origin". A being of human birth is generally implicitly considered to have all rights and responsibilities of a human under most legal and philosophical standards. The only potential issue being informed consent. But, if that's not in question, I'd not see any legitimacy in questioning anyone's genuinely-held feelings or beliefs on their identity; noone can tell anyone else who they are inside.
An aside, this phrasing seems to appear frequently in discussion on soulism that I'm seeing. I'm not sure if it is a linguistic quirk but, as one who's mother tongue is English, it comes across as oddly authoritative in a manner that seems to be speaking for others, rather than in their stead, similar to a monarchist "royal We". Not implying that that is the intent but stating that that is the feeling that it evokes for me.
I use capitalised pronouns. I/Me/You/They/Them.
Weird. I don't get why that phrase is a problem, but maybe it's My NPD. Would it sound less pompous if I said "us soulists" instead? Us Australians say "us guys" a lot and it's part of My instinctive vocabulary, but I don't like how it sounds grammatically so I changed "us" to "we". What's the best way to talk about a group that I'm a member of?
I do have some philosophical disagreement there. I'm roughly an anarcho-syndicalist by ideology but don't believe in the plausibility of an anarchic society in my lifetime. Tools of the oppressors can still have value. Social contract, at least as nomenclature, is a very useful tool for describing and theorizing around social cohesion in a non-hierarchical society. In order for humans to coexist in a mutually beneficial manner, they need to agree on "constants" that can be deemed objective. Without this, there can be an "impedence mismatch", to draw an analogy from electronics, that can cause undue strife because of a lack of agreement on ethical basics. "Social Contract" can be a useful term/concept for describing this, even if not agreeing with the content of it proposed by liberals.
Here, I'd disagree with scoping. I think that you have put all who use Social Contract in the group of (neo)liberalism. I do not find this accurate. As I stated earlier, it is useful as a tool for describing basic ethical "constants" to enable social cohesion.
Under an anarchic "Social Contract", that would be the correct action. Those wishing to enforce unjust social hierarchies, inflict suffering sadistically, and commit mass murder would be violating "Social Contract" (not just under most forms of anarchism).
The problem with a social contract is that it's objective. Everyone has to agree on it and interpret it the same way. Sure, you can bash a Nazi's face in if the government decides that's how we deal with Nazis. But what if the government doesn't? What if we live in a neoliberal capitalist state like our current society? A utilitarian is capable of saying "Fuck the state, I rely on My own moral compass to tell Me what's right". We can follow interpretations of ethics that are subjective. We can make our own choices for what we deem acceptable. We can be insurgents. We don't need to agree with anyone else.