You’re a fool, fiend. But not so much a fool as you think, nor such a fiend.
Hey, hi, hello, I'm Rosalee, or Lee for short, (she/they/it pronouns) and this is my main (primarily culturally, magically, and historically focused) blog. I have one other sideblog for Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II ( @starlingcowboy ), as I've played the games since I was a kid. I am also on instagram, though I'm inactive, and on tiktok, where I post semi-regularly.
I'm a Rusnak-American worker and a dvudushny(k). I don't attach myself to any culturally-specific term for any type of magic user (bosorka, conjurer, vedmak, granny witch), as I'd rather enjoy my experiences with the world around me than fixate on defining things. I can, with certainty, identify as a dvudushny, particularly a vovkun, due to having symptoms of being such since infancy.
I travel quite routinely for work, due to mostly taking on seasonal positions, but I primarily grew up in the Louisiana northshore and eastern Pennsylvania. My dad's people are from western PA, WV, and VA, and creeped into the Piedmont some in this most recent generation. Before coming to Appalachia, my family lived in the western Carpathians, which, despite inter-generational miscommunications about the difference between Rusyn and Russian, still influenced my family a good deal. The other chunk of my paternal family is Scot-German, and I’m learning more about them, too.
I mainly work in cultural/historical resources, with a focus on NAGPRA/ARPA compliance, with the end goal of being an archaeologist that studies and executes the functions of Historic HRD canines in the field, specifically when it comes to repatriation of and protection of Native American burial sites/remains. I am also very, very obsessed with memory studies and ethnography.
Tumblr posting does not come naturally to me, I am a big fan of asking people questions or seeing what other people say and that causing a dialogue rather than just posting into the void. This is what #lees yaps is for on my blog. Due to suffering from terminal Squirrel Brain, I will also semi-regularly tag things with #placeholder, this usually means a post is very interesting to me and I would like to share my thoughts, but my brain hasn't finished microwaving said thoughts, and it may never.
As one may guess, #slavic paganism is, in fact, for posts pertaining to slavic paganism I don't really identify with that label as hard as I used to but fuck it, we ball . #appalachia will be much of the same, just pertaining to Appalachia, though these posts do tend to be more personal because I possess a more "immediate" connection to the region. #dvudushny diaries, when I post under it, will be for, I guess, my pretentious attempts at being vulnerable on the internet.
I welcome asks, requests to be mutuals, and just passing conversations.
You’re not an anti-censorship advocate, you just want to jack off without being called a weirdo
Now, before anybody jumps down my throat, just listen. I keep ending up with proship/antiship discourse on my feed and one of the things that’s been chapping my fucking ass about seeing it is the specific rhetoric that gets used. More specifically, two forms of it. One is people dismissing any criticisms as being pro-censorship (or even going as far as calling it fascist), the other is people dismissing criticisms of how certain things are handled in fandom as “coping mechanisms”.
Before I jump into why these points bother me, I do want to establish that yes, fiction does impact reality. Do I think playing violent video games at all ever will automatically make someone prone to committing a mass shooting? No, however, I do know that fiction and storytelling function as reactions, reflections, and expressions of reality or how we feel about reality. I’m not talking out of my ass when I say this, this is an established fact with backing in various fields (psychology, literature, anthropology, etc.) and I’m saying this as someone who has, simply, had my opinions or perspectives changed upon finishing a short story or a book and as someone who used to teach kids that loved to imitate or copy what they’d seen on TV, in a movie, or in a picture book.
To get ahead of anyone running to my reblogs or replies talking about “weak minds” and “poor mental barriers”, I have two questions for you: how do you think AI psychosis functions and when was the last time you read something fictional (fan made or not) that made you think or rethink something?
To get to my earlier points:
1. “You’re pro-censorship!”
A couple of things get me about this one.
First off, if someone is just calling you weird or presenting issues they have with whatever AO3 tags they’ve been presented with, that’s not censorship, that’s fucking complaining, which, logically, would also be protected under free speech/anti-censorship principles.
