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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Leftist Infighting: A community dedicated to allowing leftists to vent their frustrations
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Why do we always put quotes around "anarchist" whenever an anarchist has a bad take? It's not like sincerely identifying as an anarchist makes one immune from bad takes. We don't do this for any other leftist tendency, we don't put quotes around "ML" or "Trot" whenever one posts some cringe ass shit.
Because we hold out some modicum of respect for actual, real anarchists and not just some teenage-minded shopaholics at the supermarket of ideology who found some loophole to larp as being leftists while having zero skin in the game and a perfect vantage point to support western supremacy while believing they have a unlimited license to feel smug.
I think "teenage-minded" is doing most of the work here. There is no shortage of immature communists out there who also fit the rest of your paragraph as well.
I don’t know if the solution here is agism/childism/whatever. I’ve met some really stupid kids anarchist or reactionary, but I’ve also met good comrades my age both on here and irl. Yes there is an immaturity in ideology that can correlate with immaturity of mind and body but there are also a lot of stupid adults. Some may go through a radlib phase as a kid and some will be an even more insufferable anarkiddie as an adult. https://srslywrong.com/podcast/265-ageism-misopedy-adult-supremacy-child-liberation-childism-adultism-child-rights-etc/
I agree with you. I was just choosing to engage with my best interpretation of OP's statement.
Nonsense, there's a barrier to entry to being a communist. There's a massive shortage of us. Not so with anarcho-x kids.
To me this raises a more interesting question. We keep having debates about who and what is a real anarchist Vs a lib who thinks they're an anarchist. I think the question should be: why do so many Libs find the label anarchist appealing and more palpable than communist?
Because the anarchist symbol is on more merchandise and is represented more in capitalist media as something "cool" and "punk."
Anarchism is very much marketed as an ideology to be consumed to divert the working class from approaching theorists that revolutionary movements have leaned on to actually overthrow capitalist regimes. This isn't to say that there aren't valuable anarchist insights, just that objectively anarchist movements have yet to lead a successful revolution that can sustain itself.
Red scare propaganda obviously. If it’s “common knowledge” “socialism doesn’t work” but you see capitalism sucks you want a third way. That way is to reject all states and authority especially socialist states. A true anarchist distrustful of authority would support socialism as positive step away from capitalism, but many don’t question the authority of the red scarers and thus trust them when they say socialism is even worse.
Because it really is appealing at a surface level to a lot of people to declare (in a way that lacks theory) that there should be no rules and that no one should tell them what to do.
As I said above, no barrier to entry. You don't have to read a book. You can deflect away any criticism of the west as "Shur all states are bad!" and then focus all your criticism on AES states while appearing to remain ideologically consistent.
*palatable, for clarity
But I feel like Gramsci's writing on the relative failure of anarchists in Italy has some sort of relevance here.
https://redsails.org/discorso-agli-anarchici/
The most basic and unreflective impulse of social rebellion has a palpable connection to what anarchism is, even if many anarchist activists and theorists are much more sophisticated in their ideology than that might imply to you. Anarchism in a broad sense is also very compatible with the empty, abstract inferences that people raised in liberalism are used to approaching political ideology with. In juvenile anarchists, you can for example see this in the similarity between their "I oppose all states", even those that are historically progressive, and Ghandi saying "I oppose all violence" even in response to Jews fighting against Nazis!
There's no barrier to calling yourself anything.
True but you can't credibly do it for long without being found out. I'm actually Xi Jinping.
It's just a slow process of revealing that many are not informed enough, and more importantly, that there are legitimate disagreements to be had that have not been addressed enough beyond discourse and ideological struggle. Most theory is a product of certain perspectives examining specific histories in specific places. But everything is always changing and nothing is truly universal. It's only natural disagreements will be numerous even within perspectives that have similarities. And now days ideology seems reduced down to commodified identities that are developed through outrage and toxic, debatebro discourse so that doesn't really help either.
If you ask me we need better triangulations and to get more comfortable with pluralistic thinking instead of simply purifying and gatekeeping our ideological group. ML thought deserves to not be reduced to something so static, and it needs more opportunities and creative practitioners for it to become more applicable, and thus more credible in more places. In other words we need reciprocity and continuity with other perspectives as much as we need rigor and integrity within our own methods and ideologies.
Okay, doesn't explain why we don't extend the same courtesy to Trots or whoever
Most Trots I know are the real deal, not just knowingly spoofing. They're usually well meaning, just misled and unable to get past their western indoctrination.
