I consider myself a leftist. I wanted some insight on my labor union’s internal disagreement. So, I thought asklemmygrad might be a good spot (bad idea).

After mentioning I’m an engineer, this guy explains that shooting highly educated people in the head is actually a good idea. I think its safe to say I’m not welcomed there.

  • Rottcodd@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    My theory is that the desire to kill people comes first, then something that seems to be a justification is hung on it.

    So for instance, tankies aren’t leftists who have come to defend or even advocate for mass killing - they’re psychopaths who happen to have adopted leftist ideology.

    I’ve come to believe that because over the years, I’ve engaged with people from all over the ideological spectrum who advocated for killing these or those people for this or that reason, and I’ve never seen any significant differences between any of them. In all cases, one could take the things they say and go through and simply replace each reference to a specific group of people and a few of the key terms with the labels and terms appropriate to some entirely different murderous ideology and end up with something that could have been, and most likely has been, said word-for-word by someone from that ideology.

    To me, the only reasonable conclusion is that they share much more than they don’t - that the central thing that defines them is that they want to kill people, and the rest is just sort of filling in the blanks.

    • weirdwallace75@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer

      The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements is a non-fiction book authored by the American social philosopher Eric Hoffer. Published in 1951, it depicts a variety of arguments in terms of applied world history and social psychology to explain why mass movements arise to challenge the status quo.

      [snip]

      Hoffer argues that mass movements are broadly interchangeable even when their stated goals or values differ dramatically. This makes sense, in the author’s view, given the frequent similarities between them in terms of the psychological influences on its adherents. Thus, many will often flip from one movement to another, Hoffer asserts, and the often shared motivations for participation entail practical effects. Since, whether radical or reactionary, the movements tend to attract the same sort of people in his view, Hoffer describes them as fundamentally using the same tactics including possessing the rhetorical tools. As examples, he often refers to the purported political enemies of communism and fascism as well as the religions of Christianity and Islam.

      [snip]

      Successful mass movements need not believe in a god, but they must believe in a devil.