It changes us. We watch people like her and Bushnell become martyrs, and it makes us confront ourselves. That’s not nothing.
Unfortunately, without an organized mass movement that can turn martyrdom into propaganda, it’s just as likely to change us into depressed fatalists. You said it: we watch her die and the genocide continues, so the lesson people might take is “nothing matters”.
I don’t think of them as martyrs so much as beacons. It sounds corny but the concept of corny is also a bourgeois Jedi mind trick to keep people cynical. In this absurd, post-truth, post-sincerity world there are still humans of pure conviction. Even if we wouldn’t go down the same path ourselves we can learn from their refusal to bend
My worry is that our deaths can be twisted from being an inspiring beacon to being an example of hopeless futility. They died, the genocide continues, and so people will conclude that their deaths didn’t matter. That their deaths were a waste because they seemingly didn’t “accomplish” anything. “See? They died for nothing. You shouldn’t even try.”
A flaw of propaganda of the deed is that deeds don’t actually speak for themselves. Without an organized propaganda effort it’s just more bad news.
I guess I was more talking about deciding how I would personally respond, which is something that I can control, and which affects how people around me respond. Grassroots sentiment can’t always be easily stifled by the machine.
I read stories like this and I think about how my ass is not doing anything.
Me too. But to be clear, she is going to die in resistance and it won’t change anything apart from taking a person who cares out of this world.
It changes us. We watch people like her and Bushnell become martyrs, and it makes us confront ourselves. That’s not nothing.
Unfortunately, without an organized mass movement that can turn martyrdom into propaganda, it’s just as likely to change us into depressed fatalists. You said it: we watch her die and the genocide continues, so the lesson people might take is “nothing matters”.
I don’t think of them as martyrs so much as beacons. It sounds corny but the concept of corny is also a bourgeois Jedi mind trick to keep people cynical. In this absurd, post-truth, post-sincerity world there are still humans of pure conviction. Even if we wouldn’t go down the same path ourselves we can learn from their refusal to bend
Is there a difference?
My worry is that our deaths can be twisted from being an inspiring beacon to being an example of hopeless futility. They died, the genocide continues, and so people will conclude that their deaths didn’t matter. That their deaths were a waste because they seemingly didn’t “accomplish” anything. “See? They died for nothing. You shouldn’t even try.”
A flaw of propaganda of the deed is that deeds don’t actually speak for themselves. Without an organized propaganda effort it’s just more bad news.
I don’t disagree with that.
I guess I was more talking about deciding how I would personally respond, which is something that I can control, and which affects how people around me respond. Grassroots sentiment can’t always be easily stifled by the machine.