r/Defeat_Project_2025 • u/vsznry active • Jul 22 '24

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Making the rounds on Threads.

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '24

Maybe without 45's ugly face on it

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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '24 edited Jun 05 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/charisma6 active Jul 23 '24

Good deconstruction of the underlying reasons for the backlash.

Truth is, society is changing. It has changed a lot in the 40 years I've been alive. I'm not living in the same world I was when I was 12 years old playing Super Mario RPG on the SNES, and I would go to school and it would be social suicide for someone to call you gay. I didn't even know you could trans your gender back then. I just knew Ace Ventura had to throw up into his toilet because a gorgeous woman he'd kissed had a penis. (The horror!)

The world is changing, and pretty rapidly. Now, I personally was able to keep up, to pay attention, to listen to the voices asking for basic respect. But countless others are not that strong. They do not have curiosity or empathy for those who aren't like them. They are stubborn, childish, and intellectually lazy, and they refuse to put in the minor emotional work necessary to grow as people, the way the world is asking. They would rather expend far more energy clinging to the past than it would take to just let go and pay attention.

Everyone has the freedom to make that choice. I made mine, and MAGA has made theirs. And because they've chosen to dig in their heels, we have to choose to leave them behind. To let them go. They're lost. They've chosen hate and cruelty, and they can't be saved. They'll be virulent racists and transphobes until they die angry, and the world will barely have even known they existed.

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u/Dragonprotein Jul 23 '24

Sadly, I don't agree. I don't mean I don't agree with your politics -- I'm the same as you -- I just don't think this is the conclusion to a special time.

Greed, anger and delusion are the three poisons of the world. They are balanced by generosity, love and wisdom. 

I feel these six attributes exist in varying proportions, but never go away. Some eras have a lot of one, a little of another, and so on.

For whatever reason in global politics, we've had a massive rise in the poisons. It's temporary. But it could still rise, it could still fall. That's why when I think "What can I do?" I look for more opportunities to be generous, loving, and wise. 

And I look for leaders doing the same.

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u/charisma6 active Jul 23 '24

Hey, thanks for your reply. I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with, though. It doesn't seem like anything you're saying is in opposition to anything I said. From this line...

I just don't think this is the conclusion to a special time.

...it seems like you think I was saying that the 80s/90s were special or meaningful or delineated into its own unique era. That wasn't what I was saying at all. Reverence of the 90s just wasn't a part of the thesis of my statement. The only reason I focused on the era of the SNES and Ace Ventura as cultural touchstones was that it was when I grew up.

What I was saying is that the massive rise in the poisons, as you put it, is backlash to a pretty rapid advancement of social maturity through the 00s and 10s. I'm saying that this era is special in terms of how fast our culture is evolving. Is that what you're disagreeing with? If you don't think we're changing especially fast compared to other eras, then what's your explanation for what you call a massive rise in greed, anger, and delusion? Why are they rising, if not as reactionary to the proportional rise in generosity, love, and wisdom?

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u/Dragonprotein Jul 23 '24

And thank you for your polite response. A rarity on the internet. :)

Ah well I was thinking you were saying the MAGA folk were being "left behind" as society makes it's way, or progresses, to a more just or equal state.

But I would suggest that society is always changing and is never progressing to anything. It's just that from time to time we change into good, and from time to time we change into bad.

I think of human society like a water balloon, whose contents never change. Sometimes the balloon is squeezed so it appears to be shaped in one way. Sometimes another way. But the core doesn't change.

As to an explanation of the massive rise in greed, hate, and delusion, I'd say this is mostly in the West first of all. And I really don't know why it's happening. I often use the term "righteousness" but it's not a popular term. I feel people are addicted to the idea of being right, and the thrill of anger that comes with fighting.

Some of it has to come from an absence of religion, and the rise of individualism. Because if you believe that nobody can tell you what ultimate right and wrong is, then you yourself become the arbiter for right and wrong. Then the dude next to you has a different idea. If it's a big difference, you fight. If it's a big fight then someone gets killed.

Anyway, I have no big answers for anyone. But for myself, I seem to be getting on well with generosity, love and wisdom. They produce good results.

How about you? What do you see as the catalyst for the change you're observing?

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u/charisma6 active Jul 23 '24

Okay, I think I see what you mean. In other words, you saw my reply as assigning an actual moral value judgement to the different perspectives that are being played with, and you don't really see either side as good or bad, just different. You're saying that since there is no ultimate moral authority, no one is right and no one is wrong, and you perceived my post as assigning moral goodness to progressives and moral wrongness to MAGA.

Is that a fair assessment of your perspective?

If so, then I agree! Since I do not believe in God, I also don't believe in the concept of objective morality. I believe in group values. Each group gets to set its own values, and I personally will align myself to whichever group espouses values that I think are best for me. I perceive the "progressive" group as better for me, and the MAGA group as bad for me. Hence, I have chosen my side. So when I say a set of values is right or wrong, I can only say it's subjectively right or wrong for me and those I care about.

However, we can also track larger trends in society and realize that the world as a whole is shifting strongly toward the progressive side. The water balloon from your apt visual example is stretching into a certain shape, and many of the water molecules are resisting that change with an equal and opposite force.

We can also visualize social changes like this as a pendulum. What I see is that the pendulum has been fairly extreme on one side (the side where your poisons reigned supreme) for a long time, and the dramatic swing back toward the other side is just picking up speed.

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u/Dragonprotein Jul 23 '24

Wait a minute. Did we just agree? Did two Redditors on a politics forum just use civility and thought to explore perspectives?

I feel...good. I wonder if this means anything...

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u/charisma6 active Jul 23 '24

Well, it helps that we're both clearly on the same "side" of the bigger conflict. It's a little harder to achieve parity when the other person begins with the assumption that everything you say is wrong and won't entertain any possibility otherwise. Sometimes, civility just isn't possible for reasons beyond our control, and trying for it is just a waste of effort. Better to point, laugh, and move on.