• Cadenza@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    27 days ago

    Three objections :

    1. I like my current landlord, he’s my friend and we live together. When I say Landlords are parasites, I’m just saying something that, according to me, is a relatively descriptive statement. From a functional point of view, they could very well be described as functioning like parasites do.

    2. But that’s not all. Generalization may have different semantic meanings. That’s something political movements have elaborated a lot in the last 60 years. If you read about ACAB, you’ll see quite soon that it’s nowhere near a judgment of all individuals.

    3. But the most important argument follows. I’ll gladly say landlords are parasites or ACAB. There are many other variants I’ll never say. One could say it’s arbitrary but it’s far from it, imo. Generalizing on people who are subjects of systematic violence is furthering said violence. Generalizing about powerful interest who are in position to use individualisation and scapegoating of one or their members to ensure the continuation of their power cannot, and it’s not an ideological point, it’s a matter of social science for me, be said to be identical.

    I recommend reading Howard Becker’s Whose side are we one, a different, but close and related, demonstration.