Second off, I see this one be weaponized by white westerners the most part (for those who are prone to hearing things people don’t say, this is my personal experience, not a blanket statement), and I take issue with that because if your view of being censored is being called creepy, weird, or off-putting to jacking it to rape porn, or even just hearing that someone wants a way to block tags on a website, you need to crack open a history book or possibly even look at the news to see how people who are experiencing or have experienced active genocide, the prison industrial complex, being journalists under fascists regimes, and book bans are faring.
I find that this rhetoric often comes from a lack of perspective and positions of privilege, as well as being used as a way to sweep sincere, reasonable concerns with regards to grooming in fandom spaces under the rug. There’s a difference between allowing younger/teenage audiences to consume media that handles complex, heavy topics and allowing those same kids to interact with adults or, generally, people older than them who freely admit to finding sexual gratification from reading about these things and degrading people who don’t as vanilla or whatever the fuck. Yes, I know certain spaces online should be for adults only, yes, I know kids’ parents need to be more attentive to what they access on the internet, but I also know that’s largely not the reality, and therefore, adults in the room need to behave accordingly.
2. “It’s a coping mechanism”
This one I have even more feelings about (although it’s quite straightforward) because it’s a justification that I would use. Yes, it very well may be a coping mechanism, but not all coping mechanisms are made equal, and not all are made healthy. I cope with stress by eating, that doesn’t automatically mean soda isn’t bad for my teeth or heavily fried food doesn’t upset my digestion.
I understand that kinks, fetishes, and sexual interests can be heavily influenced by traumatic experiences, the question then becomes is it a re-framing or re exploration of something that happened that is empowering or are you reinforcing that what happened to you is normal? Because those two avenues do two different things. Hollering that something is a coping mechanism might be true, but that doesn’t make it healthy. I will say that until I’m blue in the face.
As an endnote, I always find it interesting that this form of discourse seems to pop up for written pornography, but almost never when it comes to visual/filmed pornography. I’m sure I could work out the reasoning for why that’s the case, but that’s for another post.
Also, this post is not an invitation for proshippers to come into my space or page. I think you hoes are weird and I love my block button
not to be a bitch after not posting anything original for like two months, but the fact that some of y’all feel a compulsion to differentiate between folk witch and folkloric witch with the line being “your genetics” vs “learning through stories” tells me y’all can’t fucking read.
Obviously, this is going to look different across cultures, but in southern, appalachian, and sometimes Slavic cultures, a great deal of magical teachings come from folklore that doesn’t provide immediate, obvious instruction. So much of cultural preservation in the face of colonialism is learning to read between the lines and one’s inability to do so is often, intrinsically connected to the machine of colonialism, and setting up a line between whats in someone’s blood versus who they talk to is. so fucking gross
Should I French Kiss with the sock puppet im making, before the Hot Glue dries on its lips, so I can experience wet hot yaoi hot glue spit string? For once?
so i was imagining the steps of making a cloth holder for the bearot cards @vigilantlight got me for culturally nonspecific winter holiday (christmas) because the box they came in is already beat the fuck up bc I take my divination tools with me everywhere I go even if I don't use them much on the daily, as a video tutorial thing I'd film and in that imaginary video i was getting comments asking whether I cleanse my decks before using them if they go everywhere in that faux-maternalistic control technique witchy social media likes, and I was thinking about how I didn't value my tools being "spiritually clean" when they live in my backpack because they're tools. and then I was trying to think of why the obsession with spiritual cleansing in particular bothers me and its bc it is forcing a boundary between spirituality and thr world
I feel like the heavy community dismissal of the use of love magic or fortune telling for “silly” things is the magic community’s way of being in its “I hate pink” phase.
