Are we blaming the system too much?

[Nehru]

I know conservatives as well as liberals have the tendency to blame individuals (as if one person is responsible for all the world's problems). They'll demonize one individual and thereby say: look, the system is good, it's only because of Mr. X that it went wrong. In short, blame the individual, protect the system.

But are we, leftists, not moving to an another extreme: blaming the system for practically everything, almost absolving the individual of any responsibility whatsoever? There are cases where people are victims of the system (and therefore forced to do bad things), but there are also cases where we can make a conscious choice to do otherwise. So mustn't we make a clear distinction?

[Broletariat]

You're being too vague, give an example. A sweeping generalisation like you've given will be true sometimes and false other times.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

The system is capitalism and it is to blame for a great many things.The parts which isn't directly related to that can be traced back to capitalism or being "enhanced" by capitalism.

So it is my belief that we do not blame "the system" too much.

[Pretty Flaco]

People's actions are heavily influenced by the "system" or society that they're raised in. I'm not saying that the consequences for people's actions shouldn't be accounted for, but you have to understand what causes people to act or think the way they do.

[Nehru]

The system is capitalism and it is to blame for a great many things.The parts which isn't directly related to that can be traced back to capitalism or being "enhanced" by capitalism.

So it is my belief that we do not blame "the system" too much.

A starving man steals bread; blame his economic conditions, fine. But a man tortures another human being. Would you blame the system or the individual?

[xub3rn00dlex]

A starving man steals bread; blame his economic conditions, fine. But a man tortures another human being. Would you blame the system or the individual?

Blame the system. I believe there was a study done on torture in relation to Nazi Germany IIRC, and in it randomly selected people were told to increase voltages being delivered to a victim in an electrocution chair. The victim was actually an actor and no voltage was being delivered, but the random people would for the most part obey the instructor and keep increasing the voltages. It wasn't the individuals fault, but rather the system trained them to 'obey' authority and follow commands. Does anyone know the study?

[Susurrus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Eichmanns

[Susurrus]

Blame the system. I believe there was a study done on torture in relation to Nazi Germany IIRC, and in it randomly selected people were told to increase voltages being delivered to a victim in an electrocution chair. The victim was actually an actor and no voltage was being delivered, but the random people would for the most part obey the instructor and keep increasing the voltages. It wasn't the individuals fault, but rather the system trained them to 'obey' authority and follow commands. Does anyone know the study?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

No, generally speaking all the assertions brought to you by leftists are backed with objective evidences to prove X; that's kind of why it's called scientific Socialism and thus it's a scientific critique of the capitalist mode of production and the correct interpretation of objective data. It's all based on the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, theory, etc.

[Commissar Rykov]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Indeed, the Milgram Experiment shows that it is the system to blame not people for the most part as they have been conditioned to accept authority and not to question it. Something which disturbed the researchers in the Milgram Experiment to no end.

[Broletariat]

Fairly certain this ties in pretty well with role-theory and Marx's commodity fetishism too, in that, people do what the market says so.

[Nehru]

Indeed, the Milgram Experiment shows that it is the system to blame not people for the most part as they have been conditioned to accept authority and not to question it. Something which disturbed the researchers in the Milgram Experiment to no end.

Does that mean no individual should be held accountable for anything?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Does that mean no individual should be held accountable for anything?

How does anyone even make this extrapolation? This is what the conservatives and other reactionaries do all the time.

How does "the system is behind it" somehow mean it is an excuse and that there are no cases where there are other components also responsible, including individuals? I think this has to be some wilful misunderstanding on their part. They intentionally take it one step further, from "the system and social context is often responsible", to "individuals are never responsible for anything", which is nonsense and a disingenuous misrepresentation.

[citizen of industry]

Well, I'm sure there were people in Nazi Germany who opposed the system, who said no to authority. People who released people when ordered to execute them, lied about torturing people they actually didn't, etc. But they were exceptions to the rule so in large part it seems the system was responsible, but not without exceptions.

I read the whole Milgram experiment wikilink and it did say the percentage of subjects who applied the electroshocks declined the further away they were from authority.

