The sad part is that, sometime in the last decade or so, "Progressive" and "woke" perspectives about our system got appropriated by the system itself, and so the least offensive aspects got elevated and permitted while the underlying classism remains untouched. The First Female CEO of Boeing, for instance. How long til' we get a First Latino Grand Wizard, at this rate? (Jerks appropriated wizardry like a century ago.)
Thank you for talking about this. Social justice ideology is weird. I remember in college there were white people who didn't like my accent because I'm white and according to them my accent didn't sound white enough to them and therefore I must be culturally appropriating somebody. I grew up with lots of people of many different backgrounds and grew up bilingual from before I can remember since my parents worked in Latin America and many of my friends growing up weren't American, so I have the accent I have, and I would have to put a conscious effort in to sound the way they expect white people to sound. I found their expectation bizarre and insulting, so I just continued speaking the way I always do and absurdly some of the white people didn't want to be friends with me after that because I refused to change how I speak for them. Probably for the best really, but what a strange subculture. They never even asked why I had the accent I have, they just jumped to that conclusion immediately. A lot of these people were walking around every day like they were the protagonist in some kind of crusade.
This ties into my belief that there is no such thing as free will. I cannot blame a person for being the way they are, after all, we are all shaped by many factors, and we choose none of them. We should work to improve ourselves and others, we must be accountable and hold each other accountable, but we should not judge one another. Like Joseph Margulies says: "There is no them, only us."
I just decided yesterday I'm going to start podcasting similarly to you, who I just discovered this morning. I appreciate that you're trying to do something different, approaching our divided politics from an N-Divergent position, as I want to do. The stereotype of N-D is that we are flakey and scattered with poor attention and maybe talk funny or are quirky, but you are clear, intelligent, self-deprecatory without being mean to yourself, and you have a way of pointing out and explaining key faults on the Left without being too critical. So good luck, I'm subscribing to you, I hope you get more positive reviews like this one. P.S. I'm going to call myself The ADD Shaman.
Thank you! I agree that there are a lot of negative stereotypes of neurodivergent people, and it's sad. As the name suggests, we are diverse and we go in many different directions! I am definitely high on the "attention" scale, like I tend to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from ADHD in terms of how attention is concerned. My neurodivergence is mainly in the form of sensory issues, and also that I tend to make connections between disparate topics more readily than most (and thus have a harder time compartmentalizing things than most people. I want everything to be integrated!) I hope to talk more about it some day, so many things to talk about. That is exciting that you are starting a podcast yourself! Definitely leave a comment somewhere with a link to it when you launch it so I can check it out!
@AlexZorach My attention is much higher than N-Typicals too, but the diagnosis says that my attention is frequently in deficit. The entire diagnosis is bass-ackward, and speaks more clearly about the entire psychiatric community's bias than it does about us; making the diagnosis itself in effect a projection! My ADD-mind simply determines by its own criteria what is worthy of my attention, and what isn't. If someone decides to interrupt me when my attention is on something, there is hell to pay! I have an unofficial project in the back of my mind of coming up with a better name for my condition than Attention Deficit Disorder. Any ideas? P.A. it's on my short-list to inform you when my podcast gets off the ground! By the way, I first noticed internal symptoms of so-called ADD when I was 12, but those symptoms have nothing to do with the criteria in the DSM! The core of the internal. symptoms center around Time Displacement, which I jokingly refer to as "Chrono-Dysplasia." I wasn't formally diagnosed with it until I was 55, when my wife finally told me, "I think you have ADD!" She announced her divorce one year later!
@@AlexZorachLike you, combining disparate elements by intuitive association is another of my internal symptoms! I have a whole theory about that! That's something that other famous Neuro-divergents like Albert Einstein, Marcel Duchamp, and Sherlock Holmes (aka Sir Author Conan Doyle) are noted for. Thanks for the comment!
Classism exists in all social circles, whether in the form of resentment or a sense of superiority, but that doesn't mean it is equally prevalent in all. I suspect many feel as I do, that poor education is a matter of deprivation, not of quality of personhood. It is the system which has failed to adequately educate ordinary people in many of the most important things, such as reasoning and recognition of logically fallacious arguments.
I find both political parties pretty classist in their own way. Both parties seem really out of touch of the average person working 2 jobs to make ends meet. Both parties have used famous celebrities and influencers to support their party line, but again, how is that relatable to regular folks? The republican party also is using identity politics, I've noticed more diversity within the party line in comparison to the past.
