PragerU and the Politics of Pain

Leftism is an avoidance of pain. Agree...or disagree?
00:00 - Intro
00:50 - What does it mean?
03:28 - Is it true?
08:34 - Is it good or bad?
13:14 - Conclusion
16:08 - Outro and Poem
* Sources: *
--- PragerU Video: www.prageru.com/video/how-do-...
--- PragerU Post: • Post
--- Regulatory Focus Theory Paper: www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/...
-------- Article About Paper Findings: insight.kellogg.northwestern....
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[@zoe_bee]

1 like = 1 "get well soon, Zoe"

[@NapaCat]

I hope you feel better soon!

[@zenleeparadise]

❤️

[@markgrey5360]

I hope that you get better soon Zoe, also it was so cute to see your cat napping in the background. Little disappointed by him... He is not climbing all over you and your chair? What a let down! lol

[@redElim]

Get well soon, Zoe because one like isn't enough :>

[@GORTROG]

1 “get well soon Zoe” = 1 “get well soon Zoe” get well soon Zoe

[@PhoenixTwoFiftySix]

I like how PragerU thinks that pain is necessary, but pain's only reason is to tell you that *it shouldn't be there*

[@juniperrodley9843]

Deadass! The entire evolutionary purpose of pain is that it wants you to change what you're doing!

[@vulcanhumor]

Exactly! Pain is the "Something's not right, please do something about it" signal.

[@LoveisStoredInTheLain]

LITERALLY

[@taydinnygaard3678]

You can’t build muscle without pain, you can’t work without pain, you can’t make money without pain, you can’t accept responsibility without pain, you can’t raise a family without pain, you can’t defend or reenforce your ideals without pain, and you can’t grow without pain. Good things are difficult to obtain and difficulty causes pain. Difficulty will leave you bleeding on the job site. Difficulty will have you up at 1:00 am trying to put the babies back to sleep. Difficulty will have you disagreeing with loved ones. Difficulty will have you in tears in the comfort of the privacy of your home.

[@soul-heart]

@@draedon_ Being alive doesn't happen without difficulty, To literally be born, you're born out of pain. Every society in human history has been made through pain and sacrifice, While being alive is a privilege, the fact that you believe that working, living, breathing, ect. are privileges even though almost everyone has to experience those things is telling. (How much, however, is a different story)

[@davetrack2950]

Prager U’s thesis is consistently: don’t do anything. Don’t complain; don’t protest; don’t get involved. This is important. This allows people with power to act unchecked. That’s the propaganda they want. People are easy to rule over politically and (more importantly) economically if they swallow that pill. That’s the Prager U way.

[@icerres1067]

Really?

[@jackiepie7423]

Prager U's constant story is "Huff the Gas we have to sell".

[@FuddlyDud]

@Dave Track Why are they “propaganda” and not biased conservative media? By this logic, doesn’t this make groups like MSNBC, TYT, and other progressive shows “propaganda” for only covering a particular bias? You are free to disagree and dislike PragerU, but labeling them “propaganda” is a bit silly unless all large media is “propaganda.” :P

[@alanamontero4743]

@@FuddlyDud Because of their funding and how they operate and how they communicate. There is a difference between giving your opinion, presenting facts, and propaganda. MSNBC (which is definitely not progressive) also produces propaganda, as does other media outlets. Advertising is also propaganda.

[@davetrack2950]

@@FuddlyDud not disagreeing that those other platforms could be considered propaganda. But the very clear agenda of Prager U telling people with very limited power NOT to complain, react, or speak out against injustice… to accept their lot in life. Well, it’s some pretty zany Kool-aid.

[@veeveepaws]

I love that PragerU took the common phrase “facts of life” and found a French translation just to confer enlightenment authority upon it and make it not sound like bullshit

[@losteduser4013]

Funfact, nobody is saying that in french.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

@@losteduser4013 I am shocked -- SHOCKED -- that PragerU would bend the truth like this.

[@RatPfink66]

​@@imveryangryitsnotbutter I'm not so shocked to find that a bunch of self-described YT "centrists" (centering around *ShortFatOtaku)* regularly give PU the benefit of the doubt. I'm old enough to remember when conservatives sought a moral basis for selfishness. Today's breed doesn't even bother. All they strive to do is stiggit to the libs, by any means necessary.

[@sebastianL423]

Especially when u consider that these ppl base the majority of their opinions on lies, stereotypes, assumptions and biblical ideas instead of actual scientific research, data, studies from good institutions etc

[@brokenrecord3523]

You mean the enlightenment that saw religion as bullshit?

[@dudemaister18]

"Pain is inevitable, so I'm just gonna learn to be miserable" is an extremely grim look on life and explains why, for conservatives, cruelty and hammering the nail down is the only way to live as a human. It's honestly saturday morning cartoon villain level of egocentrism

[@mx_nana_banana]

it’s like saying “well i’m going to die anyway”, and sh****ng themselves in the head.

[@RatPfink66]

it's half of a more based axiom: "pain is inevitable. suffering is optional."

[@williamjameslehy1341]

Oh no, *they* are not going to be miserable. They're all going to live lives of indolent luxury thanks to inherited wealth, lucrative think tank sinecures, and money exploited from the working class. They want *us* i.e. people who actually work for a living, to be miserable, and to not even think about trying to imagine a better way.

[@tbnrrenagade9507]

@@RatPfink66I’ll have to remember that one

[@andrewgodly5739]

Conservatives are just playground bullies that want to make a everyone as miserable as them. They need therapy

[@QuartzIsAnOxide]

"Leftism is about avoiding pain!" Oh no, you got us. God forbid we try to make the world _better_ to live in.

[@33SportsOffical]

i would say both try avoiding pain which isn’t necessarily bad (who wants to be hurt or uncomfortable)

[@marocat4749]

No its confronting the pain but try to actually adress thibgs that make it hurt.

[@magica-missilegirls]

prageru actually did write a tweet one time where they criticized the left for wanting to make the world a better place.

[@InventorZahran]

@@magica-missilegirls But a better place for everyone is a worse place for those who currently stand at the top of the status quo! They won't be at the top anymore because all those historically marginalized people will start rising to the same level! We can't let *them* challenge our centuries-long dominance over everything!!! -PraegerU (probably)

[@marocat4749]

@@magica-missilegirls At least we know they had one honest tweet :P

[@hrodebertcoad9848]

"Leftists want to deny the hard facts of life that make it painful" Leftists: *points out painful truths of reality* Conservatives: "That's not true, fake news, nananananana I can't hear you"

[@phatmhat9174]

Yeh, you point them out and then dictate that such pains being taken care of by others for you - that such is your right, a human right.

[@hrodebertcoad9848]

@@phatmhat9174 Not sure what you're trying to say because you're too busy beating around the bush.

[@phatmhat9174]

@@hrodebertcoad9848 I'm saying that you guys don't face the painful reality that you have to take care of yourselves. Rather you think it's your right to be taken care of. When you guys point out painful things we do not go "fake news." We go "why is it your right to have those things taken care of for you?"

[@hrodebertcoad9848]

@@phatmhat9174 Right, you know what that's called? That claim you just made there? It's called a strawman. It's a type of fallacy. You have no point so you have to invent something to argue against. Congrats.

[@phatmhat9174]

@@hrodebertcoad9848 What did I say that isn't accurate, that's a strawman?

[@trustytrest]

Funny how all those conservatives were telling people "quit whining and just accept things" when they run around crying and seething because they were told to wear a mask.

[@sd-ch2cq]

That's the part that annoys me most: for people who claim to love pain they are huuuuuuge snowflakes. Some people, mostly monks, actually try to accept all the pain and suffering that God throws at them (f.i. by choosing to be poor or choosing to do as much volunteering as they can) and that is such a different outlook.

[@RatPfink66]

They don't have to accept masks...masks help only weak people who should toughen up thru exposure. And of course they help teh gummint, who are always looking to help the weak at the expense of the strong.

[@alack3879]

Oh and they were born to wealthy parents and make billions in oil money. Don't forget that

[@Random-ps4dl]

In what situations are conservatives telling people quit whining and just accept things?

[@RatPfink66]

@@Random-ps4dl typically, when progressives critique some status quo behavior or unquestioned tradition.

[@mihael5722]

Living in a world where you assume things are inherently bad and can’t be made better and people suck seems so miserable

[@notyetdeleted6319]

It is not that things “cant be better”, but rather, that “there will always be bad, bad cannot be exterminated” Take for example pure facsisim, which is fundamentally justified on the idea that: “life will always suck a little, but will suck less if you join us.” Same basic idea.

[@popopop984]

@@notyetdeleted6319That’s a bad representation of their beliefs. If they believed things will always be bad but they can be less bad, then they would be leftist, by acting to make things less bad. Instead, they believe things are bad, can’t become meaningfully better, and as such have to become strong enough on their own to survive and disregard everyone else who might harm them, else they will be too “weak” to take care of themselves or others that are very close to them, and don’t cause too much harm to them.

[@dennisyoung4631]

P.U. is pushing Nazi Ideology: “My teaching is hard. Weakness has to be knocked out of them. In my Ordensburgen, a youth will grow up before which the world will shrink back. A violently active, dominating, intrepid youth, that is what I am after. Youth must be all those things. *It must be indifferent to pain.* There must be no tenderness or weakness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey. Strong and handsome will my men be… Then I shall have in front of me the pure and noble natural material. With that, I can create the new order.” A.H., 1940. (From alpha history, web site. I have seen this infernal quote in a number of places before.)

[@SpicyButterflyWings]

It's incredibly miserable. Anecdotally, this is the kind of mindset my father had held my entire life, largely brought about by his own very controlling upbringing and career. It pushes you a brutal, almost animalistic mindset of everyone being against you and success can only be measured by how many people you can crush beneath you. It's no way to live, and many of these people have bought into this idea so hard that they can't concieve an alternative (and even then, alternatives are met with hostility).

[@A.Z.S.GXZ777]

That's why I'm a Christian. Christ teaches hope and redemption.✝️💜

[@rinarina6247]

I believe that suffering is often to some degree inevitable. But as a leftist, I believe that if we’re there for each other, there’s less of it, and that we should strive to maximize human happiness.

[@Ruzzky_Bly4t]

It's obviously good to maximize the well-being of people and minimize the pain that they have to go through, but discipline and mental resilience can't be obtained without going through hardships. If everything in life is given to a person, they become spoiled and weak-minded. As they say, hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. What I notice is that a big chunk of the left sadly is in the "weak men" category. People who want change, but are not ready to put in the sacrifice (go through the pain) to achieve it. Pain in terms of having to work hard is necessary in my opinion. Edit: Lol, I got like 10 replies of people trying to prove that you in fact "can get disciplined without going through hardships". Yeah, those spoiled rich children are famous for being disciplined. Get some common sense. Although people are clearly just butthurt that I mentioned the left not always wanting to work hard to achieve things, but you just have to visit the average leftist protest to prove it for yourself.

[@ms.aelanwyr.ilaicos]

@@Ruzzky_Bly4t Pretty sure that, when the rubber hits the road, the left is up for pain if that's what it takes. More leftists have taken tear gas and rubber bullets than folks on the right over the last few years.

[@Ockerlord]

@@Ruzzky_Bly4t You make very strong claims here. I would be highly interested in empirical evidence that a) "discipline and mental resilience can't be obtained without going through hardships" b) that discipline acquired through hardship is necessary for a happy life on an individual level c) that discipline acquired through hardship is necessary for "good times" on a societal level here just an example why I would need strong evidence to be convinced: military service involves hardship and discipline. veterans have a significantly higher rate of homelessness. So hardship and discipline are linked to worse life outcomes.

[@ShinyTillDawn]

Don't tell Ben Shapiro this.

