Not sure why I got banned in the first place, but I think it was from linking to an episode of The Dollop. IIRC I got banned from /r/communism101 for saying something slightly positive about Gorbachev (sure, go ahead a call me a lib -- it was like 3 years ago). Either way it seems that the mods think that communism began and ended with Lenin.
I was going to keep poking them but Matt said something on his cushvlog about how trolling isn't praxis and I felt called out
While I am no longer skeptical of any theory involving the CIA, I think that it’s just as likely that these people are either consciously or unconsciously engaging in what amounts to an extremely lame RPG. They aren’t doing or really even discussing politics. It’s a pure circlejerk. Hardly anyone acts like that in real life, and people who do generally end up alienating people until they either choose to knock it off or accept being loner weirdos.
Kind of reminds me of the part in World War Z (the book, not the tedious Brad Pitt vehicle) about the Japanese hikikomori guy who became obsessed with the zombie outbreak and spent all his time online researching zombies, following the news, discussing in great depth and breadth every detail of zombie physiology, behavior, defense, etc., but never once bothered to do anything approaching addressing the real world, to the point that he didn’t even leave his apartment until his internet got shut off.
That’s basically what these people are doing. Studying theory, discussing the details among themselves, establishing status based on their ability to prove their knowledge and adherence to dogma, but never considering reality or other people. Even if they do engage in real world activities, it must be in the context of the same adherence to dogma, or else they’d figure out that they’ll never grow a revolutionary movement, nor garner any sympathy, with this ridiculous gatekeeping and humorless militancy.
The tried and true way of creating a mass movement is actually to alienate and repel anyone not already on board, dontcha know
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not a purpose, it’s a lifestyle choice. There might be some genuine intent and real theoretical understanding, but at the end of the day it’s an aesthetic veneer.
I feel bad for people like that. Not just the communists, but anyone who’s taken their grievance and alienation and distrust of the system and turned it inward, rather than trying to figure out how to make meaning for themselves and open up to connecting with other people.
People mock the electoralists for being naive, but seeing a problem and taking some action to try to solve it, while actively trying to engage others to do the same, is a commendable and healthy thing to do, and is way more likely to result in finding an avenue for real change than simply adopting the persona of a revolutionary.
Lol, my theory is that they got their definition of "reactionary" from watching too much Fine Bros YouTube videos.
"I'm trying to learn."
"Well go learn somewhere else."
Brilliant.
honestly no way it isn't at this point. There's a reason chapo got banned and this didn't
It's a subreddit about anything other than centrist liberalism and it didn't get banned, so yeah I'd say you're onto something there.
Not even that. It’s:
“I’m trying to learn”
“Okay, go sit at the kiddie table until you’ve proven you understand and agree with us.”
They’re acting like they think they’re kung fu masters from martial arts movies, sitting on top of a mountain waiting for worthy students to beg them for guidance and approval.
I was going to keep poking them but Matt said something on his cushvlog about how trolling isn’t praxis and I felt called out
Matt helping the terminally online. Inshallah.
:large-adult-son:
Meanwhile, in every white nationalist forum:
Hey buddy! Honk honk! Come see our spicy memes! Have you heard about the globalists?? Right unity against SJWs LMAO!
What kind of self important jackasses run a forum on communism and limit all discussion to Leninism? Like seriously what the fuck? I can see their parents' basement now.
I wonder how they feel about Trots. I should dig up some of my old Socialist Workers and ISRs and try to sell them over there.
Think they'd let me set up a table?
The same kind of people who defend assad, the kims and lukashenko
over 500 000 dead in the syrian civil war just because assad wanted to hold absolute rule
The r/communism mods literally practice katana swings in their underwear in their bedrooms with fedoras on.
How did you get the thoughts in my head to type a comment under your username?
Yep. People will say "online isn't real life," but you bet your ass there are AFK leftists out there who act exactly like this, too. Frustrating horseshit.
It's less prevalent in IRL activist circles (in my personal experience anyway) but a lot of leftists need spaces like this to come to for discussion to learn more about theory as communist literature is scarce in a lot of the US (not sure how bad it is in other countries), if we're not welcoming to less well read comrades and even dismiss people trying to learn as in that screenshot we're never gonna grow our cause. I was mostly stumbling blindly through Breadtube stuff till I came on Chapo, and now I get mad at libs IRL and constantly find myself thinking how the fuck am I more learned on this than people with actual degrees in economics and shit.
These people are just cranks. No sensible person thinks "how can I mix theory and practice" and decides to be a condescending forum moderator
Bullshit like this is why the "reading X thinker is good, but forming a para-personal allegiance to that thinker to the point of calling yourself an X-ist is bad" take is pretty reasonable. Ditto for the "foundational texts are good but aren't holy writ" take.
You don't have to go too far down this path to really fuck up an organization.
