Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id760459045
Negative solidarity is a sense of indignation or injustice aimed not at capitalism, corporations, or the conditions of work in general, but at those who seem to be not working or those who work in better conditions. In the United States there is a popular bumper sticker which reads, “Keep working, millions on welfare depend on you.”
✏️ This to me feels like basically propaganda to keep people fighting each other and not the systems in place. More so here since welfare is so limited, people can’t live comfortably on it at all. When people strike, they’re struggling. 🔗 View Highlight
id760459139
One of the things Spinoza stresses is that we try as much as possible to think about things which increase our power. So the question is then: What do we do when we are in a situation of relative powerlessness, unable to control the conditions under which one works or the changing nature of work and so on? It seems like one answer is to make our ability to endure those conditions into a point of stoic pride. “Look how much I’ve put up with, and doesn’t this show how powerful I am?” In some sense, it tries to make powerlessness into a kind of power. The effect of this is that having to work two jobs to survive is no longer seen as a problem with the economic system, but rather it shows my merit.
✏️ Feels like a human trait that’s being exploited. We feel powerless, so we draw power from whatever we are doing at all. Look how much I suffer and survive.. this is now a point of pride, not a thing that needs to be changed. What do we do when were relatively powerless, and can’t change our conditions? #addto/questions 🔗 View Highlight
id760459477
People are limited in what they do, and what they think is possible. But sometimes all it takes is someone else doing something, and then suddenly that thing becomes possible.
✏️ The power of imagination. We can be so caught up in how we’re living, which limits what we can imagine, which in hand limits how we act. Then someone does something, and suddenly new things are possible. New things are imaginable. I like this a lot. followup 🔗 View Highlight
id760460927
you have to recognize all the ways you are determined by material constraints and limits on the imagination before you can think about all the ways in which you’re free. Part of the problem with beginning from an assumption of freedom is you end up saying if people put up with this situation, they must like it for some reason.
✏️ The second half is very poignant. If you’re looking at someone incapable of leaving a situation that looks bad to you, your reaction of “well they must like it that way” belies an assumption that the person has freedom of action and imagination. They very likely don’t and are trapped. They need help. 🔗 View Highlight
id760461014
I think reducing work time would necessarily have the positive impact of creating new ways for people to think about their identities and place in the world other than through work.
id760461045
You create a sense in which people go to work because their friends are there; everything they understand about sociality comes from work. The more people work, the more they will begin to identify with work. So reducing the working week or working days would free people from this cycle.
id760461051
If people have time to do something other than buy groceries and do their laundry just to return to work the next day, they can produce another sense of themselves outside the confines of work