[@Ruzzky_Bly4t]

​@@Ockerlord "veterans have a significantly higher rate of homelessness" are you really going to cherry-pick examples to suit your opinion? What about the billionaires and millionaires who managed to get incredibly successful because of their determination and hard work, which requires discipline? You are unlikely to achieve success without determination and discipline. I hope you don't need sources for this piece of common sense. Now to your requests. a) "discipline and mental resilience can't be obtained without going through hardships" Have you seen a disciplined person who was born in a rich family, never had to work a day in their life, indulged in entertainment, and didn't face consequences for being lazy? I haven't either. Discipline is all about training your brain to do what is necessary, even if it's not the most enjoyable option. By default, we are made to use the least amount of energy possible to achieve what we need. So somebody who is never forced to get out of their comfort zone, never will. Somebody who never had to work hard and got everything they wanted, will be shocked when faced with a challenge, like having to find a job and paying the bills. Nobody overcomes their fear by avoiding it. You need to actively face it. It's the same with discipline. I know what you're thinking. "This random guy on the internet is spewing some words and tries to convince me." Well, here are some sources: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709484/ www.intechopen.com/chapters/71385 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-life/202001/developing-discipline b) that discipline acquired through hardship is necessary for a happy life on an individual level Is discipline required for a happy life? Not really. If you're born in a rich family and don't need to work hard for anything, discipline is not necessary. However, it helps with overcoming challenges and achieving goals. If you're disciplined, you can follow a workout routine and diet to be healthy. If you're disciplined, you can expand your knowledge and improve your carrier. These things are not possible if you don't do hard things over and over for a long amount of time. And to not give up at the start, you need discipline. More sources: www.researchgate.net/publication/343736646_Self-Discipline_An_Important_Concept_Advantageous_to_the_Individuals_in_all_Communities www.riversidemilitary.com/news-detail?pk=1421991 And yeah, the second source is from a military academy, which is ironic considering the point you made, but it gives solid information. Can it be biased? Sure, but it's common sense anyway. TLDR: Discipline makes completing things easier. c) that discipline acquired through hardship is necessary for "good times" on a societal level Think about it, who creates good times? People who are ready to put in the work to reform, or maintain a society. This is a ton of work, and getting to a position of power is usually a long process with a lot of trial and error. In terms of the general population, discipline is necessary for any system to function. You can't have a functioning society without people doing the dirty and hard work. Sailors who have to abandon their personal life and spend their time in the sea are necessary for trade. You need a lot of discipline for a carrier like that. It's a lot of work, and if it's not done right, global trade can halt. I follow a guy who captures his experience as a captain, and it's a constant battle against the odds, with people working day and night to fix their ships, and barely get paid for that. And there are plenty of jobs like that. Without discipline, nobody could force themselves to do these hard jobs, and if they would have no choice, they would give up and fail. I'm surprised if you read that far. Thanks for that. I hope I managed to convey my point of view on why discipline is important, and why it can't be achieved without difficulties. Although the latter is a fact, and I'm surprised you were questioning that. On second thought, I spent too much time writing this reply.

[@captaincrumble3298]

As a French guy I'd like to say that I never heard anyone say "les faits de la vie" in my life.

[@aradcohen4309]

It reminds me of those tiktoks/youtube shorts that claim to teach you how "sound like a native english speaker" or how to "sound like an american" when in actuality they teach you to use outdated idoms and phrases that nobody uses today

[@mr.flibble3190]

It probably came directly from the most authoritative possible reference on the French language and culture: Google Translate.

[@gabriellosson5525]

Et bien il fait désormais partie des faits de la vie qu'un autre français ai utilisé l'expression les faits de la vie dans ta vie. Checkmate ;)

[@eloweez8798]

Réel

[@luciebarathlone730]

​@@gabriellosson5525vous avez une intelligence impeccable, je vous salue 😅

[@servicetosociety20]

It’s funny how the people who value individualism and “the value of pain” are on average the most privileged people who have not experienced the same amount of inequality or pain that others have to endure. And they often refuse to empathize with others outside their perspective, which I would argue is exactly the same kind of “pain avoidance” that they accuse liberals of. Great video, very thought provoking!

[@MsZsc]

same deal with any first worlder who considers their speech infringed. Just cause they got banned from _one_ circle of a circle on the internet.

[@turboguppy3748]

This is my favorite thread. Great points!

[@stoneraptor6219]

I don’t exactly see how valuing individualism would be related to one side of the spectrum over the other Edit: after watching further into the video i understand better what is meant by this point. Initial understanding was based on treating every person as an individual to avoid predetermined subconscious notions as well as general expression of individualism

[@JohnEusebioToronto]

Because they want you to accept your pain so you don't take their comfort.

[@simbabwe2907]

What. Ever heard about David googings? Ever read Dostejewsky? The valuing of suffering is a age old trope that is nothing new.

[@Marlo_Strannik]

This is why optimism is the truly radical position. Radical, compassionate optimism is so necessary. Edit: the ppl who say "pain is necessary" are really giving the whole game away, theyre just leaving out 2 words: **other people's** pain is necessary for them to remain in power

[@dennisyoung4631]

More like, “pain is inevitable, so you need to do those things to *Manage it.* Ignoring it *WILL NOT MAKE IT GO AWAY.”* Drumpfco says, “embrace the suck, and worship your betters - who caused it!”

[@debeb5148]

​@@dennisyoung4631You're a subject in a kingdom. You are ruled upon, you have only the rights you are allowed.

[@andreions]

Just like one famous philosopher said, "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will".

[@enkephalin07]

Yeah, that was my impression, that he's trying to justify the injustices that result from supporting the interests of the few.

[@Vesperitis]

I think it was a psychiatrist and literal holocaust survivor who said this. Without optimism and hope for a better life without pain, we’d still be stuck in caves and eating berries. Optimism and hope is what makes us explorers, inventors, scholars.

[@iriswaters]

There's an added component here. The ideology of "pain happens, can't do anything about it, stop complaining, suck it up and deal" is VERY convenient for those who actively benefit from the status quo and would lose something if people ever got together abdicate worked to change things. People like Dennis Prager and his wealthy donors.

[@krunkle5136]

It is advantageous to them, but part of it is true. As much as Stoicism or Taoism can be manipulated to make people subservient, it's also a very powerful idea that can prepare people for hardships and keep them from being stuck on one thing.

[@darthbob88]

Ditto austerity; "We should spend less money on welfare" is extremely convenient for people who pay a lot of taxes. Like, say, Dennis "the Menace" and his donors.

[@andyzhao7822]

Exactly. As if they have actually experienced even a fraction of that pain themselves.

[@rdormer]

Very interesting that the all of the "suck it up" rhetoric seems to come from people who've rarely, if ever, had to do so.

[@WWZenaDo]

@Gwenyth Wynne - Beautiful point. Exactly what Prager U's long range goal is.

[@PacoYee6661]

Privileged people believe that pain is being able to buy tickets to Coachella or not being able to buy a new car, and for poor people pain is not eating, having to deal with illnesses without medical care, their communities being exploited for profit by introducing drugs into them, child labor etc.

[@user-pu6pn8vt5d]

Why are you saying "privileged" instead of "rich"?

[@Pensnmusic]

@@user-pu6pn8vt5d Because they meant privileged. Bring privileged makes you more likely to be rich through no fault of your own.

[@user-pu6pn8vt5d]

@@Pensnmusic If you're not rich, you wouldn't consider not getting a new car or tickets to the Coachella festival pain. Simply having a privilege doesn't make your life perfect.

[@doperagu8471]

@@user-pu6pn8vt5d when did they claim that being privileged means your life is perfect??

[@user-pu6pn8vt5d]

@@doperagu8471 They didn't. They claimed being rich makes your life perfect, then Pensnmusic claimed that they meant being privileged. I corrected Pensnmusic, and I see moob mentality has deemed me insane for that.

[@garrettbiehle9714]

1. Pain can lead to emotional growth. 2. We should get together to eliminate systems of pain and injustice. These two statements do not contradict each other. "People are good or bad" is a dichotomy, possibly a false one. Thank you for this analysis of PragerU.

[@TheProletariat321]

Not all pain is equal. All people with a certain amount of privelege experience pain, like the pain of losing a loved one, hurting someone you love, failing at doing something you worked hard on, and so on and so forth. But these pains of life are incomparable to the pain of being the victim of Systemic oppression, wether it be Patriarchy, Colonialism, Imperialism, and Capitalism (these systems of oppression are all interconnected, so they cant be seperated in this discussion). These Systems I have mentioned are not inevitable, for this to be our reality was a choice that was made. It didnt need to happen. I think its easy for priveleged people to fall back into conservative thought. The answers of conservatism are easy and comforting. Instead of questioning the things we've been made to believe are just facts of life, we can just think that things are the way they are because its meant to be that way. Maybe theres something wrong with the fact that our society perceives housing, healthcare, education, food and water as a commodity, instead of something everyone needs to live. But its easier to keep thinking that people are suffering from poverty because thats how things are, the World is cruel and theres nothing we can do to change it. It reassures people that they dont need to do anything to change something. But the peopld that experience that oppression cant simply accept this as fact, they cant avert their gaze from injustice that is happening in front of their own eyes. You cant expect them to live a miserable and torturous life without any resistance. But when you finally abandon your comforting delusions, you realise that we could have created any type of World, but instead this is the World we are living in

[@Fairbranksthecat]

@@TheProletariat321 Who gave you the authority to scale suffering ? Aren't you thinking exactly like those who control the systemic oppression ? Our world didn't came to be because of one choice by a few individuals but an infinite numbers of choices by an infinite numbers of individuals over 150 000 years, enternaining the idea that we are morally or in anyway superior to those who made the choices before us is disturbing, how do you know you wouldn't have made the same choices if you had lived through their life ?

[@TheProletariat321]

@@Fairbranksthecat I agree with you, but I never said that we today are morally superior to the peoole before us. People are a product of their material conditions, our ancestors were humans just like us but they lived in different circumstances than us. We cant say we would be the same in a different life because we only have knowlege of the life we live now. I dont think I have the authority to scale suffering, I just said that you cant compare one type of pain to another. The pain of for example losing a loved one and so on and so forth is inevitable, but we need to learn to accept it because People live and ultimately die. But something as bad as slavery shouldnt need to happen, it was a choice that was made. We should improve society somewhat in order to eradicate the oppression and suffering that isnt inevitable, that can be changed. Just because something is happening, doesnt mean it is natural. We shouldnt do nothing about it, simply because we are told that thats just the way things are.

[@LoveisStoredInTheLain]

Disabled person here, so many people convinced me growing up that if I just put myself in harm’s way it would harden me somehow and I would come out capable. They made me feel ashamed of the avoidance of pain. I felt like my conditions could be easily prevented and it was the fault of MY cowardice that other people had to deal with the burden of them. So I got myself hurt, and it made me worse (obviously). It isn’t that people want to accept that pain is inherent to life, it’s that they want to believe that all of reality is a meritocracy and that suffering can be avoided if one tries hard enough because they don’t want to accept that it is possible to be helpless and to have to give up. They convince themselves that just sucking it up or putting yourself in more pain ensures that your pain is temporary, and that the existence of pain is the fault of those suffering from it. The idea that pain comes from an external force means that perseverance isn’t necessarily the end-all solution. Sometimes the solution is getting help, leaving a situation, self defense, etc. People don’t want me to be able to accept that I’m disabled and that that is just how it is because they want me to believe that if I just persevere my situation will disappear, but sometimes people need accommodations and medical attention. Whether or not people will give me those things is not in my direct control unfortunately, although I will play the long game and fight for those rights for everyone. However, what is in my control is whether or not I suffer from pointless damage that just results in permanent emotional impact. And I won’t, because I know there’s no point in sucking it up when all it does is allow people to continue to abuse me. They may call me lazy or weak, but in reality I’m just playing my cards right and surviving. Also I am weak obviously I’m disabled have y’all even been listening to what I’m saying I’m inherently more sensitive to my external environment that is the definition of disabled smh

[@DANKKrish]

what kind of disability do you have?