We live in an oligarchy where both major parties are funded by a handful of families who own global corporations. These politicians do not represent the concerns and interests of 99% of the population, yet we are told this is the best system available. It’s a government of, by, and for the ‘elite’.
Generational trauma.... Whose fault is it if a person's parents are Christian fundamentalist zealots or drug addicts? Can we blame those people for believing what they do... or the education they may not get? Misinformed people are just as marginalized as the disenfranchised populations. We are pitted against each other for the sake of keeping poor people down.
The Beverly Hillbillies syndrome: We fight because it's what we do... not because we understand why we are doing it. Yet, both parties, the brokers and the land owners, have the same interests. It's only that the big other (oil industry) controls prices, which incentivizes the two lower class parties to compete with one another over the pitence of value offered to them by the oil company. When the value clearly and obviously resides in the oil alone. The generational lack of education means the land owners need help selling the oil. The brokers just want to get paid. Hence, the drama, which then gets played back on to the situation. This causes the individuals involved to make it personal. All the big other has to do is sit back and fan the flames of personal hatred, and they will never be suspected. Maybe even playing both sides by giving each something useful. Reinforcing the idea of a personal grudge, instead of a price conflict started by those helping you be self destructive.
Yes, it can definitely be a form of generational trauma. And I agree, it amounts to pitting people against each other when we could be cooperating to solve these problems. I don't like the idea of blame to begin with. I think the beginnings of a lot of wrongs happen when we see something bad, and try to place blame. There are always multiple causes of things like this. It's unempowering. Blame ends up looking for an enemy and then trying to attack the enemy. It often leads to or reinforces the us-vs-them mentality. It's a pattern I see play out again and again. Like in the deep south in the US, you have racism used as a "wedge" that causes poor white people and black people to fight against each other, instead of unifying to lift everyone up and tear down oppressive power structures that harm both of them. I think this issue of classism is similar. I want people to see it and then learn to identify it so they can protect themselves from slipping into it. The hope is that if we can prevent this mindset from taking hold in ourselves, we improve our chances of building a bigger coalition and a bigger consensus, and actually solving problems in society by working together, listening to each other, hashing out problems, and coming to better policy solutions and then being able to agree on implementing them. The fighting between groups blocks both of these steps, it blocks the listening, and it blocks the building of consensus. But I do think we can overcome it and achieve both of these things!
@sw3783 And I'm not talking about everyone. That's a little over broad considering I never said anything along those lines. People can disagree. It's more that we need to stop thinking about it in terms of left and right. And start thinking about things in terms of class and opportunity.
Good analysis. Something I tried to get across to advocates for student-debt cancellation is they had to talk to the folks who never got to go to college and prominently add to the messaging something that helps them. I explained that to some who never got to go to college it felt like asking them to pay for the educations of the college kids who treated them poorly. For example, people who are or were serving staff at restaurants who've dealt with obnoxious college students out partying. To a person, all the responses I got from student-debt cancellation advocates were essentially that if those people didn't go to college that's their own fault. ... So, they by and large didn't talk to or hear from those who didn't get to go to college, and then seemed stunned that they rejected the idea of student-debt cancellation.
Yes! That's a great example of a classist attitude I see on the left. I think I would go even farther than you and say that you're outlining the reasons why I am dubious about whether student loan debt cancellation is even a good policy idea to begin with. I have seen some critiques of student loan debt cancellation that, to me, seem completely sound, and they make a compelling argument that those policies don't actually benefit the most vulnerable people, and instead funnel a lot of money into the upper-middle-class. I also think there are a long list of other policies that could help people who are really struggling, whether it's with student loan debt or just overall issues. I have a long list of proposed policy reforms, everything from local zoning reform to reduce housing costs, to progressive tax reform to help the lowest-income taxpayers, to reform of laws governing debt, credit ratings, bankruptcy, and related things, which could also directly affect people who have a lot of debt. I also think that addressing the policies of how and when student loans are Federally subsidized is important, because there's been a problem of escalating costs in higher education and I think the US government may have made the problem worse. So there are many different ways to tackle the problem which are free from the sort of classism or "handouts to wealthier people" that characterize much of the Democrat-pushed student loan debt forgiveness proposals. I see this as a win-win too, it helps the most vulnerable people, probably more, without the classism, and then while also addressing the root causes in society.