In a bid for a non-standard belief and practice to be validated by outsiders, a lot of us are quick to dismiss types of magic that can be easily classified as frivolous. I understand why this knee-jerk reaction often happens, but I do think it’s absolutely worth admitting that there is plenty of evidence for divination and magic being used for entertainment without diminishing its power. A practice doesn’t need to be complex and somber all of the time, that’s poor incentive to engage in it sincerely. Go do something fun
Indigeneity and being white are not two mutually exclusive things, btw.
One of them is an indisputable fact, the other one is a category that is based on how someone looks.
Culturally disconnected white ‘allies’ will holler about blood quantum being bad until they’re purple in the face and then still attack and dismiss indigenous people based upon skin color
In the Shadow of Romantics: How the 19th Century Invented a Monolithic Slavdom.
Before you head into the forest to find Perun, make sure you aren't just following the footsteps of a 19th-century poet who invented that forest for the sake of politics.
I. A Lesson from Heathenry: A Rose Is Not Just a "Color Variant"
You’ve likely encountered the standard division of Heathenry into Continental, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon traditions. That’s the baseline. However, within these groups, a battle for the identity of the gods still rages. Are Woden, Wotan, and Odin really the same person?
A segment of scholars and practitioners stubbornly maintains that these are three distinct evolutionary branches of an idea, rather than a single monolith. Think of it like roses: enthusiasts can point out differences in scent, hardiness, and petal structure. No one serious would just wave their hand and say, "Whatever, it’s just a different color variant."
The notion that all Germanic peoples shared the exact same pantheon was born in the mid-19th century. It was then, on the wave of Romanticism, that fragments were cobbled together to form one "Great Germanic Soul." When the Brothers Grimm crafted the narrative around Ostara and the goddess Eostre, they weren’t just collecting folktales—they were building a national foundation. Soon, these theories evolved into Pan-Germanism: a vision of unity designed to paper over political fragmentation.
The problem is that many of these theories, despite a total lack of evidence, are still uncritically echoed today by people who give deep research a wide berth.
II. The Slavic "Awakening"
But let’s leave the Germans and Scandinavians aside for a moment. Let’s look at what was shaping the minds of thinkers in Slavic lands during that same era. These ideas are experiencing a renaissance today, though few realize how deeply "contaminated" they are by the 19th-century zeitgeist. Even though many Slavic nations lacked independence at the time, their visions shared the same motifs, albeit with different narratives.
The key figure in this movement is Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski. At the turn of the 19th century, he was the first to put forward the radical postulate of a "return to the Slavic religion." Zorian became the archetype of the globetrotting intellectual. He deeply believed that traces of the ancient Slavic world survived in pristine form among the common folk—in peasant songs and rituals that Western Latin had failed to corrupt.
His diagnosis was uncompromising: "Christianity is not our native culture, for Christianity erased it."
Zorian wrote:
One must go and humble oneself beneath the peasant’s thatch in various distant lands; one must hasten to his feasts, games, and adventures. There, in the smoke rising above their heads, ancient rites still drift, old songs are hummed, and amidst the dances of the simple folk, the names of forgotten gods resonate. In that bitter twilight, one can glimpse three moons shining for them, three virgin dawns, and the seven stars of the Wain.
You could think of him as a sort of Daniel Jackson from the Stargate universe, transplanted into the reality of the Slavic world. For those unfamiliar with the 1994 film or the series: Daniel is an archaeologist and linguist who champions bold theories. He claims that "the truth lies right before us, we just need to know how to read the signs, because everything we’ve been taught is wrong."
Much like Jackson, despite his vast knowledge and ambition, Zorian wasn’t taken seriously by the scientific elite—until "higher powers" took an interest in his work (in Zorian’s case, funding from Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and interest from the Tsarist administration). He was pulled into the gears of politics and Grand History, even while average citizens—and even the elites of his time—remained unaware of the weight of his revolutionary discoveries.
While Zorian dreamed of a return to pagan groves, his findings paradoxically served to build religious and political ideologies that had little to do with actual paganism. He provided the fuel for many later self-proclaimed researchers. His ambitions, studies, and notes were quickly seized upon by Slavophiles. For them, a return to roots wasn’t just a matter of spirituality—it was an act of political rebellion against Western Enlightenment rationalism.
