Shot:

they are a legitimate threat to freedom and to anti-authoritarian leftists,

Chaser:

we shouldn't allow these people to exist in the internet free

https://old.reddit.com/r/tankiejerk/comments/197l9ik/tankie_is_not_offensive_anymore/

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I was literally just now saying to @emizeko@hexbear.net that this is why we need to formalise the tactic rather than just breaking down individual uses of the tactic like "tankie".

    This tactic is in use in so many ways. It's being popularly referred to as "thought-terminating cliche", which might end up the name of the tactic when it's formalised. Things like calling everyone a "terrorist" to stop any thought about what they're doing or why. "Tankie". "Woke". "SJW". Etc etc. This tactic is in significant usage and any time you break down the usage of an individual word they create a new one, so you're always going to fight this battle that way.

    To fight this properly we need to go one step higher, don't attack just the individual usage but attacking the tactic itself too.

    In order to do this we need to formalise this tactic in language and popularise it in order to drastically undercut its ability to be used. By formalising it as a bad thing (like fallacy shit) the libs and debatebros start calling it out when they see it. This way we could weaken its ability to be used considerably.

    We need the technique to be picked up and talked of by orgs and academically. We need some people to write about the phenomenon/tactic itself so that those articles can then be pointed to as sources for its existence, and then wiki and other shit can get made for it to further cement it as a recognised formal language thing. From that point onwards it's just a matter of repeatedly pointing to the articles and shit to spread it more and more and more. It'll take on a life of its own and considerably wreck the tactic.

    I think this is actually really worthwhile doing as it's one of the most common tactics of the US information and thought control system.

    There is a very clear process of steps we can take.

    • RedQuestionAsker2 [he/him, she/her]
      ·
      10 months ago

      As someone with a background in writing (like every other commie), I'd be happy to contribute in some way to this. However, I don't really know what actionable step could be taken.

      I also worry that the technique would be pretty quickly coopted, and the terms "fascist" and "racist" would be defined as thought terminating cliches. It's already started with the "not everyone you disagree with is a fascist" line

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Actionable steps here are more concretely achieved by orgs or people with current access to existing various published things (blogs, newspapers, etc etc). But I think something like Prolewiki might be able to be a spark point for something like this, depending on whether Prolewiki participants/management are willing to be the creation point of something rather than just a documenting and citing site.

        I see some things pop up on Medium that successfully spread but I'm not sure how often those do that. Could be that's a handful of things among tens of thousands that just waste their time. Likely depends on whether big networks reshare content and that momentum keeps going.

        Generally the point here is to write something that's clear enough for people to link to it frequently, and also potentially inspiring enough for others to also write about the phenomenon. If something can be written that also gets others to write about it then you get momentum.

        Really the most meaningful thing here is to get a few places to write about something like this and then put it on natopedia, where it is then going to gain the automatic credibility of being on natopedia in the eyes of libs and debatebros, those people will then take part in opposing the tactic whenever they recognise it. Once you get those people on board with opposing it because they're rules-perverts and will consider it against the "rules" the whole tactic may effectively collapse, in the online space at least.

        So really the limitation here is access to a resource, that resource being article publishing online.

        • hotcouchguy [he/him]
          ·
          10 months ago

          It would have more credibility if we could find and reuse a similar concept/name from an earlier and more "objective" source. Not sure where to start digging, but this has to be something that someone has named previously. Then we're just popularizing instead of inventing something new.

          • Awoo [she/her]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Maybe. I'd start with the labelling of everything as "terrorist" first. That's probably got the most. After that is probably like "authoritarian" or some shit.

            The tactic is pervasive.

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]
              ·
              10 months ago

              I mean, the "thought terminating cliche" is a really old thing. You know the "Our noble government, their perfidious regime" cartoon? It's exactly that. Hell, Lenin's snark about "changing the name of things not changing the thing itself" is a part of it. You can probably find ancient Roman authors commenting on this practice if you look.

              • Awoo [she/her]
                ·
                10 months ago

                Right but does it have a name? If it doesn't have a name, it hasn't been formalised. Naming it gives you something to attack, it gives you a way to communicate that it's bad.

