It’s not about coping. The bible is a book written by human beings with words that can be changed and have been changed and passed through languages and institutions of power. Nobody actually goes by all of what it says literally, even if some of them claim to act on various parts of it based on their particular interpretation. Even those who believe some kind of divine inspiration is involved in the bible would have to admit, on inspection, that it can’t all divinely be inspired to full correctness when it’s such a mess of portrayals and narratives.

I agree with your first sentence generally. I just don’t think religion has to be oppressive inherently, but it is instead largely a reflection of the dominant power structure. And I’m doubtful that it’s going to go away any time soon, even if oppressive power structures are dismantled, but that it will have to adapt in order to continue as I believe it has often done in the past.

Something I emphasized once to a religious person I know, which seemed to be taken well in their case at least, was that whether you believe in a specific religion or not, it’s undeniably going to get influenced by the society it exists within. The reason I bring this up is, maybe Jesus was a real person and was terrible, maybe he was a real person and was akin to a socialist but various interpretations of Christianity over time have warped what he said and did to make him look like something else, maybe he wasn’t a real person and is more of an amalgamation of figures and influences from the era. Whatever way it goes, people still have to choose what they’re going to support as okay or not okay right now and they can and should have a say in what their religion is like if they’re going to be a part of it. Otherwise, they are deferring a senseless amount of authority to the supernatural, akin to being something like a slave to it. Even religious teachings will often say that stuff happening on Earth is tainted by human “flaws” in some way - that’s going to include teachings themselves! When people cede power to an institution run by human beings and then believe that the institution is actually being magically run by a god somehow, they are just ceding power to other human beings with some denial involved. The institution should serve the needs of the people, in other words, not become a tool of justifying their oppression.

I’m sorry you’ve struggled so much with that, but I’m glad you’ve consistently found help on here and on hexbear. ❤️

As shitty as it is, it makes a kind of sense to me why Christianity is in such a dismal state: in order for an institution that influential to be allowed to exist under capitalism and imperialism, it gets warped into another extension of it. Or in the best case, such as the Catholic Church, might do some stuff for charity but gets defanged of any revolutionary potential. Though “best case” feels weird to say in reference to the Catholic Church when also considering its history of abuse. As I understand it, they are being more diligent now with hiring standards and the like to try to stop the problem from continuing, but that doesn’t undo the damage already done.

Anyway, yeah, a Christianity under communism would probably look much more like the stuff about “when I was hungry, you gave me to eat; when I was thirsty, you gave me to drink” kind of spirit of it. I still wouldn’t personally believe in the Christian faith, but it’d have to change from the capitalist attitudes to co-exist with a more AES state vanguard type of situation.

As someone who is atheist and once had a Christian friend at the time tell me that I acted more Christian-like than some of the Christians they knew, this feels very relatable. I don’t like to share that story because it feels too much like I’m bragging about myself, but I’ll make an exception here for the rhetorical point; that you don’t have to believe to act in a way that largely syncs up with the spirit of certain religious teachings and some of the people who do believe act less in the spirit of it than some of those who don’t.

We could as well make a similar point about the sort of things we believe in, and talk about, here. Belief in it and sympathy for it is helpful, but it isn’t on its own living the spirit of it (the practice end of things).

Thanks for sharing it, I was not aware of the full context (that or I forgot cause it sure reads fresh). That is definitely a more nuanced take than paper tiger alone would suggest, but makes a lot of sense and seems to reflect well how China acts in relation to the US even today.

I had this thought the other night, that I’m remembering now, and it went something like: The world is being terrorized by the US empire (that part is nothing new). In addition, the combination of it being in decline and the persona of it subsequently being a spiraling narcissist (clinical definition of one) gives it a layer of disorienting and erratic that it would otherwise not have. Its decisions seem senseless at times because some of them are, while also having more thought out mechanics behind them because the head of the regime is just one person and the characteristics of the empire still exist underneath. These two priorities, the plodding and plotting empire and the erratic and self-interested narcissistic, are in a certain amount of contradiction, even as the one has helped create the other in leadership. Maybe a good example of internal contradiction.

