Post Aqt0JRDUWbPgHEryWu by Sovereign_Beast@social.xenofem.me
(DIR) More posts by Sovereign_Beast@social.xenofem.me
(DIR) Post #Aqt0JK1tFKyRzEO6yW by Sovereign_Beast@social.xenofem.me
2025-02-07T20:10:41.059464Z
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Read an article he wrote a couple months ago and it crystalized a critique I have of him https://www.patreon.com/posts/brief-thoughts-121743584?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
(DIR) Post #Aqt0JRDUWbPgHEryWu by Sovereign_Beast@social.xenofem.me
2025-02-07T20:11:54.898672Z
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for those who aren't willing to read the post on patreon (it's a public post but whatever):In light of some of his recent commentary, I think it would be interesting to consider Peter Singer's work, 'Famine, Affluence, and Morality.'In this book, Singer argues that if it is within your ability to save someone from death and suffering, and you fail to do so, then you are a fundamentally immoral person. This is used to support a more conditioned argument; that in order to address famines, wealthy individuals should donate money to charity, specifically charities which provide famine relief, as long as it does not significantly impact their wellbeing in a negative way.There is an interesting sleight of hand here. The argument slips from a statement which is more or less positioned as a universal standard, to a highly specific and limited form of action which can be easily tolerated by a wealthy capitalist elite- that you should donate some money to charity.Pause. Let's put a pin in that.On November 14, 2024, Peter Singer joined many other 'progressives' in discussing what had caused them to lose the election. In his article, "What Progressives Must Learn From Trump's Campaign," Singer posited that a key element of what had lost Democrats the election was the Republican's focus on 'transgender ideology.'To quote the article,"Progressives face an acute dilemma. Should they stand up for every cause that they believe to be right, irrespective of its importance compared to the other issues at stake, or are they justified in taking a more centrist position on some less significant questions on which they have been unable to win over an important section of the electorate? In my view, our focus should be on the issues that matter most to the world as a whole." Postmortems in the months that have followed seem to indicate that what lost Democrats the election was not a preponderance of support for the transgender community, but instead that it was Democrat positions on Gaza- and in particular their enabling of genocide- which lost them the election.Much has been said about how difficult it is to argue against Singer's position in Famine, Affluence, and Morality. But perhaps, in arguing against it, we should look to Singer himself- given it would seem that when taken out of the context of donating to charity, and when in the context of political action, the question of whether or not it is necessary to act to prevent death and suffering is suddenly a less significant question than whether the electorate can be won over to support you, and whether this death 'matters most to the world as a whole.'This should not be terribly surprising. As observed in Julietta Singh's work, 'Unthinking Mastery,' liberal humanitarianism must necessarily have a blind spot towards the greater political-economic system of capitalism, which both enables the liberal humanitarian to engage in heroic missions to save the abject, while also creating the very same conditions of abjection which they 'address' with their charity.If we were to take Singer's argument seriously, then we might very well apply it to the issue of the rising fascist movement more or less openly seeking to exterminate trans people, or the matter of the genocidal war crimes occurring in Gaza, and conclude that there is a strong moral obligation to do whatever we can to prevent death and suffering- and that this obligation requires direct political action. We might even argue that, in the case of famine, much of it is engineered by an exploitative system of wealth extraction, and that therefore we have a moral obligation to abolish that system of wealth extraction and thereby ensure that no famine will ever be engineered to enrich some at the expense of the many. This would represent a utilitarian moral argument for the abolition of capital- at least, so long as we're willing to do away with conditional elements like 'as long as it's not too much of a bother'.But perhaps there's no need to take Singer's moral framework seriously.After all, he clearly doesn't.
(DIR) Post #Aqt0zYmAoFZ9suB2aO by Mondobizarrro@social.xenofem.me
2025-02-07T20:32:03.897082Z
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@Sovereign_Beast his arguement being a motte and bailey kinda makes it unsurprising.also another thing i dont see people speaking about is in 2020 dems promised recurring stimulus checks, which probably contributed a lot to the record turnout. i wouldnt be surprised if a bunch if the dem voters were voting for that in 2020. the gaza thing was def the final nail in the coffin tho