Gay Debord 🏳️⚧️🌱🏴Another person self-immolated in the US over Gaza and no one gives a shit.
Scott Willsey@Parasite this is what makes me so sad about self-immolation as protest, it’s such a terrible waste
Scrappy Capy Distro@scottwillsey @Parasite calling not waste misses the point. I bookmarked this to share for situations like this. Consider reading. https://kolektiva.social/@spookedhams/112001605244369163
Spooky (@[email protected])
Content warning: Aaron Bushnell, CrimeThinc's Fuckup, Pure Anger
@scrappy_capy_distro @Parasite @spookedhams nihilism achieves nothing, it’s an act of self waste and self deception. Believe in it if you like, but in the end it’s futile
No Gods , no Masters! RESIST@scottwillsey Totally agree.
Someone that does that is mentally ill and it achieves nothing. Except wasting the police and forensics time.
Someone that does that is mentally ill and it achieves nothing. Except wasting the police and forensics time.
@palin @scottwillsey have you looked at the statements these people wrote? They were very level headed and it was carefully ore meditated. Maybe you shouldn't call everything you don't understand mental illness
Spooky@scottwillsey @scrappy_capy_distro @Parasite interesting you're taking my "*life is meaningful* because it's yours to do with as you like" to be a form of nihilism. Truly has lost all meaning, that term...
Snark aside, I get it. From a bystander perspective, all suicide looks like a waste - a premature end to a great variety of paths upon which we may use our radical potential. It's why we don't advocate ritualistic death as a performance art: there are mouths to feed, fascists to fight, and solidarity to build - I'm sure you'd agree with as much.
That fact, that life does mean something, that people are capable of changing the world, is *why* we are moved by self-immolation as protest: it's a person of sound mind and coherent ethics making a conscious choice about what to do with their meaningful existence, knowing full well that suicide hurts the onlookers, heightens the tension in our hearts, and, ideally, motivates us who live to not only "raise awareness" or "read theory," but to actually fucking do something now that they're gone.
That to me doesn't describe nihilism, it doesn't suggest to the average reader that they too should douse themselves ablaze, and it certainly doesn't describe a waste - assuming any one of us has the god-given right or ability to assess the proper utility of another human being. As did you me, I grant you the license to believe in whatever you like, including guilting the dead for wasting their lives if that's really where you stake your claim, but I would argue such futility starts with the notion our lives are not ultimately our own.
Snark aside, I get it. From a bystander perspective, all suicide looks like a waste - a premature end to a great variety of paths upon which we may use our radical potential. It's why we don't advocate ritualistic death as a performance art: there are mouths to feed, fascists to fight, and solidarity to build - I'm sure you'd agree with as much.
That fact, that life does mean something, that people are capable of changing the world, is *why* we are moved by self-immolation as protest: it's a person of sound mind and coherent ethics making a conscious choice about what to do with their meaningful existence, knowing full well that suicide hurts the onlookers, heightens the tension in our hearts, and, ideally, motivates us who live to not only "raise awareness" or "read theory," but to actually fucking do something now that they're gone.
That to me doesn't describe nihilism, it doesn't suggest to the average reader that they too should douse themselves ablaze, and it certainly doesn't describe a waste - assuming any one of us has the god-given right or ability to assess the proper utility of another human being. As did you me, I grant you the license to believe in whatever you like, including guilting the dead for wasting their lives if that's really where you stake your claim, but I would argue such futility starts with the notion our lives are not ultimately our own.
LisPi@spookedhams @Parasite @scrappy_capy_distro @scottwillsey I can't help but think that the John Brown approach is at least as effective at presenting a symbol *and* motivating onlookers.
I think that is typically called "propaganda of the deed".
I think that is typically called "propaganda of the deed".
@lispi314 @Parasite @scrappy_capy_distro @scottwillsey Whether or not that's the case in our present climate, the main thing we accomplish by debating efficacy is to rationalize that which is fundamentally irrational. Bushnell and company weren't politicians, and even a sympathetic attempt to analyze the cost-benefit ratio of potential alternative approaches implies that this was the level on which they operate - something of which I'm thoroughly unconvinced.
