I’ve felt this way for a while. The lack of ideological diversity is what creates the illusion of “left unity” over here. One example:
Imagine if we had a sizeable chunk of people who are anti-Dengist. Then nearly every post about China, every use of Xi emotes, would be filled with replies criticising China, Xi, and the OP.
And you couldn’t call all these people libs and just ban them because there are a lot of leftists, from Maoists to anarchists to ultras to even non-Dengist MLs who genuinely oppose the modern Chinese state based on their ideological convictions.
And if the mods banned them, that would be pure bias, and could lead to an exodus of those other leftist users, which would mean we are not actually left-unity.
But if the mods didn’t, then it would be a severe restriction on the kinds of content that can be posted on the “main” communities. You couldn’t say things like “China is moving towards socialism or that it is in the primary stage of socialist construction” because these are controversial opinions not held by other leftists. Allowing these, would mean allowing the opposites, which would mean a war in the replies every time you post something like this.
As an example, see what happened with vegan posting. In this “left unity” Hexbear, anarchists would have to confine their controversial opinions to the anarchist comm, MLs to the ML comm etc.
Right now, we have an extremely small minority of people who are against the majority opinion in some way. And those people are tolerated in their dissent as long as they frame it in very careful ways and never outright go against the majority. I mean, we have left unity emotes and anarchist emotes and that’s all cool.
But what happens if there are a 100+ anarchists who start posting and commenting about their analysis/opinion on the USSR? Would that be allowed? Would anarchists, if they existed in sizeable numbers be allowed to not just criticise the Soviet Union in the narrow ways in which is allowed currently but to state the full breadth of their opinions on it from the start? Even more controversial, what if Trots started talking about Stalin? How long would that be tolerated?
Now, I’m not saying the way Hexbear operates is wrong. Maybe left unity is a pipe dream and that there are just too many controversial positions and opposing visions for it to be real. Maybe, if there were other tendencies here, the mods would figure out a way to balance things out. Be calm on main, go wild on specific comms. But I think that is the point - Hexbear’s claim to left unity needs to be properly tested. The users and the mods need to face these challenges and come up with proper solutions that doesn’t end in purges of other communities. We cannot claim to be this big tent when we’ve only been in this tiny sandbox with a handful of small rocks.
No, authority and hierarchy are good
Authority and hierarchy are tools that can be used for good and bad and have no innate moral character on their own, kind of like violence or bureaucracy or a screwdriver
exactly
I didn't state my opinion, just correcting your statement about anarchism
My original statement was correct though.
I didn't know you spoke for all anarchists everywhere. I must have missed that in my reading.
Removed by mod
There are so many sub-tendencies of sub-tendencies. There is no point in arguing any of this. Left unity is about putting all this dumb shit aside until after the destruction of capitalism. Everyone has a unique entry point into leftism, class consciousness, socialism, communism. Debating the details when nearly everyone lives under capitalist hegemony is worthless.
This isn't directed at you but at the online leftist in general: join an org, do something IRL with real people. Arguing about this shit online is beyond pointless. You're just analyzing 150 years of history trying to get as angry as possible because someone on a phone thousands of miles away has had a different experience with the broader left movement. This shit reeks of debate bro gotcha garbage that just serves to drive away new people who actually want to do mutual aid and help their community.
"Left unity" is an online leftist meme. It has no place with MLs. I don't want an "open tent" party; I want an ML space and ML party and org.
Then join one or start one. If you start one it can be as ideologically pure as you want it to be! Especially when you're the only member.
But I'm not the only member.
Okay? What is your org doing? Are you just sitting in a room whining about anarchists or are you doing real work for your community?
eyyup
Didn't specify which question you're answering but good for you either way ig
Just don't attack the local Food Not Bombs group because they're not ML
Why would that happen
The same can be said for Marxism when there are so many different ones like orthodox, trot, ML, Maoist etc. You can find more specific version of anarchism like with Marxism.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
I….that was my point? Anarchism is like Marxism, not Marxism-Leninism.
It is not.
Anarchism is not like Marxism, what? Bakunin and Marx famously butted heads all the time
People really need reading comprehension, Jesus.
I'm against you in most of this thread but the consistent misreading of your point here is ridiculous. You can avoid this by being more explicit since the claim "Marxism and anarchism are similar" means different things in different contexts.
Show me the central text of anarchism
deleted by creator