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.
You have a responsibility to speak about islamophobia because it’s wrong, but curiously you have no responsibility to speak about imperialism or sinophobia. Interesting. Surely this double standard has nothing to do with the same chauvinistic bias that has plagued the organized western left since its inception.
I have a responsibility to speak out against those as well, but, as I'm certain you know, the devil is in the details in how we construe those concepts.
Somehow those devilish details always align themselves with western chauvinist patterns that are centuries old
We're back to the whole rhetoric thing again where we say things without saying anything.
You haven’t addressed your double standards, merely sidestepped the conversation.
Well if I saw a double-standard in my position I'd address it.
You say that you have a moral responsibility to speak out about Islamophobia when you see it, but you don’t believe you have a moral responsibility to speak in an anti-imperialist manner, or avoid feeding into the imperialist intrigue of your nation. That’s a double standard. Either both matter or neither do. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that you don’t really care about imperialism very much.
Sure I do, it's just that you construe anti-imperialism as 'pro-Chinese government' position and I construe anti-imperialism as a 'US government leave everyone else the fuck alone for christs-sake' position. Like I said, the devil is in the details.
Except that you are here defending “anti-China rhetoric” which is an offensive, pro-imperialist rhetoric not just “leaving everyone alone”
I don't have to pretend to like China to think we should leave them the fuck alone.
Saddam Hussein: Terrible, should not have been bombed into oblivion. Putin: Bad, don't need to expand NATO to his borders to piss him off and egg him into a Eurasian land war.
Really not that difficult.
Why is it so important to you that you need to have “nuanced” TALK? You are full of contradictions. Why is it so hard to stick to an anti-imperialist hardline? Why do you implicitly demand the right to judge the victims of your nations from a throne in the heavens instead of realizing your place and your role with humility?
Criticize your own empire, stick to that. Really not that difficult.
Isn't Mao on the record saying literally everything arises from an internal contradiction?
Why would I do that?
What right? Someone said "we drove everyone who doesn't the Chinese goverment away" and I just helpfully chimed in "nah".
I mean I'm not assigning outsized role to my thoughts and actions in affecting the course of historical events.
Aside from conversations on niche internet forums about why everyone doesn't have to pretend to like China, my day to day conversations about China always take a hardline "the US has a responsibility to leave them the fuck alone given that we amble from one intentionally manufactured crime against humanity to next".
Removed by mod
You mean I'm insisting that I can, and in fact, will have an ill-informed ad-hoc opinions on a variety of topics that my day-to-day existence only vaguely impinges upon. This high-falutin talk of 'rights' just clouds the issue that all people are going to develop contingent systems of belief as they navigate their day-to-day lives. Do they have a right to that or not? That question is nonsensical idealism, they will do so anyway.
No investigation, no right to speak. I can tell you aren’t in a party because you have no discipline or direction
You've done it again! Sheer idealism.
It’s not idealism, I am telling you very indirectly (to reduce the chance of a ban) I think you should really take your “not posting” motto more seriously! Hope this was helpful, and I hope to never see another word from you!
Trust me, I take it deadly seriously. Block button is down to right. Cheers.