Average citizens are less culpable than government officials are, but we are all culpable for it to a degree.
There is a degree at which idealistic humanitarianism is pushed to such an extreme that it swings all the way back around into the concept of original sin. I know, because it’s where I’ve sat for years and I had to sit down about it when someone pointed out I’m basically so atheist I’ve gone catholic.
Guilt is indeed a matter of calibration. This is correct. But at a certain point of granularity, it becomes a pointless statement.
Anyone insisting on wearing clothing or utilizing objects they didn’t make by their own hand is a capitalistic slaver. You and I both own slaves right now.
I could disappear into the hills and become a vegan goatherd, and it’s probably the closest I could get to neutral. But by the mere act of minimizing my own harm, I’m also shutting my ears to the plight of all others, which is an implicit endorsement through inaction.
If I choose action and swing the tides over to Gaza, they still have their own weaponry. If bringing my corrupt genocidal government to its knees, I’ve created a power vacuum that harms countless and will most certainly kill. Doing nothing or something both make me a murderer.
Even in donating to a charity, you’re deliberately choosing to ignore three others just as worthy. When everyone answers to everything simply by chancing to be born, this kind of thinking becomes at best a semi-interesting joke and at worst actually psychologically destructive.
What am I meant to do, to stop personally committing at least 4 types of concurrent genocide across the globe? Stop paying taxes towards the military? At least my below-the-poverty-line ass is already there.
Calling my representatives won’t do much with the US so heavily invested in the area, but I suppose if I’m culpable for mass murder either way, I might as well go to prison for it.
Everything you’ve said is the exact explanation for why there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, and the inherent flaw behind it as a whole. But I do not accept that it’s the same issue in gaza. It is not capitalism as a system causing the genocide, it is our elected president who is actively lying about both sides of the war in order to perpetuate it. It is our UN representatives actively blocking a ceasefire. The fact we haven’t impeached Biden yet is very much on all Americans. Capitalism did not put Biden in the WH, we did. And so we are responsible for what he does and doesn’t do while there.
As far as the sins of capitalism, I very much agree with your original sin argument. It’s just a different issue when the problems are caused by our democratically elected government.
There is a degree at which idealistic humanitarianism is pushed to such an extreme that it swings all the way back around into the concept of original sin. I know, because it’s where I’ve sat for years and I had to sit down about it when someone pointed out I’m basically so atheist I’ve gone catholic.
Guilt is indeed a matter of calibration. This is correct. But at a certain point of granularity, it becomes a pointless statement.
Anyone insisting on wearing clothing or utilizing objects they didn’t make by their own hand is a capitalistic slaver. You and I both own slaves right now.
I could disappear into the hills and become a vegan goatherd, and it’s probably the closest I could get to neutral. But by the mere act of minimizing my own harm, I’m also shutting my ears to the plight of all others, which is an implicit endorsement through inaction.
If I choose action and swing the tides over to Gaza, they still have their own weaponry. If bringing my corrupt genocidal government to its knees, I’ve created a power vacuum that harms countless and will most certainly kill. Doing nothing or something both make me a murderer.
Even in donating to a charity, you’re deliberately choosing to ignore three others just as worthy. When everyone answers to everything simply by chancing to be born, this kind of thinking becomes at best a semi-interesting joke and at worst actually psychologically destructive.
What am I meant to do, to stop personally committing at least 4 types of concurrent genocide across the globe? Stop paying taxes towards the military? At least my below-the-poverty-line ass is already there.
Calling my representatives won’t do much with the US so heavily invested in the area, but I suppose if I’m culpable for mass murder either way, I might as well go to prison for it.
Everything you’ve said is the exact explanation for why there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, and the inherent flaw behind it as a whole. But I do not accept that it’s the same issue in gaza. It is not capitalism as a system causing the genocide, it is our elected president who is actively lying about both sides of the war in order to perpetuate it. It is our UN representatives actively blocking a ceasefire. The fact we haven’t impeached Biden yet is very much on all Americans. Capitalism did not put Biden in the WH, we did. And so we are responsible for what he does and doesn’t do while there.
As far as the sins of capitalism, I very much agree with your original sin argument. It’s just a different issue when the problems are caused by our democratically elected government.