@mehdirhasan I've found the main ingredient for the care of every plant is love.
@mehdirhasan If we teach people to garden, they must naturally first learn to love. Fascists are incapable of love because their spirit is clouded by smoke, neon and blood. Teach them to love and they will no longer be fascists. They'll be gardeners.
@mehdirhasan Gardening also teaches us to slow down, and since fascists serve at the beck and whim of Capital, slowing them down will slacken Capital's grip on them.
For the record, we have no affiliation with @OptimismMovers@Centre4Optimism or @victorperton, but we find it all very intriguing and will be following them closely since they share a name with our collaborative.
For starters, @Centre4Optimism equates pessimism with "cynicism," whereas I consider Optimism to be the logical conclusion of Classical Cynicism.
"Optimism" was my response when I asked myself what a Classical Cynic would do with her back against the wall, surrounded by enemies, when it seemed all hope is lost. "She would fill herself with Optimism," I thought.
@ConceptualJames There's nothing about communism that suggests it must be "hermetic" or "gnostic," and "materialist" is a word that requires you to define your terms, but is likely outright false.
@ConceptualJames Original Christianity is likely the foremost example of communism to emerge from post-indigenous Eurasia, and they preached a return to Nature while emphasizing an abandonment of property and marriage in favor of community.
@ConceptualJames The Adamites, for example, lived on nudist beach colonies and procreated freely while eschewing the marriage tradition. Hardly "materialistic."
@leedrutman In parliaments, one votes for a party, not a person, and that process is robustly funded by the state, so yeah. In the United States, so-called representatives are reduced to commodities, and our politics are reduced to a trading floor.
@leedrutman Real democracy is almost always manifest in indigenous cultures, tho the Classical Athenians qualify as the only example of a real *aspiring* democracy to have emerged from post-indigenous Eurasia. They were nearly there before the Macedonians co-opted them.
@leedrutman Classical Athens also catalyzed the first examples of communism to emerge from post-indigenous Eurasia. Aristotle records mention of it, and the Classical Cynics were essentially wandering ascetics who preached a return to Nature.
I have to say, #NoSocialMediaSundays are positively relaxing, but I was unnerved by how often I habitually grab this device and allow it to dictate my actions.
#NoSocialMediaSundays have nothing to do with the self-imposition of a guilt complex; rather, we're more interested in liberation here at @optimist_press.
The unconcious and compulsive impulse to engage with these devices and programs is what Classical Athenians would qualify as a form of servitude or slavery to our animal selves, the "'lizard brain," the base instincts.