[@Aaa-vp6ug]

Those people are definitely high on something, “if you are missing a limb, Stab yourself! It’ll make you twice as manly, hurr durr! Then jump into a lorry at top speed, you’ll live and become superhuman!” Or something. They’re definitely not ok inside

[@RatPfink66]

> _"It isn’t that people want to accept that pain is inherent to life, it’s that they want to believe that all of reality is a meritocracy and that suffering can be avoided if one tries hard enough because they don’t want to accept that it is possible to be helpless and to have to give up."_ That's terrifying to conservatives, because they don't think helpless people _deserve_ help. They prefer not to call it "help" at all. It's "being taken care of," as you would a baby or child. Conservatives insist adults expect to "be taken care of" when they seek help. Helplessness had better just be pure irresponsibility, or else they're wrong about a whole litany of things. Maybe you've heard the phrase "I need a hand up, not a handout." That distinction has become meaningless to conservatives. The only "hands up" they support are the kind that compel a person to generate profit for an employer. Things such as lectures about laziness and work requirements for public benefits. Deep down perhaps they're afraid of becoming helpless because _they really do believe_ the weakening of the profit motive will mean the destruction of American society - and they'd sooner see any number of people marginalized, and victimized, by society as it is, than allow it to get any kinder or gentler.

[@MsZsc]

I think it's just american conservatives and european social conservatives. @@RatPfink66

[@clev7989]

Absolutely beautiful comment. It gives me immense validation as a disabled person who has been thinking this way for a while but hasn't seen any acceptance for it. Thank you.

[@haexxa9923]

This whole "denial of painful reality" definition sounds like they got left and right confused.

[@ben5056]

at least the trumpian side of the right

[@terrystevens3998]

@@ben5056 I see no other side of the Republican Party.. unless you mean Liz Cheney and Kissinger.. we need to stop thinking trump is a wing of the right wing bird.. the entire party is now Trump and trump followers

[@ben5056]

@@terrystevens3998 for now at least that is correct

[@haexxa9923]

@@ben5056 As far as I can tell this concerns all conservative/rightist movements over the world. Just think about the whole climate crisis deal.

[@jamesmachuta2010]

Both political sides are focused on avoiding pain the problem is is that the Democrats try to include everyone in that Circle to minimize the pain while Republicans focus on only minimizing the pain for everyone else often if the cost of those outside their Circle

[@ampersand2001]

I believe people would be in less pain if they had access to free healthcare, more community resources, and more financial stability.

[@KyurekiHana]

Again, this comes down to whether humans are good or bad. Conservatives think humans are bad, and so they think all of this will be abused by lazy people who leach off the hard work of others. The common scenario is that they don't want to pay for Raven down the street with a family of 4 to sit on a couch all day watching TV and eating chips, while they toil away to earn a living.

[@Johnny_T779]

Here in Switzerland, we have these things... But it doesn't improve the general well-being of the poor.

[@surgeland9084]

And you know what? If we had that and more―free housing, government allowance for food and necessity, nationally mandated water and electricity, free education, no more dumb imperial wars―life would still be full of hard, painful truths but not nearly as many of us would be dead. Everyone wins. We crazy leftists get a world where no one has to die unjustly in a systemically avoidable fashion and Prager can still lecture teenagers about break-ups.

[@fartface8918]

@@Johnny_T779 ?

[@ShinyTillDawn]

That'd screw up the US economy, which is _~~~totally~~~_ more important. If you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm.

[@paskal007r]

"Leftism is about avoiding pain!" Therefore rightism is about pursuing pain.

[@Carlo_von_Habsburg]

Yes, it is about inflicting pain on minorities

[@WhiteScorpio2]

Inflicting pain, even.

[@lamestudiosinc418]

Kinky

[@iambuhlockay8007]

Learning how to cope with harsh realities and tough times is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also fight for a world with less pain.

[@McBehrer]

The thing is, people ARE suffering. I feel like a lot of republicans are ignoring the "...so better things can come" half of their own mentality. Like, people are already suffering, so it's up to us to IMPROVE things for them and posterity in general, but they think people should just KEEP suffering for the sake of it.

[@Vekstar]

Same logic Mother Tharessa used.

[@X3n0nLP]

Memento mori

[@6dragondaddy913]

There's a certain derangement among some people that Earthly life MUST all be suffering because only then can you enjoy an afterlife. So what about us who don't believe in an afterlife?

[@andrebrown8969]

@@Vekstar maybe she was always a sociopath and her religious beliefs allowed her to disguise her sociopathic tendancies as faith and reverence

[@chaoscarl8414]

Seems to me that a lot of it is down to a really toxic mix of the Christian belief that suffering brings people closer to God and the right-wing myth of the self-made man. Taken together you get people who believes that it's good that you're suffering, not just because it's righteous but also because you have obviously made some stupid decisions in your life in order to end up in such a situation. The idea that people might be suffering through no fault of their own simply does not occur to these people.

[@mygills3050]

Pain is literally a mechanism to make our bodies do stuff. Usually by trying to avoid it. If you fall for the “natural” fallacy, avoiding pain should be your entire world view.

[@inkompetenzkompensationsko4188]

💯

[@big_sea]

yes

[@kylegonewild]

"When you feel that excruciating pain upon putting your hand on the burner, unlike a leftist, you should simply leave your hand there and accept the painful truth that fire hot." -Dennis Prager

[@-TheUnkownUser]

I mean... the dumb idea "what doesn't kill makes you stronger" Like... Oxygen mantains me alive but at the same time because its a reactive chemical it slowly kills me... Pain can make you strong *In certain situations.* If your political position is just to call the other party "weak" then you are pathetic...

[@MLBlue30]

@@nienke7713 A Ferengi just read this and had the best orgasm of his life.

[@alphachiu]

lets not forget that dennis prager once said 'i want mommy i want milk i want to be held i want to be comforted' + 'babies are narcissists'

[@Raitor33]

Imagine thinking that a baby needing their parents’ care is “narcissism”. This is your brain on rotten neoliberalism.

[@cindysamples7386]

Fr

[@BuckBlaziken]

Body’s pain response: GET AWAY FROM DANGER RIGHT NOW PragerU: Hmm yes, this is good

[@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225]

PragerU is the "This is Fine" webcomic as a political ideology.

[@ashfranceschi]

the thing with 'hardship is necessary' is they they think ANY type of hardship is beneficial. It's not the same to struggle to pay rent and risk losing your home than struggling to make friends or struggling to find the solution to a project. Life will continue to be hard even if we fixed the systems, but it'll be hard in a way that is ACTUALLY beneficial and humane.

[@RatPfink66]

This is what the verse in Hebrews (quoted at 10:25) tells us to think about in terms of _what God wants for us,_ not _what we find to be good for us._ The doctrine of original sin, and what we today call "human nature," are the rationales for humanity NOT to respect our own judgment - OR our own experience - in such matters. Pain and hardship are from God, thus, submission to them has worth in itself. This is a fundamentalist conviction, seldom articulated, because it's hard not to start questioning it once you think about it. So best not to think. It all gibes very neatly with the conservative drive to internalize the values of power, authority and hierarchy in us.

[@Errenium]

me, shoving Dennis Prager's face through a cheese grater so he can experience the glory of suffering personally after so generously delegating it to others for so long

[@RatPfink66]

@@Errenium ouch. personally i think making him bear witness to the inevitable failure of the values he professes to teach is suffering enough.

[@trustytrest]

@@Errenium All of those "I had it hard so others should too" conservatives, who had their daddies pay their way through college and secure them an easy job. All of them should be shoved in a meat grinder and then have them tell the world how that pain was beneficial in any way.

[@MrMarinus18]

Hardship for the working class. For the capitalist class there is no hardship at all and they will be bailed out if they mess up.

[@fatcat1414]

"Leftists can't face the fact that humans are deeply flawed," Dennis Prager says on his media project devoted to freaking out if anyone ever criticizes the US, an entity built and ran by humans.

[@thomash.schwed3662]

Indeed. Prager is employing the Judæo-Christian (read "Biblical") philosophy, as Zoe rightly observed. The primary focus of that "philosophy" is original sin which, according to those who subscribe to such a view, is itself humanity's 'deep flaw'. They summarize it in words such as: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death came upon all men for all had sinned."-Romans 5:12. Of course, those who subscribe to such a "philosophy" also claim that God is the Author of all things and is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. In his omniscience, the Lord knew that his human creation would sin and in his omnibenevolence, he would provide a way of escape by taking on human flesh and dying for his human creation. But, the question logically becomes: How is that either a demonstration of full knowledge or a demonstration of complete love? The only way one could accept such a premise as that proffered by Dennis Prager and others who subscribe to such a "philosophy" is to admit that original sin, the 'deep flaw', if true, would be nothing more than a celestial set-up game, the greatest framing of all time, as though the Lord were saying: "I'll make you break my rules, but, millenniums from now, I'll become a man myself and die for your descendants and thereby restore those of your descendants who exercise faith in that to my favor and they can spend eternity with me." Even in that case, how could there be any thing loving about that? Furthermore, how could there be any thing just about setting up someone for the fall even with providing a way of escape for that person's descendants, particularly if the individual conducting the set-up made both the person and the means by which he would fall? Really, the whole premise is a deity causing humanity's 'deep flaw' in the first place only so he could get his jollies! In short, for those, like Dennis Prager, who subscribe to this "philosophy", the Lord is the one pursuing his own Divine pleasure, and that at the expense of his own human creation! (Additionally, as though even that were not enough for him to receive his jollies, he calls the very means by which he would cause the 'deep flaw' the "Tree of Knowledge". That right there shows how those who subscribe to such a "philosophy" view knowledge and education!)

[@naomistarlight6178]

kind of weird how they try so hard to make religion nationalistic when national identities are secular and anti-religious in nature, like Hitler and Mussolini wanted the worship of the state/nation to become the new religion of the people, but that's OK here and now with USA USA USA lol

[@fatcat1414]

@@naomistarlight6178 Generally, nationalism sells itself by wrapping itself up in familiar cultural symbols that make listeners feel good. That means nationalism can look very different from nation to nation. In the US's case, our nationalism is very much entrenched in Christian symbology and rhetoric.

[@ante5544]

@@thomash.schwed3662 If I read you right, the issue you're highlighting is "The Problem of Evil"; how can the obvious existence of evil be reconciled with a supposedly all-powerful and all-good creator? The Christian answer, if I'm not mistaken, is that for good to exist there must be the possibility to choose evil. This is why in the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall God doesn't consider man to be made "in his image, in his likeness" until Adam and Eve eat the fruit and are kicked into the world of free will. As Genesis 3:22 states "...The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." God is good because he eternally denies an evil he in his omnipotence could commit, and so man is only completed in God's likeness when he too could eternally choose good and perpetually deny an evil he could commit. The Creation and Fall of Man and birth of original sin is, as you alluded to, a set up game: it means God planted man in Eden so he could kick them out of it. But it is also, so goes the Christian argument, the way man is meant to be: someone taught to do right that is allowed to do wrong.

[@andrecorso1637]

@@ante5544 Except suffering from non-human causes exists, so... I mean why did God make water something that we need to live but also drowns/crushes us? He is omnipotent after all...

[@hunnybadger442]

This mindset allowed my parents to leave their adopted disabled daughter on the streets for over 5 years... Where I learned what it felt like to almost freeze to death... Twice... Learned what pizza out of a dumpster and week old donuts taste like... I learned that the only person I could ever count on was myself... I learned to love myself finally... Only to have all the strength I created for myself... that I was so proud of... Whisked away one morning... When my body gave out overnight... Now I am completely dependent on others for just about everything... And I hate it... I hate myself... I doubt everything... I'm even afraid to speak... even ask... For even the bare necessities... I don't trust myself... or even sounds... This once strong proud woman... Ready to take on the world... Is now nothing more than a pathetic whelp... That jumps at the slightest motion or sound... I can't even use my hands beyond the most rudimentary of actions due to nerve damage and shaking... I was once afraid of nothing... Now I yelp and jump at shadows and spiderwebs... I was hung by those bootstraps... the potential strangled out of me... And I'll never be able to get it back...

