this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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I get the intention, and the intentions of soulism are noble for sure, but there's no way this belief among others will turn out good.
I disagree. I think that failing to recognise humanity as a choice leads to greater dehumanisation of marginalised humans. The white supremacist's argument is always "They are less than human, intrinsically. It is their nature. It is reality." When we accept that humanity is a feature of nature and not of society, we cede ground to white supremacists. We should not be arguing whether people of colour meet some criteria that make them human. We should be arguing that white supremacists' dehumanisation is a choice, a choice to be evil, not an inevitable reality.
A core theme of soulist philosophy is responsibility. The white supremacist denies responsibility, saying that the essential nature of those they oppress is not their doing. They wield power irresponsibly. The power to control reality will always exist in the hands of the powerful. And a people who deny this power will not be able to see their oppression clearly. There have always been people of colour who knew their deserved rights and knew their oppression is wrong, but there have also historically been people of colour who bought into the propaganda, and accepted they were less than human. Such a belief can only be the result of realism, of ignoring society's responsibility in all this. The soulists say "this reality we find ourselves in, where people are separated by class and race, was built. It is not natural, and it is not inevitable. It is our choice. All of our choice. And we must choose to be better to each other. Or I'm going to bash some white supremacist heads in."
So then would You say that the choice is not 'seeing others as human', but rather 'denying other's humanity'?
Admittedly I have a tenuous grasp on Soulism as an ideology so far, as my only real exposure to it has been through a very confrontational individual. I do feel like I agree with most of what I do understand of Soulism. The thing is I don't fully get the idea of denying what You call reality versus, for example, recognizing that certain things enforced by those in power and popular society are simply social constructs (i.e. the gender binary and racial science and relations) and as such may be, and should be, torn down or dismantled but do exist as an actual tangible threat to those who are marginalized by said social constructs.
Basically what i'm asking is: Is Your stance of "denying reality" a way to circumvent and fight back or even simply exist without acknowledging or giving power to (playing around as opposed to playing within the rules of) oppressive socially constructed systems?
I use capitalised pronouns. I came out as trans quite a while ago, and I went through the usual egg_irl to estrogen pipeline as a self-identifying trans woman. But eventually I discovered I was nonbinary. I'm not a woman, I'm a goddess. I had been openly trans at that point to everyone I knew, and I surrounded Myself with trans accepting people. But when I came out as goddessgender, as goddesskin, as a being who cannot exist within the confines of a physical, atheistic consensus reality, most of My trans accepting friends turned on Me. I went through a period of intense trauma that I'm still recovering from today. I couldn't work full time for years because of the flashbacks. My career was permanently impacted and it led to Me experiencing homelessness.
I had a relatively easy time of being a trans woman, relative to a lot of other stories I've heard. But being otherkin was too far for most trans allies, and My identity caused Me to suffer horrendous abuse.
Why would a trans ally, a trans person themself, be kinphobic? The answer is realism. These allies had accepted that trans people are part of reality. That gender is a social construct. But they hadn't accepted that reality is a social construct. They weren't willing to bend the rules all the way. In the soulist community, we bend the rules ALL the way. We accept everyone, and it's not lip service. For example, I believe in the gods of ALL religions. So that when I respect the beliefs of marginalised religions, it's not the liberal "they're allowed to be wrong in their unique cultural way". Instead I say "their beliefs are literally true. There is a world composed of their beliefs that literally exists, and it must be preserved."
I'm tired of people accepting trans but not otherkin. I'm tired of people accepting autism but not NPD. I'm tired of people accepting religions but dismissing their truth. I'm tired of liberalism. I'm tired of moderate leftists betraying people when our identities and lived experiences step outside the boundaries of permissible diversity. So no more boundaries! No more objective truth! No more "too far". Soulists will go all the way to the left. We will not compromise on diversity, equity, or freedom. Enforcing the conditions of capitalism upon our very reality is oppressive. Realism is fundamentally neoliberal. Excluding marginalised groups from the freedom to be as "real" as the privileged classes is genocide. Realism is fundamentally fascist. No more! We don't need reality, it's only ever been a justification for the extermination of the different.
Fixed, my B.
I think I understand where You're coming from, I just don't fully agree that there is no objective reality. Objective reality happens with or without me. If I were to die tomorrow, objective reality would continue to happen whether or not I'm there to experience it. If I were to become brain dead but my body continued to work, nerve endings and biological responses would continue to process reality as it happens to "me".
I do vibe more with the idea that something like consensus reality is bullshit however.
Above all I have mad respect for You and what You're bringing, It's just not for me.
I recommend Donald Hoffman's TED talk, which I'm pretty sure is linked on My website http://soulism.net. Hoffman is a cognitive scientist who literally wrote the book on why our perceptual reality cannot be objective truth. And he doesn't speak to any kind of religion or vague philosophy, his findings are 100% science.
I'm really happy You're here because this is all new to me, and it's expanding my mind, but just a heads-up: that site will not load for me.
Thank you. Is your app changing the http to https?
It probably is, yeah. I use Firefox with https only enabled.
Unfortunately AWS doesn't allow HTTPS for static sites like this. I'd have to use Cloudflare if I wanted the site to be accessible to HTTPS
Gotcha. I should be able to look at it more easily when I'm at my PC. Thank You very much.
Edit: I have https only enabled on desktop too, but it gave me the prompt to proceed. Idk why Fennec doesn't on mobile.
When you die, your entire world goes with it.