BTW you are promoting condescension. But your heart IS in the right place. Kudos. Still, I am sorry to inform you that you are voluntarily grouping yourself with the most explicitly divisive, racist, oppressive, condescending group to appear … ever. *sigh* I can’t support mechanically (!) divisive, racist, oppressive condescension. I hope my previous political party gets ground into the dust of history. The people, many of them over educated like myself, have joined voices to cancel this depressing, class baiting, race baiting, confrontational, self-aggrandizing, alien groupthink. I appreciate, however, that you seem earnest and nice.
Granted I live in Britain where the landscape is slightly different (e.g. a common response the phrases "White Culture" or "Black Culture" is "Which one?") but I can see a lot of where you're coming from, something people say to me is "you're really nice for a progressive" despite the fact that I tend to avoid that label and tend to present more as a British patriot (albeit with a Belgian surname which marked me out from the group at a younger age), a Catholic and a Libertarian (in Europe that sounds more left-leaning than it does in North America) but also as autistic and dyslexic. And I had it good with a supportive family and who helped me through the bad stuff to eventually get a good education which I haven't managed to convert into a career but I'm told that's an autism thing. That and being from a family of mixed descents (English, Scottish, Irish, Germanic and Spanish specifically) and mixed class and education backgrounds, values, religions, usw. it allowed me to see a wide variety of people and make normal some of the ideas that seem quite alien to others. And coming back to the "you're really nice for a progressive" is a feeling within a good many I've talked to who feel pushed aside by a "left" that they perceive to see them as nothing but a colonial subject to extract money from for their pet projects and ignore the economic pressures on ordinary working people whose concerns about job losses just get cast aside as "bigotry" and while there might be some who do just hate people who aren't like them, when no-one else appears to care if you are struggling this can encourage the growth in hate and while many of those who aren't responsible for it since there are ethnic, gender and sexual minorities who are also working class and struggle to find housing, work, usw. they get hit because they are seen as part of the problem as opposed to fellow workers held down by a capitalist system of exploitation where the owning class and the working class are distinct from one another and the working class doesn't get to enjoy the profit of their labour. I hope everyone has a better day and it was lovely having you here.
That you are clearly “over credentialed” is a red flag. Did you know? Remaining inside the academic debt train when everyone else gets off… out of touch, privileged, tortured vocabulary …Provided by a mildly over educated person
With the whole latinx thing, I feel it should be more non binary people involved in the discussion not just Latinos and Latinas. Cause that’s really the only people it affects substantially speaking as a Latino myself.
I feel there’s valid criticism, but many times people are educated but choose to continue to use outdated terms. For strangers it matters little but if you’re friends with someone it is an issue if they’re repeatedly acting in that way.
I agree with the attacking the arguments but not the person. Attacking the people causes more separation and it’s VERY difficult at times due to even being insulted in said discussions.
*sigh* Look you're not saying anything new and, frankly, I'd say the past decades have proved this perspective wrong. This same stuff was spouted 8 years ago. And plenty of people ARE reaching out and ARE adjusting language to communicate. And have been for longer than 8 years. So that's not actually the issue. It's tribalism. If your tribe says the other side says a and does b, it doesn't matter how many times the other side actually says x and does y. Our primate brains trust our tribe and will ignore the evidence when strongly entrenched in a group. It's why doomsday cults generally don't break up when the end of the world doesn't arrive on the predicted date. Doubling down avoids embarrassment and keeps us with our people.