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

How terrible! God (through enlightened people) send you very soon the help that will allow you again to live a dignified life.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

There's but only one condition: allow all pride to slip away when the help appears. Be willing to furnish help to others.

[@hunnybadger442]

@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648 I'm terminal... so too little too late...

[@popopop984]

@@hunnybadger442Are you… dead now? I’m so sorry we failed to help you:

[@hunnybadger442]

@@popopop984 I'm terminal but not dead just yet unfortunately... dying is not very fun or encouraging

[@lyje]

I would take this one step further - one doesn't actually need to think people are "good" to argue for policy based on systematic analysis. Even if people are naturally "bad", the best way to overcome that is for systems to be designed to disincentivise "badness". Individual responsibility is always a bad answer because you can't actually *do* anything about it on a societal scale - it's literally down to every single person.

[@damien678]

Yes, and I think individual responsibility can be helpful for...individual people, particularly if they're feeling particularly helpless, and like they have no control over anything. It can be genuinely helpful and soothing to remember you only have control over yourself, and, for example, if someone doesn't think kindly of you that you ultimately can't change that, but you can seek to change how you emotionally react to that, and even down the line how that makes you feel. It's been freeing for me to care less about what others will think about me. They'll think what they will, and it's on them, not me. But, yeah, trying to use that frame of thinking for everything isn't particularly helpful, especially systematically.

[@brucemsabin]

You're pointing out why this video is straw manning the conservative view. Of course conservatives also think "systems [should] be designed to disincentivise 'badness.'" Conservatives talk about moral hazards of welfare, for example. Social safety nets can be designed to incentivize or disincentivize badness. That's also why conservatives tend to favor tougher sentencing for criminals. The entire criminal justice system can be designed to incentivize or disincentivize badness. The broken windows theory is a conservative viewpoint that says crime rates are often the result of systems. Zoe has the makings of a good discussion here, but I'd like to see her actually discuss it with a real conservative. As it is, she's just misrepresenting conservatives as she sees them...just as she accuses Prager of doing to leftists.

[@khdayskh1314]

​@brucemsabin you make a good point. I'd go even farther as to leave that same comment in the main section

[@elettradelpin230]

"people are bad, you have to accept it" is literally another way of saying "I am an egoistic prick, a bad person. I will do my best to make my life easier not caring if I make yours harder and that's just the way I am. You can't do anything about it and I don't want to do anything about it"

[@AbuBased731]

Cry about it bozo

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

@@AbuBased731 Wait till you are on the receiving end.

[@MrPiccoloku]

Actually, it's a way of saying "The literal only thing keeping me in power is continually manufacturing scenarios where basic human decency is punished and cruelty is rewarded and I am a scourge upon humanity"

[@AbuBased731]

All Hail our Capitalist ovERlords Long live Capitalism

[@sabersin7694]

That's exactly it, and what are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna keep complaining about this egotistical bully? Or are you going to suck it up and do something about it? Are you going to keep wishing life was easier? Or are going to bite the bullet and work hard to make it easier?

[@ThatDangDad]

As a former conservative, I once read a conservative blog post that was like The 25 Things All Men Must Endure To Be a Good Man and it was stuff like getting fired from a job, being dumped by a someone you love, being too broke to afford something you need, etc. And it's funny, all of those things CAN be important parts of being a good person, but I would say only if they humble you, make you grateful, AND make you more *empathetic to others undergoing that same suffering*. But Prageroids value suffering for its own sake because they think it's like exercise: you work hard in the gym, you sweat, you get sore, but you are rewarded with a strong body, good health, etc. The right wing sees suffering as exercising your own personal Toughness Muscle, as something you do to improve your personal looks and fortitude. And yet, they are admire figures like Christ, who ended unnecessary suffering for many people an endured torture because of it, or America's Founders who (in fiction at least) saw people suffering under oppression and decided to end it by putting their own lives at stake. Conservative hagiography lionizes people who suffered to end the suffering of others, but the ideology values suffering as an unalloyed good for all people at all times. Deeply confused philosophy.

[@RatPfink66]

Most tellingly, conservatives minimize or discount entirely those historical figures who risked all to end oppression _for profit._ Especially _American_ profit. Unionists, organizers, reformers, revolutionaries. A whole new narrative had to be constructed to illustrate how _those_ folks weren't altruistic in the least...just fatuous fools and tools of soft elites.

[@Feathertail2205]

They must all want to be Christ lol

[@izzyj.1079]

Yeah that's...kinda what it boils down to@@Feathertail2205

[@PurpleShift42]

​@@Feathertail2205it definitely shows up in evangelical Christians' persecution complex!

[@Mondomeyer]

The problem is that PU (oh, how fitting!) isn't just sloppy, it's stategic; they want you to mindlessly parrot their talking points without thinking about them.

[@adamcorfman573]

That's right-wing thought in a nutshell. If you think about any of the talking points for 20 seconds and put anything in context. You can "debunk" any right-wing talking point. Debunk Libertarianism in one phrase: "Your actions affect others, and other's actions affect you."

[@iloveplasticbottles]

Even if reality sucks, shouldn't we try to make it better for everyone?

[@debeb5148]

Nope. Only make it better for yourself, or you would be making it better for someone who would destroy it all without a second thought.

[@Manas-co8wl]

@@debeb5148 Last reminder; not everyone is like you. And yes, while we should try to make it better for everyone, that does unfortunately involve weeding out the obvious occasional trolls who can't hide themselves and their natures even if their life depended on it.

[@person1858]

We should make things better, as far as possible. It isn't always possible. Thats what conservatives understand better than left wingers. Conservatives often make the mistake of thinking everything has to be the way it is, but they're more right on this than wrong. There's only so much collective reform thats plausible. Other than that, individualism is actually the best we can do.

[@squidgirl0413]

@@person1858 but we can still move a lot farther than conservatives think we can, and outside of that, we can at least stop making things actively worse. thats part of the issue with this argument; we dont actually know how much collective reform is possible, because most political systems in the west are at a base level corrupt (on both the right and left, which politically are identical and any ideological differences are entirely superficial) and thus cause more suffering than they naturally would otherwise.

[@person1858]

@@squidgirl0413 "Most systems in the west are corrupt at base level", compared to what? Shariah? Social credit scores? India basically just copied western political institutions, but the society has plenty of its own problems. You think Japan has a perfect society? Or sub saharan Africa? They all suck and most of them suck far more than the current day west. What real world comparison are you making? Or are you comparing reality with an image in your head? Everybody immigrates to the west for a reason. Do you have any better ideas than status quo? Maybe for small reforms you do, but for large scale social change, what hard evidence do you have that it works or is desirable?

[@blubbydragon5381]

I feel like the “pain is just a part of life” crowd often (probably purposefully) leave out that there are really two main kinds of pain. There’s unavoidable facts of life like pain from losing someone, getting sick, or having an unlucky bad day. Then there’s pain inflicted by yourself or other people. There can be instances where you may hurt yourself intentionally or not due to circumstances, but there are also many, many, things intentionally inflicted by others. Being discriminated against for your skin color, sexuality, gender, religion, even nationality, etc. are not a natural part of the human condition. It’s just people being shitty to each other. The same can be said for things like economic differences. There’s no good reason why some people are born into extreme poverty where they can’t even afford basic necessities, and others have so much money that they can influence national governments. You shouldn’t have to accept all forms of pain regardless of where they come from and “just suck it up.” I think that someone who tries to blanket statement away all complaints towards societal change may be in a position where they’re privileged enough to have never needed anything to change to be happy with their lives. Then again, someone who tries to turn basic issues like people’s health, safety, or trauma into political topics to “us vs them” it are probably pretty shit in general

[@LPSlight0]

And even the "unavoidable" pains could one day be addressed with technology. There are countless researchers working on or studying biological immortality or life extension or whatnot, as well as some proposals for disease abolition. So there are a lot more kinds of pain that humans can one day learn to address, nothing is really set in stone.

[@inkompetenzkompensationsko4188]

So much truth in your comment. I could have never written all that down so eloquently, so thank you.

[@jennacided6502]

You hit the nail on the head in a way I never could have!! :)

[@The1nvisibleJeevas]

That’s the thing, though. They think poverty IS unavoidable. It’s the manifestation of your “badness,” and they think you should deal with it. It’s all ordained by god, remember? Same with racism and all the other -isms. It’s not something they’re doing to you. It’s just what you are, and you’re either making the pain up, or you’re just “being reminded of your place.” It’s just as evil as it sounds.

[@MineCrapSteve]

_Strange_ that people at the _top_ end of capitalism ( *cough* dennisprager *cough* ) tend to preach the whole "it's your fault, not ou- I mean, society's fault" thing... *HMMMM...* 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[@A_Swarm_of_Waspcrabs]

As Zizek would put it: "Don't fall in love with your suffering. Never presume that your suffering is in itself proof of your authenticity. A renunciation of pleasure can easily turn in pleasure of renunciation itself."

[@dinosaysrawr]

Ooh, that's good.

[@RatPfink66]

@@dinosaysrawr especially since so much of Zizek's observations are so abstract, or when hands-on they're usually too metaphorical to be of great utility.

[@FunKayyy]

I was kinda talking about this with someone earlier today, somehow they kept insisting mental and financial stability were key signs of hedonism and that everyone must endure suffering indefinitely otherwise our society apparently lacks value and structure...

[@RatPfink66]

Perhaps press these people a bit when you meet them. Usually they can't be convincing in their arguments because they take too much on faith.

[@CarlosRodriguez-mk2te]

Zoe thought about the question for 18 minutes and 26 seconds longer than PragerU did.

[@coltonwesley4460]

I'm a Christian leftist and this is right on the nose. Thank you, Zoe, for the nuance you brought to this. The Christians who lean super hard into "suffering is good, actually" seem to have missed the parts about living in community and taking care of those around you, not to mention a more complex conversation about doctrines of human nature and the fact that pain doesn't equal justice, even in the context of Christian theology. There's a lot of good stuff to think about and talk about here.

[@marocat4749]

Suffering just exists, but its not good and should be minimalized as possible. And as possible as pain is part of life,being realistic, but it shouldnt be seen as good ever or be life.

[@kevinslater4126]

I'm also a Christian leftist. We have been very very VERY much told by God that we absolutely must help others. The idea that 'suffering is good, actually' is incompatible with helping others. We should rather say 'suffering is inevitable, actually' then do what we can to minimize suffering. Prager is a liar so don't take his word for much but he's motivated more by Malthus than Jesus who believed that if you help poor people they'll just make more poor people and therefore helping people is bad. This is just an excuse for the rich to feel better about being assholes and for justification of their policies that hurt others. The same can be found in Ayn Rand who continued the argument to its logical conclusion that business owners need to be terrible to their workers because if you aren't someone else will come by who is and undercut your sales and you're all out of a job so shut up and get back to work peasant and be grateful to your overlords for a job. Dennis is just looking for an excuse for hurting people by pretending it's good in the end. What a dick.

[@Johnny_T779]

Indeed! Jesus was an awesome guy, with lots of vital teachings to share... And the fundamentalists resume his passage on earth to his gruesome death... Glad to see that some Christians actually strive to follow his teachings.

[@dustind4694]

One of the things we really need to work on in leftist spaces is reigniting the alliances with and between different faith and non-believing groups. For my part, I'm happy to welcome anyone who wants to walk the walk when it comes to mercy and compassion.

[@lyndabethcave3835]

Yes! The passage from Hebrews 12 goes on to say "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." Like, the point of that painful discipline is to make things better for the community.

[@MakiPcr]

A thing about pain; when you look at the world you see that the people who usually talk about how important pain is, don't actually experience pain. Has Prager ever go hungry? Being unable to afford healthcare? Faced homelessness? Feared jail? Feared persecution for who he is? There are people who's lives are a constant struggle while others coast free, often at the expense of others; so even if you think pain can be a good thing, how is it fair that some people experience nothing but pain while others suffer no pain at all?

