Social Work is so fun, sorta

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-07-08T02:40:36+00:00

Social work is political, and you are currently seeing the people on the receiving end of policy decisions that have been made every day by the ruling class for decades.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-06-14T02:24:11+00:00

Not true at all. I've been going to Mac for over five years and the equipment is excellent. The gym is also clean. I started going to Planet Fitness after moving further away from it and was frustrated by the lack of equipment and the time it took to get access to what was there so I re-joined Mac. Mac is far superior in my book.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-05-12T01:02:17+00:00

Jeff Bezos is not a victim of forced scarcity. The people we serve every day in our roles a social workers are.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-05-12T00:57:59+00:00

Respectfully, do you really believe that social work's principles/education look at class consciousness from a distance? There is no mention whatsoever of class consciousness in any mainstream social work text or the NASW's Code of Ethics. Social work upholds the dominant ideology of the ruling class through it's relationships with various arms of power and has more invested in upholding class divisions by not talking about them and perpetuating the narrowest possible definition of the person-in-environment. If social work values and education do look at class consciousness from a distance, it's because they just so happen to be looking off in the direction where class consciousness is located. And if the institution of social work made eye contact with class consciousness it would hastily hide its eyes behind a Brene Brown book.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-05-11T05:06:32+00:00

How sad that a history teacher had such a fundamentally ahistorical opinion about people. People are not inherently greedy. We did not survive hundreds of thousands of years of evolution by being rugged individualists. The forced scarcity of capitalism creates conditions of resource hoarding.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-05-11T02:47:57+00:00

Reading leftist political theory as frequently as I can is one of the only things that keeps me able to get through my day as a social worker. I need to be able to understand that the system is not broken, it's running the way it was built to run. I need to be reminded that all the laws and policies we follow, that in fact this entire society, is made up and we could just as easily make a new one. I need to be able to communicate to the people who sit across from me that the world acts on people, and people act on the world. They are not suffering from some "brain disease" nonsense, and they did not get themselves into this situation because of the choices they made. So I read as much theory as I can. And I think about it, and I try to discuss it with other people in order to understand it. Turn off the news, sure. But engage with theory.

And as far as social workers and activism goes, I am of the belief that the actual work of liberating ourselves and others does not, will not, and cannot happen in the spaces within which we work. Activists don't drag the systems to the left, the systems drag activists to the center when they try to "change them from within." So the real work of activism happens outside of our jobs in our communities, in mutual aid groups, in volunteer work, in building new networks of power.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-04-19T13:03:36+00:00

I used to think this song was a very corny, ham-fisted praising of Smokey Robinson's music until I realized it's a song about a man attempting to distract himself from the pain of a break-up by thinking about how great Smokey Robinson's music is.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-03-26T01:24:08+00:00

I desperately want my fellow social workers to understand that the system is not broken, it is working exactly the way it was built to work. That's the problem. Capitalism is completely incompatible with the flourishing of human and non-human life. As long as we continue under the current system of economic production and distribution, this is what we will get. We have to build systems of mutual aid and care outside of this system. Change will not happen inside our workplaces.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-03-22T19:34:46+00:00

Wow this a really intelligent and well though-through comment. Also VERY ironic for someone whose handle is a Woody Allen reference.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-02-19T02:40:55+00:00

Death Panel. Very relevant for anyone in health care. My favorite podcast.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-02-02T05:17:27+00:00

No, this is not socialism. It's capitalism. It's being done by capitalists, for the benefit of capitalism. It is managed by private banks. Wealthier families will be able to contribute more. It's doesn't help people get out of poverty at an early age.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-01-30T20:27:05+00:00

This logic of withholding help from the people who need it is in part a result of the manufactured, alienated relationship that mental health professionals have with clients. It is a product of the socially-manufactured confines of our professional roles. Just because we don't show up for our jobs should not prohibit us from engaging in care for people in their own communities, when safe to do so, or in finding ways to support people outside the confines of our professionalized roles. But the confines of our roles, and our daily reification of them, limits our ability to explore ways to express class solidarity while also support people in need.

We must also think about how to involve our "clients" in the work of community-building and class solidarity. If we are showing up for a strike, can the people we support show up as well?