If I wanted to start a struggle session I might go further and say calling yourself any deadguy-ist is just a lie. You’re not the follower of some dead guy. You’re not hanging off the guy’s words, because he’s dead. You’re not going to join the dead guy’s army and fight for him, because he’s not going to call for you to do it, because he’s dead. You’re not going to follow him to the grave, since he’s already there and he’s not leading anybody.
If you’re a "Leninist," that either means you’re a follower of other, living, people calling themselves Leninists, or you’re an egoist who wants to lead those people by quoting Lenin at them. And if the extent of all this is just Reddit, you’re not even "part of a Leninist organization." You’re just some weirdo.
Possible grandfather clause for "Marxist." Maybe not.
Marxism-Leninism is a school of thought based on the works of Marx and Lenin, it incorporates ideas that they were the first to articulate, so it’s named after them. I really don’t understand the problem there.
Enforcing a degree of ideological consistency is reasonable, but this is religion, not politics. And honestly, that would be fine if they weren’t essentially squatting in a space that should be open to a wider array of perspectives. You’re absolutely right, they should be modding /r/Leninism rather than pretending that their specific dogma is the sum total of legitimate communist philosophy.
More and more I’m seeing why CTH, shitposty and lib-ridden as it was, was so successful overall.
Right. Opportunists need to be smacked upside the head, but if you truly believe Marxism is a science, you have to allow people to reach the same conclusions on their own terms - or fuck - even disagree on certain points if they have the evidence and analysis to back up their case.
People have been trying to discredit the Marxist canon for nearly two centuries. The evidence supporting it is overwhelming. The average person needs guidance and education, not an ultimatum.
It’s also reasonable for any science or discipline to advance and change over time, but generally it does so through discovering new avenues of study or refining existing understanding. What we know about, say, physics has changed a lot over the years, but it’s usually in the context of learning more about the world and adding that learning to the existing knowledge, and occasionally tossing out some flawed aspect of understanding, but at the end of the day, there’s no real chance that someone is going to be like “Wow, turns out those laws of thermodynamics were way off.”
Same with Marxist theory. Trying to apply something like labor theory of value in a specific and quantitative way can end up in weird places and not really work out (depending on what you’re trying to prove), but the fundamental concept that value is created when labor does things, and that extraction of surplus value is roughly where “profit” comes from in a capitalist framework, isn’t going to just suddenly stop being valid, and if you have so little faith in those fundamentals that you can’t let people arrive at those conclusions on their own, then not only are you alienating people who would otherwise be sympathetic, you’re dismissing the possibility that they might have something meaningful to contribute, either to the discipline itself or in the application and/or framing.
Dogma is a problem because it represents stagnation, not because dogma can’t be correct. Letting people question dogma allows for greater understanding and broadens support as people come to realize that it makes sense. Not letting people question dogma leads to alienation and isolation.
Let's all get baptized into the cult of Lenin, grow goatees, wear flat caps, and own cats
flat caps
I think everyone unironically needs a flat cap collection. Say a winter and summer one at the very least.
To be a Leninite I just need some flat caps? Good...very good.
Enforcing a degree of ideological consistency is reasonable for a party. This is essentially just that bit from a Chapo call-in episode where they get a call from the Park Slope revolutionary committee or whatever it's called (wish I could find that clip/episode, it rocks)
I agree. I was just trying to be generous. It’s dumb, for sure, but if you start a club you can decide to have rules if you want them. They become limiting very quickly. In this case, to the point of parody. I prefer the CTH method of letting anyone show up and then ruthlessly mock them if they say stupid shit, only banning people who are clearly trolling.
dont kid yourself, CTH did the same shit if you started posting about the uyghur genocide, regardless of what you said. anything that isnt "lol so fake" got you banned. i laughed so hard when i got banned like a week before the whole thing got shit-canned because they were such shitheads.
On a more petty but positive note, Chapo.chat now is more active than r/communism will ever be :che-smile:
Oh so you mean that r/comm101 calls the Muslims who fought in Chechnya contras?
“Yes let’s call a group of people the same name as a totally unrelated group of people. This will not be confusing at all”
Wait are we talking about the Contras in Nicaragua or the general concept of being against the ruling government?
They're ridiculous honestly. I am a tankie and I was banned for making a joke. They lifted the ban after I explained what sarcasm is but I never posted there again lol
They've got both the handles of a hammer and a sickle buried deep in their assholes. Not to kink shame but you gotta take that shit out sometimes.
They're literally making shit up: I was flagged as a reactionary because of an anime-related thread I made on another sub, which was also non-political
Always opt for inclusivity of the left: if you find yourself excluding people who want to end capitalism, remember we need numbers above everything else
Didn't r/communism have an anime ban or something like that? Remember reading about it.
damn, fucking cowards. Leftist unity means that we accept commie catgirls
