Just saying. How’re yall doing, by the way?
Users on other instances say you guys are “tankies”, and from what I understand, that’s essentially the authoritarian version of the left; instead of being the more moderate-ish(?) lefties/communists. Which one do you guys identify under?
Hexbear is explicitly non-sectarian. There are leftists here from across the spectrum, and sometimes there are disagreements among us. There are Marxists-Leninists, anarchists, and people who simply believe that capitalism isn’t going to lead to good outcomes for people. The word ‘tankie’ has lost a lot of meaning in recent times, so it’s hard to say whether there are tankies here or not.
As an aside on this issue, the concept of “authoritarianism” is poorly defined and generally not that useful, imo. There are people in “free” countries being imprisoned, forced out of their homes, forced to work, forced to abandon their culture, forced to accept certain legal and cultural norms, prevented from organizing or protesting, etc. And there are people in “authoritarian” countries who have mechanisms other than representative democracy to engage in politics in ways that are materially more effective and representative of their interests. Authoritarianism, if only viewed from the lens of liberal democracy, is largely meaningless in a practical sense.
I see a lot of shitposts and edgy humor, which is fine; so I initially thought the instance was more of a shitposting community rather than a serious one advocating communism. Or is it?
I’m not trying to be clever when I say “it’s both.” Most people here are actually pretty well-studied in history, politcal theory, economics, etc., and they are also terminally irony poisoned and extremely online. It’s what it is.
Many comments I see from other instances are mainly complaining of you guys being the former (tankies) on the first bullet, saying you are basically just like the far-right, just on the opposite side.
Thinking that the far left and far right can be the same thing is called horseshoe theory, and it’s nonsense. There are numerous real, tangible, entirely understandable differences between the left and the right. Saying that they are both he same because both dislike the status quo is an example of a thought-terminating cliche. The left wants fundamentally the opposite of what the right wants, and the only way they’re similar is that there are people who believe that some amount of violence and coercion will be required to achieve those goals. But the goals are different. I can’t remember where I read it, but someone pointed out that an example of the difference between communism and fascism is that Stalin largely failed in achieving his stated goals, while Hitler largely succeeded. Way oversimplified, and my comrades will probably excoriate me for the clumsy analogy, but the point is that these are different things, and to say they aren’t is ignorant.
The other complaint is that all they see when they engage with you guys are memes and shitpost gifs, and that it doesn’t contribute to the conversation.
There is a lot of shitposting. However, one of the things a lot of people here have learned first-hand time and again is that a lot of people don’t want to hear what we have to say, regardless if it has merit, or is thoughtfully researched, or is based on personal experience. We’ve all heard the same tired, poorly-understood, cliche arguments over and over again about China and Cuba and the USSR, etc., and at some point you get to a stage where it’s clear that engaging in good faith is useless. And so, rather than write a wall of text with links to credible sources, people post a picture of a pig with poop on its balls. Is it contributing to the conversation? Arguably no. Was there a conversation to contribute to in the first place if a well-researched but heterodox argument is met with knee jerk, canned responses that don’t address the issue? Again, arguably no.
The intention from most people here is to troll and dunk and shitpost at people who are obviously willfully ignorant or outright bigoted. Any genuine inquiry will likely be met by a genuine response, as I am trying to provide you here. However, if someone is going to make transphobic or antisemitic comments while getting pissy about how we’re criticizing institutions like NATO or the IMF, they’re going to get dogpiled with shitposts. Critical support for China or Russia or Cuba or whomever is not blanket support of those things, and nor is criticism of NATO or the West or the big multilateral financial institutions a declaration of support for Putin.
Leftists are, if they believe what they say they believe, aligned with the interests of real people everywhere, and when you’re on the side of actual people, large institutions with power tend to be a mixed bag, simultaneously doing good and bad things. What we’re concerned with is the understanding of these large systems of power, and the mechanisms by which they can be challenged for the betterment of everyone. That’s not the status quo position, and it’s not entirely clean and easy to describe, so it’s likely going to get some of us into arguments.
That said, most people here aren’t just stirring shit to cause drama. We’ve been here as a community for three years prior to federation with other instances, and we’d still be here if every other instance defederated us. We’re trying to engage in a constructive way, but there are a lot of us, we’re aligned in our purpose, and we never log off. We’re going to come on a little strong at times.
