this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023

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Anarchism and Social Ecology

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The mask of humanity fall from capital (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago by mambabasa to c/anarchism

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

From the 2019 game, Disco Elysium

The Deserter: (he opens his eyes and stares right through you) “It was real. I'd seen it. I'd seen it in reality.”

Half-Light: Some kind of great terror. Worse than what you've seen.

You: “Seen what?”

The Deserter: “The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed.

And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world...” (he's silent for a second) You see the fear and power in its eyes. “Then you know.”

You: “What?”

The Deserter: “That the bourgeois are not human.”

all 26 comments

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[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Bad take.
Dehumanising our opposition takes away all of their agency and responsibility. They're not some other evil beings in human suits, they are, at the end of the day, only people.
The power they have lies in them having privileges that are provided to them by, and making selfish choices that would get them ahead in, the social and economic constructs they've designed and/or uphold (or worse, workers who fall for the propaganda of said constructs and participate against their own best interests)
Those constructs can and should be dismantled, and the people who created and benefitted from them, held accountable.

[–] TrismegistusMx 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They've given up everything that makes them human. Now they're nothing more than a conglomeration of sin and cowardice.

[–] Excrubulent -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're human, and that's a more concrete concept than "sin" or "cowardice". Your attitude leads to executions.

[–] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If they were still human, it would be possible to reason with them. So why don't you go and try and convince a billionaire to stop raping the planet and exploiting everyone else's lives for their personal gain.

When you come back and report success, I'll see them as human. I'll even grant you success if one single billionaire willingly becomes a millionaire by any means.

[–] Excrubulent 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If they were still human, it would be possible to reason with them.

This premise is false.

[–] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In between stimulus and reaction is the capacity for reason. That's the only place you'll find humanity.

[–] Excrubulent 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If they lost their capacity for reason they'd be a lot easier to defeat than they are. You are underestimating your enemy.

Your contempt will undermine your ability to create an effective response to them.

[+] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Excrubulent 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you want to create a bourgeois revolution.

Anarchism means creating the new world in the shell of the old. Yes, that means being capable of violence, but the bulk of the work is in building mutual aid and community self-defense, not violence.

Also, by calling it violence you are admitting that they are human. You can't do violence to an object. That's just vandalism.

[–] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're just playing semantic games now.

[–] Excrubulent 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Calling them "not human" is also just a semantic game, but it has real world consequences.

Like for instance, if something isn't human then it is invalid to say violence has been done against it.

So therefore, any act against it is justifiable.

Like, either you believe what you're saying or not.

[–] TrismegistusMx 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Every act against a billionaire is justified, because every act is a response to the violence being perpetuated by the continued existence of that billionaire's schemes and machinations. The source of the Injustice comes from the position of power.

It's not a semantic game to say that billionaires are inhuman. It's defining humanity to exclude parasitism and include conscious thought and free will. A billionaire has neither of those things. They cannot consciously make a decision that harms their empire or they'll be destroyed by their own inner circle. If somebody else interferes with their power they have no choice but to retaliate. There is no room for humanity. They're merely a vehicle for wealth.

[–] Excrubulent 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A billionaire has neither of those things.

You're going to need to give me a source on that one, I'm afraid. If you can demonstrate that that is true then I will be amazed.

[–] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I explained that statement in the very next sentence. The only choice they have is to walk forward along the path they have set out for themselves. Any deviation will result in the collapse of their empires. Anything that makes them human has been hollowed out long ago by greed and ignorance.

[–] Excrubulent 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are class traitors from that stratum of society. It's not common, but the fact they can't be reasoned with is systemic in nature, not individual.

[–] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ultimately we're all individually responsible for our own actions. There are systemic influences, yes. Those influences are what tempted these weak-minded egoic individuals, and by the time they've reached adulthood they have solidified into abominations.

