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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by muxika@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

I hear these comments for not wanting to help people, and it feels like we're worshipping individuality to the detriment of community, which is necessary for survival.

  • "I don't want my money going to ___ ."
  • "This is not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic!"
  • "You don't have any freedoms under socialism/communism."
  • "They're just looking for a handout because they're lazy."
  • "I'm a self-made man. I didn't need anyone's help."
  • "Empathy is not a virtue."
  • "I don't see how that's my problem."
(page 2) 33 comments
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[-] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

Yes. We have become a nation of de facto sovereign citizens. The average American thinks of nothing past the crummy job, the soul breaking commute, the mortgage, and another Ben Franklin for the third star on the fourth stripe on little Ayngylynn's tae kwon do white belt. Frank Freeway and Susie Soccermom are too wrapped up in themselves to care what kind of people we are.

Back in 1997, my sociology professor said the US would become the meanest society in history. And OMFFSM, I see it everywhere. There's no more sense of community or even common courtesy. Hurt the other guy or get hurt. Violence over small things will soon be commonplace and inescapable. We will all have to be armed, much as we may hate it. This is all by design.

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It's been like that for a while (how did they get stomach chattle slavery, or the native genocide, or murdering brown people around the globe like Nam?), it's the reason the rest of the world is very wary of Americans even if they don't come in tanks and jets. Even Western Europeans are wary of Americans at this point, and they're basically the same community!

I think that Roman Catholicism and offshoots (not the message of Jesus, but the unholy creation of the empire) are partly to blame, primarily the disinfo of Paul, the fed, with his "faith without works" and "you'll be saved if you become a man worshipping polytheist!". Ideology is very malleable, so we can do something about it, but Nietzsche already pointed to the struggle like 200 years ago and a solution proposed by the locals with local ideological tools hasn't been found yet. Islam is the path forward for the West (and the rest of the world), but ofc you hate to hear it, even if it would offer an ideological framework based on the belief in God and objective morality (you gotta act right to save yourself, more or less Jesus' message for everyone who's actually read the Sermon of the Mount, for instance)... don't forget that that gut reaction has been fostered by the powers that be in the same way that it was for the Japanese, the Vietnamese, the natives, the Africans, and now the Mexicans and Chinese. Maybe there's something there, huh?

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[-] devolution@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Just as Conservatives have wanted. This isn't new. This was the default. Empathy was an exception started in the 60's.

[-] collapse_already@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 months ago

I have no empathy nor sympathy left for the right. I would like for them all to bleed out through their eyeballs.

[-] 3abas@lemmy.world -3 points 4 months ago

After watching Israel slaughter tens of thousands of our children while Biden lied and covered for them and have them everything they wanted, i have no empathy nor sympathy left for anyone who isn't ready for a revolution and calls enthusiastic support for genocide "the lesser evil".

They're all Nazis, both sides, and I have zero respect left for anyone who only cares about them and theirs and their life domestically. I have no empathy for anyone who lives in and benefits from the imperial core and doesn't have empathy for the victims of the empire.

I don't have sympathy and empathy left for them. When a dear friend told me his mother died, I tried so hard to find an emotion, and I just remembered all the lost children he refused to speak up for and came up empty. Fuck you and your dead mother, I thought as I said I'm sorry for your loss.

[-] Jumbie@lemmy.zip -1 points 4 months ago

So how do you feel watching Trump do worse in full view?

[-] 3abas@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Worse for you, objectively the immediate situation in Gaza is better, our children are no longer being slaughtered inn the hundreds daily. They're restoring and rebuilding some form of daily life, they have cafes running and they're watching the Palestine team compete in the Arab cup. Things that seemed unimaginable when Biden was greenlighting 2,000 lbs bombs on tents while licking ice cream.

Biden is our Hitler, Trump is yours, and if you were one of the people who saw what Biden was doing in Gaza and decided Kamala promising the most lethal military deserved your vote, you deserve Trump and I feel no empathy for you.

If you refused to vote for both evils, I respect you and expect you to stand aside me when the revolution begins. I expect liberals to side with maga in a true revolution, and they'll label is communist islamist extremist terrorists for disrupting their comfortable daily life at the very top of society.

[-] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 0 points 4 months ago

Propaganda is a powerful tool, especially in the hands of someone skilled. I suspect you’re that skilled artisan of the dark art itself.

The situation is not better, objectively or otherwise. There is no Gaza ceasefire, only a lie. People are still being slaughtered and starved and allowed to die. Women are still being raped. Men are still being bulldozed and bombed. Children are still being executed.

