any election that requires you to “vote with your wallet” is always won by the people with the thickest wallets… Now, that’s not to say that boycotts are useless. But a boycott is a structured and organized campaign.
Shitty logic. He’s essentially saying: you might as well become part of the problem if you cannot rally a massive following. Veganism proves individual (non-collective) boycotts can have impact.
Doing a 1-person boycott is not just to counter a detriment. It’s training. Cultivating a strong constitution develops discipline and control. Boycotting can be a lifestyle. Once you get on that path, you look around and see what pushovers most spineless consumers are.
You also escape the shitty optics of hypocrisy if you boycott everything harmful, not just follow a crowd in extremely rare moments. Important respect is lost when a would-be leader trips people’s hypocrisy sensors.
The problem with “conscious consumption” is that it comes out of the neoliberal tradition in which every political matter is supposedly determined by your individual actions, and not your actions as part of a union or other political institution that works as a bloc to overthrow the status quo.
Nonsense. Everyone on board with this thought pattern is exactly why we have fewer collective actions. We need to evolve more. If everyone thought through their actions (as he condemns), that would result in movements without the effort-prohibitive organisation that limits our potential. Increasing organisational effort is not a wise move, especially when it results in feeding the adversary.
Cory Doctorow would benefit from listening to the Rutger Bregman brief lectures.
Small numbers of people /can/ have impact. It’s defeatist to think the contrary.
For example, if a creditor stops accepting cash payments, it doesn’t take many debtors refusing forced-banking and not paying their bills for the creditor to reverse their policy.
This turns the careful shopper into a cop who polices other people’s consumption, demanding that they stop eating some foodstuff or using Twitter or watching HBO Max. Squabbling over whether using a social media network makes you a Nazi generates far more heat than light – so much heat that it incinerates the solidarity you need to actually fight Nazis.
Shame is a powerful emotion that Doctorow fails to grasp and exploit. It can’t be a core plan but it helps when it is part of the mission.
Shame on Doctorow for cultivating inaction.
he’s proposing getting organized. you’re proposing shopping in a different part of the same store.
They are not mutually exclusive. I endorse both personal transformation and social transformation. Doctorow advocates feeding the adversary as a normal way of living with a dependency on tech giants, while organising incoherent actions to the contrary. One step forward, two steps backward.
Doctorow’s advice is actually damaging. He tells people it’s okay to support the oppressor, which is exactly what the convenience zombies want to hear. He also dismisses shaming the pushovers, which is to throw away a powerful tool for no gain.
He tells people it’s okay to support the oppressor,
no he doesn’t. he said personal boycotts aren’t effective
no he doesn’t. he said personal boycotts aren’t effective
Same thing. This is non-sequitur logic. If an individual action is “not effective”, that’s clearly an endorsement for not boycotting personally, thus patronise.
no, you’re making a leap of logic
Nonsense. There’s no “leap” in understanding a definition. Boycotting /means/ patronisation is not okey. To not boycott is to be okay with patronisation. By definition. You can’t have it both ways. You cannot coherently claim it’s not okay to patronise a baddy while taking a stance against boycotting.
Is it okay to patronise bad player X? If not, then boycotting is required. If yes, then you are not boycotting.
being ok with patronization is not the same as endorsing oppression. that’s the lep you’re making
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