this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
760 points (86.5% liked)

memes

10472 readers
3699 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Things have gotten better and progress has been made from times past, it just seems worse now because we have more access to information. We've come far, and have further to go!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Celebrating and taking pride in what has been achieved is part of what motivates people to defend it. Doomposting online does nothing to motivate people and merely depresses them.

Every inch of progress has been won through a combination of a rhetoric of hope for what could be achieved, and a recognition of the shortcomings of the current system. Having the former without the latter leads to complacency, but having the latter without the former leads to apathy and despair.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Considering that most progress in the last few hundred years has been fought for (sometimes violently), like weekends, the 8 hour day, etc. kinda proves you wrong.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

And it was fought for by people who had hope for what could be achieved, and crucially used that to unite working people.

I'm not arguing for complacency; I'm arguing that labour movements work best when they are pushing for clearly defined goals (like an 8 hour work week), and the labour movement should honour those that gave their lives for the cause in those doomed strikes at Homestead, Blair Mountain, or Pullman.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Great, I agree! ... But unfortunately, OP used data fragments that IMHO promote complacency (i.e. general "progress") instead of celebrating victories of social movements.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Celebrating the achievements made in the past while obliterating them in the present is nothing more than white washing the problems people face. Like the record numbers of homeless seniors.