I could also flip your argument over on to you and say that by defining these individuals as human beings, you are giving license to their kind of behavior. If there's no moral damnation to being a king or a billionaire, then they are role models to be emulated. In reality, they are impoverished souls who need to cling to material wealth in order to have any self worth, and they see your material poverty as an indication of your lack of inherent worth.

And it's not the traitors that can't be reasoned with. It's the establishment.

[–] Excrubulent 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Individual responsibility is the argument of neoliberalism. If you want to change the world you need to focus on society and how it interfaces with individuals.

I could also flip your argument over on to you and say that by defining these individuals as human beings, you are giving license to their kind of behaviour. If there’s no moral damnation to being a king or a billionaire, then they are role models to be emulated. In reality, they are impoverished souls who need to cling to material wealth in order to have any self worth, and they see your material poverty as an indication of your lack of inherent worth.

I have no idea what argument it is that you think you're flipping. I'm not making a moral argument, I'm simply explaining the obvious categories that exist. That informs morality, but I haven't appealed to morality at all yet.

Also, your moral argument fails immediately because it's completely the reverse of the truth. If they're not human, there's no moral judgment to be made. I don't hold a trained attack dog morally accountable for biting me. I hold its master accountable, because the dog doesn't have moral reasoning abilities.

By calling them inhuman, you are absolving them of their "sin" as you call it, and you are absolving yourself of any responsibility to do the hard work of reasoning morally or objectively about this situation.

The simple reality is that they are human, and turning to outright bloodshed as a solution will not create a better society. The guillotine is the tool of the bourgeois, liberal revolution, and it presaged the neoliberal hellscape we live in now. Look into the history of the French revolution. Look at the environment of abject terror the newly forming government existed in, because they thought the individual purity of their rulers was an important aspect of their new society, and they kept executing one another. Nobody can be expected to make a better world in such conditions. Simple violence is the solution an adolescent comes up with. It doesn't work.

All that is required to is to disarm them. They aren't demons, they're not vampires, they won't haunt us and destroy us if we let them live.

Plus, watching them attempt to adapt to a life of moderation and no power to dominate and kill their fellow humans, to face the fact that they are human after all... I think that would be incredibly interesting.

[–] TrismegistusMx 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most of your post is rubbish, but if by disarming them you mean removing their arms, I'm on board. "Individual responsibility is the argument of neoliberalism." Fucking gibberish.

[–] Excrubulent 1 points 1 year ago

Oh okay, thanks. "Fucking gibberish." Wow, what convince. Such argument.

[–] YoFrodo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's really not meant to be taken seriously. These comments are made from segments of an alcoholic, depressed, and jaded detective's fractured psyche. He's so fucked up that each element of his psyche speaks to him in his mind as entirely separate entities.

Amazing game though

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Jfc, can't even talk about anarchism in a fucking anarchism community anymore.. 🤦‍♀️

I am aware this is from a game, it literally says so.
Who said it and why doesn't matter, it was posted as is in an anarchism community, but doesn't actually reflect anarchism at all. I replied in literally 3 sentences to point out why.
If that is "too serious" for you, maybe you should stick to the meme communities...

[–] YoFrodo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Im just participating in the conversation by providing context as to why its a bad take. Im agreeing with you for fucks sake.

Who said it and why does matter because it explains why its a bad take. Its not coming from a rational place at all.

If you cant have a conversation about anarchism without getting defensive then maybe you should stick to the meme communities

[–] Excrubulent 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You were defensive in your first reply, because I think you know you fucked up.

If you think the quote is wrong then you should frame it as such. As it is this quote is given no context. "It's from a game" isn't enough.

Loads of people don't know what that game is and even if they do the explanation of what's wrong with the quote should come before it, not buried in the comments because you let someone else do it for you.

The framing of this quote implies agreement, not critique.

[–] Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Greatest game I've ever played. Highly recommend, even if you're not a gamer.

[–] millie 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What game?

[–] YoFrodo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Disco Elysium