[SFPOM] The True Meaning of Unity
Elaine of the Snowy Forest
Greetings to my friends and enemies,
I would like to begin by thanking anyone who voted, and giving just a little more thanks to anyone that voted for the SFP so I could get into office.
So, Unity. The top Google definition is “the state of being united or joined as a whole.”. This is only something that we can apply to humans when looked at from specific angles. Metaphysical beliefs aside: I am not you, you are not me, we cannot be a single entity. When people call for unity, they certainly do not mean “we should all be the same”. They are saying “we should work together and not fight among ourselves”. That sounds very reasonable. I love not fighting people. Okay, that’s a lie. I love fighting people because MMA is an excellent sport and hobby. But outside of that I don’t like fighting people. So if working together sounds great, what’s the problem with calling for unity?
Calls for unity are, at worst, political prestidigitation. Politicians of a party with a slight majority will say “We would be making so much progress right now, if only the minority party would stop disagreeing with us. We need to heal as a nation, and move forward to realize positive change”. Naturally, anyone from the minority party will immediately see that the majority party does not want unity, but rather to gain political points by blaming the minority party for refusing their ‘reasonable offer’ of national unification. Additionally, many calls for unity are actually calls to maintain the status quo. This is naturally also unacceptable to any group that is disadvantaged by the status quo, or seeks radical change. The SFP often falls under this category, as we have goals that go against the grain of the mechanical implementation of the game itself.
So, when is unity important? When does a call for unity matter? I think that most calls for unity are performative. When unity really matters, it’s often resulting from a situation so dire that people don’t need to be convinced to unify in the face of it. Calls to unity consequentially only have value when you have hope of changing people’s hearts/minds by the strength of rhetoric alone. And since words are cheap, we see them all the time. As such, unity IS possible in respect to any given goal, but there’s always an “if” attached to it. Unity in defending our country is possible if, and only if, we convince a sufficient number of people that our country is worth defending. But unity is also often unlikely. I’ll never agree with someone in real life that thinks that we should deny anyone access to food, water, shelter, or healthcare.
When people are asking for unity, we need to figure out what kind of unity they’re asking for. What do they actually care about, and whose minds are they hoping to change? We need to figure out the bare minimum we need to agree on in order to exist as a nation and have the privilege of arguing about everything else. As long as we stay unified on those issues, we can be disunified on every other issue (although, naturally I hope everyone else will really come together as a country and agree with me).
May All Be Well,
Elaine of the Snowy Forest
Comments
UNITY will never happen and if you were here several years ago you would understand why...
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What kind of unity are you referring to? My article takes care to point out that unity only exists as a concept we can apply to reality when understood in a specific context.
(reposted comment due to typo)
huge flaw in the logic you presented, the unity of a bot swopping scheme where a few have a lot more accounts than others, If a player wants to respect the thought of one player one vote they have already behind and until there is true unity against the union of multi cheaters that status quo won't change.
Regarding Frankly he just wants a silly endless fight against rational thought. Where in you talk about the SPF, you seemly leave his convictions out of the equation. As if the SPF is a movement outside of the actual membership.
Sure it can happen, but only if curmudgeons stop being curmudgeons.
as a curmudgeon IRL I resent this remark lol
Sounds almost like something I could have written 2 years ago, give it time, eRep will suck your soul out too 😛
That's my plan. Before I sacrifice my soul to the Gods of cynicism, I'll find someone to take my place. With a fresh stream of blood sacrifices, we can keep the spirit of revolution alive 😛
Hey man, how you doing? We miss you!
Well written! o7
I don't actually expect us all to hold hands and sing kumbaya, but I do hope we could start showing each other a little more respect when disagreeing on things that matter. Mud throwing has/will get us nowhere other than our current position of hate between certain players/parties.
I have worked with a few members in SFP in the past many of us got along then once we disagreed it all went down the drain. To be honest these days I feel a certain hatred for BSP from certain players in SFP that I don't quite understand. These past grudges will only lead us further apart more so when some have no idea what the grudges are even about anymore lol. We will always have certain members in any party/MU that just will never get along which is normal. Even occasionally amusing/funny, but then these squabbles between the few lead to whole parties going at that will just lead us further apart like we are now. I have seen certain players agree with an issue, but because it is coming from certain players/parties knock those issues out of spite for that player/party.
I'm not saying I know how to fix any past grudges, but might be time to let them go if possible to see if we could possibly work together toward a stronger country/nation.
I am hopeful (probably insanely) that the SFP's mass line initiatives will create new channels of communication between (actual) players that can help forge a revolutionary style of unity and action.
Unity sucks... conflicts and fights are far more entertaining ...