30s, ML
Do you have a preference for methodology? As in, recon or eclectic.
My experience with paganism is very eclectic and from a different tradition, so I don’t have any advice on sources and such, but I just wanted to say welcome, and if you want to give things a try just go ahead and do it. No need to be an expert to practice rituals and such.
Yeah, there are. While human groups sometimes fought each other due to competition for scarce resources, within groups we seem to have been very communitarian, taking care of our wounded and elderly even when conditions were harsh.
We’re social animals, we would have never survived extinction if it weren’t for traits like empathy and cooperation.
Look into anthropology and such, obviously that falls squarely before history and written records.
Tbf religion scholars believe we do tend towards religious behavior, which isn’t to say humans must be religious or believe in the supernatural, but patriotism is analogous to civil religion, and fandoms can also be very similar to religious communities.
I believe skeptics have always existed, even Cicero included skeptics when writing about Roman religion before the Common Era, but we engage in behaviors that are analogous to religious behavior regardless of our beliefs, so from that point of view our nature includes worship, imo.
You can have slavery under global capitalism (we do) and our last few thousands of years have been very bad for a lot of humans, but it seems like we weren’t always oppressing each other and on the contrary we have been egalitarian most of the time anatomical humans existed, hence why the human nature argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
I mean, the bronze age took place during class society, and it wasn’t even that long ago compared to the time anatomical humans have existed. As for whether past cruelty would make modern people look like saints. If we’re talking about Joe right across the street or something, sure, why not. But we have had non stop bombings, coups, invasions, sanctions and so on for a while, I consider modern capitalists to be more cruel as a class than many kings of old.
You can argue that human cognition allows for the world we see around us, but that doesn’t mean this was necessarily unavoidable, or that we’re naturally selfish, or whatever else. It’s also very self-defeating as an argument because we can point to countless examples of cooperation, both past and present, including people saving someone from drowning for no monetary gain. And I don’t know you personally, but I try my best to be a good person out of love for humanity, rather than expecting a reward.
But let’s say that it is human nature to be selfish. It’s still a silly argument against socialism though, since we could still build systems that don’t reward our worst Impulses, but rather function with checks and balances to prevent them.
Happy cake day smart person
My point isn’t that everything is futile, but rather that a better democracy isn’t possible under capitalism.
That still doesn’t guarantee the military won’t take over, reactionary sentiments spread through propaganda, etc. Without a revolution there will never be true democracy.
Even an honest and well meaning politician will be blocked at every step. Like corporations and big businesses sabotaging key supply chains, media engaging in character assassination, and if all that fails then either a military coup or a literal assassination (like they did to Salvador Allende in Chile). Unless the politicians try to gain concessions from the ruling class in exchange for complacency, which means we still have our status quo.
For nationwide elections I agree there isn’t much of a choice, but I’d argue voting third party outside of swing states is still good to express dissatisfaction, and third parties and independents can still win in local elections.
Following this to its logical conclusion, we don’t have democracy because only Athenian democracy is democracy, they articulated it first.
Sure. I’m a Communist, surely we can meet halfway under a socialist platform. A politician should earn their votes, so it’s their choice really.
Not a fan of Russia, but are we supposed to pretend NATO is good?
I feel like we’re all on edge after so many self proclaimed leftists dropped everything to defend Platner, and now that Trump is killing random ass civilians in the Caribbean and threatening to invade. I know that doesn’t mean people defending Mamdani on this quote are okay with imperialism by default, etc etc etc. Assuming you’re not okay with imperialism and random civilians being targeted by the US military we’re on the same side, I think.
You need to be anti-capitalist as a bare minimum to be a leftist in our view. I get what you mean though, “the left” can mean anything as it’s not a concept we universally agree on.
EU politicians frequently have significant investments in US companies, betraying whatever little sovereignty is left lines their pockets