When I see a person set themselves ablaze expressly inspired by an ongoing war march, I am indeed forced to consider the cost of death itself, but that's not where my reaction ends; I'm then confronted with the fact that death, even when one "didn't suffer" (i.e. instantaneous fatalities at the receiving end of a bomb), *hurts*. Martyrdom via the deed, while adjacent in its message and at best a punch to the enemy's face, ultimately rationalizes death, gives it a reason, engendering the sense that the fight goes on another day. That's good for troop morale, but we're not raising a well-regulated militia; we're building a world without war, a challenge we cannot meet without confronting the inherent pain present in death.
We can debate ad nauseum the ways in which a comrade's death is a loss of human capital, how their life was "wasted" by frivolous performance or whatever, but every minute spent policing immolation takes time away from considering the mass homicide of the war machine. Victims of IDF attacks aren't at the mercy of their own matches when they burn, and their lives matter all the same as "one of our own." That, to me, is a profound waste.
When I see a person set themselves ablaze expressly inspired by an ongoing war march, I am indeed forced to consider the cost of death itself, but that's not where my reaction ends; I'm then confronted with the fact that death, even when one "didn't suffer" (i.e. instantaneous fatalities at the receiving end of a bomb), *hurts*. Martyrdom via the deed, while adjacent in its message and at best a punch to the enemy's face, ultimately rationalizes death, gives it a reason, engendering the sense that the fight goes on another day. That's good for troop morale, but we're not raising a well-regulated militia; we're building a world without war, a challenge we cannot meet without confronting the inherent pain present in death.
We can debate ad nauseum the ways in which a comrade's death is a loss of human capital, how their life was "wasted" by frivolous performance or whatever, but every minute spent policing immolation takes time away from considering the mass homicide of the war machine. Victims of IDF attacks aren't at the mercy of their own matches when they burn, and their lives matter all the same as "one of our own." That, to me, is a profound waste.
@lispi314 @Parasite @spookedhams @scottwillsey you can debate effectiveness all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that our own autonomy allows us to make the decision to self immolate. We aren't beholden to some moral code to always for the most effective thing. First, that's unknowable. And second, everyone has different goals and different ideas of what is effective toward those goals. Those who self immolate might genuinely think that given their belief systems that such an act is the most effective. What if instead of whining about their choices we help their waves crest and come crashing down on deserving targets?
@scrappy_capy_distro @lispi314 @Parasite @scottwillsey for the record, I think lispi's response is in good faith (text walls are my default mode of communication, no hostility in reply intended lol). It's obviously a good idea to consider whether some actions are "effective" in an observable and replicable capacity. Where I take the strongest offense is in the categorical refusal to consider why we feel upset when someone self-immolates. I don't believe for a second people are actually shedding tears over "waste," for example, but rather fear direct emotional honesty because that violates the principles of respectability politics. In the event such an emotion is genuinely felt as described (i.e. "it's so tragic, what a waste, I cry for what their life could have been and nothing more"), that's just poor allyship with those who experience suicidal ideation - one of whom is me, I go through that sometimes, and I don't take "no please stay alive, you're useful to society" as much more than halfhearted platitude.
If someone is convinced, without considerable premeditation, that their life ending is the *only way,* I can't see many situations in which a good friend dissuading them from doing so is a thing I'd be upset with on principle. I'm not big on egging people on to pursue fatalism, and that to me is entirely consistent with acknowledging the universal right to die. All I ask is for my alleged allies not to value me or anyone else primarily on the basis of utility/potential, and encourage them to think first of the murderous war machine when people fight against it, rather than nitpicking the substance of a protester's death.
If someone is convinced, without considerable premeditation, that their life ending is the *only way,* I can't see many situations in which a good friend dissuading them from doing so is a thing I'd be upset with on principle. I'm not big on egging people on to pursue fatalism, and that to me is entirely consistent with acknowledging the universal right to die. All I ask is for my alleged allies not to value me or anyone else primarily on the basis of utility/potential, and encourage them to think first of the murderous war machine when people fight against it, rather than nitpicking the substance of a protester's death.
Linza@Parasite They did.
donkey herder, fowl friend@Parasite self-immolation is the original media shadowban. Americans who only check big media outlets never heard about him, or the woman in Atlanta, or the right wing self immolation in DC last month, or etc…