I wanted to share a few thoughts on a comment I saw earlier about drama occurring on a leftist site outside of Lemmygrad.

man why are leftist spaces online like this? feels like they’re too busy shooting themselves on the foot constantly to get their shit together while fascism and reich-wingers are taking over everything.

First, every human space is bound to conflict and contradictions, this is expected. But the characterization of that existing only on leftist spaces is misleading.

If you subject yourself to torture and visit extreme right-wing communities, you’ll notice they are extremely toxic and very violent to each other, and usually there is a big turnover of users. The violent and abusive language is part of their socialization, and those who endure the longest become normalized to this type of language, so much so, it transpires outside the right-wing communities themselves.

The idea that right-wingers are in unity I think is also incorrect, what happens is that the right-wing worldview is being more and more normalized by “social” media, “Christian” churches, and even formal education. So, the right-wingers appear in unity because they parrot the same talking points and ideas, but it’s just a reflection of bourgeois ideology among the people.

What is particular to leftist spaces is the struggle for a coherent political philosophy. Since right-wing thinking is the “standard” thinking in a bourgeois dictatorship, a right-wing space wouldn’t bring anything new, just a reaction against leftist discourse, worldview and philosophy.

Besides, leftists are much more sensitive towards the reproduction of social issues, like male chauvinism, racism, transphobia, and since these are the building blocks of Western political thinking, it’s expected that even leftists will eventually present those views, but they are more keen to be criticized and to generate a bigger polemic.

When a right-wing leadership presents a racist view, most of their supporters will simply be silent about it to “protect” the image of their leader. Some of them openly agree to the racist views, but understand this is not to be exposed. One example is the Trump rape and sexual assault cases, his trips to the pedophile island of Epstein, this is all overlooked, even if the right-wingers are most vocal about “the children” and pedophiles.

When it happens that a leftist leader presents a troubling view, they tend to be criticized to the bone (depending on how “radical” is that leftist). A leftist or communist leader has to be sinless and incapable of mistakes in the eyes of leftists, otherwise they are not a good representative. Left-wingers tend to be more critical of certain expressions of authority, whereas sometimes this in excess can be destructive.

Leftists have to constantly fight against bourgeois ideology in all fronts, our work is much more extensive and difficult, while right-wing communities simply allow bourgeois ideology to flow to its maximum extent. They have to fight the influence of those who care about facts and reason, but it’s not as tiring as having to fight against bourgeois ideology, which is hegemonic.

  • Camarada Forte@lemmygrad.mlOP
    19·
    17 days ago

    Left-wingers tend to be more critical of certain expressions of authority, whereas sometimes this in excess can be destructive.

    Side note on this.

    Many leaders and progressive thinkers were awful in their personal lives, especially with relatives or spouses, like comrade Stalin, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein, etc. This is because humans make grave mistakes all the time, irrespective of how correct they are. Except Lenin, perhaps, he was both an impeccable human being and very often correct. Look at your own lives, have you not hurt someone? Were you never selfish, arrogant, insensible? People make those mistakes all the time, to a greater or lesser extent. Why should our leaderships be different? Should we disregard historical figures in the past because of their personal mistakes? Should we disregard current leaderships for that?

    I think this is a case by case thing, but sometimes we simply cannot afford to be too much critical. Think of an actual communist, politically isolated, representing a small city in the bourgeois state, or something. If the opposition found out bad stuff about that guy’s past, of course the bourgeois media would create a campaign to hunt them down. In such cases should we join the hunt? This is the challenge of having the correct historical understanding of your time and place, so these choices become clearer. Over the time you start acting based on the political outcome, instead of an abstract moral value which you do not adopt yourself in your life. Then you criticize any mistake in private if possible, outside the eyes of the opposition.

    • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
      10·
      16 days ago

      I think this is a case by case thing, but sometimes we simply cannot afford to be too much critical. Think of an actual communist, politically isolated, representing a small city in the bourgeois state, or something. If the opposition found out bad stuff about that guy’s past, of course the bourgeois media would create a campaign to hunt them down. In such cases should we join the hunt? This is the challenge of having the correct historical understanding of your time and place, so these choices become clearer. Over the time you start acting based on the political outcome, instead of an abstract moral value which you do not adopt yourself in your life. Then you criticize any mistake in private if possible, outside the eyes of the opposition.

      Something that comes to mind here is the importance of applying this thinking to non-leaders, not just figures who have a significant reputation. That part of opposing the current system means recognizing the humanity of each person; they are never “just a number” but a whole human being with a history to them. And when the time does come that we must act against such a person, it needs to be done, as you put it, “based on the political outcome.” Better known figures tend to get more of the attention in discussions like this, but I think the “abstract moral value” thinking can definitely come for the “little individual” as well—and they tend to have little power to oppose it, which increases any sense of a “leftist” leader acting more like the existing system than something different.