                The goal here, in essence, is to use the practice against itself. I want to thought-terminating cliche the tactic of thought-terminating cliches. Give it a name so people can debatebro it as a bad thing that you absolutely should not do every time they see it.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        The thing is, if we believe we are on the side of reason, the nature of such an argument should only be considered a nuisance to us rather than catastrophic. If I want to prove that Israel is fascist and someone hits me with the "not everyone you disagree with is a fascist" line, then I can simply ask them to give me a set of criteria and either argue the criteria being incorrect or argue that Israel meets it (depending on the criteria, context, etc.) What our comrade is proposing is a way of opening discussion so that preconceived notions can be challenged more thoroughly.

        Socialism is the ruthless criticism of all that exists; if a socialist can't produce a justification for their ideology, this isn't an argument they should be getting into (they should be studying, whether through reading or investigating the world).

    • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      10 months ago

      Since the point of this technic is to convince themselves and other to not look at idea that threaten the status quo by convincing them that if they do that they will become part of some nebulous threat to "fundamental values of our society", it should be given a name according to that.

      Something like "Status quo leashing" or "Overton leashing".

    • Juice [none/use name]
      ·
      10 months ago

      This is a good plan. Other than Hexbear I do have access to some small commie publications. Its also a topic I've thought about a lot.

      I can probably write a thousand or more words on it. Maybe if other people can do the same, explore the topics and come up with names, etc., we can bring it back here to discuss in more detail.

      Idk you've really inspired me so I'm going to run with it. Maybe you or @RedQuestionAsker2@hexbear.net or other HBs can get busy with it and start some discussions.

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Is this actually a new thing because to me this is just a basic ad hominem'ing?

      • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        10 months ago

        It sort of is, but I think it is also distinct from your average ad hominem and widespread enough to deserve it's own name. You don't call someone "tankie", "woke", "SJW" and the likes the same way nor for the same reasons you would call someone an idiot or a pig nor does it have the same kind of implications. It's not just any kind of common name calling, it imply the target is an active part of some nebulous group that is inherently assumed to be a threat to some "fundamental value of our society", it is specificaly reserved for peoples who are a threat (or at least perceved threat) to the status quo.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Ad hom is in a Venn diagram here, because the two are often used together but are not the same. An ad hom is specifically when you say something that boils down to "You're a scoundrel [or otherwise undesirable], so your argument is incorrect". The labeling strategy that Awoo is discussing is closer to equivocation (insinuating things are the same that are different) as a means of obfuscation, such as the "terrorist" example. See how so many people complaining about the Hot Houthi Winter interview with Hasan were calling the interviewee a "terrorist" in order to get people to not actually think about what he is, which is decidedly not a terrorist. What specifically the dude is saying or even the truth of it hasn't even come into play yet.

        So I spent a minute there trying really hard to figure out the difference as I typed because it's honestly a good question on your part, and I think the answer is that this thought-terminating cliche bit is used to conclude that the person is a scoundrel, while ad homs are predicated on the person being seen as a scoundrel to falsely prove some other point (Biden being an imperialist does not make the time of day change when he comments that it's morning). The reason these are so hard to pin down, aside from the fact that they are informal fallacies, is that common communication and even argumentation is filled with implied premises, inferences, and conclusions, so mapping them out formally enough to be able to compare the structure is a genuinely difficult task.

        What do you think, @Awoo@hexbear.net?

        • Awoo [she/her]
          ·
          10 months ago

          I think you're onto something with looking at previous historical examples of it being discussed for sources of potential names, and for strengthening the argument for its existence.

          The difference between ad hom and this would be be declaration vs conclusion? Declaring "you're an asshole" vs concluding "this is an asshole", the former being the individual's opinion while the latter is intended to be an objective statement of fact with the implication that it discredits the person wholly? I'm not really sure.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            That's the thing, in a proper sense (as far as informal fallacies go), an ad hom is not the same thing as an insult. There is a term for that, it's "insult." An "argumentum ad hominem," an "argument to the person," is the false refutation of the other person's argument on the basis of that person's own attributes when those attributes are not relevant. This gets flanderized to "insulting who you are arguing with" because of dumb debatebros trying to do gotchas ("You insulted me, I win!") along with the issue I expressed before about how it can be very complex to formalize a prose argument because of the sheer volume of things that could be left to implication, e.g. if I call you an asshole and say nothing more, what does that mean as a response to your argument? That it's wrong and you're an asshole for saying it? That what you say can be dismissed because you are an asshole? etc.

