Seth Godin: What are the defaults?

Seth Godin asks What are the defaults?

It could be that the constraints that led to the default are long gone.

They might be perpetuating bad choices, injustice or sub-optimal outputs.

The best way to fix something is to look at what we assume is the ‘right’ starting spot.

In persistent systems, it might be difficult to change the default setting, but knowing what it is and how it got there is a great place to begin.

Emphasis Mine

This is great advice whether one is investigating:

• The occupation of Palestine
• The invasion of Ukraine
• The division of Korea
• Settler-colonial societies
• Patriarchy
• Etc.

For Marxists, history is paramount. This includes exploration of the unofficial histories as well, not just the official ones. The Black Armband stories need to be told and heard.

With the interrogation of these histories, Marxists can reconstruct the trajectories that society took to reach the current state.

The default setting of any society is the status quo. As Godin writes, one should start with investigation of how the status quo came to be. This gives us a starting point to consider how change to be effected.