I don't understand Trots. They don't like the USSR but they seem to be supportive of most other socialist projects other than China.
Its also wierd that many neocons used to be trots. Do they think that globalization is a way for a world government to occur so that one government can be used to build socialism? IDK
It's simple: does the state pose a political threat to the US? Yes? Then believe most of what the State Department says about it, just like they used to with the USSR (and still do retrospectively).
My best interpretation is that they see global hegemony as the solution to conflict by globalizing commerce and industry. Thus, they need a powerful state to wage such hegemony. I mean, GWB is the canonical elected neocon, and look at his not-so-small-gubmint DOHS or the TSA. Or conservatives general obsession with strong military and foreign encroachments. This put the neocons at odds with the libertarians regarding "foreign entanglements" -- instead of entanglement, neocons see hegemony.
While not necessarily canonical, the scene in the movie "W" where Cheney presents his plan for the Iraq War as a domino fall to lead to further expanded dominance in the Middle East, with his prognostication that "nobody will fuck with us then." The notion that Americanism is the world's savior, thus, we must provide Americanism to the world, by trade/legal/military force as necessary.
It's not too often we get mastodon users in lemmy threads.
It's definitely an experience. But hey, it's supposed to work, right? I shouldn't have to have *both* a Mastodon *and* a Lemmy account, if federation means anything.
Most Trots are incredibly well-read and very eloquent, but their conclusions are like incredibly uh “stupid”.
Because of the mythical existence of "based real life anarchist" as opposed to the "terminally online anarkiddies".
Idk if those exist, irl anarchists i know or i know of in Poland are and always were without exception anticommunists.
Was gonna say, people here talk about "fake internet anarchists" but it ain't exactly like the anarchists I've known irl are super pro-USSR. If anything I've encountered more AES sympathetic anarchists online than off.
I've run into a number of Greek anarchists whose complaints of the USSR boiled down to "Stalin didn't send enough weapons or troops and abandoned us"
Easy to understand why they'd be pissed about that. Sounds like the same idea as the "Stalin shouldn't have stopped at Berlin" meme but with the opposite sentiment than it's usually used with.
Not fun fact: The only thing Polish anarchists torched after 1989 was... Soviet consulate in Gdańsk in 1991.
I’ve met decent principled anarchists. They’re few and far between considering it’s often just a phase identity and they’ll go back to lib later. But there are decent ones and I wouldn’t expect you to find them in Poland (or much of the west).
There is a Polish IWW branch, you might have some luck finding "based real life anarchists" there.
It seems to me that self styled anarchists use the label because it's an easy, safe way of saying you're a bit of a rebel. It has a common, dictionary definition. At least in my country, you could shout that you're an anarchist from the rooftop and never lose your job.
The same is not true of Maoists, Trots, other kinds of Marxists. Nobody I've ever met claims to be one of those without having read some theory (the 'some' is variable, naturally). Claiming those labels brings heat and everyone knows it. If anything, I know more people who have read lots of Marxist theory who still don't claim the label because they know that it will put their skin in the game and potentially their job on the line.
Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think anyone would put quotation marks around 'anarchist' when describing or criticising e.g. Kropotkin. To me, it's more of a nod to the fact that 'anarchist' is often used in a meaningless way by people who aren't seeking accuracy.
They just want you to know that in an ideal world we wouldn't have a government or bosses or crime, etc, and everyone would decide all at the same time to share power and work together and all live happily ever after. Quite different to those who participate in direct action or the Catalan anarchists and Makhnovites of old. Or maybe 'anarchists' would like to cosplay as a violent revolutionary anarchist to achieve their goals but idk. That strikes me as more adventurist than anarchist even if both labels 'fit' according to the common psyche.
Like I said, as a broad descriptor, it's not a label seeking accuracy as it's been co-opted so many times. It's a label for those who want the aesthetics of being a revolutionary without risking their job or friendships. The quotation marks make it clear that neither real anarchists nor Marxists accept that breadth.
The online space for anarchists is so weird to be honest. I organize with a bunch in my daily life and I would peg it at solidly 75% are warm on China and more pissed at their landlord than Putin or whatever. It's extremely jarring going into some online anarchist spaces and having it uniformly be the democratic national convention.