[Rooster]

Or you can look at the Stanford Prison experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Which I think was supposed to be a follow up to the Milgram experiment. Also, a bunch of decent movies was made about it.

[Delenda Carthago]

Or you can look at the Stanford Prison experiment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Which I think was supposed to be a follow up to the Milgram experiment. Also, a bunch of decent movies was made about it.
Or you can study dialectical materialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism which explains very well the relationship between the individual and the framework at a social level.

[Kornilios Sunshine]

The thing is that some people are too reactionary.They blame the system but then say "We can't do anything to stop it.We will have to be in it."

[Broletariat]

Or you can study dialectical materialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism which explains very well the relationship between the individual and the framework at a social level.

I think its safe to say that DM can't explain anything at all, in fact, most of its disciples can't even explain DM itself.

Not that anyone could as Rosa has repeatedly shown.

[RadioRaheem84]

Right Wingers and liberals constantly make the claim that we're always blaming the system for our problems and are thus eliminating individual accoutability. But this is such a false mischaracterization of what we say.

We would not let murderers out of jail because of the system. We would turn jails into more of a rehabilitation center than the criminal dungeons they are now fit only for extreme punishment.

Do our intellectual opponents not make a mistake by assuming that the system is perfect or that "its the best we have so far", so the problem must lie with the individual not the system?

Their mission like the mission of all ruling classes, is to preserve institutional legitimacy and thus always reinforce the problem on the individual and not on society, which would ultimately reflect back on them once you eliminate the "natural" argument behind it's existence.

It is their way (not in a conspiratorial sense, but an institutional sense) to keep people from understanding that we live in a social order not some natural system where we only have ourselves to be accountable for.

[Catmatic Leftist]

We believe in historical materialism and the scientific method and process, not crude economic determinism.

[o well this is ok I guess]

A starving man steals bread; blame his economic conditions, fine. But a man tortures another human being. Would you blame the system or the individual? Really, who just up and decides they want to be a sadistic torturer.
I don't think it's unreasonable for us to consider the possibility that there might be something else to that.

[Astarte]

I know conservatives as well as liberals have the tendency to blame individuals (as if one person is responsible for all the world's problems). They'll demonize one individual and thereby say: look, the system is good, it's only because of Mr. X that it went wrong. In short, blame the individual, protect the system.

But are we, leftists, not moving to an another extreme: blaming the system for practically everything, almost absolving the individual of any responsibility whatsoever? There are cases where people are victims of the system (and therefore forced to do bad things), but there are also cases where we can make a conscious choice to do otherwise. So mustn't we make a clear distinction?

I see your point, honestly, and I have thought the same thing before. I don't think we "blame the system too much", owing to the economic totalitarianism that is the corporate world. And even, by some chance, we did "blame the system too much", the right - and even liberals - blames the individual to such an extent that it absolves the system of any responsibility whatsoevers.

If we "blame the system too much", we are only completing the dialectic of combating the bullshit propaganda of the right.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The system is to blame, but it doesn't mean that there are not individuals are not consciously acting in the interests of the system. You can know full well that a class war is raging but you can still defend your privileged position as CEO(for example) by using legal methods set up by the bourgeoisie through the state to enforce it to protect ones position of power. That may not be the way a CEO(for example) would rationalize it or even think of it in such a way though.

Capitalists are more class conscious than workers for a very simple reason. There are VERY FEW of them. They know that they are way outnumbered by working people and use methods to keep working people from realizing that. Not in a conspiratorial or mythical manner, but simply in a way to retain their own class power. They give a crumb when necessary or a loaf of bread when more necessary. They advocate one section's interests over another if it is politically or economically advantageous.

Yes, the 'system' is the driving force behind their actions because the 'system' is capitalism and capitalism's sole motive is profit. What makes economic growth, profit wise, on a larger scale is generally the motivation for bourgeois government to act.

