• invalid_name@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 month ago

    I might argue that the initial idealism of America was kinda bullshit; hollow blatantly dishonest propaganda so some oligarchs could get theirs and pay less taxes to Parliament. They never tried, they never cared. Their pretty words were always a foul wind. They kept their slaves. They made sure there was stratification. They crushed rebellions. They defended slavery as an ideal. They built it all on genocide and theft, including of the peoples who sparked the enlightenment their supposed ideals came from.

    Which isn’t to say these ideals are always empty, or always lived up to by the people who espouse them hobestly. Just… Bad example.

    people can not be trusted

    See, I’m not sure. I think our entire social apparatus is deeply antisocial, essential amasdive stochastic conspiracy to make everyone a bastard and trust impossible, and it still fails sometimes. I think if you allow them the opportunity to do good, you can develop them into people worthy of trust. I think if you dont trust the people with their own futures, then you can’t really have better. Not for long anyway; that’s kind of the lesson of Lenin and Robespierre.

    • nifty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 month ago

      Perfect is always the enemy of the good, we can’t fault people who’ve been dead and buried for centuries for their lack of understanding when we right now are incapable of it ourselves.

      I get what you’re saying about trust, but it takes just one to backstab you even if there are a million chill people. On a nation state level, that can have serious consequences.

      • invalid_name@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 month ago

        perfect enemy of the good

        And in many cases, you’re right. I think thats the mistake Lenin and Robespierre made, actually; the biggest one at least, being unable to trust anyone else with making a less autocratic world. I do not believe the founders of the united States were trying to be good. I think they were lying, and pretty comprehensively pieces of shit.

        takes just one to back stab you

        Does it? I think the more you create a tense society balanced on a knifes edge cognitive dissonance of its own contradictions, and the more centralized(undemocratic), the closer it gets to true, but I don’t think it ever gets all the way there.