      To try to put it in example form, not allowing obvious liberals to run rampant in lemmygrad is easily recognized as a political outcome focus; by keeping them from doing so, it becomes a more pointed and focused anti-imperialist and communist space. On the other hand, if lemmygrad were to wage a campaign against “still lingering liberalism in its communist users”, that could very quickly get into abstractions and grandstanding that are difficult to concretize into something to act upon. Which brings me to a point of existing system vs. otherwise, that such an approach would likely get lost in individualist thinking. “It’s not our failure that this person is still too liberal, it’s their moral failing and so they must be cast out.” In other words, is what “we” want being cultivated/encouraged/rewarded or only watched for violations of from a tower. (To be clear, I’m not saying this as a vagueposting reference to something that happened on lemmygrad. Just using the site as a basis for example to try to be more clear in what I mean.)

      The tough moralistic thinking mindset might have us thinking that the harder it is to be moral and still be it, the better the person is or some such thing. When in practicality, we get the best outcomes when it is as easy as possible for people to be aligned and act ethically, and when it is made systemically difficult for them to do otherwise. And that is an area where working amid the existing larger system presents a challenge, since people are constantly being pushed at from the pressures of a system that often normalizes or even rewards selfish or predatory behavior of one kind or another. Hope that makes sense.

      • Camarada Forte@lemmygrad.mlOP
        4·
        15 days ago

        vagueposting

        Hahaha never heard that before. I loved it

        not allowing obvious liberals to run rampant in lemmygrad is easily recognized as a political outcome focus

        I don’t know what you mean by this paragraph comrade, and I have trouble following your reasoning. But I’ll comment about this. The liberal propagandists should definitely be extracted from our community, but the honest liberals should definitely be heard and honestly debated. On our part, trying as much as possible to ignore provocations and try our best to dismantle their arguments in few words. I see a few reasons why:

        1. liberals have common misunderstandings which are useful to debunk. Some of us are well read (most of us aren’t), so the thinking you had when you were a conservative, liberal or “apolitical” has been lost. You cannot empathize to how liberals think now. Alas, comes a liberal, with doubts, silly mistakes, but they are prevalent in political discourse and thinking. A lurker on the website may be presented with arguments dismantling the same silly mistakes they may have. So in terms of political education this is useful;
        2. we learn to deal with those who think differently. We need to learn to treat a right-winger well and learn how to defuse a tense situation IRL. Not always we manage to do this, often we manage to hurt others from our own camp, but we aspire to do it. We need to learn how to deal with Nazi provocations both online and personally, physically. We need to learn how to deal emotionally with the situation, train ourselves to not be affected by this interaction. You do this by understanding how your opponents think, and respecting as much as possible their identity. So you do not focus on their religion, their political affiliations, their moral stances on subjects, etc. These are divisive points which separates us from these politically alienated people. We cannot change a person’s identity through force or imposition, it only changes socially and historically.

        We need to learn to treat a right-winger well and learn how to defuse a tense situation IRL.

        A comment on this, about treating well right-wing colleagues, etc. (unless they are awful people of course, besides their shitty foolish worldview). Of course a Nazi provocateur should be harassed or physically assaulted until they stop their provocation, because it is ethical to do so. It is ethical to repress genocidal ideologies because you’re saving lives by punishing some. But notice a liberal surely would equate us with genociders! They are indoctrinated by bourgeois ideology. Bourgeois ideology needs to accuse communists of what they do so that they feel at least “equal” in comparison, and thus, shielded from criticism. At least you’re doing genocide for a just cause! Not the communists, they genocide for evil!

        Bourgeois ideology is hegemonic. You should already expect people to be right-wing. You need to learn to accept this fact so that you’re able to be friendly with right-wingers and not be affected by their provocations. Because you understand their worldview is not their fault, they are too distracted to realize the facts, and we need to reach them somehow. How would you achieve this person to eventually learn the facts if you’re provoking the person, teasing them, insulting them, questioning their sanity, their ability to think, mocking them, etc. Practice shows us that these behaviors tend to alienate these people even further, and even worse, alienate yourself from others.

        • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
          3·
          14 days ago

          Good points and I think we are more or less in agreement.

          I don’t know what you mean by this paragraph comrade, and I have trouble following your reasoning. But I’ll comment about this. The liberal propagandists should definitely be extracted from our community, but the honest liberals should definitely be heard and honestly debated. On our part, trying as much as possible to ignore provocations and try our best to dismantle their arguments in few words. I see a few reasons why:

          So yeah, I meant like how membership here goes through a process and liberals who come from other instances aren’t necessarily tolerated posting whatever they want. But I do think I got lost in the weeds a little bit on that paragraph of mine. General idea I was going for is maybe along the lines of how you broke it down, that we have a certain need to reach these kind of people, or even problems in our own thinking. As opposed to a mentality where we view others as people who have to go in a corner and “fix themselves” and then we can engage with them. I guess the distinction I’m talking about is kind of like what some have termed “call in” vs. “call out”; the difference being something like (call out) “you are bad, I’m going to put you down because it makes me feel superior” vs. (call in) “if at all possible, we’re going to figure out how to improve this situation together; and if we can’t and I move against you, it’s not because ‘you’re bad and I’m inherently superior’, it’s because you refuse to be humane and/or negotiate with other human beings”.

          Hopefully that is more clear. Brain is a bit fuzzy today.

          Edit: Also, I appreciate you telling me you weren’t clear on it. In trying to clarify, I feel like I made it clearer to myself what I meant lol. Sometimes I write out thoughts intended more as a piece of the puzzle than anything else, so talking them through further can help crystallize.