[@ante5544]

I disagree with the argument that the only ones who defend pain as important haven't experienced it, as from my experience it can often be the opposite. Some of the most resilient people I've met in life who have been through the most suffering seem to appreciate that suffering in their own strange ways, normally because it taught them some kind of lesson or helped them appreciate life more. Now, you can argue that's just retroactive justification to help them cope with the pain, but regardless of whether or not that's true it negates the idea of "people who value pain have never truly felt it." Believing suffering is a necessity is a perspective that can exist outside of it just being a symptom of deprivation.

[@omniscientbarebones]

@@ante5544 that’s the same idea as, “I went through severe beating from my parents and _I’m fine,_ so if I beat my children, that’s *totally* ok!”

[@the1exnay]

I think that prager u would say that one of the hard truths that leftists like to ignore is that pursuing fairness can be at odds with pursuing prosperity for society as a whole. That sometimes the good of the many requires sacrificing the good of the few, and it isn't fair. That fairness is a luxury that we can't afford.

[@ante5544]

@@omniscientbarebones The same idea in what way? Being grateful for the optimism, resilience, and/or discipline suffering granted you is different than believing you should perpetuate that suffering to your kids. The first is making lemonade from lemons, the second is turning lemonade into lemons and expecting someone to make lemonade out of it again.

[@FlameUser64]

@@the1exnay The problem is that we _can_ afford it. We just choose not to because some weirdoes have been conditioned to believe that filling their bank accounts with more and more money even when you've long since outstripped your ability to spend it is the most important thing in life.

[@axbrax5697]

Damn, this is Hobbes vs Rousseau all over again. Well played Zoe, took like half the video to realize i am sitting in a philosophy and not in politics class

[@Aurelius_unofficial]

Generally if your politics revolve around saying things don't get better and pain is unavoidable The best thing you can follow it with is "so I don't care"

[@zed5561]

i've always been troubled by the phrase "well, life isn't fair" instead of living with the "harsh reality", wouldn't you want to change it for the better?

[@Misstborn]

I fall somewhere in between I think that life isn't fair, and that pain is at least currently necessary *but* that's all the more reason to work towards a better system, where life is fair and pain is unnecessary

[@ishathakor]

reminds me of that barbara alice mann quote - “Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumphant: ‘So get used to it!’ What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!”

[@grmpEqweer]

Right, you can acknowledge that life is unfair without accepting that as inevitable.

[@DeltaCortis]

life isn't fair, but that does not mean we should not try to make it better

[@wormer104]

Except...you can't. You at best can move the bar but life is not nor ever will be fair. The world is not just. Sometimes bad wins.

[@cosmogoblin]

I rarely understand PragerU's viewpoint, and this is no exception. Physical pain is a signal that something is wrong and you should do something about it. If you fall and break your leg, it's painful. What should you do about it? Rest your leg while it heals, and try to avoid falling in the future. Perhaps you tripped on a broken stair; you should FIX THAT STAIR. But it seems PragerU would have us say "well, the stair is broken, that's just the way the world is. And I need to keep going to work, so I'll ignore the horrible pain of walking." You could find a similar example for non-physical pain. Pain is necessary, I agree. But it's there to let us know we can do something about it. After all, how does pain make you better in the sight of God if it doesn't result in you changing?

[@robertmartin6800]

Yes, it is obvious that you misunderstood the point Prager was trying to make. Fix your stairs if it is broken, but don't pretend that stairs only ever break because someone with more power than you wants them to be broken, and/or wants you to hurt yourself by falling off of them.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

@@robertmartin6800 But sometimes this is the case. The Old Testament required walls around roofs open to people. No pretense when it is fact.

[@priyanshukr7495]

your example is correct and in line with picture u want to pose but I might make a case against this . when someone get sprain or injury in leg , that does means to be more conscious while doing that task like driving or playing football in future due to a painful experience but it doesn't mean you will never drive again or never play football . you should take rest in time spans immediately after the said accident but should continue with driving (being more vigilant and patient) afterward. while pain is pain and hence still painful , but that is transitory in many cases and that shouldn't adhere you to quit the work as a whole without any rationale which compels u to do so.

[@AlucardNoir]

I think their point was that a leftist is the kind of person that, had they a cavity would rather take a pill a day for the rest of their life to make the pain go away rather than get an appointment with a dentist as early as possible to fix the underlying cavity. The kind of person that would rather not be able to move their hand after an elbow surgery rather than go through the painful process of physical rehabilitation. The kind of person that doesn't understand that in order to develop ones muscles, one must first do minor damage to them via exercise and let the bodies natural repair processes not just repair them, but make them slightly stronger than before. You know, the kind of people that say true communism has never been tried before.

[@victorvanvolt8425]

@@robertmartin6800 Those are not your stairs are the landlords stairs and he doesn't want to fix them because their to expensive to fix. So now you have to skip 3 step on the stairs with a broken leg and hope that the 4th step will not snap and break your leg again. You can learn how to jump and not injure yourself that hard or invent all sorts of gadgets to skip the steps, but the broken steps are still there and one day they will have a bigger gap that you can't just jump over it. Nevermind that there is a grandma in the apartment building that can't leave because of this gap, a mother with two kids at the second floor needs help every morning and sometimes she or the kids miss the bus, a guy that has 2 jobs and broke his leg 5 times because he comes home late at night and the light near the stairs doesn't work.

[@JohnathanFallSeasonGuy]

I found in life that the people who romanticize pain and suffering tend to be people who’ve never experienced “pain and suffering” or are people who are trying to justify the abuse they suffered, the “I got beat as a kid and turned out fine! Even though I’m thrice divorced and my kids won’t talk to me!” crowd.

[@nikhildesai7715]

This has revolutionized the way I think about not only politics, but how I view people and myself. You have change my mind, so thank you.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

So, Trump will be suffering when? How about the other modern day aristocrats showering money on each other for lies? Never assume good faith when dark triad manipulators demand a one sided relationship.

[@stevencowan37]

"Life isn't fair" is a sentiment I usually respond to with something like "No, it isn't. But we can be, and I'd argue we should endeavor to not only *be* fair, but to *impart more fairness* onto the world." - If you break the universe down to all of its constituent atoms, you won't find a single atom of fairness. It is entirely a social construct. But like gender and money, that doesn't make it any less real or impactful

[@VulpineFox7]

Yes

[@The1nvisibleJeevas]

“Life isn’t fair, but I like my social constructs that keep it that way” - Conservatives

[@boxofspoons8867]

“If you break the universe down to its constituent atoms, you won’t find a single atom of fairness.” Is that a Discworld reference? Well said, by the way :)

[@coalminecanary1277]

I guess we need to advertise free healthcare and community wellbeing as a "grueling, hard, and painful but worthwhile noble endeavor" - not "you have to wear a mask" but "you must sacrifice your comfort with a mask so we can be heroes!!!!" because we're so sick in the head we can only get off on suffering. What was once advice for getting through hard times has now become masochism!

[@user-pu6pn8vt5d]

"You have to stop saying "you have to" to people." "You must accept the difficulties in debates so you can be the good guy." Witch one was more convincing?

[@macbuff81]

We also need to be honest. There is no such thing as "free." It's tax payer funded meaning funded by us. That's not necessarily bad, but we need to be honest. The same way we need to be honest about us being forced to subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of billions of dollars each and every year over the last six decades

[@aeolia80]

@@macbuff81 anytime a conservative in the US talks about the healthcare we have here France or what I had in Korea I always specify that it isn’t free, that it comes from taxes, and even if there are those that benefit from it for free it’s considered noble, and also that there are still tons of private insurance and private top off insurance in both countries so get off your high horse, lol

[@DaraelDraconis]

@@macbuff81 There's a degree of challenge that can be raised to the idea that anything funded by a currency-sovereign government actually _is_ taxpayer funded… but it's true that that's not applicable to local governments and also that most right-wingers aren't going to be interested in a crash course in modern monetary theory so they can understand the ways government spending can happen with neither inhibiting debt nor direct tax funding in any case.

[@pola5195]

@@macbuff81 only slighty realted but I love it when young, men mostly, in socialized healthcare systems are like: I have to pay a percentage of my income to state insurance but I never use it! Grumble grumble! Not realizing that most 20-30 year olds don't get cancer or diabetes, but all 20-30 year olds eventually stop being 20-30 year olds at one point. As someone who had fucked up parents, I don't know if I would be alive today if I couldnt just go to a doctor and get subsidized antidepressants ($5 a month) and a referal to free therapy, all without my parents having to get involved. If anything, those complaining about "free" healthcare, never knew struggle

[@sourhill2292]

i think that pain (pain as in generally unpleasant things) can be a great tool and it has helped me in a lot of places, but the idea that life HAS to be painful all the time just doesnt make sense to me

[@Fairbranksthecat]

No, life itself, being IS painful. Your consciouness is either a blessing or a curse depending on how you deal with the reality of existence.

[@dustyfairywingstoo]

I think pain is unavoidable-there are things in the world that lie almost entirely beyond humanity’s control, and even in interpersonal relationships there will be pain because we make mistakes despite our best intentions. Which is why I believe we have a moral duty to each other to leverage our goodness and try to minimize that pain, and not add to it. Life is already hard enough, we aren’t here to make it harder for each other. We are all we’ve got.

[@yuvalne]

When you first showed the community post, I paused and thought, and reached this conclusion: leftism is an avoidance of pain *for others.* For example, I as a trans activist find myself facing quite a lot of transphobia head on to hopefully make the world less transphobic, i.e. I subject myself to pain to have other people experience less of it. This is what I feel leftism is about. This is the core of ideas like mutual aid. Each person will take as much pain over themselves as they will, and collectively we all experience less of it.

[@sofijeffrey9797]

Whereas, conservatism is about avoiding pain for one’s self, in addition to pursuing pleasure. For example, a conservative would deny the existence of privilege to avoid the pain of acknowledging their place in rather harmful systems. However a leftist will acknowledge privilege and work to ameliorate those systems in the interest of avoiding pain for others.

[@trustytrest]

Heck yeah, trans rights 🏳️‍🌈

[@BS-bd4xo]

It really sucks to be a leftist. Can't enjoy anything without thinking of how unfair the system is (hyperbole ofc, but you get the idea). I have so many privileges and a decent life, but no, I need to make myself super sad by listening to what more things suck about our system. But it's all to reduce pain for others, in a way.

[@Fitzgibbon299]

​@BS-bd4xo It's not always a zero-sum game. It's possible for others to have their privilege increased to the point of equality without reducing your own. Removing discriminatory practices, for example.

[@BlazingKhioneus]

@@Fitzgibbon299 Plus they speak from a completely selfish prespective. They act as though seeing others suffer isnt a punishment and that seeing others happy isnt a reward. If i was the richest man in the world and i went out into a world where everyone else were forced to live in slums and eat moldy food, i would not be very happy.

[@nathanruedinger5881]

As a Christian and a father, it saddens me to see the prevalence of this idea of pain and suffering as a good thing. It isn’t biblical; pain, suffering, and death were never meant to be a part of the world, and one day they will be stamped out entirely. And can these people really not see the difference between a loving father who gently reproves and corrects His children (which is how the passage you cited describes God in His discipline of His people) and an abusive one who inflicts as much pain as possible on his children simply for the sake of it? Certainly we can and should learn from unpleasant life experiences, and to some degree, yes, suffering is inevitable; but if we can make the world a better place with less suffering, then why should we not do this? What good father does not want a better life for his children than the one he had? Defending a status quo that inflicts unnecessary suffering for no reason because “that’s just how the world works” is like a father who justifies treating his child the way his father treated him because “I got beat when I was his age, so why should he have it any better?” It is abusive.

[@OdinsSage]

I appreciate this specifically coming from a fatherly perspective. Well said.

[@AlucardNoir]

You're one of those "good" Christians that never actually red the bible, aren't you?

[@dylanehooverlibrarian7026]

Rwmind me: what verses were cited in these passages

[@SomethingNameArchived]

Well said. It reminds me about my mother that treat me as a property for her obsession of academic-grade. But, as an adult, I agree with what you said, it's called oppressive violence. This abusive behavior sadly imposed to the children by their own parents, primarily the chauvinist one.

