The World Is My Fuse

I didn't think I would ever sink to the low of copy/pasting a post I made on a message board on to here, but since no one reads this anyay, I'll just leave it here.

am i still ill? wrote:

i don't assume to have all the answers and to understand every facet of every issue, but the worldview possessed by most people in hardcore is pitifully small compared to the actual real big picture, even if their intentions are essentially good, but still ill-informed.

I feel like statements like these are what are stopping any tangible change from happening in society as a whole.

Society has turned radicalism of any sort into something that has its place only in academia, where we all know it will not make any lasting impact. With this comes the problem that people who share the same fundamentally true views will disagree with each other by means of intellectual elitism, as opposed to any sort of actual action.

I realize that this is opening a new can of worms here, but I feel that many people who share the same views (Veganism or Straight Edge, if we're discussing this in a punk/hardcore realm) will argue for the sake of superiority. I used to be like this in terms of vegwhateverism, and I still am self-admittedly elitist about straight edge (not in the sense that I think I'm better than non-edge people, but rather that I feel that my reasons for being edge are far more legitimate than other people who choose that sort of thing).

But when it comes down to it, why do I care if someone is vegan just because they love animals while I'm vegan as a way to symbolically reject the exploitative nature of large corporations? In both of our choices we benefit each other, I'm saving animals by default and they are helping me by not supporting many of these corporations.

The same is true of Anarchism, the left are FAR too divided to have chance of actually impacting anything in a serious manner. Marxists traditionally hate Anarchists, and vice versa. Not to mention that within Marxism and Anarchism there are too many divides to even take account of. If everyone shares at least a couple common goals (In this case, the removal of Capitalism), why should they not unite to accomplish that goal, and then figure out where to go from there when the time comes?

Did every member of labour organizations at the turn of the century own and memorize the Communist Manifesto? of course not. These organizations were formed out of necessity, people realized they were being fucked and they did something about it.

The same is true of hardcore kids. Do I care if people have deep philosophical or intellectual roots for their decisions? not at all. If they serve as being complimentary to my own, why should I oppose it?