Hear me out: I am a leftist. Don’t ban me - this is something i’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently.
I mean, at a macro level comparing the far left to the alt-right – we seem to be a lot more focused on egalitarianism (while disagreeing on the means to that end). The alt-right seems to be focused on creating an ethno state, pretty much. Comparing them, the morality clearly skews towards our direction.
However, what concerns me is how we (you and i) are further insulating ourselves into message boards. When I first think about insulation, what comes up to my mind are those idiots who get brainwashed by alt-right facebook propaganda. They interact with it, then that’s all they see on their wall, and all of a sudden they are in an echo chamber. We’ve all heard about these and know how bad they are.
My first thought is: “Oh, well, I’m educated and I read books and theory. I’m not like them. Alt righters are just dumb ass facebook moms who haven’t read a book in years.”
My second thought is: “Oh, shit. I’m insulating myself JUST like them, though.”
I don’t know. I’m just kind of conflicted. Left ideologies aren’t morally bad, unlike alt-righters. But, at the same time we are creating an echo chamber, just like how /r/thedonald did with thedonald.win – after we both got banned by a traditional news outlet.
What are the effects of that? Is this good or bad?
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If those five people are all of the neoliberal mindset Americans have by default, you’re in a bad spot. If those 5 people are all on this site, you’re also in a bad spot.
If you’re concerned you aren’t being exposed to enough chud viewpoints go spend 5 minutes on a YouTube comment section. The difference between us and Donald is that most of us can’t live in an echo chamber in the real world like they can, so this site is a relief from the real world and not a force of intensifying nascent beliefs of capitalism and racism that people grew up with.
Damn. That’s a great way of describing it.