[@trustytrest]

🙏 Bless.

[@Saintsolum]

Right is trying to avoid pain as well, but differently. They think if they accept inevitability of pain, it'll be easier to endure it. Aslo if nothing can be done about this, no need to struggle fixing it.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Those at the top of the right only regard the pain of others as inevitable. Introduce them to consequences for their actions...however light... and they scream and cry as if they were the only victims in the world.

[@godthatisfox]

This was an excellent summary and helps me to empathize with the right better. Thank you for making this.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Wake me when Trump suffers.

[@GrifterMage]

The tricky thing is that depending on how you define it, "avoidance of pain" is also the Right's primary concern. The response of the Right to the fact that the world is often unfair and cruel is to dismiss those truths as inevitable and unavoidable; it's nobody's fault in general, it's "just how things are". And when shown someone doing something horrible, the Right puts all blame on that specific person--they're a bad apple. The whole point is to avoid sharing blame, either by saying that there is no blame to lay or it's entirely the fault of the "others". And why? Because sharing the blame is painful. Acknowledging that you and your in-group are at least partially responsible for the world's unfairness and cruelty is painful. Realizing that you *could* have done something to help, but deliberately did not, is painful. And the Right will do anything to avoid that kind of pain.

[@falsevacuum4667]

This is a very cogent analysis and exactly the line of thinking I had when I saw that PragerU question. Great writing.

[@AtariEric]

You are attributing to the right qualities they don't have. The Right doesn't care about other people, or the fact that they are at least partially responsible for the pain of others - and if they do, it's because they _revel_ and _get off_ knowing other people are in pain. Making others suffer isn't painful for them - it's _pleasurable_ to them, because it's "proof" that they are powerful. They are cluster-B personalities at their core - disordered and a danger to themselves and others.

[@jaegrant6441]

@@hagoryopi2101 Othen times there are multiple factors that contribute to a person doing bad things. Unlike the idea to just blame bad stuff on the idea that people are just rotten inside naturally; looking to reasons behind why someone might crime, helps prevent another ending in the same position.

[@EmeralBookwise]

Best example of the right "avoiding pain" might be in their response to climate change. It's entirely short term thinking, because taking the steps to avoid a worse future would requires hardship in the present... the hardship of obscenely wealthy people having slightly less, but still a lot of money.

[@rabidrabids5348]

@@hagoryopi2101 Of course individuals should bear the responsibility of their actions, but we shouldn't pretend that society can't create scenarios that drive people to make certain decisions. For example, generations of slavery and segregation targeting the black population leaving them poorer and more susceptible to making poor decisions because... what other real choice do they have?

[@TheDawnofVanlife]

I mean there’s a difference between ‘your kid will probably fall at some point in their life’ and have to learn to deal with an injury and ‘pushing that kid down the stairs’ in order to ‘teach’ them about pain and telling them to ‘suck it up’ if it hurts. I still am gonna try to TEACH a kid to be safe and give them medical care if they do get hurt, even if the fact they will fall and get hurt at some point.

[@ronwisegamgee]

Pushing one's kid down the stairs in order to teach them about pain is the Homelander method, though his son didn't have the luxury of stairs (he was pushed off of a roof).

[@joshbiggs3162]

So well put!!

[@lucyandecember2843]

o.o

[@williampennjr.4448]

Pushing a kid down the stairs would be a crime. Parent goes to jail leftists complains "but your separating family's"

[@86fifty]

This is a perrrrfect little encapsulation, I love this so much.

[@parsifal9251]

When I was a teenager, I went deep down the Alt Right pipeline. The constant anger at Others that stemmed from Nazism was a distraction from my own pain and severe depression. After finally acknowledging this and recieving proper mental health treatment, I experienced a complete change of heart and mind. It is curious, 6 years later, to hear my grandparents using the same talking points and terminoloy at the dinner table that we in the Alt Right had been agitating to inject into a bumbling Mainstream Conservatism. Having got exactly what I wanted then, regretting and feeling guilty for it now, and being the only one at the table arguing against it is beyond surreal.

[@KTheStruggler]

I love that the justification is "well human nature is terrible so our econonic system should not only allow but reward that terribleness" Like yeah I guess some people are greedy and selfish, that doesn't seem like a concrete reason to build our world around rewarding them for greed and selfishness

[@Juliemariak]

Seems particularly rich to me that right wingers would say it’s leftists who don’t want to face harsh realities when they rail against teaching kids the hard and painful truths of US history. Begs the question: are they actually invested in facing reality or are they just cherry picking which “painful truths” they’re willing to face?

[@gwenshapiro6251]

Don’t forget about climate change

[@Zekiraeth]

PragerU being intellectually dishonest? Inconceivable!

[@calamityjean1525]

"...are they just cherry picking which “painful truths” they’re willing to face?" They are cherry picking the painful truths that they are going to make other people (their social inferiors) face.

[@rdormer]

Their entire worldview revolves around avoiding the pain of being told that no, you can't just do whatever the hell you want because you feel like it, because other people have rights too. So no, you don't get to tell women what to do with their bodies, or gay people wether they can marry, or carry a gun wherever the hell you feel like it whenever you feel like it. It's incredibly painful for them to be reality-checked by the fact that, you know, other people exist and you have to take that into account, and they will go to the most absurd lengths to avoid having to face that pain.

[@Aestareth_]

it's more of an American thing. both republicans and democrats have a serious issue with reality

[@WCOBDisorder]

I would say left-wing ideology is not to avoid "pain", but rather reduce harm

[@nationalsocialist6590]

Which means less freedom for the individual to protect the collective. Which means you'll need big government to make sure that harm is reduced.

[@minderbart1]

@@nationalsocialist6590 no you don't need big government. also less freedom? anarchism is left wing so that is utter nonsense

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

@@nationalsocialist6590 Big conscience towards God ought to suffice, but twisted religion numbs it.

[@nationalsocialist6590]

@@minderbart1 tankies are left wing and I'm a Tankie.

[@theboombody]

Some left-wingers probably feel that way, and the far right are sure to concentrate only on those and paint the rest of the left with the same brush. Of course, the left does the same thing to the right.

[@vcdaniels]

In a dog-eat-dog world, the ultimate prize is death from starvation.

[@Marconius6]

I made a comment on a video a while back basically saying "it's good that things are easier for kids these days than they were for us"... predictably I got a bunch of replies about how hardship "builds character" and how kids these days are too coddled and whatever. There are genuinely people out there who are in favor of making/keeping life purposefully harder than it needs to be, just for some weird armchair psychology reasons.

[@avishevin1976]

Lots of things are inevitable, and yet we still do our best to delay them. How many times has Prager been to a doctor? Death is inevitable. He should embrace it.

[@cbowd]

Agreed--I think the individual vs systemic, unavoidable vs solvable thing is a false dichotomy. If individuals are the problem, it's not necessarily because of "human nature," and who's to say "human nature" can't be changed? (Unless we define human nature as unalterable🙂) even if Bad People are just gonna do bad things, well, we can try to prevent or mitigate that, we can try to make better systems for dealing with it...there's many options other than throwing up one's hands or starting a death cult. And if institutions are the problem, well, institutions are composed of individual people making everyday choices.

[@cbowd]

Also, I don't exactly buy PragerU thinking leftists are just naive and well-meaning, either. The rhetoric from these people is that leftists are actively trying to indoctrinate or even abuse children. Perhaps some in the PragerU /audience/ may believe this, but I think periodically taking this tack about letism is mostly just an attempt to appear charitable and mature.

[@Handles_Are_Bad.Phuk-them-off]

death cannot embrace that monster soon enough.

[@RSAgility]

@@cbowd Yes but individual people alone versus large crowds of people make very different choices. When there's no fear of consequence, our behavior is that of how we play video games. Psychotic. 😄 edit: see "gamer rage"

[@dansmoothback9644]

Im always careful when people wish death on others, or when i do that. But this comment has me in stitches. I tip my nonexistent hat to you.

[@ZipplyZane]

As one of those "leftist Christians," I would point out that said interpretation requires ignoring other parts of the Bible. Saying that some level of pain is inevitable and that we should consider it a positive is one thing. But saying it means we shouldn't help others or try to make the world better is contradicted by the main message of the gospel. In fact, the pain that servants of Christ go though is often directly because we put helping others at a premium. We don't do the selfish thing and make it easier for ourselves if that is going to cause harm to others. We are willing to take Jesus's example and sacrifice ourselves to help others---albeit usually not to the point of dying for it. It is the right that, in my opinion, very often seeks to avoid that pain--the pain of having to change things or the pain of sacrifice. You mention the pandemic. Which side actually was trying to avoid pain? The left tends to be willing to get vaccinated, wear masks, and otherwise sacrifice. The right says not to do those things. When they say that people should just "accept the pain," it's always outward focused, saying other people should suffer severe harm so that they can avoid the inconvenience. They assume that they will be one of the 99% who survive, telling the 1% that they are requires to sacrifice for them. They ignore that we could spread that sacrifice out to more people, being a mere inconvenience, and save these people's lives. Because, for them, it's more important to avoid that inconvenience. And this is typical. The thing they object to the left about isn't them avoiding pain. It's caring about the pain of others, and trying to avoid it at the systemic level. They have no problem trying to avoid pain at the individual level. They want to avoid the small sacrifices that might make the world better. That's why they consider these things immutable even though history has shown repeatedly that these things can change. Heck, it's why they fight to make things go back to the way they were, even if, on the whole, society is better. But they feel their loss of privilege as pain, which they want to avoid. So, no. Praeger U isn't right. They're deliberately focusing on a narrow level and not the broader picture.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

I think we should consider the chances the Lord gives us to make the best of a terrible situation. This doesn't mean to go around making situations terrible.

[@drsamuelhaydensecretgaming6749]

Ahahahaha I'm an agnostic right winger! I'm at the antipode to your beliefs! Lament at my presence!

[@minecraftHOBO101]

This isn’t wrong, but also, pretty much any biblical interpretation at all requires ignoring parts of the Bible. The “interpretation” is largely just about which parts you ignore.

[@smashedapples]

I'm similar. Christianity is about taking on individual pain in the service of others. We are to "take up our crosses daily." Sure, I advocate for avoidance of pain as a collective, but many of the things I advocate for would actually remove and/or correct for the privileges I enjoy but have no more right to than anyone else. The differences between the left and right (in my mind) are that the right lacks empathy and denies the virtue of the common good, while the left (often motivated by empathy) prioritizes the common good over individual pleasure.

[@caseyblack8192]

Very, very well said.

[@sharkastic2633]

Pain is temporary. It's also an indicator. If it's not serious or if it's necessary, just deal with it. If it is serious, deal with it until you can fix it.

[@user-uy8yt7ku4w]

I absolutely agree that people should learn discipline, because that makes us more in control of our lives and more free. And I think we should not be afraid of pain, we should use it as opportunity to grow and to test ourselves. However, there is already too much pain in this world, so we should actively work together to minimize it, especially for people who have the misfortune of experiencing pain more than we do. So yeah, avoid pain when it's not necessary, and try not to cause other people pain and I think we will move to better future!

[@RatPfink66]

People should embrace self-discipline, and be critical about what outer disciplines they embrace.

[@marshallsweatherhiking1820]

Pain can only have a purpose if there is light at the end of the tunnel. For many there is no light. It goes on and on.

[@eyesofthecervino3366]

Exactly this. The goal isn't to become stagnant, the goal is to not be stressed out about basic food and shelter, so I'll have the time and energy to help other people not be stressed out about basic food and shelter, so people smarter than me will have the time and energy to be doing cool stuff like innovating and curing cancer and all that. Taking ankle weights off a marathon runner isn't going to make them stop pushing themselves and become a couch potato: it's going to make them a faster marathon runner.

[@Praisethesunson]

It's so easy to advocate for things that hurt others. Especially when it's a hurt that doesn't immediately impact you.