It’s like Trump is a psychological embodiment of the empire crashing out over being in decline. The worse its conditions get, the more erratic he gets, and the more erratic he gets, the more it accelerates the contradictions, creating a kind of feedback loop.

“Professional help” is never going to be a substitute for a community of like minded people

That’s true, but the question is, does he most need community right now or does he need more pointed help? Both would be ideal, but from the way the behavior is described, it sounds like there are major issues with regulating emotions and subsequent behavior. We are not, in my view, a tight-knit and physically close enough of a community to be able to deal with that kind of thing well, insofar as setting boundaries without excluding someone. Banning (temp or long term) is pretty much the forceful boundary setting option that is available.

Maybe I’m more sensitive to this kind of thing because I’ve dealt with people who are varying levels of immature in emotional regulation my whole life, but I’ll put it this way: this can’t be much of a community if some of the people here are chronically dysregulating and refuse to change their behavior in response to feedback. What happens in my experience in RL if that kind of thing is allowed to chronically recur without consequence, is people end up changing their behavior to “manage” the person who chronically dysregulates, rather than setting boundaries and forcing them to make a choice to either mature or be more at a distance.

To be clear, I’m not saying that the occasional rant and upset, or general expression of emotion, is dysregulation. Dysregulation might on some occasions have disagreement as to what qualifies as it, but I’d roughly consider it as “the person is not limiting themself” (and, when enabling behavior is in the mix, others present are not trying to limit them or create distance). Emotion and impulse become closer together, they may ruminate on shaky narratives that they haven’t thought through well at all, and as a result, their actions may seem more erratic or childish. Professionals have tools to try to help with this kind of thing, like grounding techniques, and are more equipped to take on a mentoring role in regulation without it turning into a co-dependent relationship. I wish we could brush that all away and live in a world where people are looked after and supported unconditionally, and as a result, a lot of these issues would probably exist a lot less. But for the time being, we have to work with conditions as they are and figure out how to create that world, not just wish it into existence via a mindset.

Hope that makes sense.

I think it depends on what the label is and how it gets used. My personal experience with labels often hasn’t felt great. I will proudly call myself a nerd insofar as I’m saying “yeah, I ‘act nerdy’, so what? I’m proud of those characteristics in myself.” But I won’t go around calling myself a “gamer”, not only because of stigma attached to it but because it seems to be a label largely developed out of taking pride in being a consumerist fan of video games who craves all the latest titles, no matter how expensive, and elevates video games to a place way beyond where they are deserving of value.

I also have just long been disengaged from the mainstream. Not in the beard-wearing hipster meaning of trying hard to avoid the mainstream so I can say I avoid it, but in the older meaning of hipster, of it being more incidental. I guess partly because of upbringing, partly because of not really having money or the right kind of friends that would drag me along/into mainstream stuff a whole lot. So in that way, labels can be weird for me because I don’t feel like there’s a lot I belong to as category in the ways that other people do. This is probably not uncommon for people who are neurodivergent though, this sense of “not quite fitting” with the mold, and I’m 99% sure I’m ADHD (that or it must be something that is virtually identical to it).

But then, I don’t go around proudly proclaiming “I have ADHD.” It’s more just something I use to explain when it feels necessary. I guess to me labels are something to be used for a specific purpose when they are needed. There have been times I got more into self-labeling as a sense of pride, such as in years I was more into MBTI and related theory, but the end result of that was I used a label of introvert to explain away anxiety and avoidance to myself as “just me.” So sometimes a label, even when largely only used on yourself by yourself, can still be damaging.

I will end with a quote from a character in Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams:

“In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It’s just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It’s like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that’s now been taken away and hidden. The graphite’s not important. It’s just the means of revealing the indentations. So you see, astrology’s nothing to do with astronomy. It’s just to do with people thinking about people.”