Which sounds absolutely surreal online but totally ordinary irl. Turns out that people who reject mass society as a whole don't trust the Washington Post, don't see the world with staunch liberal ideals and don't pretend to know everything about a place they never went to
I'm sorry but I am really having a hard time buying this. Where the fuck are you meeting pro-CCP anarchists?
In the US, it's been the ones who are either old punks, or just normal people that gravitate to anarchist organizing, without making it their identity. When I say warm it's not that they're "pro-CCP" it's that they're not knee jerk going china bad, and certainly aren't going out of their way to try to make it a purity test for social interactions.
I wonder if a lot of it is bot accounts in the employ of the security services. Not all the users, but enough in key positions to shape the narrative. A safe and harmless way of neutralising disaffected youth. And for those who won't be neutralised, a little encouragement to commit a crime that can be 'stopped' or let happen to justify more funding. Harder to do that in Marxist spaces (I'm sure there are examples), as Marxists argue against adventurism/propaganda of the deed/lone-wolfism and argue for organising the masses.
Anarchism has so many varied branches as to almost mean nothing. Like how the hell do pacificist anarchists get along with insurrectionary anarchists who praise assassinations and propaganda of the deed?
This is what makes me think of it as a synonym for 'bit of a rebel'; it doesn't hint at what type of rebellion the anarchist will go in for.
Because we don't want to be sectarian and have seen at least two or three good anarchists (like our comrade nakoichi), so we are simply talking about the ultras and other shitheads who call themselves anarchists while avoiding the question of if there is a fundamental problem with anarchism that is substantially connected to those assholes appropriating it.
Also you don't need to put scarequotes on a "Trot" you are insulting because calling them a Trot is a much graver insult. Sectarianism as an ideology in itself deserves no respect.
It's just weird to call it an "anti-sectarianism" rule when it's not really, cuz we're fine with sectarianism, for example we all drag the fuck out of Trots and Ultras. It's really just a "don't bully the anarchists" rule. I just find it weird they're the only ones who get a pass.
I mean we all know the REAL reason. Anarchism is the most popular radical left tendency in the imperial core so we kinda have to be nice to them on this Anglo tankie site if we ever want to attract new members. Just wish people were honest about it.
I mean, I think it also helps keep the anarchists in check about MLs so they don't do the "red fash" routine.
Opinion is split on Trots, e.g. the aforementioned comrade nakoichi is weirdly protective of them (I like him one-sidedly, but he is wrong about that and I will post
to the fucking grave) and has seemingly removed many of my comments about them.
And, like, you can easily get fighting between Maoists and MLs, but there again the non-sectarian rule is doing what it should for the most part. Maybe it isn't strong enough and people are still too hard on Maoists, idk. It's especially a problem there because they need to deal with the legacy of the fucking Gonzalites calling themselves Maoists.
The only Maoists who get made fun of are MIM (white terrorists) weirdos who say it's fascist to order vegan pizza with your credit card (visa signature rewards)
A rule against sectarianism doesn't ban substitive critiques, it bans excessive dunking and precludes stuff like mods removing comments on sectarian grounds (as you occasionally see comments removed for being liberal or reactionary).
The trick, as always, is in how it's enforced.
Exactly. Even this site is sadly subject to all biases and issues currently present in the anglosphere.
We do it for the "left" because some of us like to gatekeep it so it stays pure even though it's been mostly shit. Anti-capitalism is treated as sacred and anything that soils it is just a bad actor or someone corrupted by propaganda. It is dogma.
Fair, it’s a low bar to be anti-capitalist and we can’t deny people’s claim to it just because they suck otherwise. However, the way we use “so called” and the like makes sense because these people don’t understand the implications of adopting a label or take the time to read the theory. Or maybe I’m wrong, if enough people use different and convoluted definitions of anarchism, especially if this “no gods, no bedtimes, no reading” form predominates, who are we to deny their claim to anarchy? If they are anarchists and the majority such I’d be more offended associating with these petite bourgeois fools as some of our comrades do than from people dunking on these “Anarkiddies.”
No you are right. Any ideology is going to have a lot of depth and width and so its not going to be easy to just be an "anarchist," or anything, by just consuming platitudes. This is something the post modernists and others try to grapple with. It is very important for understanding ideology and its difficulties, but it is also part of the failures of the left, anarchist or not, that are good to acknowledge.
Yeah, anyone can read memes but not everyone is going to read theory or do praxis. Someone’s ideology shows in what they do irl, not what they say they believe online.