[@fatfurry]

\[T]/

[@LexYeen]

PragerU is right the way a broken VCR on a military base is about the time: right once a day about one thing, not for the right reasons, and anyone going exclusively to it for their information is doing a lot of things wrong.

[@ShinyTillDawn]

A stationary clock is right 2 yoctoseconds per day.

[@v8ali8]

@@ShinyTillDawn If it's a military base, then I assume it uses military time, and therefore, once a day.

[@ahouyearno]

A broken clock is never right, because there's no way to use that information. A clock is used to measure passage of time, not specific moments. A clock that runs 10% too slow is infinitely more useful than a broken clock.

[@Silhalnor]

VCR? Thought you were going to say that a broken VCR is, I don't know, not keeping with the times or something.

[@OdinsSage]

@@ahouyearno love this

[@screamandbolt2408]

One of the problems of austerity is that those who implement it are not the ones who suffer under it.

[@karmageddon9047]

My first thought when I read it, was.. 'This implies that pain is desired, if they vilify the left, and the left avoids pain, then that means they believe pain is a requirement and should be encouraged.'

[@Phirone123]

my immediate gut reaction to that poll was "yeah, obivously?" easing our collective suffering and trying to improve our lives is good, actually, and just seems like such an obvious statement and a core drive to being human. but to a lot of people this is a radical idea, and I'd really like to know how I'm supposed to reach out to these people since meeting them halfway on this isn't an option because that would just mean giving up on the base fundamentals of my ideals and giving in to theirs

[@TheMisterDarknight]

But noooo the people on top is gonna have to give up some stuff noooooooooo we cant allow that noooooo

[@WWZenaDo]

Prager U has strong tones of American fundie literalist apocalyptic Christian evangelism, with its emphasis upon being "persecuted". They tend to engage in behaviors hostile to less fanatical Christians and especially towards secular people, in attempts to either bring about "persecution" (in large part due to various scriptures in the New Testament declaring it necessary that Christians must be persecuted in order to be true followers of Christ), or to create the illusion that they are being "persecuted" (in order to justify authoritarian totalitarian overreactions in order to increase the power of the fundamentalist Christian groups).

[@mattbrody3565]

Well, sort of. Naturally-emergent pain is a good teaching mechanism, whereas collective suffering is just pain without a purpose. Prager's point wasn't that collective suffering is good or that the inequality in society should be protected, their point is that in the pursuit of ending that collective suffering, leftists tend to overdo it. Leftist policies risk impeding too much and diminish the learning experience that comes with the pains of daily life, much like a helicopter parent rendering their child inept by doing everything for them. The goals may be admirable, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions for a reason. Interestingly, their focus on a Laissez-Faire method of life is all about unconstraining society. That way, collective suffering gets nibbled away by individuals having the freedom and flexibility to say "screw this, I'm out" and find a better way. At that point, most suffering (in theory) becomes more individually-emergent rather than collective, and continues to be resolved by the collective actions of individuals, just like an ecosystem adapts and evolves to face its challenges.

[@richardtheconquerer]

@@mattbrody3565 "Prager's point wasn't that collective suffering is good or that the inequality in society should be protected" That IS 100% his point. Prager likes inequality. Why do you think he's been against same sex marriage, transgender people, any sort of welfare programs, etc. Because he thinks having second class citizens is a good thing particularly if he isn't one of them. That's literally the whole conservative mindset.

[@mattbrody3565]

@@richardtheconquerer I disagree. The same-sex marriage objection is on religious grounds, it’s the notion that not using your body as intended is inappropriate and ultimately self-indulgent. The opposition to transgenderism is on similar grounds, combined with an assumption about their mental state. The opposition to welfare is a combination of bad habits it can incentivize and the ways it can be exploited. Very few people truly ‘champion’ inequality. Contrary to what it appears you think, Conservatives generally don’t champion it either, but they are closer to the far right who do than many other political ideologies. They do however tolerate inequality, not because they like it, but because many attempts to solve inequality can easily be exploited to worsen it by power-hungry people. That’s a point that I think should be more clear in general: the right wing is prone to paranoia, the left wing is prone to impatience, and the center is indecisive.

[@TheGrayMysterious]

Pain is not always bad, because pain is often how we learn, and can be what makes success and pleasure all the more rewarding. However, pain is something best experienced on your own terms, not inflicted on you arbitrarily because somebody else decides you didn't suffer enough to have what you have.

[@Tiggster-qr8mw]

The main function of pain is to tell you that there is something wrong

[@Patrick-ld8wy]

​@@Tiggster-qr8mw pain in the term pragerU meant was not the literal pain you get a from pinching but let's say financial emotional pain you get from doing things wrong and learning stuff to prevent pain next time it's not about pain it's about learning so it doesn't happen

[@meowspark9]

I live with chronic pain so my cope is that I view all pain as a challenge and form of meditation. This mentality doesn't always hold up, but it helps me to get through every day suffering. I'm also pretty negative when it comes to society wide good/evil stuff, I just respect everyone I meet until proven that an individual is not worth my respect/time.

[@mmori673]

I really truly do not understand how someone can think "avoiding pain is a bad thing"

[@mmori673]

like yes I understand that those people think that suffering begets true happiness but like what is the point of suffering if not to stop our children from having to suffer? I had to grow up before I was 3 years old, how is it wrong to want my children to be allowed to have a childhood?

[@MyNamesRevenge]

I'm not sure where Dennis got the whole "the idea behind leftism is the denial of the existence of pain". Leftism to me has always been acknowledging that pain and understanding that we have the means to minimize that pain for everybody rather than just accepting that "it's a part of life" Edit: I got 4 more minutes into the video and you said essentially the exact same thing

[@Tartersauce101]

But you can't minimize pain by denying reality. That's only a recipe for more pain.

[@raven-sf3di]

The core of Leftism isn't about pain it's that humans are fundamentally good and therefore the systems make pain and suffering so by changing the system happiness will happen It's a problematic Vue that at its core holds that there are universal human beings and a universal system that will make everyone happy which often robs people of what they care about most so outsiders will be happy

[@robertmartin6800]

Leftists believe that all pain and suffering is artificial, and inflicted upon people by other, malevolent people. That is a deeply false idea, and one that cannot be used to improve the world.

[@AbuBased731]

Cope harder bozo

[@MyNamesRevenge]

@@Tartersauce101 I never said that we should deny reality, leftism is 100% about understanding reality and working to make it better for everybody rather than looking at current conditions and saying "that just how life goes", which is what I said.

[@captainwilliam3920]

And people who stay rich their whole lives don’t even experience the ‘pain’ the right considers to be necessary in the first place

[@seanthompson9163]

Great analysis! Love how kitty is letting you do your thing without getting in the way, except by being the most cuddly cuteness distraction in the background.

[@Alltime2050]

One of the most emotionally painful experiences a conservative can have is admitting they are wrong. They can’t do it without being ashamed and embarrassed as a personal failure and a letting the tribe down.

[@casusbelli9225]

And that's why they will jump through mental gymnastics to avoid that.

[@noam3226]

Way to generelize and demonize the other side, great job making space for meaningful dialog

[@Ruzzky_Bly4t]

You're pretending like people on the left aren't the same. Nobody likes to admit their flaws, doesn't matter if it's liberals, conservatives, or anybody else. Noam has a great point. People like you are the reason we can't have reasonable discussions. Because if the other side is wrong by default, what is there to talk about?

[@Tsukiru]

@@noam3226 There's no room for meaningful dialogue if someone is going to say "leftism is about denying reality". Go somewhere else with this lame ass shit. Not like conservatives have constantly shut down "dialogue" all while perpetuating election conspiracies or transphobia. Like, as actual elected officials and not dudes on Twitter.

[@PumpedAaron]

True that. In still going through a lot of pain myself. In to process of throwing up the sponge on my conservatism

[@nickgjenkins]

Seeing as how I specifically got KZbin Premium to avoid seeing any more PragerU ads, I find it hilarious how much content I now watch about PragerU. Fascinated to see where this goes. My guess is that my opinion will be "No, leftism is not an avoidance of pain. Rather it's about facing pain so we can change and make the world OVERALL less painful/dangerous for people." But, we shall see!

[@DeltaCortis]

I got KZbin Premium for similar reasons. Mosty I got sick of the same goddamn ad every single time.

[@kalsabrain1370]

KZbin Vanced

[@JimJamTheAdmin]

@@kalsabrain1370 thought Vanced got nuked.

[@nickgjenkins]

@@kalsabrain1370 No idea what Vanced is but I'm assuming it's an ad blocker. I prefer to pay for the service so at least SOME money goes to creators. Plus, KZbin music is great for me. So the $9 a month is well worth it.

[@kalsabrain1370]

@@nickgjenkins Im with you. Ive both Vanced and premium. Vanced goes a step further. It's a community based platform where members mark parts of videos that aren't worth watching (sponsors, self promotion, silence and long intermissions) and you have the option of skipping them manually or automatically. By now I've saved 3hours on this.

[@Schizniit]

I think a better way to phrase it is people who lean to the left tend to confront pain instead of just surrendering to it, which is also something you have to do at times. You have to confront pain or else it'll haunt everyone around you, and at least that's the way I think of life. I just don't want other people to suffer like I have suffered or have witnessed people suffering

[@papadrew7198]

First thing of yours I’ve seen, I love the ability to be able to look at issues from the other side and even why one side believes one thing and the other believes the other , having conversations like this is how we get to where we ALL want to go. Much more of us have more in common than we might think

[@davyhotch]

I always think about kids when looking for the good of human nature. When they hear about injustice they usually want to share without prompting. Selfishness is a taught behaviour.

[@soul-heart]

Kids want to share good things just as much as the bad. Selflessness is a learned behavior as well

[@wren_.]

@@soul-heart the first instinct a child has is to reach out for it’s mother. its first instinct is to love unconditionally.

[@MsZsc]

or kids and humans are just bags of chemicals and we cannot prove what any one person can grow up to be. @@wren_.

[@damien678]

Fun fact, the part of the brain responsible for empathy is one of the last to get fully developed. This happens in late teen years. Kids are beautiful, I agree, but they're also capable of exceptional cruelty

[@EveryDayALittleDeath]

Pain is supposed to serve as a warning that something is wrong. It's inevitable because we don't live in a perfect universe where things go right 100% of the time, but pain exists to let us know something needs fixing. We're meant to want to minimize it, not make others go through it simply because we had to.

[@krisstasko]

I'm a hopeful person, and a left leaning Christian. I don't agree that humanity is basically good, but that doesn't mean I think you need to tough out life because of it. Because we are flawed, it's all the more reason to acknowledge those flaws. First individually, only then you can better help others. Take the log out of your eye before pointing out the stick in someone else's and all that. This isn't to seek pleasure or ignore pain, but to confront it directly. It's easier to help a community when you yourself have worked on inward struggles and continue to develop, makes it easier to offer advice and be helpful. Great video! Glad you can take something like PragerU, that's about not asking questions about yourself or the world around you, and using it to do the exact opposite!

[@stregalilith]

This was a great post! And the community participation was an intelligent and heartfelt experience. Thank you all.

[@VayaKahvi]

I feel like they're lumping a few different kinds of pain together as well, there's the pain of self-discipline which everyone needs to put up with to clean their house and hone their skills, and there's the pain from living in a world that sucks. The pain of self-discipline in a job well done is something I'd argue everyone goes through, which is a very different pain than having the fruits of your labor taken as profit for someone else, but capitalism has tied these two pains together and conservatives have a hard time separating them out, so they see easing systemic pains as trying to avoid fruitful labor all together.

[@marycyr1668]

Well said!

[@C0rmac0Neill]

And ultimately the pain to self discipline isn’t pain at all, long term it makes you feel better. Unlike living in an unequal, unjust society which is miserable

[@MLBlue30]

It all makes sense now. They pulled the wool over the overworked eyes. You want to unionize and take back the means of production? How dare you lazy ungrateful peasant. Life is supposed to be hard, suck it up and 9 to 5 it until you die, that's the natural order of things. What a grift, what a scam!