It's hard for me to take this comment seriously. You say "You're not saying anything new" but I literally spent the past few months being practically inundated with groupthink and demonization from both sides, and saw very few people voicing perspectives like mine. Furthermore, part of the problem is that when people do voice these positive, inclusive, respectful perspectives, people don't elevate them, and instead they shut them down... ...which is exactly what you are doing. You are here saying I'm wrong and saying I'm not going to fix the issue. Like you say the issue is "tribalism" but what I am saying in my video IS SOMETHING THAT CAN SPECIFICALLY HELP TO BREAK DOWN TRIBALISM. I would hope that is self-evident to anyone who sits and reflects on it? And then you launch into this cynical depiction of human nature, and your comment ends without any actionable point. My video is actionable, and yet you're responding trying to shut me down, but without suggesting any positive course of action. Let me ask you a tough question, if you're still reading and haven't just tuned out because I don't agree with you fully: When you take this cynical a view of things, is it because that's what you WANT to bring into being in the world? Do you WANT people to be all tribalist like that? Or is it because you are feeling depressed and hopeless and you worry that that's just what we're stuck with? Like you dislike it and feel frustrated about it and hopeless to do anything about it? Let me tell you how I see things. Like you, I see all this tribalism around me. I hate it. I think it's a bad aspect of human nature and I think it's something we need to keep in check, and that ultimately, I would like to see us grow beyond and discard entirely. The whole point of this video is that I'm trying to nudge people in a new direction, I'm trying to steer people away from that us-vs-them thinking. Do you not see this? My channel is a place to embrace a more positive attitude and a more positive vision of human nature. I see those "things are just bad and that's the way they are" takes as irrational, they're a sort of collective cultural depression, mental illness speaking. And I see it this way, I see more room for hope specifically because I know numerous people around me who have grown out of these perspectives. Heck, *I* have grown out of these perspectives. I've been there, been in that dark "us-vs-them thinking" place, and I've gotten out. And I want to lead and help others out too. I want to reiterate what I said at the end of my video: change needs to start within. We need to work on ourselves first. I've been in a place like you describe and it's not a pleasant one and it's not particularly helpful for inspiring others or affecting change. The particular problem or challenge you face may not be the exact same one facing others. Maybe you're not in this deeply tribalist mentality, and maybe you're bothered by it. But you seem to have another, equally concerning problem here. I don't know what's going on in your head, but from how your comment was framed and worded, you seem to be bogged down with cynicism and negativity. And this is going to keep you from doing anything about that tribalism, and moving society forward, which is ultimately what matters. Maybe you need to work more on that issue. Maybe I could make another video about this too, who knows? Anyway, thank you for your comment, even if it was not particularly truthful, respectful, or empowering, I do think it illustrates an important point here. It's a mindset that leads nowhere, it leads people to be stuck. Please, get out of it. Realize you need to get out of it. It's not going to lead anywhere good. We need our thought processes to end on actionable points.
@AlexZorach I share my experience. Feel free to dismiss it for yours. Both are just that and, as such, only anecdotal. Please understand that I don't live on social media (though of course I am also in a bubble when on) so I speak of my real world experience working in a red town, living in a blue one, and growing up in a different red one that I return to often. I can say accurately that I have relationships across the political spectrum, and have found one on one conversations helpful only until the tribal mentality kicks in. At that point the vast majority of people whom I try to have conversations with (on either side - I am not a Democrat) revert to tribalism. Perhaps our differing experiences have more to do with age and location than politics.
Most Trump supporters aren't working class, most of them are petty bourgeois (small business owners and small landlords e.c.t). I'm a working class person from the UK without a degree and I'm not right wing or a Trump supporter, in fact, I'm on the far left. I don't think being 'bigoted' towards bigoted people is a form of classism. I think the idea that working class people are more bigoted and right wing is a dehumanising stereotype and a form of demonisation. I disagree when you say that it's not a moral failing for those who were exposed to more bigotry to be bigoted. Being a bigot is a choice, as a kid, I always knew it was wrong. I became a Nazi when I was 15 years old, all because of peer pressure, but I always knew deep down that I was in the wrong and that I was hurting people. A lot of these bigoted ideas originated within the ranks of the bourgeoisie and the European nobility and later trickled down into the ranks of the working class. Most woke people are not elitist or "middle class", most of the woke people I've known were from working class backgrounds and were some of the most compassionate people I've ever met.
It's obvious to me and obvious to a lot of people, but I really don't think it's obvious to the people who do it, and to a much larger group of people who tolerate it. This particular video is aimed at the people who most need the message, which is why I used the word "hidden" here. I'm speaking primarily to the people who don't see the problem, and I'm trying to help them see it. If you watch more of my videos, you'll find that I really care about influencing people and getting through to them. I'm not here to create an echo chamber, I'm here to challenge people's beliefs and reach out to a broad range of people and build a consensus around certain key points. If you want a place where people will bash or put down the left (or the right), this is not the channel for you. This is a place for getting outside the groupthink and building a more truthful way of viewing the world.
The sad part is that, sometime in the last decade or so, "Progressive" and "woke" perspectives about our system got appropriated by the system itself, and so the least offensive aspects got elevated and permitted while the underlying classism remains untouched.
The First Female CEO of Boeing, for instance.
