Is it possible to be too grateful?

[lpetrich]

This is something that I read long ago, and that I recently rediscovered.

Lenin: The Government's Falsification of the Duma and the Tasks of the Social-Democrats in marxists.org

Some context:

But here we see the deep gulf that separates the tactics of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie from the tactics of the socialist proletariat. The Social-Democrats advocate a struggle, and explain to the people with the aid of a thousand and one lessons from history that a struggle is inevitable; they are preparing for it and retaliate to the intensification of reaction with intensified revolutionary agitation. The liberals cannot advocate a struggle, because they are afraid of it. They respond to the intensification of reaction by whining about a constitution, thus corrupting people’s minds, and by intensified opportunism.

The "liberals" here are wimpy and cowardly moderate reformists.

The methods of the liberals were aptly and graphically hit off by the Trudovik Sedelnikov at a meeting on May 9 in the Panina Palace. When a liberal is abused, he says: Thank God they didn’t beat me. When he is beaten, he thanks God they didn’t kill him. When he is killed, he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from its mortal clay.

In effect, liberals are excessively grateful.

That quote from him makes me think: is there a such thing as too much gratitude?

 

[ronburgundy]

This is something that I read long ago, and that I recently rediscovered.

Lenin: The Government's Falsification of the Duma and the Tasks of the Social-Democrats in marxists.org

Some context:

But here we see the deep gulf that separates the tactics of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie from the tactics of the socialist proletariat. The Social-Democrats advocate a struggle, and explain to the people with the aid of a thousand and one lessons from history that a struggle is inevitable; they are preparing for it and retaliate to the intensification of reaction with intensified revolutionary agitation. The liberals cannot advocate a struggle, because they are afraid of it. They respond to the intensification of reaction by whining about a constitution, thus corrupting people’s minds, and by intensified opportunism.

The "liberals" here are wimpy and cowardly moderate reformists.

The methods of the liberals were aptly and graphically hit off by the Trudovik Sedelnikov at a meeting on May 9 in the Panina Palace. When a liberal is abused, he says: Thank God they didn’t beat me. When he is beaten, he thanks God they didn’t kill him. When he is killed, he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from its mortal clay.

In effect, liberals are excessively grateful.

That quote from him makes me think: is there a such thing as too much gratitude?

Not sure about the OP question in more general terms, but the quotes express bullshit conception of liberals. The liberal respect for the Constitution and Rights is because those things are as important and valuable as anything the socialist wants to fight for, and in fact are neccessary for any sustainable system that limits oppression and the things socialists claim to care about. The revolutionary socialist is often childishly short sighted, trying to fight oppression and lack of respect for persons with counter-oppression and counter-lack of respect for persons. This approach is logically impossible. Those methods can only ever achieve a change in who at the time is being oppressed, but do so by devaluing the concepts of rights and due process that make future oppression of everyone more probable.

Essentially, the revolutionary socialist wants to use a slash, burn, and heavy dose of pesticide method of trying to grow a better outcome, while the liberal seeks a more sustainable approach that will take longer to grow the desired crops and may never achieve the perfect ideal version of the crop, but it keeps the land more fertile so that those crops are sustainable and other severe damages are not caused that are as bad as not having the crops to begin with.

Of course, context matters. If the current situation is one where constitutional principles and rights have already been completely destroyed and not honored by the present government, the there is no further harm that can be done to these principles by violent revolution. But if, despite some injustices and abuses, there still remains a system where constitutional principles and rights are recognized to some degree, then it can be far more costly and harmful to destroy what is left of them via violent revolution than to restore and extend them via reformation within the legal bounds of that system.