I definitely believe labels can be and are misused some of the time, but they can also serve a purpose as a way to talk about a thing that is otherwise vague and difficult to communicate about. But as with any worldview that sees things as static rather than in motion, labels can cause us to stagnate in circumstances where change is needed. On the other hand, labels can deceive us into embracing change that is for the worse, believing that we are abandoning an important part of identity if we don’t. So working out material conditions beyond abstract labels is important. The reason two people can think communism sounds good in the abstract with only one supporting AES states is because the AES state supporter has information on the material successes of those states and the other is operating on false information, believing in narratives of destitution and reproduction of oppression.

Posting it here for future readers, since the channel is going to get axed:

Spooky Scary Socialist is over.

On January 15th, YouTube notified me that my second channel, dedicated to livestreaming, had been removed for violating its policy on violent organizations.

I was further surprised to learn that when a channel is terminated, all related channels will be subsequently terminated. Thus, my main channel which existed a number of years before the second channel, is slated for deletion.

I have already appealed the second channel’s termination, which was rejected in less than an hour. There is no further recourse given by YouTube to avoid termination, so my main channel is to be removed in the coming days or weeks.

I maintain and will maintain that the second channel’s termination is unfair, as the “violent organization” I discussed was in an educational context. Providing an overview of the news, academic scholarship, or polling about a “violent organization” should not be (and is not) a violation of the community guidelines. However, it seems that any discussion of Palestinian Resistance that doesn’t start and end with condemnation is a bannable offense on YouTube.

So, for now, Spooky Scary Socialist is over.

As I have always said, it is a risk to unapologetically speak out about the Palestinian Resistance. But the risks and consequences we face as content creators is infinitesimally smaller than the risks and consequences faced by Palestinian freedom fighters running up to and halting Zionist tanks of genocide. I will never condemn Palestinian orphans who grew up and choose the path of resistance.

My YouTube videos are all archived and available for FREE on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/collection/1787859?view=expanded

If you want to keep updated on my channel, I highly recommend becoming a free member of my Patreon, following my Instagram, or following my Twitter.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/SpookySocialist

IG: https://www.instagram.com/spookysocialist/

Twitter: https://x.com/spookysocialist

Thank you to everyone who supported and watched my content over the years. It’s been an honor. The channel will stay up until YouTube terminates it in the coming days or weeks.

🫡Spooky Scary Socialist

Evidence of the benefits of their work from the comments (never think educating doesn’t matter):

You’re the person who introduced me to socialism. I could not be here without you. Farewell.

Absolutely same! I was like “sure let’s listen to the other side, lol, gonna be dumb i bet” and then “wait shit this sounds logical and scientific… i guess i’ll have to go in deeper in the rabbit hole to see if they can fully actually convince me”, and not much later I was a socialist.

Your “Debunking Every Anti-Communist Argument Ever” reached me at just the right time in 2020. I’d read the Communist Manifesto, but only to dunk on it. 6 years later and I’ve read and watched so much more and consider myself a Marxist-Leninist. Thank you. ❤

I used to be just a vaguely anti-capitalist progressive, wary of “le scary gommunism”. It wasn’t until I encountered your debunking video 5 years ago, that I started interrogating more imperialist and Western chauvinist narratives. Being from the global south, I now take a more 3rd-worldist decolonial leaning.
I thank you for setting me on a journey that changed my life forever.

Also, fuck youtube’s trash “moderation.” It’s clear to me from everything I’ve heard from creators on there that it’s largely automated at this point. This is a good illustration of it:

I have already appealed the second channel’s termination, which was rejected in less than an hour.

There is no way they are that fast with real people making an actual judgment of a whole channel. That’s not to say there wouldn’t be bias issues still if it was people doing it, but it’d be harder for them to justify such sweeping bullshit that wipes away years of history on a whim.

Edit: fixing copy/pasted links that got cut off

I still have trouble believing RFK jr is a real person.

Given what people are saying about the number of soldiers, I wonder if it’s meant to be symbolic more than anything? Like “you could technically start a war with us by starting something with these soldiers”?