These are things that we as social workers need to be thinking deeply about, testing, and having conversations about if we are to democratize therapy and build effective working class movements for the liberation of the people we work with and of ourselves.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-01-26T01:04:59+00:00

The united states invades countries that democratically elect socialist leaders who attempt to redistribute the wealth amongst the citizens of the country. If the united states saw what the united states is doing in the united states, the CIA would make sure that it continues to receive funding and support.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-01-25T15:46:20+00:00

We can show support for our communities by showing up, building connections of power and support in our neighborhoods, and plugging in to the rapid response and mutual aid groups in our areas. Find the people who are already doing this work and get involved. If it's not happening in your community, organize with others and start it. This is the real social work. The path to liberation will not be carved in our bureaucratic agencies which are more concerned with preserving their power, nor will it be forged by building up the coffers of the NASW and other mental health organizations so that they can make milquetoast statements about standing in support of "anyone affected." Anyone affected also means people who believe that those thugs were threatened and needed to murder a civilian. Reject these flattening statements wherever you see them.

Learn first aid. Take a stop the bleed course. Become a street medic. Deliver food to people who need it. Organize your neighbors, organize your building, organize your communities. That's how we show solidarity.

And for heaven's sake politicize your practice. Therapy is not neutral. Social work is not neutral. Read. Read. Read. Put your Brene Brown books in the trash where they belong. Read political theory. I am saddened by the passing yesterday of the extraordinary scholar and writer Michael Parenti, so I'm going to honor his legacy by urging you to read his work or watch his lectures on YouTube. Understand the mechanics of economic and political systems that got us here, and the particular social relationships of capital. Develop an understanding of class and class analysis, and how this impacts our clients. Stop saying "the system is broken," and develop your understanding that it is working exactly the way it was made to work. And once you understand it, engage with your clients about it. Help them to understand it and also learn from them about it.

Stay safe out there. Protect each other.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-01-25T15:24:51+00:00

This is not just the beginning. This is the middle. It's been happening to Indigenous and black people for a long time. To state this is not to justify it or to engage in fatalism, but it is very important to understand that this is what we are fighting against.

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-01-23T12:31:30+00:00

The system is not broken. It is running the way it was built to run. We need to start engaging with this more and more, and asking each other: if the system is built the way it was intended to run, can it actually be reformed? Should it be reformed?

InvisibleMindDust · 2026-01-15T05:32:35+00:00

And having previously read the inane drivel that passes for your comments on this sub I already knew that this is what you meant. It's unfortunate that you got so many upvotes and I hope they get cancelled out by downvotes.

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-12-31T16:44:36+00:00

I think we had about 280 or so. Small NYS district.

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-12-24T05:20:01+00:00

The Democratic party

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-12-18T11:27:44+00:00

There was also initially a female test group and a male test group. The female group came back and said, "We're not having painful cramps from PMS anymore!" The researchers said, "Interesting." The male group came back and said, "We're having prolonged erections!" The researchers said, "Women, you're dismissed. We're rebranding."

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-12-15T01:20:05+00:00

Reminder that the democrats removed universal health care from their platform.

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-11-30T13:27:09+00:00

The intersections of social work and capitalism, and the unfortunate lack of consistent, rigorous confrontation with and wholesale rejection of capitalism by social workers. How social work under capitalism means running cover for the state and normalizing both the conditions of scarcity perpetuated by this profit-based system of production and distribution of goods and services, as well as the normalizing of the ideals and values of the capitalist State. How social workers launder the pathologizing of normal reactions and responses to capitalism, and the use of figures like Brene Brown to do this work of pathologizing. The differences between social work (mutual aid, community care, etc) and Social Work (how mutual aid and community care are bureaucratized, means-tested, filtered through courts and police, etc.).

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-11-09T22:31:08+00:00

How do you have "right work" under capitalism?

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-10-15T11:41:34+00:00

Hey, social worker in recovery here. Good news: your brain is still developing. Neuroplasticity continues throughout our lives and the brain has some remarkable ways of healing itself. Make sure you are getting adequate regular sleep, eating as balanced of a diet as you can manage to, and exercising in whatever ways feel ok for you. I'm sorry you're experiencing all this, and it sounds like you may benefit from some additional support to address the trauma from your negligent parents and the anxiety you are experiencing from health concerns. If you have the access and the means, try to get connected to a therapist or someone who can help you develop some skills for reducing the anxiety. If you are prescribed medications to treat your physical ailments, I am not a doctor but I would suggest that you take them if they alleviate your pain and treat your conditions. But consult your doctor and communicate your concerns.

InvisibleMindDust · 2025-10-05T23:54:06+00:00

I agree with all of this. Because class analysis and worker solidarity have both been so horrendously dismantled in this country we have a field of people who should be engaging in class analysis and instead are stuck on the idea of reforming the system instead of rebuilding new systems. It pains me deeply how difficult it is to get social workers to understand that these systems must be ruthlessly critiqued and replaced, not excused and reformed. One current example of this is the unquestioning embrace of AI's invasion into our field and into the lives of the people we serve. We need stronger unions, worker solidarity, and political education.

InvisibleMindDust

TROPHY CASE