How long til' we get a First Latino Grand Wizard, at this rate? (Jerks appropriated wizardry like a century ago.)
Thank you for talking about this. Social justice ideology is weird. I remember in college there were white people who didn't like my accent because I'm white and according to them my accent didn't sound white enough to them and therefore I must be culturally appropriating somebody. I grew up with lots of people of many different backgrounds and grew up bilingual from before I can remember since my parents worked in Latin America and many of my friends growing up weren't American, so I have the accent I have, and I would have to put a conscious effort in to sound the way they expect white people to sound. I found their expectation bizarre and insulting, so I just continued speaking the way I always do and absurdly some of the white people didn't want to be friends with me after that because I refused to change how I speak for them. Probably for the best really, but what a strange subculture. They never even asked why I had the accent I have, they just jumped to that conclusion immediately. A lot of these people were walking around every day like they were the protagonist in some kind of crusade.
This ties into my belief that there is no such thing as free will. I cannot blame a person for being the way they are, after all, we are all shaped by many factors, and we choose none of them. We should work to improve ourselves and others, we must be accountable and hold each other accountable, but we should not judge one another. Like Joseph Margulies says: "There is no them, only us."
I just decided yesterday I'm going to start podcasting similarly to you, who I just discovered this morning.
I appreciate that you're trying to do something different, approaching our divided politics from an N-Divergent position, as I want to do. The stereotype of N-D is that we are flakey and scattered with poor attention and maybe talk funny or are quirky, but you are clear, intelligent, self-deprecatory without being mean to yourself, and you have a way of pointing out and explaining key faults on the Left without being too critical. So good luck, I'm subscribing to you, I hope you get more positive reviews like this one.
P.S. I'm going to call myself The ADD Shaman.
Thank you!
I agree that there are a lot of negative stereotypes of neurodivergent people, and it's sad. As the name suggests, we are diverse and we go in many different directions!
I am definitely high on the "attention" scale, like I tend to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from ADHD in terms of how attention is concerned. My neurodivergence is mainly in the form of sensory issues, and also that I tend to make connections between disparate topics more readily than most (and thus have a harder time compartmentalizing things than most people. I want everything to be integrated!) I hope to talk more about it some day, so many things to talk about.
That is exciting that you are starting a podcast yourself! Definitely leave a comment somewhere with a link to it when you launch it so I can check it out!
@AlexZorach My attention is much higher than N-Typicals too, but the diagnosis says that my attention is frequently in deficit. The entire diagnosis is bass-ackward, and speaks more clearly about the entire psychiatric community's bias than it does about us; making the diagnosis itself in effect a projection! My ADD-mind simply determines by its own criteria what is worthy of my attention, and what isn't. If someone decides to interrupt me when my attention is on something, there is hell to pay!
I have an unofficial project in the back of my mind of coming up with a better name for my condition than Attention Deficit Disorder. Any ideas?
P.A. it's on my short-list to inform you when my podcast gets off the ground!
By the way, I first noticed internal symptoms of so-called ADD when I was 12, but those symptoms have nothing to do with the criteria in the DSM! The core of the internal. symptoms center around Time Displacement, which I jokingly refer to as "Chrono-Dysplasia." I wasn't formally diagnosed with it until I was 55, when my wife finally told me, "I think you have ADD!" She announced her divorce one year later!
@@AlexZorachLike you, combining disparate elements by intuitive association is another of my internal symptoms! I have a whole theory about that! That's something that other famous Neuro-divergents like Albert Einstein, Marcel Duchamp, and Sherlock Holmes (aka Sir Author Conan Doyle) are noted for.
Thanks for the comment!
Classism exists in all social circles, whether in the form of resentment or a sense of superiority, but that doesn't mean it is equally prevalent in all. I suspect many feel as I do, that poor education is a matter of deprivation, not of quality of personhood. It is the system which has failed to adequately educate ordinary people in many of the most important things, such as reasoning and recognition of logically fallacious arguments.
I find both political parties pretty classist in their own way. Both parties seem really out of touch of the average person working 2 jobs to make ends meet. Both parties have used famous celebrities and influencers to support their party line, but again, how is that relatable to regular folks? The republican party also is using identity politics, I've noticed more diversity within the party line in comparison to the past.
We live in an oligarchy where both major parties are funded by a handful of families who own global corporations. These politicians do not represent the concerns and interests of 99% of the population, yet we are told this is the best system available. It’s a government of, by, and for the ‘elite’.
