So many times I’ve been reading your blog and I’m thinking to myself, “finally something I can post to leftist spaces to get them to trust Scott more”, and then I run into one or two sentences that nix that idea. It seems to me like you’ve mostly given up on reaching the conflict theory left, for reasons that are obvious. I really wish you would keep trying though, they (we?) aren’t as awful and dogmatic as they appear to be on the internet, nor is their philosophy as incompatible. For me, it’s less a matter of actually adopting the conflict perspective, and more just taking it more seriously and making fun of it less.
I’m not sure it’s really possible to reach any conflict theorists if you think their theorized conflict is a mistake.
It seems like part of the problem in doing so is that the theorized conflicts are (at least) implicitly zero-sum. I’d think it’s pretty obvious, that at least ‘in theory’, billionaire philanthropy could be net-positive for ‘The People’, but it’s hard to even imagine how one would go about convincing someone of that if they’re already convinced that (almost) everyone’s actions are attacks against the opposing side(s), e.g. philanthropy is ‘really just’ a way for billionaires to secure some other kind of (indirect) benefit to themselves and their class.
So many times I’ve been reading your blog and I’m thinking to myself, “finally something I can post to leftist spaces to get them to trust Scott more”, and then I run into one or two sentences that nix that idea. It seems to me like you’ve mostly given up on reaching the conflict theory left, for reasons that are obvious. I really wish you would keep trying though, they (we?) aren’t as awful and dogmatic as they appear to be on the internet, nor is their philosophy as incompatible. For me, it’s less a matter of actually adopting the conflict perspective, and more just taking it more seriously and making fun of it less.
I’m not sure it’s really possible to reach any conflict theorists if you think their theorized conflict is a mistake.
It seems like part of the problem in doing so is that the theorized conflicts are (at least) implicitly zero-sum. I’d think it’s pretty obvious, that at least ‘in theory’, billionaire philanthropy could be net-positive for ‘The People’, but it’s hard to even imagine how one would go about convincing someone of that if they’re already convinced that (almost) everyone’s actions are attacks against the opposing side(s), e.g. philanthropy is ‘really just’ a way for billionaires to secure some other kind of (indirect) benefit to themselves and their class.