So, additional thoughts, doing it as a general comment cause I don’t want to single anyone out and there are a number who are defending it as satire:

Problem is, it’s terrible at being satire because it’s not a fair representation of what people tend to say when they point at system level causes of things. The common point about systems isn’t “nobody who does wrong holds any responsibility for wrongdoing.” The point is more like that if you focus your energy more on hating a particular agent of imperialism than you do the imperialist organization they work for and the imperialist institutions that create and maintain it, then you are missing the point of where the problems come from and so will be unequipped to challenge power and will be easily led around from one controversy to the next. You will be able to rage at symptoms, without ever determining cause.

It’s also worth noting that narratives focusing on individual blame get used for racism and part of where focus on systemic problems comes from, is as a means of pushing back against racist narratives. It doesn’t always translate 1:1 in reverse, so you have to be careful of framing it too much as general principle. Emphasizing the oppressor as victim in their own way may come out sounding stupid if you’re trying to challenge power, but emphasizing the oppressed as victim is critical to recognizing their plight. OTOH, some people who act as oppressor at one point in their lives could go down a rung and end up more in the oppressed camp at another point. Whether because of a change in power or because they served their usefulness to the oppressor camp and are no longer needed.

Beware of universal principle thinking in general. Much of what western-influenced-thought takes as universal principle is simply an expression of the dominant ideology.

It’s only a matter of time until the irony poisoning is fatal and he becomes one of those “I left the left because they were mean to me” people.

I had this thought like “there isn’t an ounce of creativity left in this dying empire”. Bit hyperbolic on my part, but then I was like, wait, can this be an actual observed phenomenon. Obviously there’s some creativity left in the imperial core, but if we’re going with a dialectical materialist view rather than viewing creativity as some kind of magic well you tap into, it does seem possible that a whole state project and embedded culture could become largely stagnant, creatively.

Given that the empire has not been directly confronted yet (even if anti-imperialist efforts are making its power recede) why would it bother to change its ways? It’s using the same playbook that has worked for it for decades. And which was used similarly by colonialism for hundreds of years. If we look at creativity as a response to circumstances, it’s still in the stages of finding out the limits of its playbook. So even though people seem to be increasing in awareness of the playbook, in part due to it going more mask off about it, it hasn’t yet faced the kind of total defeat that would force it to reconsider.

I had no real idea about any of it until I listened to the Blowback podcast season on Korea. I’d heard inklings on Korea before that in commie circles, but nothing all that detailed. It really puts into context how much brutality Korea has faced, first at the hands of imperial Japan and then at the hands of US occupation.

Video games + audio book is absolutely goated combo

For sure. I’ve done this combo with theory in audio form sometimes, in order to help motivate me to do it / help with concentration. As long as it’s rote enough gameplay, it can actually help me take in the theory better. Though I only do it as an occasional thing because it makes what would normally be relaxing more like work.

Ever since reddit had the incident where they screwed over API / third party use and reddit mods tried to rally and protest it (and got shown how little power they hold over the website), it seems to have gone fast downhill toward the same sort of trajectory as Musk’s twitter: more openly reactionary/fash. My suspicion is that some of the mods who got axed by admins during that incident were mods who were at least mildly more true-believer liberal and so had some power of pushback. But with them in shambles, it left a power vacuum for opportunists to fill: the kind of opportunists who wouldn’t care much if they’re filling a role that’s only vacant because the admins are trash, so long as they can use it for narrative control.

Not to say it was good before then, any more than twitter was good before Musk. Just that it seems to have gotten more mask off, much like the administration of the US.

Video games have long been my go to for active relaxation (though the persistently obnoxious situation of the industry is part of what moved me politically >.<). For more passive chillout, ASMR. Fiction writing can be nice for creative expression.

I still want to learn knitting, but got stuck on technique the last time I tried. I just have to sit down with it for a while and be patient with myself about it.

Happy Birthday. Did I capitalize correctly? Oh god, I capitalized both words. I’m a liberal, aren’t I…