There’s undoubtedly at least a bit of projection there, but I think more what it is is just that tankies are driven almost entirely by righteous indignation, and they’ll take pretty much any chance they get to indulge in it. They don’t really stop and think about things - they just see something that could serve as a basis for a nice, satisfying righteously indignant screed and off they go.
And that leaves them susceptible to, among other things, hypocrisy.
I feel like solarpunk is definitely opposed to liberalism. I mean, it doesn’t enforce ideological purity the way tankies do so maybe that’s the source of the confusion? But it’s, at its heart, an anarchist movement.
Yeah, I mean, I’m not hostile towards solarpunk, but they’re very anarchist any time I’ve interacted with them (not necessarily as a bad thing - I just still believe in a more institutionally rigid post-capitalist government, so there are disagreements). ‘Liberal’ is only how I would describe them to US centrists who can’t hold more than one linear graph in their head at a time.
TBF, the Soviets had some fantastic aesthetics. They’re also largely responsible for brutalist, which is hard to forgive, but still. I think on balance they contributed more good aesthetics than bad, and we can partially blame the Germans for Bauhaus, which was the foundation upon which brutalist was built.
Personal taste in aesthetics. I mean, you might have bad taste, but it’s not worth fighting over.
Seriously, though: a lot of the Soviet stuff tended to Art Deco or Bauhaus, and that stuff is fine. Brutalist can be impressive, but if I had to look at it every day, I think I’d eventually want to slit my wrists. It also explains a lot about the Russian zeitgeist.
I get grim satisfaction from asserting my knowledge of theory against the smug liberals.
That checks out. Now if only the tankies would have the collective spine to admit that their countries of choice are capitalist-flavored imperialism under the self-proclaimed veneer of communism.
That requires them admitting communism doesn’t really exist in the modern world. Quite scary for them.
It is religious or something with them. Paradise exists on Earth, for real, but they won’t travel there. Like ancient polytheists who didn’t bother to climb up Mount Olympus for a peek.
asserting my knowledge of theory
Ah, the old “you just need to read a whole bunch more theory before you’re qualified to talk about anything” gauntlet.
Why should anyone waste time reading the prophecies when we’ve already seen how they’ve failed, time after time?
I appreciate the theories and even agree with them quite regularly.
But I like to think of myself as a realist, and I just don’t see these concepts ever coming true. Realistically, I think the best bet for communism is nuclear devastation, total societal collapse or an AI takeover, a la The Matrix. You know you gotta break down the system, not just change it. And good luck doing that.