this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
12 points (100.0% liked)
Liberty Hub
265 readers
1 users here now
- No Discrimination, this includes usage of slurs or other language intended to promote bigotry
- No defending oppressive systems or organizations
- No uncivil or rude comments to other users
- Discussion, not debate. This community is exclusively for genuine logical debate, any comments using whataboutism or similar will be removed.
- No genocide denial or support for genocidal entities. Anyone that supports the mass murder of civilians will be banned.
These guidelines are meant to allow open discussion and ensure leftists and post-leftists can have a voice. If you are here to learn, then welcome! Just remember that if you're not a part of the left (Liberals don't count) then you are a visitor, please do not speak over our members.
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Soulists do not believe in social contract theory. The social contract was invented by Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, the "father of liberalism". Locke was a capitalist. Soulists are anarchists. We don't like liberals.
When it comes to Soulists, you're more likely to find utilitarians among our ranks. We punch Nazis not because Nazis violate the social contract, but because Nazis threaten to bring genocide and war. While a social contract theorist would happily deal with a Nazi who was polite, well-mannered, and followed all the rules, a Soulist would not. A Soulist would pull out the baseball bat and tell the Nazi to get the fuck out, no matter how well the Nazi follows the social contract.
Clearly not what happens in practice though given the events that've transpired over the past weeks caused by a soulist forcing their reality of support for liberalism/the party of polite fascists.
Well, I don't know if you read My article about supporting Biden, but I made it very clear that any support for the Democrats should be fake, not real. I think that's generally how other soulists feel about the issue too. Nobody wants to genuinely support the Democrats, it's just a means to prevent genocide. I for one take genocide very seriously and can't do nothing about it. If I'm understanding the other side's position on this issue, I think this might be an issue of us disagreeing on the inaction vs inaction problem. See, I view making a choice not to act as a form of action. Morally equivalent to an action of equal effect. It seems to Me that a lot of the more moderately inclined people on this issue who prefer inaction, are doing so because you think a slightly bad action is worse than a really bad inaction.
So we're back to utilitarianism as the deciding factor. The soulist only cares about the consequences. They don't care if one choice means doing something and one means doing nothing. But the deontologist has personal rules against doing a bad thing. Doing nothing, that's fine. And if nothing turns out to have a worse outcome than something, so be it. The utilitarian disagrees. They'll sacrifice their principles to achieve a better outcome for the victims of genocide. They only care about the result.
So which tenet of soulism decides which group of people is worth genociding for another?
Fortunately, no such situation has come up yet. Biden is not threatening any people that Trump isn't. So favouring Biden over Trump does not subject any additional people to genocide in comparison with inaction. That means we've never had to choose to harm some people to save others. It's always been a straightforward situation of harming more people vs less people, with the smaller group inside the larger one.
If you'd like to switch to asking tricky questions, though, I've got one for you. How many lives is inaction worth? How many people have to die as a result of your choice not to act, before action becomes preferable? Is the difference a billion people? A million? A thousand? One? If you knew doing nothing would kill a million people, and doing something would kill a thousand, would you let a million die to keep the blood off your hands?
So which tenet of soulism decides which group of people is worth genociding for another?
They're not two different groups of people. It's a large group, and a small subset of the first group.