[@VayaKahvi]

@@nienke7713 I feel this can relate to the concept of Apparent Good vs Actual Good, an apparent good is something that seems like a good idea in the short term such as having a donut for supper, while an actual good is something good for you in the long term like eating a salad instead. We can have "apparent pain" vs "actual pain" where the apparent pain is uncomfortable in the short term, but has long term benefits (cleaning, practice, exercise) and an actual pain is something that has no real long term pay off (injuries, illness, systemic issues messing with your life).

[@matthewwhite343]

Free market capitalism has created the only outlet to this pain. No other system in the world has enriched so many people in such short time other than free market economics. Capitalism has its flaws, yes, but compared to other societies/ideologies now and throughout history, it’s responsible for the largest reduction of “pain” in the modern world.

[@leftygurl]

the “you’re avoiding harsh truths” argument is deeply dumb in that we have to acknowledge “harsh truths” so that we can improve ourselves and fix problems, you wouldn’t bandage your leg if you couldn’t tell that it’s bleeding

[@williamedstrom5681]

Yeah, suck it up, work hard and move past it is framed exclusively in terms of working for more money until you are personally comfortable, completely excluding social action like MLK sucking it up, working hard, and defeating an aspect of the broken system.

[@wolfwing1]

so often harsh truths are just, "Things we think are true but are not."

[@tone618]

My arms broke so I should probably not get a cast That would be avoiding harsh reality and pain

[@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou]

People who say that are always more interested in harshness than the truth.

[@kenworthunofficial1934]

been watching you since early 2021, AND I JUST REALUZED I HAD YET TO SUBSCRIBE i have now rectified this!

[@tomthestone1470]

I find it very pleasant this, just a simple discussion.

[@barmecideblu5323]

It's complicated, but it reminds me of the red yellow and green zones analogy that my social worker told me about in school. Imagine there's a small green circle, within a medium yellow ring, within a big red ring. That greet circle is your comfort zone, and the red ring is your pain zone. The comfort zone is nice, but you won't learn a lot of new things there. And the pain zone is so disorienting, you won't learn enough for the pain to have been worth it. But that yellow ring, that's the Learning zone. You're challenged, you're slightly uncomfortable, but you're learning new things- and when you do that, your comfort zone *expands.* The reason I bring up this analogy is usually how it interacts with me being autistic, actually. School is engineered to the tastes of the majority of the student body- which means it's calibrated to a very specific kind of red-yellow-green target. But my red ring is *very* big, and my green circle is miniscule- to the point where leaving the house is pushing me to yellow. So while other students are challenged to learn in that environment, I can't focus enough to pick anything meaningful up. Hate to sound like a #centrist or something but there's an important middle ground in the idea of pleasure vs. pain when it comes to growth. I think that life supplies it's own challenges, though, and the best approach is damage control- to minimize that pain enough to keep people in the yellow area, and then back to the green when you need to recharge for another expedition out to learn and grow.

[@RatPfink66]

what's unfortunate about comfort zone thinking is that very often, people have no concept of a learning zone, or it's all mixed in with stress and panic. they will tell you to just get out of your comfort zone and who the fuck cares what happens, it's all good.

[@Aerie1405]

Thank you for putting into words how I've been feeling about the whole "comfort zone" thing, I'm autistic too and I've had a hard time explaining this concept to people in my life that tell me I need to experience constant pain to grow when I tell them I can't work at some places due to how intensely overwhelming they can get for me.

[@RatPfink66]

​@@Aerie1405 The learning zone isn't just left out to flatter the "hard knocks people". It also avoids the hidden danger that people will think of learning as a positive experience in itself. It should really only be tool or a chore - a means to an end. Learn all you can, but don't start freely exploring - stay within the lines.

[@empiricallyzyra2069]

One issue I have with this discussion is how the word "pain" is thrown around so vaguely. Pain, biologically speaking, is a necessary sensation that alerts us to damage/malfunction. I avoid pain every time I use an oven by putting on oven mitts. When people work out they might experience pain as their muscles become exhausted, so here we can say "no pain, no gain". However, burning oneself in the oven has no gain, other than teaching why oven mitts are nice. Similarly, systemic pains are not black and white. One cannot just throw "pain" down as a blanket phrase and say "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - because some things can dramatically incapacitate you with absolutely no benefit, only detriment. Some pain can make us stronger, some pain can teach us what we did wrong, some pain can cause irreversible damage, and some pain is unnecessary and avoidable. Partisan issues often paint terms in black and white by vaguely throwing around buzz words that completely encompass an issue that is far more complex than just one word.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

True

[@gc2009able]

I like this a lot. Pain, both biological and sociological, serves a purpose to tell us that something is wrong and needs to be changed.

[@Magnulus76]

Yes, I made that point also. Whether pain is good or bad depends on the situation.

[@berg_ahorn]

thank you for putting in words what i have been feeling for a long time

[@z0nk0thesane]

Just to note, I think it's important to push back on Prager's citing "Judeo-Christian" values, because "Judeo-Christian" values is expressly a right-wing political phrase. Judaism and Christianity in fact have remarkably disparate values and the only people who claim otherwise are grifters like Prager and Shapiro.

[@EvanC881]

A very important point

[@loganl3746]

Yeah, came down here to say the same thing. I'm Jewish, so this bugs me in particular. For example, in my experience with it, Judaism doesn't have that same "disciplining father of all" mentality about G-d talked about in this video. Since G-d "chose" the Hebrews, there's a lot more of a "follow our contract (covenant), dude, come on, try to stop messing up" vibe

[@pigeoncube8881]

wanted to say the same thing. not only do Judaism and Christianity share little in common, but "Judeo-Christian" specifically is basically an Islamophobic dogwhistle at this point, if not explicitly, and it's always disappointing when that is not recognised. even personally, I find it incredibly insulting to lumps Jews in with our primary oppressors, especially when I feel I have more in common with Muslims and that lumping-in is so blatantly Islamophobic. I try to be understanding since I know that people who have grown up in Christian-dominated society are lied to about Judaism in any educational setting, but it's so hard to ignore when the phrase goes completely uncriticised.

[@CharlotteSWeb-oh7ou]

The phrase also sees common usage in Unitarian Universalism, a fairly benign faith. Really it's people using it in a political context that's several red flags on top of each other, when UUs say it they mean, "We don't believe in hell, sorry."

[@blueskylark9965]

I think it’s even worse because Judaism and Christianity do share a very big point, that they are both Abrahamic, thus believe in the same god. But they always neglect the other major Abrahamic faith, Islam. Despite being an Abrahamic religion, prager purposely excludes it and I think that’s very telling

[@fredskull1618]

The “suffering is good” tenet runs so deep in US History that when it dovetails with nostalgia for the “good old days”, it creates this negative feedback loop that is extremely hard to break until the older generations start to die off.

[@yb000]

In Russia it's called "Desdovschina," or rule of the elders, where scarred elders enforce their twisted worldview upon their children in order to create a world where their delusions are justified so yes, the Ukraine war was decades in the making

[@ivandafoe5451]

It's really "inflicting pain is good" (if it's the rich and powerful that are doing it) that this odious Prager U is selling.

[@robertmartin6800]

No one argues that suffering is good. No one wants other people to suffer.

[@fredskull1618]

@@robertmartin6800 Maybe not directly, but they believe that suffering is good for the soul, maybe even the best thing, which is why they promote it.

[@robertmartin6800]

@@fredskull1618 It is basically true that some pain and suffering is inevitable, enduring pain and suffering _can_ make people better people, and that you shouldn't always simply run from or try to avoid painful things. Accepting and sharing those two facts is not the same thing as promoting pain and suffering. We are not evil just because we disagree with you. We do not simply wish to inflict pain and suffering onto other people, one of the biggest reasons that we disagree with you is that we believe that your ideal will inflict far greater pain and suffering onto others.

[@darkninja136]

Love this video ! It was awesome. Please more philosophical videos !

[@s.alanasher8500]

I was raised by christian fundamentalists and can verify everything you've said. I would include the effects of the use of violence and the constant threat of violence in a community that feels biblically justified to demand absolute obedience. I am in my mid-60s and I have spent my life rebuilding my spirit. You're doing really good work Zčoe

[@wyndhamfreeman1489]

I think everyone wants to avoid pain. It's human nature. No, actually, scratch that. It's animal instinct. Great vid, Zoe!

[@hawkscratch]

Most people who wax poetic about pain being "necessary" haven't experienced a lick of it in their life. Either that, or they're being hideously childish about their lived experiences of pain: the idea that, because *they* had to live through pain, or hard times, then so should everyone else. It's ludicrous. No one should have to experience pain in order to live comfortably. I'm 17, and when I was 14, I got leukemia. My treatment is set to end this September. I have faced unimaginable hardship... and I didn't deserve a minute of it. No one does. And I'm not any better off as a person for having had leukemia-having experienced pain-either.

[@patrickesau2273]

a.) i'm so happy you beat that horrible disease and are coming out on top. i'm extremely proud of you and glad you are here today! :) b.) i completely agree. i keep seeing people who believe that hardship breeds this sort of 'discipline' and 'self-improvement' because of hardship. while it may sometimes be true, it also has a tendency to breed long-lasting trauma and mental illness. not all hardship is good and/or needed. nobody deserves these types of things to happen to them and if we make the world a better place, it won't have to.

[@pablorocky6064]

Hope your treatment goes well ❤❤

[@wolfwing1]

Not 100% there is alot of the even worse stuff of, "I had to go through these horrible shit why should others avoid it." Years ago I got into a fight on youtube about a guy whose entire point of being against welfare was that, "When I was a kid I had to suffer not get enough food, work at a early age and I was better for it." kind of attitude.

[@intheorigin0728]

It’s survivorship bias. Those who believe that “pain is good” are, necessarily, those who’s only ever experienced a survivable amount of it. The experience of being defeated by pain, or seeing a loved one go through the same, would change that belief real quick.

[@wolfwing1]

@@intheorigin0728 I've heard it's also why people get stucfk in unloving relationships because they don't know better so they assume they are happy and many don't realize how depressed they were till they left.

[@saudali9711]

Pain is necessary, inevitable and can make people more resilient and happier. Unnecessary pain is the oppostie. Having a good social safety net doesn't mean people will avoid all pain and become weak, they will still experience a great amount of necessary pain that will make them more resilient.

[@RedJet-bq6fq]

Amazing video as always. Valid points all through out

[@SkyflyHi]

this made me remember that after my mom died when I was about 15 and I was crying over the fact that I didn't have any parents anymore (nobody including my mother knew who my dad was) my grandma tried to comfort me by telling me her go to phrase of "life sucks, get over it." it stuck with me in a bad way, all my life I had heard nothing but bad talk about being an adult. that I was going to be thrown into a world completely against me. a world that wants to see me fail so they can mock me and spit in my face. I bet quickly turned suicidal because who the fuck wouldn't when turning 18 sounds like being thrown into Hell. but after ditching my old right-leaning ideological ways and allowing myself to be immersed with leftist beliefs, I found myself feeling hopeful again. like there was a world worth living for.

[@inkompetenzkompensationsko4188]

I'm so sorry you had suffer this much (and so young) and am very happy to hear you're doing bette now. Wishing you all the best, always!

[@The1nvisibleJeevas]

Oof. I’m very lucky to have both my parents, but I also grew up being told that once you turn 18, you’re basically trash free to be thrown into the trash compactor of The Real World, and I quickly became depressed as soon as college didn’t appear to cure that reality. I’m still in that pit tho, leftist beliefs or not. My parents are the only things keeping me alive.

[@OdinsSage]

"There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

[@anonymoussaga8723]

I don’t know why this suddenly struck me, but I have to wonder if this very way of thinking that the world, life, and humanity is so awful and hopeless is why so many staunch right wingers (and probably quite a few centrists and left wingers, to be fair) get so excited about the end of the world. Sure, they’ll say it’s about finally getting to meet Christ, but I think deep down it’s really about thinking that they’ll finally get to escape Hell.