The example cited was that most people don’t have time to organize or read or care about the state of the world. For example, the recent american BLM protests only occurred around the covid times, potentially due to people having more time.
The example cited was that most people don’t have time to organize or read or care about the state of the world. For example, the recent american BLM protests only occurred around the covid times, potentially due to people having more time.
I have no reason to believe so. Covid lockdown was a perfect excuse though, because it allowed defenders of the status quo to imply that the outrage was not real, it was just people going crazy from cabin fever and they lash out eventually when a catalyst is presented. It inverts everything we thought we knew about the George Floyd protests. Police had been killing black kids, well, since the US existed. At some point, you reap what you sow and the precincts being burned down was due a long time ago.
People are tired after work and have very little time to themselves, and are presented with frankly mindless entertainment. I think most of us here have had a period of time where we came home from work only to scroll through reddit until bed time. We also lost the habit of reading and have replaced it with other habits. As for going out and actually talk to people (a prerequisite to organise), we also have so much entertainment at home that our behaviour is essentially wake up -> work -> come home -> lounge around -> sleep -> do it again. You see this behaviour becoming more and more accessible (and more and more desirable as, in my country at least, it seems strangers can barely speak to each other): repatriate everything at home so you never have to leave. Get your groceries delivered at your doorstep, get a home gym, get a home cinema, get a garden, and now you can even work from home.
But it’s never lost. These are habits and they require practice. The cost of entry is really high to get someone to actually read (and not necessarily theory), or to care. This is all the fault of our capitalist environment that pretends change is impossible (see george floyd protests above), that pretends the world is so complex that we should leave its administration to our benevolent leaders who know better than us, and that our only job is to care about our self and nothing else. And this is supposed to be liberating, but instead causes alienation in people.
And lastly, I remember Harman’s words. As the contradictions in society heighten, many people will be drawn to revolutionary politics. Sometimes, this rush impresses communist parties that for the longest time were fringe, and now suddenly have an influx of new members.
This has been true in the past, which shows that there is a component we are missing that makes workers realise their condition and demand change eventually. This is all consistent within the framework of dialectical materialism. But claiming cabin fever caused the george floyd protests like we’ve seen people do is pure idealism. Why did they burn down precincts in the United States, but there were no riots of the sort in Europe?