Zorian on the left side, Daniel on the right side
III. The Noble Savage and the Messiah of Europe
Around these assumptions, the idea of the European "Noble Savage" began to crystallize. Johann Gottfried von Herder praised the Slavs as a peaceful, hospitable people deeply tied to the land—a narrative that intellectuals across the region snatched up instantly. The argument was simple: since the Slavs accepted Christianity relatively late, they remained morally purer, closer to nature, and less "corrupted" by Western rationalism. In this vision, the Slav appeared as a noble, unblemished "child of nature."
What the West perceived as "Slavic primitivism," the proponents of this idea rebranded as the highest virtue. They went so far as to claim that the Slavs knew no slavery, no war, and no authoritarian rule, living instead in egalitarian communities based on cooperation rather than mindless conquest. It was a beautiful image, but entirely ahistorical. It served primarily to boost the national ego and act as a defense mechanism against Western cultural dominance.
While Slavic veche (assemblies) certainly existed, claiming they were a universal practice for all tribes is a massive stretch—it’s like assuming every Greek polis was a democracy. Unfortunately, the idealization of the veche as a fully democratic organ where everyone had a real voice is a pure projection of 19th-century ideals onto a distant past.
To make matters more complex, these visions often intertwined with fervent Christianity—whether Catholic or Orthodox—and the idea of Messianism. The Slavs were cast as the "Jesus" or even the "Messiah of Europe"—a people called to play a redemptive role in the continent's history. These were beautiful, if risky, visions; they allowed people to momentarily forget the harsh reality of partitions, the weight of Germanization, or the crush of the Tsarist boot.
One could multiply examples of these attitudes. In my high school, we were limited strictly to Polish literature, and only with time did I realize that Poland was no exception in this regard. (To any Slovaks, Croats, Ukrainians, or other Slavs reading this—I apologize for omitting your intellectuals and their specific concepts for now. To keep things fair, I’m skipping many Polish thinkers as well; perhaps we’ll discuss them another time).
IV. Pan-Slavism vs. Slavophilism: A Cocktail with Bitter Vodka
Pan-Slavism developed in a terrifying vice—clamped between the politics of Prussia and Austria on one side and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire on the other. The Napoleonic Wars had smuggled the spirit of the French Revolution into Central Europe: a thirst for liberty and a revolt against feudalism. Initially, the movement was built on the idea of active cooperation and brotherhood. Intelecutals met to share discoveries in the burgeoning fields of folklore, history, and philology.
Pan-Slavists were simultaneously impressed and horrified by Pan-Germanism (which was rising as a counterweight to French influence). Particularly disturbing were the anti-Slavic sentiments voiced by some Pan-German intellectuals. Slavs were dismissed as "nations without history," claimed to be "non-European outsiders," or even described as "fodder for the soil."
To counter this, Slavs began spinning hypotheses similar to those found in Pan-Germanism. The goal was to prove: "We have always been here, and our history is as ancient as yours." The hunt began for a "Slavic Olympus," "Slavic Eddas," or "Slavic Vedas"—anything to prove they weren't "inferior." In the process, they conveniently forgot that a Slav from the Balkans might not have had contact with Slavs from the Vistula, Prague, or Kyiv for centuries.
Unfortunately, Russian Slavophiles joined the party and poured a liter of bitter vodka into the Pan-Slavic cocktail. Smiling at their "suffering brothers," they offered a radical solution: "All Slavs should unite under the Tsar's scepter and convert to Orthodoxy if they wish to survive at all."
For many Slavic nations, this was a shock—a bitter pill to swallow. The Czech intellectual Karel Borovský, initially fascinated by Russia, wrote these famous words after visiting:
"The Russians call everything Russian 'Slavic,' so that later they can call everything Slavic 'Russian'."
