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this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
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Okay. So where'd they get their values from?
I dunno where'd I get my values from? If we're all just victims of circumstance how's some of us Yanks end up communists?
For most Yanks it's a combination of receiving helpful education outside of a school context and having a precarious or marginalized social position by that time. i.e. we are getting fucked over and have thereafter been taught to some extent that it doesn't need to be that way.
I'm no better than anyone else, I'm just lucky in this respect.
Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm an antifa super-soldier decanted out of a vat from Havana. I've always been the ultimate communist my entire existence. I'm certainly not here out of pure luck that I was exposed to the right information and experiences at the right time in my life.
Yah know I tried to word this in an even handed way where I made it clear I still recognize social forces, I just think humans still have enough agency they have SOME culpability in the politics they embrace, especially if we're talking people going full blown fash.
Also I'll be honest I think this sub is inconsistent about this shit. When we talk about American brainworms we are all helpless bodies floating in the river of fate, meanwhile we treat every Israeli over the age of 11 as a fully conscious actor who grasps the wickedness of their countries actions and revels it in.
Hexbear is a land of contrasts. 🤷
Agency, however, is not the same thing as Free Will. Agency merely means that the mechanisms that determine "a choice" occurs inside a person, it doesn't mean they're exerting any sort conscious control over said "choice."
And if you are gonna argue for Free Will, I'm disengage at this point.
It’s, frankly, anti-Marxist thinking. The argument you are arguing against reminds me of Calvinism at its core, where people are born good or bad (fascist or anti-) and nothing they are exposed to will change their destiny of not getting into heaven (or achieving liberation in our case)
The infamous unconditional election doctrine of Calvinism is that it doesn't actually matter if you're good or bad, God just chooses to save people independent of any sort of human merit because no human action can one-sidedly change what the Sovereign chooses, and none of us are "worthy" anyway. We're all "totally depraved" sinners and the ones who escape perdition escape it due to divine mercy, not because we deserve to, or so Calvin said.
Basically, Calvinism is even more misanthropic than people give it credit for.
I agree that his point is anti-Marxist though, because we plainly do have conscious control. People argue about free will in such silly ways. To me it's the second least-serious of the traditional big arguments in philosophy after moral realism.
I appreciate the refresher on Calvinism. I haven’t really thought seriously about it in well over a decade, as I’ve cut out all the conservative Christians in my life
Silence, Marxist. The true communists have their calipers out.
Like you said in the OP, it's very clearly both. Brainworms imposed by propaganda are certainly a part of the problem, but they're no excuse for supporting genocide.
i found some theory someone left on a table in public when i was 13. Lucky it wasn't Dianetics i guess.