this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025
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Yeah, I view them as catspaws. They are assisting someone working against their interests without understanding how they are being used. You can show sympathy for them while nonetheless opposing them.
And you're right that everyone should have the humility to accept they also sabotage themselves sometimes. But electing who will lead the country is high stakes and some accountability is fair.
I didn't mean to insinuate that anybody should not be held accountable for their actions. Just the opposite is how I feel, really. But I also believe that many of them can do and learn better if provided with the right care and resources. That's not to say I know how to make that work, but that there is always, always, always a better path forward if enough qualified and caring people put their heads together and make it happen.
Very few of us are truly and entirely irredeemable. Some just take a lot more resources and time to be redeemed than others, is how I see it. I believe it is worth it, for the sake of all of our futures as well as those of people yet to be born, to try and see to it that paths like this are taken and doubled down on as soon as is possible.
Despite being a fan of Orwell's and, more often than not, in agreement with the views he shared, I took his wording to be a bit too absolutist for my tastes on this quote. Understandably, given what we know of his lived experience, but still. There is always a better way as long as there are still people trying to find it. I don't believe in all of us, but I do believe in the capital 'u' Us, you know?
And I'm not familiar with the term "catspaws". Feel like teaching a stranger something new?
Well said. To be clear, I agree with your outlook on human nature, but I try to check myself on not being optimistic to the point of ignoring people's history. People do change, but we can't presume in which direction that will be. We must remember improvement is a hope and a genuine possibility, but not an expectation. On the other hand, Orwell is regarded as insightful for good reason but of course he is also very cynical about people and the future.
A catspaw is just a term for someone who is used as a tool of another to their detriment. It comes from a French fable where a monkey convinces a cat to grab some roasting chestnuts for them to eat, but the monkey eats them all while the cat ends up burning its paw.
Edit: This is the fable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_and_the_Cat
I have been known to think and act with hope-clouded vision at times. It is known. I think you're right, but will continue to choose to hope for the better of people, because I believe that hope, sometimes even the irrational varieties, is the fertile earth from which necessary changes most often grow. It is sometimes even the only ground that positive change can take to at all. If I keep at it on my end while enough others do the same on theirs, a better future will be made that much more accessible to everyone.
With that mindset, I don't feel I have the time for cynicism past a certain threshold (on some days, at least), and I am pretty certain that can be an invaluable asset in the right hands. Hopefully myself and enough others have such hands rather than these allegorical paws. Thanks for filling me in on that btw. Your comparison with it was spot on.