And so, Pan-Slavism, which was meant to protect Slavs from "denationalization," became the ideological fuel for Russian imperial ambitions. Instead of protecting local cultures, it sought to impose a single, central pattern from Saint Petersburg.
This led to the first great schism. To the Russians, many Western Slavs were "traitors to Slavdom" who had been seduced by Rome—with Poles being labeled the "Judas who betrayed the Christ of Nations." To the Poles, the Russians were "Mongols pretending to be Slavs"—claiming their only Slavic element was their language, while spiritually and politically they belonged to the world of steppe despotism.
Czechs, Slovenes, Croats, and Slovaks remained skeptical, viewing Russia as a "dangerous cousin"—a relative, perhaps, but one to be kept at a distance. Ukrainians and Belarusians were torn internally between East and West. Only the Southern Slavs and Slovaks, looking for a savior from Ottoman rule, enthusiastically joined the chorus singing about "Mother Russia."
V. The Traps of the "Found Ancients"
To be clear: the Pan-Slavist conventions birthed a mountain of far-fetched theories—and not just those dreamed up by Russian Slavophiles. Suddenly, "ancient" artifacts were being "discovered" everywhere. Many turned out to be blatant forgeries, like the Mikorzyn Stones or the Queen's Court Manuscript.
Linguistics became a battlefield. Scholars began hunting for Slavic roots in almost every word, stretching facts until they snapped just to fit a thesis. The Etruscan language was claimed to be Russian (because Etruscan sounds like Eto-Ruski—"This is Russian"). The Amazons were derived from the Polish/Slavic cry "O mężonki!" (suggesting women fighting like their husbands). It was even asserted that Slavs must have had their own "Vedas" because the word Veda sounds like the Slavic viedza (knowledge).
The logic followed one rule: "It sounds similar, so it must be the same." Russian Pan-Slavists leaned into this heavily, desperate to prove a hegemony where other Slavic nations were merely "stray sheep" returning to the fold.
Much of today’s "Rodnovery" (Slavic Neopagan) mythology is rooted in this period. Even the fantasies of "Great Slavic Empires"—supposedly crushed by a joint Vatican-German conspiracy—are nothing more than echoes of 19th-century inferiority complexes.
The situation was exacerbated in the 18th and 19th centuries when German scholars working in Russia (like Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer and Gerhard Friedrich Müller) formulated the Norman Theory. Their central thesis: "The Slavic ancestors of the Russians were incapable of creating state structures on their own, so they had to be organized by Swedish Vikings—the Varangians."
Russian intellectuals went into a frenzy. Instead of accepting that Slavs (like all European peoples) lived in dynamic interaction with their neighbors, they began creating myths of total "state-building autonomy." They argued the Varangians were merely "invited" as mercenaries and insisted that Rurik was not a Swede, but a "pure-blooded" Slav.
Surprisingly, even during the Soviet era, advocating for the Norman Theory carried the risk of repression (a metaphorical or literal "bullet to the head"). The fight against "Normanism" became a key pillar of the campaign against "rootless cosmopolitanism" and Western influence. Even "State Atheism" and "Scientific Communism" couldn't protect Soviet researchers from historical and archaeological manipulations.
Boris Rybakov, despite his undeniable talent, was often blinded by a very specific brand of patriotism. His and other soviet scholar defensive need to prove Slavic superiority over the "Germanic invader" still casts a shadow over Early Medieval studies today.
While modern genetics has confirmed that the Rurikid dynasty had Scandinavian roots (proven by the haplogroup N-M178, specifically N1c1), it remains a sore spot for many Russians—even as they simultaneously take pride in the imperial might of Kievan Rus'.
VI. Slavic Frankenstein vs. Slavic Plurality
In our quest for the "true" ancient world, the 19th century created a historical Frankenstein. Many practitioners today—especially those outside Europe (like in the US) who approach Slavic belief systems through a modern lens—often don't realize they are working with a stitched-together monster. Even local enthusiasts often ignore the specific memory of the land in favor of a polished, unified aesthetic.
