This argument comes across to me as kind of reductionist to the point at hand. I can only assume in the best of faith that it makes more sense in context. I have not ascribed to people in the imperial core as a general rule “utter stupidity and naivety” or “moral innocence” either one. Furthermore, I don’t understand how someone is supposed to “instinctively understand that they benefit as a class from exploitation” if they literally don’t understand that others have to be exploited in order for things to be functioning the way they are going. If they understand and don’t care, they’re complicit sure, but I don’t see how it can be simplified to throwing them all into the same bin as being in the same position about it. To use myself as an example for reference, the best I can remember of being lib anyway, I don’t think I saw myself as someone who was part of exploitation and felt it was okay at all. I think what I thought was something along the lines of “the world has problems, but the people in power are doing their best to fix it.” I’d characterize the understanding I had at certain points as almost childlike in its simplicity (like how we talk about people having “marvel brain” of good vs. evil). So in my case, you might say there was a degree of naivete at certain points, but this is not to say it was like that the entire time in every way. At some point, I started developing an anti-capitalist view, which came before I developed an anti-imperialist one; without the right information, I don’t know how I would have done differently. In an observing sense of things, what I was able to witness firsthand was harm that was more personal and relevant to the country I live in. Information outside of the country largely got reframed as something vastly different than what it is. Now that I can see it, it’s wild to look at how thoroughly they DARVO everything about other countries. But I don’t know if I could have reasoned it out without the right information and influences. Until I started reading theory, probably the best framework I had was trying to “think critically”, which in practice, was alright on a small scale of things, but suffered greatly in accuracy due to being too much based on trying to universalize principles in the abstract rather than being able to put things in their historical and present context.
I don’t think any of this is incompatible with the point that people can be reasoned with, but I do think they need strong influences that can break through and they need a framework that can functionally understand what is actually going on. When it comes to the ones who sort of do get it, but are callous anyway, I’m not sure if they are as worth the energy. People can be in many different places and it won’t all happen the same.
Also, perhaps I have an incorrect understanding of the term compared to how it is intended, but I’ve usually taken the term “manufactures consent” not to mean that most expressly, with full understanding, agree with the policy being carried out, but more of consent in the legal sense that if one person is attacking other and you quietly observe and don’t intervene, it may be viewed as you consenting to the act being carried out. Certainly there are the people who go to the full point of rabid support (I see them online on a regular basis) but in RL and even online in random non-political places, I don’t seem to encounter these people in the same way; maybe they are there and I’m unaware, but I more often get the sense of low information than full information with complicity. Which is not to be confused with naivete or stupidity. It’s not naive or stupid if you don’t know the prediction is that it’s going to rain tomorrow, you are just ignorant of the information. By the time much of information about other countries reaches the busier, less news-heavy people, it may be all the more simplified and removed from context.
This argument comes across to me as kind of reductionist to the point at hand. I can only assume in the best of faith that it makes more sense in context. I have not ascribed to people in the imperial core as a general rule “utter stupidity and naivety” or “moral innocence” either one. Furthermore, I don’t understand how someone is supposed to “instinctively understand that they benefit as a class from exploitation” if they literally don’t understand that others have to be exploited in order for things to be functioning the way they are going. If they understand and don’t care, they’re complicit sure, but I don’t see how it can be simplified to throwing them all into the same bin as being in the same position about it. To use myself as an example for reference, the best I can remember of being lib anyway, I don’t think I saw myself as someone who was part of exploitation and felt it was okay at all. I think what I thought was something along the lines of “the world has problems, but the people in power are doing their best to fix it.” I’d characterize the understanding I had at certain points as almost childlike in its simplicity (like how we talk about people having “marvel brain” of good vs. evil). So in my case, you might say there was a degree of naivete at certain points, but this is not to say it was like that the entire time in every way. At some point, I started developing an anti-capitalist view, which came before I developed an anti-imperialist one; without the right information, I don’t know how I would have done differently. In an observing sense of things, what I was able to witness firsthand was harm that was more personal and relevant to the country I live in. Information outside of the country largely got reframed as something vastly different than what it is. Now that I can see it, it’s wild to look at how thoroughly they DARVO everything about other countries. But I don’t know if I could have reasoned it out without the right information and influences. Until I started reading theory, probably the best framework I had was trying to “think critically”, which in practice, was alright on a small scale of things, but suffered greatly in accuracy due to being too much based on trying to universalize principles in the abstract rather than being able to put things in their historical and present context.
I don’t think any of this is incompatible with the point that people can be reasoned with, but I do think they need strong influences that can break through and they need a framework that can functionally understand what is actually going on. When it comes to the ones who sort of do get it, but are callous anyway, I’m not sure if they are as worth the energy. People can be in many different places and it won’t all happen the same.
Also, perhaps I have an incorrect understanding of the term compared to how it is intended, but I’ve usually taken the term “manufactures consent” not to mean that most expressly, with full understanding, agree with the policy being carried out, but more of consent in the legal sense that if one person is attacking other and you quietly observe and don’t intervene, it may be viewed as you consenting to the act being carried out. Certainly there are the people who go to the full point of rabid support (I see them online on a regular basis) but in RL and even online in random non-political places, I don’t seem to encounter these people in the same way; maybe they are there and I’m unaware, but I more often get the sense of low information than full information with complicity. Which is not to be confused with naivete or stupidity. It’s not naive or stupid if you don’t know the prediction is that it’s going to rain tomorrow, you are just ignorant of the information. By the time much of information about other countries reaches the busier, less news-heavy people, it may be all the more simplified and removed from context.
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