I came here to say the same, both political parties suck, no matter how they label others or label themselves ...
Generational trauma.... Whose fault is it if a person's parents are Christian fundamentalist zealots or drug addicts? Can we blame those people for believing what they do... or the education they may not get? Misinformed people are just as marginalized as the disenfranchised populations. We are pitted against each other for the sake of keeping poor people down.
The Beverly Hillbillies syndrome: We fight because it's what we do... not because we understand why we are doing it.
Yet, both parties, the brokers and the land owners, have the same interests. It's only that the big other (oil industry) controls prices, which incentivizes the two lower class parties to compete with one another over the pitence of value offered to them by the oil company. When the value clearly and obviously resides in the oil alone. The generational lack of education means the land owners need help selling the oil. The brokers just want to get paid. Hence, the drama, which then gets played back on to the situation.
This causes the individuals involved to make it personal. All the big other has to do is sit back and fan the flames of personal hatred, and they will never be suspected. Maybe even playing both sides by giving each something useful. Reinforcing the idea of a personal grudge, instead of a price conflict started by those helping you be self destructive.
Yes, it can definitely be a form of generational trauma. And I agree, it amounts to pitting people against each other when we could be cooperating to solve these problems.
I don't like the idea of blame to begin with. I think the beginnings of a lot of wrongs happen when we see something bad, and try to place blame. There are always multiple causes of things like this. It's unempowering. Blame ends up looking for an enemy and then trying to attack the enemy. It often leads to or reinforces the us-vs-them mentality.
It's a pattern I see play out again and again. Like in the deep south in the US, you have racism used as a "wedge" that causes poor white people and black people to fight against each other, instead of unifying to lift everyone up and tear down oppressive power structures that harm both of them. I think this issue of classism is similar.
I want people to see it and then learn to identify it so they can protect themselves from slipping into it. The hope is that if we can prevent this mindset from taking hold in ourselves, we improve our chances of building a bigger coalition and a bigger consensus, and actually solving problems in society by working together, listening to each other, hashing out problems, and coming to better policy solutions and then being able to agree on implementing them. The fighting between groups blocks both of these steps, it blocks the listening, and it blocks the building of consensus. But I do think we can overcome it and achieve both of these things!
Try to consider the possibility that your opponents are not stupid, evil, or traumatized. Reasonable people often disagree.
@sw3783 it can be both. But even evil people are human. So...
@sw3783 And I'm not talking about everyone. That's a little over broad considering I never said anything along those lines. People can disagree. It's more that we need to stop thinking about it in terms of left and right. And start thinking about things in terms of class and opportunity.
Good analysis. Something I tried to get across to advocates for student-debt cancellation is they had to talk to the folks who never got to go to college and prominently add to the messaging something that helps them. I explained that to some who never got to go to college it felt like asking them to pay for the educations of the college kids who treated them poorly. For example, people who are or were serving staff at restaurants who've dealt with obnoxious college students out partying. To a person, all the responses I got from student-debt cancellation advocates were essentially that if those people didn't go to college that's their own fault. ... So, they by and large didn't talk to or hear from those who didn't get to go to college, and then seemed stunned that they rejected the idea of student-debt cancellation.
Yes! That's a great example of a classist attitude I see on the left. I think I would go even farther than you and say that you're outlining the reasons why I am dubious about whether student loan debt cancellation is even a good policy idea to begin with.
I have seen some critiques of student loan debt cancellation that, to me, seem completely sound, and they make a compelling argument that those policies don't actually benefit the most vulnerable people, and instead funnel a lot of money into the upper-middle-class.
I also think there are a long list of other policies that could help people who are really struggling, whether it's with student loan debt or just overall issues. I have a long list of proposed policy reforms, everything from local zoning reform to reduce housing costs, to progressive tax reform to help the lowest-income taxpayers, to reform of laws governing debt, credit ratings, bankruptcy, and related things, which could also directly affect people who have a lot of debt. I also think that addressing the policies of how and when student loans are Federally subsidized is important, because there's been a problem of escalating costs in higher education and I think the US government may have made the problem worse.
So there are many different ways to tackle the problem which are free from the sort of classism or "handouts to wealthier people" that characterize much of the Democrat-pushed student loan debt forgiveness proposals. I see this as a win-win too, it helps the most vulnerable people, probably more, without the classism, and then while also addressing the root causes in society.
