The only thing that makes an evil “lesser” is that there is less energy going towards supporting it. By putting it into power you make it the greater evil. “Lesser evil” shit is something everyone has to unlearn if they are ever going to help anyone. How far capitalists and the state are willing to go is as far as they think they can get away with. If any capitalist or politician is being held back by morals, they will be replaced by ones that aren’t. If there is a profit margin to squeeze, anyone willing to squeeze it gains that power. People can get away with a lot more with less scrutiny, so the lesser you think their evil is, the more of it they can get away with.

The “lesser” fascist is still a fascist, and fascists spend much more of their time attacking us than attacking each other, and on top of that even if they do attack each other it’s through attacking us.

  • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    The only thing that makes an evil “lesser” is that there is less energy going towards supporting it. By putting it into power you make it the greater evil.

    this just seems categorically untrue, unless you think that there are no meaningful differences in outcomes even between “lesser evils” and “greater evils” (in which case i would argue your distinction does not exist here and therefore is not useful for the purposes of this argument). the idea that energy and power alone/even primarily determine “evil” in this context also seems deeply reductive–just because Nick Fuentes, for example, is not at serious risk of running the country does not mean his ideas are a lesser evil to the regular liberalism currently in power and only become a greater evil once he is.