[ceh123]

>Werner wrote. Perhaps most importantly, the resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group.

This sort of reasoning is exactly why I intentionally moved away from leftist frameworks that (although many of them I would argue are more correct) focus heavily on systemic critiques. This is my main problem with a good amount of leftist philosophy and why I much prefer the frameworks of post-modernists.

Even when the systemic analysis might be correct, if your goal is to improve your life it is far more important to move the locus of control into yourself rather than examine things outside your control that might be working against you.

Edit: e.g. if you want to get a new/better job it's far more productive after receiving a rejection letter to ask questions like "what did I do wrong?" and "what can I do differently next time?" than it is to worry about what systemic factors make you less likely to get the job.

I also want to be explicit that this is not a critique of the validity or importance of systemic critiques, more so just what I found to be practical in my life.

[majormajor]

I think we're all lucky that not everyone's goals are just to improve their own life, but that some people want to improve society too.

If you were ill you'd want the doctor who told you both "here's how to cope" and "here's how we cure this thing," not the one who stopped at the first.

[ceh123]

To quote from kiba's reply elsewhere in this thread:

>The problem is that systematic problems requiring systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for individual behavior in the meantime.

To twist your analogy around, it's more like having a doctor say "you probably got cancer because you lived next to a coal plant." Incredibly important information to have societally, should absolutely be considered and maybe even an have impact on policy. However, that does nothing for the patient today.

[watwut]

It does not take away anything from patient either. It may push him into changing place where he lives, so that further harm is prevented both to him and his family.

Also, if that is actual cause, it would be harmful for doctor to speculate about how patient harmed himself.

[esyir]

I think a major gripe I have with said movements is that they exclusively want the latter, to the point of hostility towards the former.

Example: the body-positivity/fat-acceptance movement, which is often hostile to the concept of "unhealthy body weight" and "losing weight".

[newacct583]

I don't follow your conclusion here. So... you don't think that there are systemic problems worth correcting? Or you think there are, but you don't want to because the disadvantaged should just be resilient instead?

It's one thing to say that there are alternative therapies to pulling down statues and burning shit in the street. It's rather another to reject the goals of a movement because you don't like their tactics.

[kiba]

I don't think that's what he's arguing.

Systematic problems are worth correcting and shouldn't be ignored.

The problem is that systematic problems requiring systematic solution doesn't provide a framework for individual behavior in the meantime.

You can't wait for problems to get fixed. Even if you're working hard or contributing money to those that are working to get problems fixed, you're still stuck in whatever circumstances you are in. It may be a long time for these problems to be fixed, in the meantime we're the heroes(or villains) of our own stories.

[ceh123]

Yup, this is exactly what I was trying to say.

Systemic critiques are absolutely necessary to improve society, but you can't live every day only in a systemic mindset because that will inevitably move your locus of control much farther outside yourself.

[rednerrus]

This is what I was trying to get at with my original post.

[nxc18]

The way leftists approach fixing systemic issues is fundamentally incompatible with actually changing anything. The smart leftists work towards positive change by doing disgusting things like engaging in compromise and working with people who aren’t ideologically pure; when they do such things they inadvertently reveal themselves to be something far more horrible, like a liberal or a progressive-but-not-progressive-enough.

Can you explain what exactly you want to see and how burning anything or tearing down statues accomplishes that? As far as I can tell, all it accomplished was status quo, with a lot more people feeling threatened by leftists.

[TameAntelope]

Taboo on the word "leftists". You're otherizing, I don't think it's helpful.

I don't see the people you're referring to as being in the driver's seat of any meaningful change that's actually being considered in a way that might actually lead to implementation.

[nxc18]

Yes, exactly, they are not in the drivers seat because they systematically choose not to be in the drivers seat.

I don’t know if its necessarily wrong to otherize the people who smash windows in my community, spray paint graffiti on the walls (Land Back! Pigs must die! Kill cops! Rent is theft!). If anything, I think they have chosen to make themselves the enemy of the community they live in by refusing to productively engage with it.