Mark Fisher "exiting the vampire's castle" talks about this.
Hidden?
Hidden? No.
BTW you are promoting condescension. But your heart IS in the right place. Kudos. Still, I am sorry to inform you that you are voluntarily grouping yourself with the most explicitly divisive, racist, oppressive, condescending group to appear … ever. *sigh* I can’t support mechanically (!) divisive, racist, oppressive condescension. I hope my previous political party gets ground into the dust of history.
The people, many of them over educated like myself, have joined voices to cancel this depressing, class baiting, race baiting, confrontational, self-aggrandizing, alien groupthink.
I appreciate, however, that you seem earnest and nice.
Granted I live in Britain where the landscape is slightly different (e.g. a common response the phrases "White Culture" or "Black Culture" is "Which one?") but I can see a lot of where you're coming from, something people say to me is "you're really nice for a progressive" despite the fact that I tend to avoid that label and tend to present more as a British patriot (albeit with a Belgian surname which marked me out from the group at a younger age), a Catholic and a Libertarian (in Europe that sounds more left-leaning than it does in North America) but also as autistic and dyslexic.
And I had it good with a supportive family and who helped me through the bad stuff to eventually get a good education which I haven't managed to convert into a career but I'm told that's an autism thing.
That and being from a family of mixed descents (English, Scottish, Irish, Germanic and Spanish specifically) and mixed class and education backgrounds, values, religions, usw. it allowed me to see a wide variety of people and make normal some of the ideas that seem quite alien to others.
And coming back to the "you're really nice for a progressive" is a feeling within a good many I've talked to who feel pushed aside by a "left" that they perceive to see them as nothing but a colonial subject to extract money from for their pet projects and ignore the economic pressures on ordinary working people whose concerns about job losses just get cast aside as "bigotry" and while there might be some who do just hate people who aren't like them, when no-one else appears to care if you are struggling this can encourage the growth in hate and while many of those who aren't responsible for it since there are ethnic, gender and sexual minorities who are also working class and struggle to find housing, work, usw. they get hit because they are seen as part of the problem as opposed to fellow workers held down by a capitalist system of exploitation where the owning class and the working class are distinct from one another and the working class doesn't get to enjoy the profit of their labour.
I hope everyone has a better day and it was lovely having you here.
Thank you.
That you are clearly “over credentialed” is a red flag. Did you know? Remaining inside the academic debt train when everyone else gets off… out of touch, privileged, tortured vocabulary
…Provided by a mildly over educated person
With the whole latinx thing, I feel it should be more non binary people involved in the discussion not just Latinos and Latinas. Cause that’s really the only people it affects substantially speaking as a Latino myself.
I feel there’s valid criticism, but many times people are educated but choose to continue to use outdated terms. For strangers it matters little but if you’re friends with someone it is an issue if they’re repeatedly acting in that way.
I agree with the attacking the arguments but not the person. Attacking the people causes more separation and it’s VERY difficult at times due to even being insulted in said discussions.
I like the word latinidad which means Latin community in Spanish.
*sigh* Look you're not saying anything new and, frankly, I'd say the past decades have proved this perspective wrong. This same stuff was spouted 8 years ago. And plenty of people ARE reaching out and ARE adjusting language to communicate. And have been for longer than 8 years. So that's not actually the issue. It's tribalism.
If your tribe says the other side says a and does b, it doesn't matter how many times the other side actually says x and does y. Our primate brains trust our tribe and will ignore the evidence when strongly entrenched in a group. It's why doomsday cults generally don't break up when the end of the world doesn't arrive on the predicted date. Doubling down avoids embarrassment and keeps us with our people.
It's hard for me to take this comment seriously. You say "You're not saying anything new" but I literally spent the past few months being practically inundated with groupthink and demonization from both sides, and saw very few people voicing perspectives like mine. Furthermore, part of the problem is that when people do voice these positive, inclusive, respectful perspectives, people don't elevate them, and instead they shut them down...
...which is exactly what you are doing. You are here saying I'm wrong and saying I'm not going to fix the issue. Like you say the issue is "tribalism" but what I am saying in my video IS SOMETHING THAT CAN SPECIFICALLY HELP TO BREAK DOWN TRIBALISM. I would hope that is self-evident to anyone who sits and reflects on it?
And then you launch into this cynical depiction of human nature, and your comment ends without any actionable point. My video is actionable, and yet you're responding trying to shut me down, but without suggesting any positive course of action.
