this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Again, I just feel like you’re being naive. And fuckin Chaffetz? That piece of shit? You think he gave half a fuck about what his voters had to say? He famously shut them out and hid from them, didn’t he? I don’t feel like searching that putz’s name. And he even said himself that it was “groups” that made him change his mind. That wasn’t citizen’s groups. That was interest groups.
But yes, I agree, let’s move on to something positive. Praxis is the concept among anarchists/socialists of smaller scale, direct action. You get a group of likeminded people together and go provide direct aid. FoodNotBombs is probably the most famous example. Instead of putting a bunch of effort into trying to change the minds of politicians and rallying likeminded people to put pressure on them to cast their vote to build a program that would, after being rewritten and amended and lobbied, amount to far less than anyone wanted and is thought of as a “step in the right direction.” It’s incrementalism. And all of that effort and time gets wasted.
Our entire concept of success in politics centers around incrementalism, and it’s led us down the exact path we’ve been on and has moved slower than the negative progress of the world changing for the worse under capitalism. Problems will always continue to mount faster than incrementalism will ever be able to put a dent into. But praxis is living your values directly. Believe in helping people? Help people. Don’t put all of your time and effort and resources into trying to get selfish motherfuckers that have only their own interests and the interests of those with money at heart to help people. In practice, any effort in trying to get politicians to help people only ends up helping the politicians.
Take all that time and effort and those resources and give them directly to the people who need it. That is praxis. And even though it’s on a smaller scale, the idea is that if everyone did this, the scale suddenly turns from local solutions to global ones. It’s a founding principle of anarchism.
I can give you some good books to read on the subject if you’re interested.
Thank you for the education. If you want to suggest any books please do so, I would honestly be interested in reading more about it.
As far as the other part of your comment, the first thing that jumped in my mind is "Why does it have to be an either/or thing?" One can attack the problem from both ends, and have a better chance of success.
With respect, I honestly believe my approach can affect positive change, it's not either a 0% failure or a 100% success, with nothing in between, as you suggest. I don't believe I'm being naive, it's just I've seen it work effectively in the past, as that article you linked aptly shows, by describing examples of such.
If nothing else, where we're at now is because of apathy. Apathy has proven itself to be not be effective to affect positive change. To advocate for involvement in the system is not a waste of time.
Based on your description, what you advocate for is a positive change. But it seems too micro of a change to really 'move the ball down the field', to borrow a phrase. To be fair though, I know very little about it at this point, so I may end up having to change my mind about that once I'm more educated about it.
Finally, I would challenge you though to not give up on engaging in the current system, if you're willing to think outside of your box, as I am of mine.
Otherwise, apathy will destroy us all.