Its really frustrating seeing people who purport to want progress actively destroy community will to make progress on things. They make things a lot harder for the people who are trying to make good changes happen.

[TameAntelope]

I think it's always wrong to otherize, though I get your frustration.

It's fairly interesting to me to see this relatively small group of people causing fairly limited damage be the focus of so much attention, rather than the ideas and concepts of more influential (and therefore relevant) social justice advocates.

It's noisy and grabs your attention yes, but I think it's a mistake to think of it as representative of anything other than the specific people causing the damage.

[MisterBastahrd]

They're doing a damned poor job of being threatening given how popular they've been on a national political level in the US.

[watwut]

If left wing does something wrong, it is left wing fault. If right wrong does something wrong, or is left wing fault because left made them do it.

But, it is never the case that right made left do something bad.

[nxc18]

To add to this, the article mentions the need to be more specific when facing challenges and stressors.

A big trend, at least in PNW leftist activism, is looking at the entire system while focusing in on flaws. No improvement is acceptable unless it is total and complete, and partial steps are even worse than doing nothing.

Myanmar coup? Time to protest global capitalism. Bad conditions in a jail in Wyoming? Time to protest global capitalism. Trial outcome isn’t exactly what you wanted? Time to protest global capitalism. Frustrated that people aren’t paying attention on the 170th night of increasingly incoherent, demand-free protests about issues over which locals have zero control? Time to protest global capitalism.

Then on Twitter, after every protest, you have to complain when global capitalism wasn’t dismantled. If action was taken in response to protest, you have to tweet that it isn’t enough, because it didn’t abolish all borders, dismantle global capitalism, give all land back, and eliminate all government and corporations.

If people had an internal locus of control, they might think about how they can accomplish things, and that might involve identifying solutions to fix parts of the system, rather than demand the whole thing comes crashing down (with no actual thought on a replacement).

edit to clarify: none of the protest triggers leading to ‘time to protest global capitalism’ is meaningfully connected to or specifically about global capitalism; that’s the point. The folks I’m talking about don’t actually have a solid conception of the world and how they specifically want to change it, they’re just angry and don’t really think they can, so they act out against the entire system (I think in decades past it would have been ‘The Man’). Right now its trendy to hate on global capitalism, and assert that it fundamentally is linked to colonialism and white supremacy, among all other social ills. I’m not defending this thinking, just describing it, since it was so foreign to me and apparently to others.

[Zelphyr]

Your post kind-of reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/ZDTkn6PCbtY

[watwut]

I have seen protests against police violence and against coups, but none of them was framed as protest against global capitalism. They also had demands. If you perceive those as being about global capitalism, you was using odd information sources. Or you lie.

Maybe you socialize only with most hardcore communists, or only with hardcore right wing, but your perception is not based on reality.

[nxc18]

What are the demands of the Myanmar Coup protests that happened in PNW, and how could they have been met by the local community?

I am specifically referring to the most hardcore leftists, but I don’t tend to socialize with them. I don’t think its right to call them communists, anarchism is popular though.

I don’t know if you can make a broad claim about no protest being framed as against global capitalism; if you had been to one, you’d know that the protestors like to be clear that they are decentralized, so no one person owns the framing. They have many different framings internally, and certainly you know how I frame them. My framing is based on the chants of, and sprayed graffiti saying ‘land back’, ‘rent is theft’, ‘kill all landlords’, and ‘end capitalism’.

[kiba]

I don't see what global capitalism has to do with Myanmar coup or jail condition in Wyoming?

[mattgreenrocks]

What's interesting is that what matters most is the amount of agency you perceive yourself to have, rather than the 'real' amount (which, admittedly, probably doesn't exist, but our brains trick us into thinking it does).

Based on some of the movements that seem to be picking up steam, and my own life, I believe there's something about this current time that promotes a diminished locus of control. There seems to be a real appeal of ideas who that speak to this need.

It's quite a mindvirus. Even if you know you have it, you can't quite shrug it off.