Let me ask you a tough question, if you're still reading and haven't just tuned out because I don't agree with you fully:
When you take this cynical a view of things, is it because that's what you WANT to bring into being in the world? Do you WANT people to be all tribalist like that? Or is it because you are feeling depressed and hopeless and you worry that that's just what we're stuck with? Like you dislike it and feel frustrated about it and hopeless to do anything about it?
Let me tell you how I see things. Like you, I see all this tribalism around me. I hate it. I think it's a bad aspect of human nature and I think it's something we need to keep in check, and that ultimately, I would like to see us grow beyond and discard entirely. The whole point of this video is that I'm trying to nudge people in a new direction, I'm trying to steer people away from that us-vs-them thinking. Do you not see this?
My channel is a place to embrace a more positive attitude and a more positive vision of human nature. I see those "things are just bad and that's the way they are" takes as irrational, they're a sort of collective cultural depression, mental illness speaking.
And I see it this way, I see more room for hope specifically because I know numerous people around me who have grown out of these perspectives. Heck, *I* have grown out of these perspectives. I've been there, been in that dark "us-vs-them thinking" place, and I've gotten out. And I want to lead and help others out too.
I want to reiterate what I said at the end of my video: change needs to start within. We need to work on ourselves first. I've been in a place like you describe and it's not a pleasant one and it's not particularly helpful for inspiring others or affecting change.
The particular problem or challenge you face may not be the exact same one facing others. Maybe you're not in this deeply tribalist mentality, and maybe you're bothered by it. But you seem to have another, equally concerning problem here. I don't know what's going on in your head, but from how your comment was framed and worded, you seem to be bogged down with cynicism and negativity. And this is going to keep you from doing anything about that tribalism, and moving society forward, which is ultimately what matters. Maybe you need to work more on that issue. Maybe I could make another video about this too, who knows?
Anyway, thank you for your comment, even if it was not particularly truthful, respectful, or empowering, I do think it illustrates an important point here. It's a mindset that leads nowhere, it leads people to be stuck. Please, get out of it. Realize you need to get out of it. It's not going to lead anywhere good. We need our thought processes to end on actionable points.
@AlexZorach I share my experience. Feel free to dismiss it for yours. Both are just that and, as such, only anecdotal.
Please understand that I don't live on social media (though of course I am also in a bubble when on) so I speak of my real world experience working in a red town, living in a blue one, and growing up in a different red one that I return to often. I can say accurately that I have relationships across the political spectrum, and have found one on one conversations helpful only until the tribal mentality kicks in. At that point the vast majority of people whom I try to have conversations with (on either side - I am not a Democrat) revert to tribalism.
Perhaps our differing experiences have more to do with age and location than politics.
Most Trump supporters aren't working class, most of them are petty bourgeois (small business owners and small landlords e.c.t). I'm a working class person from the UK without a degree and I'm not right wing or a Trump supporter, in fact, I'm on the far left. I don't think being 'bigoted' towards bigoted people is a form of classism. I think the idea that working class people are more bigoted and right wing is a dehumanising stereotype and a form of demonisation.
I disagree when you say that it's not a moral failing for those who were exposed to more bigotry to be bigoted. Being a bigot is a choice, as a kid, I always knew it was wrong. I became a Nazi when I was 15 years old, all because of peer pressure, but I always knew deep down that I was in the wrong and that I was hurting people. A lot of these bigoted ideas originated within the ranks of the bourgeoisie and the European nobility and later trickled down into the ranks of the working class.
Most woke people are not elitist or "middle class", most of the woke people I've known were from working class backgrounds and were some of the most compassionate people I've ever met.
british person detected. opinion about american politics: discarded
hidden? 😂
It's obvious to me and obvious to a lot of people, but I really don't think it's obvious to the people who do it, and to a much larger group of people who tolerate it. This particular video is aimed at the people who most need the message, which is why I used the word "hidden" here. I'm speaking primarily to the people who don't see the problem, and I'm trying to help them see it.
If you watch more of my videos, you'll find that I really care about influencing people and getting through to them. I'm not here to create an echo chamber, I'm here to challenge people's beliefs and reach out to a broad range of people and build a consensus around certain key points.
If you want a place where people will bash or put down the left (or the right), this is not the channel for you. This is a place for getting outside the groupthink and building a more truthful way of viewing the world.