In the 1800s, we desperately hunted for a "Slavic Olympus" or "Slavic Eddas." We ignored the fact that even the Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson—a Christian diplomat whose goal was to preserve skaldic poetry while signaling that it was time to say goodbye to the old gods. Similarly, those who envy the "solid" power of Greek myths forget that Greek mythology was a messy, evolving process with countless regional variations.
Surprising as it may be, much of what we consider "universally Slavic" is not. Whether it’s the lunula pendants, the myth of the battle between Perun and Veles, specific holidays, or even the "white linen with red embroidery" aesthetic—these were often regional or later developments. In the 19th century, diversity was seen as a sign of weakness. Today, in the 21st century, many people still crave a "Slavic Zeus"—one god to rule them all—because they fear the complexity of pluralism.
I propose something more subversive.
Instead of pretending we were a monolith, let’s follow the lead of modern Heathenry. They successfully divided their traditions into Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, and Continental Germanic. Let’s start dividing the Slavic world—especially in research and practice—into:
West Slavic
East Slavic
South Slavic
Regarding the South Slavs, we must look beyond just language. We need to analyze whether a particular region was shaped by the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox model of Christianization. These two systems approached Slavic tribes in fundamentally different ways—one often imposing Latinity as a barrier, the other integrating the Slavic tongue into the liturgy, creating entirely different paths for how "Slavic identity" survived or was transformed within the church structure.
Each of these branches was shaped by different influences long before Christianization and after. This approach is far closer to reality. It allows us to compare sources honestly, point out errors, and engage in credible discourse.
Acknowledging our differences is not a weakness; it is a richness we don't need to hide from Germans, Greeks and other. By embracing this plurality, we might finally escape historical forgeries and the toxic fantasies of "Great Slavic Empires."
Yugoslavia may have fallen, but one of its many lessons was that clinging to a "single truth" or a "single god" often leads to conflict. Where monotheism (in all its forms) demands a monopoly on truth, polytheism offers room for everyone.
VII. Conclusion: Look into the Romantic’s Mirror
Is what we call the "revival of roots" today a genuine return to the faith of our ancestors? Or is it a continuation of a 19th-century project designed to build an identity in spite of others? Before we head into the forest to seek Perun, it is worth searching our own minds for the footprints of a Romantic poet or the delusions of a Russian Slavophile who invented that forest in the first place. Trying to force a unified "Slavic theology" into a Christian-shaped mold is problematic—it robs Slavdom of its specific charm and true spirit.
The truth is, we know far more about Slavic animism than we do about the gods themselves. We often encounter figures where it’s unclear if they are a deity, a different type of entity, or merely a "dark or bright face" of a larger force. Many modern followers of Thor, Odin, Hecate, or Aphrodite overlook animism, even though it is foundational. It is animism—more than epic tales or lists of divine names—that makes pre-Abrahamic beliefs whole and grounded.
Contrary to popular belief, the common folk directed their attention toward local spirits (the equivalents of the Fae or Kami). It was to them that the peasant brought requests, grievances, and curses. Animism teaches us one thing above all: we are not alone here. This awareness allows us to reclaim a sense of agency over our reality and the changes occurring within it.
True Slavic heritage doesn't need golden thrones or invented empires. It hides in the locality, in the whispers of spirits, and in a rigorous history that isn't afraid to admit: "We don't know everything, but what we do know is fascinating enough without the lies."
PLEASE go read this, SlavPols especially but anybody, really. This is an amazing breakdown of so many problems within cultural research, reconnection, and so on.
Some of the traits in writing that OP brings up (and uses in an excellent meme) in this post are attitudes and ideas seen today, and are vital to be aware of so you can use discernment with modern authors, as many self-proclaimed teachers will write about these myths as if they are fact, or play into them themselves (Hi Patricia Woodruff, who somehow manages to Noble Savage² by identifying as Slavic and then as Lemko within Slavic to spread misinformation)
Stop thinking so hard about participating in culture and just go do it. If you exist in actual community with people, you will be corrected in mistakes and be able to have conversations about your viewpoints without being shunned.
