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Authoritarian! (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/socialism@lemmy.ml
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[–] -5 points 2 months ago (5 children)

If you mandate and enforce it, you'll form/expose the hierarchy, right?

Well, depends on who "you" is and how you "enforce" it. Do you, the person given the systemic authority to do so, throw people in jail/gulags/whatever if they refuse to mask? Then yeah, that's hierarchical. Do you, a community member, organize with other community members to exclude the non-masker from social events and community spaces until they decide to mask? OR do you, a doctor designated via the community as an expert and thus given narrow, organic, retractable social authority to do so, say "you need to wear a mask"? Then no.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    organize with other community members to exclude the non-masker from social events and community spaces

    How do you plan to enforce this exclusion? Putting up a sign, physical removal (violence), non physical punitive measures?

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  • [–] -2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    So are we assuming the non-masker is trying to be somewhere they've been told they're not welcome like, as a statement of rebellion? Do they not understand that they're not welcome or what they need to change to be welcome? Are they trying to be provocative, or are they trying to gain access to the community for some specific purpose?

    "Enforcing this exclusion" is really broad. It has the underlying assumption that the situation is already violent, that there is a thing to enforce against someone who is "disobeying" the thing. Which I'd argue comes from the fact that we've really only lived in police states in modern history. Again, humans are social creatures--we want community and we want to feel included. And we don't consciously do things to each other for no reason. I urge you to think deeply about where the need for "enforcement" comes from, and what we mean by it.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Really not engaging with what I said at all.

    If someone is refusing to wear a mask and you and your neighbourhood watch or vigilantes or whatever you want to call yourselves come together and decide this person is not allowed to make use of community spaces anymore but they decide not to listen (as they already are about the masking rules) what is the course of action.

    “Enforcing this exclusion” is really broad. It has the underlying assumption that the situation is already violent, that there is a thing to enforce against someone who is “disobeying” the thing.

    Word salad entirely dancing around the point that you brought up exclusion as a response to someone violating health recommendations like masking during a pandemic but entirely refused to engage with the fact that exclusion (especially from spaces) requires there to be action taken should the exclusion be violated.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 months ago

    Yeah, sorry, my thoughts on the original question/scenario evolved as we were talking so this ended up being messy and unclear.

    I want to retract my response about excluding the non-masker, not because I don't think it's possible to do that in a way that respects autonomy and doesn't leverage power structures, but because the specific way that would be done would be fluid and dependent on factors we can't really take into account in the abstract. My answer to your proposed scenario is, I don't have enough information to make a judgment of the situation.

    Another way of putting what I'm getting at: when someone/some group is given power over others, the normal social dynamics of how people cooperate and be in conflict with each other are disrupted, because the power-holders can just wield the authority to enforce their will regardless. In your scenario, a non-masker choosing to go against the community's will is a conflict, and the action to be taken should be based around resolving that conflict under the conditions it's taking place in. If we just say "they'll be excluded from community spaces under threat of violence" or "they'll be locked up and forced to reintegrate into the community", we're wielding authority to bypass the actual conflict with all of its messiness and nuance. Nothing actually get resolved other than the person not physically being there anymore. Resentment grows, and we end up with more violence and wielding of authority down the line.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago

    Do you, a community member, organize with other community members to exclude the non-masker from social events and community spaces until they decide to mask?

    Is that not hierarchical too?
    And what do you do if they do not allow themselves to be excluded from community spaces?

    Are you not bringing in hierarchy when you give yourself and your group the power to choose whether the person or group who disagrees should be excluded from community spaces?

    And what do you do when they do not agree? Do you jail them? Do you harm them or threaten violence?

    Are you not creating/exposing the hierarchy by choosing to exclude those parts of your community from community spaces for disagreeing with you?

    a doctor designated via the community as an expert and thus given narrow, organic, retractable social authority to do so, say "you need to wear a mask"?

    So, again a power hierarchy in the matter of medicine, where you a lay person has lesser power?

    And the people opposing the masking, will not be agreeing with that doctor, right? So not designated by the all of the community as a expert in that specific topic then.
    If the person acknowledged the expertise, then the issue would not persist, right?

    Do you threaten or propagandise someone that they would not oppose that position and obey it then? Power hierarchy again, right?

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