Spare me your indignant speech and look closely at your own actions.

[-] 3abas@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

I'm Palestinian. The ceasefire is not real. People are still being slaughtered.

Not nearly at the same rate as under Biden. It is objectively better. We celebrated Christmas in Bethlehem for the first time this year since the genocide began.

Israel is still a genocidal expantionist ethno supremacist fascist state that wants to eliminate all Palestinians and has eyes on Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. The situation in gaza today is objectively better.

You don't get to simply dismiss facts as "propaganda". The genocide is still going, but the ovens were turned off, and you're telling me I should I have voted for the candidate that promised to keep fueling the oven because Trump is worse for you.

I agree, he is worse for you, and while I didn't vote for him, I choose the collapse of the American empire over the all out accelerated genocide of my people that a healthy American empire can afford to fund.

And I don't feel empathy for you for having to live through the death of your empire, because we told you loudly to help us and you called our genocide the lesser evil. You've destroyed all of countries and murdered millions of our people and you honor your war criminals and put them on a pedestal.

I feel bad for my family and friends who are in ice detention, and I blame those like you without a backbone that insisted the champion of genocide was the only other option.

First they came for the communists and all that. You didn't help us, and you're bitching at us for not voting to continue our extermination to save your cushy lifestyle at the very top of the world.

Propaganda isn't an inherently bad word, by the way. It's not a "dark art", it can be done through the use of only facts, as I'm doing, and you have no chance of defeating fascism if you don't also participate in positive propaganda. You have to unlearn colonial terms and learn the true meaning of words, and read some books on how to influence public opinion with facts, then come back and call it a dark art as if it's a clever insult.

[-] Jumbie@lemmy.zip -1 points 4 months ago

That second line tells me I can ignore you and miss nothing.

What a shit take on a horrid situation. Fuck off, MAGA.

[-] 3abas@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I'm not maga. You're a moron.

Ignore, like you've ignored the pleas of every person your country destroyed because we're subhuman to you.

Ignore, because it's easier than facing the fact that you support Nazis.

Trump is worst for you, because he's ruining America. He's a moron, he's a racist, he's everything you soulless selfish Americans deserve.

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[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

USA culture has always been this way. It's what made us different from Europe and a huge beacon for immigration.

The idea that you can just do what you want and fuck what everyone else thinks, esp your community.

Is worshiping community to the detriment of individuality better? You forget that most communities are highly oppressive and discriminatory, they only want the 'right' people to be a part of them. If you challenge the tenants of the community, you will be punished, including expulsion or violence.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 0 points 4 months ago

It doesn't have to be one or the other. Communal action and solidarity are essential for providing benefits to individuals.

You may ask your boss to raise your pay, likely to be rejected, or you can join a union and demand a much higher pay and better working conditions.

You may do your best to add small niceties to shared spaces, or you can unite with your neighbors and make the community thrive.

You may stand alone against injustice, only to be moved when convenient. Or you can walk the streets together, making your shared concerns heard.

Neither of it is actually much ideologically tied, and it can go in any direction. But the point is, collective action is best when addressing issues many people face individually.

Building a culture of self-made individualism is a deliberate attempt to remove the levers of power granted by collective action, and to make it easier to crush dissent on the way to build an authoritarian dystopia.

That's not to say collective action cannot be abused to make a very ugly society - fascism is one example - but that the best results are achieved when the individuals retain their own views, but are willing to cooperate over the shared issues.

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

you assume it's biconditional. it's not.

you can ask your boss for a raise, and get fired. for a lot of people there is no option for a union. and the smart move is to apply for another job that offers you better wages in another community entirely.

some of us had given a lot to our communities... and told to go f ourselves for not 'fitting in' or standing up against that community when it was willing to commit injustice in the name of 'justice'.

also HOAs are a great way neighbors unite... specifically to oppress everyone else around them by making up all sorts of weird rules and penalties restricting the freedom of others. and if you you have no option to not be in the HOA now in a lot of places because that form of 'community' has become pervasive and oppressive in the name of 'justice' of preserving property values and creating exclusionary housing. that isn't facism, it's the self-interest of the community putting itself way above the interest of any individual who might want different.

Community isn't necessary a net positive effect, oftentimes it can be totally oppressive. you can organize to create and promote injustice against marginalized people and further marginalize them or straight up criminalize them.

for a lot of people there is no community when shared views are retained. the point of community is submission of your individuality to the 'greater good'.

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this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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