Colonial culture teaches us that we may only be cared for or loved if we are perfect, and being perfect is never truly possible. Non-colonial culture teaches us that we may make mistakes or be uncertain or stupid, but we are also valuable enough to be taught better.
Our fixation on perfection leads us to fixate on being enough and interferes with our ability to be present. Get up and go talk to people in your community, you will learn more and feel safer than you ever will doom spiraling about ancestry DNA results and yearning for a romanticized version of “the homeland”
56.1% of indigenous women experience sexual violence
40% of sex trafficking victims are AI/AK native women
i am a survivor. many of my sisters, cousins, and aunts are too. many of them are lost forever, many are still missing. i mourn them every day but especially today.
check in on the indigenous women, girls, and two-spirits in your life. advocate and fight for their safety. today, wear red and show up for them, for us.
fellow survivors i love you and i’m here for you. we aren’t going anywhere
Denying the role that individuals need to play in combating the climate crisis is the leftist version of climate change denial. Anyone responding to suggestions of realistic, accessible changes to reduce your own impact with anything resembling ‘100 companies are responsible for most of our emissions so this is pointless’ are engaging in science denialism.
There is no way that collective action takes place without individuals making changes in their own lives. Yes, the rich are more responsible than the poor and yes, what we need is systematic change. However, there absolutely are things we can and should be doing to reduce our own impact and put pressure on polluting industries through direct action and boycott.
These include stopping or reducing flying, eliminating or drastically reducing our consumption of meat and dairy, buying second hand where possible, repairing, recycling and supporting environmental action and rewilding efforts. None of this in isolation will mend the world but its a hell of a lot better than passing the buck while refusing to make any changes in our own lives.
I know that the idea that climate change is caused by someone else; somewhere else, and that it’s up to them to change instead of us is seductive rhetoric, but it’s also extremely dangerous. It encourages the kind of apathy that plays directly into the hands of corporations who want us to feel powerless and to continue to consume as we do now.
We can’t just sit around and wait for The Revolution; we have to live revolutionary lives.
Just to add for some of you in the notes, the ‘100 corporations are responsible for 71% of emissions’ headline was a gross, clickbait misrepresentation of the truth. Influencers and media outlets twisted the results of this study because they knew consumers wanted something, anything, to tell them that the responsibility isn’t on them to make any change, since it’s all the fault of those big nasty corporations. The following is from the Fullfact analysis of this study:
“In the original press release accompanying the report, CDP said: “100 active fossil fuel producers including ExxonMobil, Shell, BHP Billiton and Gazprom are linked to 71% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.”
“This means that the total estimated cumulative greenhouse gas emissions released by human activity (excluding carbon dioxide from land use, land use change and forestry, and agricultural methane) between 1988 and 2015, 71% of those emissions originated from 100 fossil fuel producers. This includes the emissions from producing fossil fuels (like oil, coal and gas), and the subsequent use of the fossil fuels they sell to other companies. Therefore, it might not come as such a surprise that these 100 entities are linked to 71% of human activity-related greenhouse gas emissions, since all 100 are fossil fuel producers.”
In other words, this study (which was extremely limited in scope) concluded that 100 companies produce 71% of the fossil fuels which are then used by other industries and by consumers themselves. 100 companies aren’t causing 71% of emissions, they’re producing the fossil fuels that are then linked to 71% of emissions. Those are completely different things.
Modern leftism is rapidly veering towards an institutionalized victim complex that seeks to offload the blame of the individual at any cost to those more affected than them. This issue extends far beyond environmentalism and into all branches of social justice and politics, and even into our daily lives like when it comes to simple personal interactions. And you can't even speak out about it, because insisting that people take radical personal accountability is seen as misanthropy and classism. It's pathetic
