well, reality is simply more complicated than fiction.
in reality there is no clear good guys and bad guys. if you see it that way then you are absolutely oversimplifying something.
there can be victims and aggressors, but that doesn’t make the victims “good guys”. for example, i actually despise so much of what the Palestinian government represents, and yet, they are undeniably the victims. that does not make them good guys.
that concept is too much for most people to contend with. many people, especially conservatives, never grew out of needing everything to be cast in black and white. they can see someone kicked and abused and denigrated their whole life, and still only see them as “bad” for escaping that torment with drugs.
unfortunately there are many resistance movements i could join right now in america, but they’re all the wrong kind. they are confederate wannabes that just want the chance to shoot gay and brown people.
if life were a simple as “join the resistance” being generally good advice i would need to be a screaming racist homophobe to do it. i think I’d honestly prefer being killed by the fascists.
The US government is a clear example of ‘Bad’ guys. So is the French and Israeli government–for the Israeli, it is a majority of their population.
Most African governments who act as puppets for the USA, France, UN, IMF, World Bank are clear examples of Bad guys.
You my friend are like Cipher, you see the bad guys, and not only are you afraid of facing them (like most of us are), you are afraid of naming them, afraid of pointing at them.
the point is more that entire nations or peoples can’t be unilaterally good or bad. imperialism is bad. it is evil. it is a rot upon this world. the real empires that actually did it were largely ancient cultures that existed long before and continue to exist today. to say that Japan is evil for their ww2 era imperialism and that nothing else counts would be an incredibly reductive and cynical worldview.
real people are also complicated.
don’t forget that you only ever know any of these leaders public images. you don’t actualy know what they are like. I’m sure there are people in your life who you make excuses for because they are meaningful to you.
ceaser was incredibly beloved for plundering his neighbors and giving that wealth directly to his people. he did so much good and so much bad. to try and cast all of those things into a single word is madness.
ultimately, i just don’t agree with one word descriptions of things as broad as people and cultures. there’s always more to it. people can be selfish, greedy, caring, helpful, many many things, but “bad” and “good” are just too simple to actualy mean anything more than “i do/dont like them”
well, reality is simply more complicated than fiction.
in reality there is no clear good guys and bad guys. if you see it that way then you are absolutely oversimplifying something.
there can be victims and aggressors, but that doesn’t make the victims “good guys”. for example, i actually despise so much of what the Palestinian government represents, and yet, they are undeniably the victims. that does not make them good guys.
that concept is too much for most people to contend with. many people, especially conservatives, never grew out of needing everything to be cast in black and white. they can see someone kicked and abused and denigrated their whole life, and still only see them as “bad” for escaping that torment with drugs.
unfortunately there are many resistance movements i could join right now in america, but they’re all the wrong kind. they are confederate wannabes that just want the chance to shoot gay and brown people.
if life were a simple as “join the resistance” being generally good advice i would need to be a screaming racist homophobe to do it. i think I’d honestly prefer being killed by the fascists.
The US government is a clear example of ‘Bad’ guys. So is the French and Israeli government–for the Israeli, it is a majority of their population.
Most African governments who act as puppets for the USA, France, UN, IMF, World Bank are clear examples of Bad guys.
You my friend are like Cipher, you see the bad guys, and not only are you afraid of facing them (like most of us are), you are afraid of naming them, afraid of pointing at them.
There are absolutely some very clear bad guys in this world, and our history. Most people don’t fall in that category, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
the point is more that entire nations or peoples can’t be unilaterally good or bad. imperialism is bad. it is evil. it is a rot upon this world. the real empires that actually did it were largely ancient cultures that existed long before and continue to exist today. to say that Japan is evil for their ww2 era imperialism and that nothing else counts would be an incredibly reductive and cynical worldview.
real people are also complicated.
don’t forget that you only ever know any of these leaders public images. you don’t actualy know what they are like. I’m sure there are people in your life who you make excuses for because they are meaningful to you.
ceaser was incredibly beloved for plundering his neighbors and giving that wealth directly to his people. he did so much good and so much bad. to try and cast all of those things into a single word is madness.
ultimately, i just don’t agree with one word descriptions of things as broad as people and cultures. there’s always more to it. people can be selfish, greedy, caring, helpful, many many things, but “bad” and “good” are just too simple to actualy mean anything more than “i do/dont like them”
There are bad guys like neitanyahu, but most people are not that bad