I hope that helps.
People in this country think they’re the freest in the world. A couple of years ago, a cop was filmed murdering yet another black man. People protested and, all too frequently, cops initiated violence against peaceful protesters. Is that not authoritarian?
Its considered authoritarian for the state to take housing and distribute it to the people.
Its not considered authoritarian for banks to kick people out of their home.
I’m starting to think this “authoritarian” word is bullshit.
here’s hall-of-fame poster aimixin. he’s in conversation with a libsoc but don’t get hung up on that, the focus of the argument is on the nature of the state and how it reveals the emptiness of the word
Every government is authoritarian. You only consider it not to be “authoritarian” when you support its use of authority. Anarchism is authoritarian as well, yes I’ve read up on libertarian socialists. Do you think the anarchists in Catalonia who had labor camps were not “authoritarian”? Were they wholesome democratic labor camps?
Every state seeks to preserve itself and so every state will use authority when it is faced with potential destruction. This is not inherently a bad thing, it obviously depends on the government in question, and who is trying to destroy it, and why. People always justify the use of authoritarian means used by whoever they support, and then those who are intellectually dishonest pretend that somehow their use of authority isn’t “authoritarian”.
And obviously anarchism and libertarian socialism exists. I don’t see how that contradicts with me saying “authoritarian” is a meaningless buzzword that can always be replaced just with “something I don’t like”.
Is the US “authoritarian” when it bombed Vietnam back into the stone age and Eisenhower himself said they refused to hold elections because they knew the US occupiers would only get 20% of the vote? The Vietnam war, the Afghanistan war, the destruction of Libya, or the US prosecution of Julian Assange, or the Smith Act Trials, Operation Earnest Voice, Operation Condor, Operation PBSUCCESS, Operation Ajax, Operation Mockingbird, etc, etc, were not “authoritarian”?
Maybe you’d agree these things are “authoritarian”, but either way it proves my point. Plenty of people like to insist the US isn’t “authoritarian” not because it actually isn’t but because they support what it does.
If you never desire to leave your cage, you might feel incredibly free. Liberals who never genuinely try to challenge the authority of the liberal state they live under have a tendency to believe that there is no authoritarianism, because they have never once even desired to challenge that state’s authority. (Yet, ironically, they will always support the state’s authority when they see it used against those who do try to challenge it.)
“Libertarian socialism” doesn’t escape this. “Authoritarianism” is a meaningless buzzword, the only real tangible difference between “libertarian” socialists and ordinary socialists is that “libertarian” socialists prefer a higher level of decentralization. But decentralization in no way inherently entails a lack of authoritarian means, as they’ve always used them in practice to enforce their system.
part two:
You aren’t paying attention. Democracy is authoritarian. It is the means by which the democratic will of the people express its authority, by means of force. What happens if someone picks up a gun and tries to oppose the democratic consensus? Do you just sit by and let the democracy be destroyed? No, the democratic state uses its own authority to oppress the opposition.
There is no such thing as a distinction between “democracy” and “authoritarian”. It’s a meaningless buzzword. The opposite of a democracy is an autocracy or an oligarchy, not “authoritarian”. That’s just something westerners fling at other people’s democracies which they don’t like for daring to vote for something against US interests and want to see them blown up and millions killed and displaced.
Always has been, mate. It’s basically a synonym for “I’m a hypocrite”.
“Authoritarianism” is everywhere, from the natural to the man-made. I obey the very material authority of mother nature here in Alaska by not driving like a jackass in winter when I’m going to work, then I’m forced to obey my shitty bosses in order to get enough of the wealth I make for them back in order to keep a roof over my head and not starve for a week and rinse and repeat while they watch their portfolios soar.
Here’s Engel’s little blurb on Authority too if you want to read more.
When the verdict of the man who murdered George Floyd was being read, the Governor of Minnesota mobilized thousands of national guard troops and ordered them to occupy Minneapolis. There were thousands of armed soldiers, on foot and in armored vehicles, staged throughout the city. The implicit threat was that if Chauvin was acquitted and we tried to enact justice anyway we’d be machine gunned in the street for opposing a murderous white supremacist.
For those few days Minneapolis was the most heavily occupied city in the world.