            The case that I am making is that the thought-terminating label is done as the scaffolding for an ad hominem. If someone wants to feed the poor and I, as a reactionary, know little else about them, then to an American audience something like "That would be communism" pragmatically functions as multiple implied arguments, first the arguments for why I would call it communism and secondly the arguments for why it is bad to feed the poor. Because of context, we can supply premises and conclusions that in this case are around 5 times longer and collectively much more complicated than the literal assertion, some cartoon version being: "Handouts are communism, feeding the poor is handouts, feeding the poor is communism; communism is bad, therefore feeding the poor is bad; we should not do bad things, we should not feed to poor. QED"

            Without exaggeration, the pragmatics of such a situation suggest that that little four-word sentence functions as the presentation of that entire argument. Incidentally, the argument I just produced is a version of the phenomenon you're talking about, just directed to be about a policy proposal. A slight change in the framing could make it involve an ad hom.

            • Awoo [she/her]
              ·
              10 months ago

              I agree with all of this but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I suppose it complicates naming and describing it. Perhaps description of it needs to be broken down into a simplified version and then fully-explored in detail afterwards? I'm not sure as I'm quite tired now.

              I think your main point seems to be that they're preying on pre-loaded information in a way that compacts several different pre-loaded pieces of information that a person has already accepted into a larger thing that then becomes larger than the sum of parts. For example a "tankie" could be broken down into several pieces (authoritarian + marxist-leninist + supports bad country + Etc) where the person falling for the "tankie" thought-terminator is expected to have already fallen for each individual component of the overall sum that makes up "tankie". When someone has fallen for all the components already you can then combine them together along with ML and associate them to take your existing propaganda and elevate it to a level that is greater than the various parts.

              Another factor here is that by giving someone a name, you define a group. If tankies are bad then there also must be an opposing good. The person joins the group of opposing good and all the values of the opposing "good" then become soaked up. You don't even have to name the opposing side, simply naming the "tankie" is enough for everyone defining themselves as not-tankie to fall into the opposition group. If this opposition group includes nazis, the values of nazis get soaked up by members of the group in small ways.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                ·
                10 months ago

                Yeah, I'm with you on all of this and think your application of what I tried to communicate is much more useful information

                • Awoo [she/her]
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to actioning this though it's a pretty new idea for me. Orgs that created new language for other things would have better ideas/experience. Lgbt orgs invented tonnes of new language for example.

                  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    I was thinking about this and it occurred to me that, besides "buzzword", a term that people use that seems to specifically line up with what you've talked about is "scare word", a term that is annoying to research for obvious reasons, but we can find an attestation of its use to describe political rhetoric here and there.

                    A few more:

                    https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716728643/socialism-isn-t-the-scare-word-it-once-was

                    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/truman-socialism-scare-word/

                    Hope this helps. I also saw "scare term" and "devil word" referenced in a pop-linguistics article.

                    • Awoo [she/her]
                      ·
                      10 months ago

                      I am almost certain that there is some extremely niche writing about this but that it uses terminology we're not aware of so finding it is fucking impossible.

                      These are good leads though. Gonna spend a couple weeks churning this over and digging around. Something is gonna pop out.

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Ad hom isn't intended to specifically thought-terminate people. It's just a thing you sling at people.

        The use of "tankie" or "terrorist" is to define [person speaking or being spoken about] as a "baddy person" and therefore absolutely anything and everything they say can and should be disregarded, otherwise you are also a baddy person and thus not a good person. It's intended to reinforce group-think. The reactionary right use "woke" with the intent of preventing their members from listening to something a "woke" person might say, to make sure that they thought-terminate and do not think about whatever is said. The purpose is to function as a shield against anything that might change their views. It's to shut down their brains to anything people might say to them.

        It has the appearance of ad hom, but it has a specific higher function.