Does it mean that individuals are not responsible for any wrong doing? No! Like I said, capitalists are conscious of their class position. It may not be in a Marxian sense but then again, capitalists are also probably a bit more aware of Marxist thought too. Why else would there be articles in the bourgeois press talking about how Marx may have been correct on capitalist crises while at the same time immediately saying that he was wrong about socialism? Disinformation and what not. The bourgeois 'free' press is the propaganda tool of the bourgeoisie and its state and government.

So, if they are conscious of their actions then they should be tried in a revolutionary manner. If a capitalist's or politician's actions effected a certain locality, then that locality tries the accused with one of its own judges. If it was nationally, then the population within the nation does so. If it was in a time of war. The occupied or invaded should have a right to say so as well on how to deal with them. Execution should be off the table right away though.


================================================== =

Speaking of war. Is an enlisted soldier to blame for atrocities or are the officers to blame? If soldiers don't have a right to refuse orders then the blame goes on the officer who gave an order which was atrocious. And if an enlisted person does something on their own there must be a look at the factors which caused it. War-time trauma and racism and hatred propagated by the officer's corps and politicians should be looked at as well. That enlisted person should be rehabilitated.

[EvilRedGuy]

Who the fuck gives a shit about the system, its the people that matters.

There is no such thing as blaming the system "too" much.

[Mr. Natural]

Capitalism has triumphed and now provides the ecosystem within which people life and think, and with globalization, capitalism has become a closed system that effectively degrades/excludes alternative systems of thought and practice. There is no negation of the negation: capitalist institutions, values, and practices have enveloped all forms of life on Earth.

Life generates a sustainable, ecological surplus (profit) in order to create and maintain its communities; capitalism, though, dismembers human and natural community to manufacture a runaway profit. Capitalism relentlessly attacks life, community, and the human social individual.

The capitalist system manufactures isolated, competitively anti-social individuals. Capitalism is a systemic process and systems shape their parts. Americans, especially, have been "capped." I live in the belly of the beast and am surrounded by capminded people living caplives in the capworld. Indeed, I do not personally know anyone with whom I can discuss The System and the looming human end game.

Yes, The System is in control, and I'm finding that many Revlefters do not understand capitalism systemically. While it is true historically that various persons have acted badly, we now live within a system that has institutionalized bad acting. Capitalism shapes its people-parts in its evil image.

So, although I spend a lot of time hating the many bad-acting people in positions of power, I realize this is largely a false consciousness. I have to constantly remind myself that these people are creatures of The System and that they or others will inevitably employ predator drones, execute Troy Davis, etc., so long as capitalism continues.

The System is The Problem, and it is a huge problem. One measure of capitalism's intellectual hegemony is the lack of any effective revolutionary organizing theory at Revleft and elsewhere. Marxism is presently entombed within old formulations that haven't been updated for a century. Marx and Engels, who were eternally revolutionary in spirit and mind, must be writhing in their graves.

I'm a red-green revolutionary, and I find solutions to our many present dilemmas in the new sciences that investigate the organization, patterns, and processes of life (thus society). Marx and Engels revered science, and they understood humans to be natural beings who must produce their means of existence and live naturally in community with each other and life. This is communism. However, I am finding few Revlefters who have even touched upon the new science(s) of organization, and most leftists seem to be dogmatically opposed to doing so.

And we continue to shuffle down capitalism's road to hell.

In any case, The System is The Problem. My red-green best.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Eichmanns

I'm not sure if that is applicable to Capitalism, actually. Capitalism is not a managed economic system, but one that lacks any sort of planning or planning control over every part of the economy. It is characterised by the contradiction between the ownership control exhibited by Capitalism, but the lack of much of a managed control over what is produced, what can be bought etc. Thus, whilst the system overall can be called immoral for the exploitation, inequality, poverty and imperialism that it not only encourages, but are its hallmarks, it is not really possible to call individuals who participate in the system 'little Eichmanns', since in reality they are not complicit in a crime, and nor are they holding up a regime through ignorance, they are merely consumers in a Capitalist economic system and citizens in a Capitalist-dominated political world.

[human strike]

I don't think we blame the system enough, quite frankly.