This is a fascinatingly erroneous application of the concept of thought crime. I can see where itâs coming from but itâs off the rails a bit in some rather interesting ways.
The concept of thought crime, and by extension the proposed âthought benevolenceâ, refers to things that exist entirely within the mind, the original idea being that youâll be punished for not âthinking rightâ as a commentary on the idea that one should have a right to their own thoughts (thatâs roughly the idea, at least). Looking at the postâs presented examples of âthought benevolenceâ we have reading theory, arguing on twitter, and talking. None of these exist within the mind, they all involve direct interaction with the outside world. They arenât thoughts at all, theyâre actions.
People reading this may or may not have noticed, but this is actually very well aligned with the way conservatives use the concept of thought crime. Weâve seen time and time again people loudly call for violence against a marginalized group, receive negative responses, and then claim theyâre being persecuted by the âliberal thought policeâ for their âdifference of opinionâ. Itâs treating action as thought, just like here.
This misuse serves a different purpose though, which you can see by comparing the âthoughtsâ (reading, talking, arguing) to the âactionsâ (voting, puchasing, donating). The purpose here is to present some actions as not accomplishing anything and others as making progress. Notice how all of the âactionsâ here are very polite, follow the status quo, align with neoliberal values, and can be talked about publicly without issue. The idea presented here subtly becomes âif I/polite society donât approve of the action youâre taking, then you arenât even taking an action at all, youâre just thinking and doing nothingâ. Even the goals of such a person are presented as existing fully in their head (they want a âfantasy revolutionâ).
We can sit here arguing all day about which actions are more or less effective, but I think we should all at least be able to agree that actions are actions and thoughts are thoughts. To be clear I donât think OP set out to trick anyone, but in their thought crime related ârevelationâ they actually demonstrated the effects of propaganda very well, because itâs altered their very idea of what âtaking actionâ means and watered it down to a list of state-approved behaviors which they present in contrast to a strawman âdo-nothing leftistâ whoâs actions have been literally minimized out of existence.