I like how gay people are on it like they are some sort of monolithic political identity that only liberals can believe in. The Haz and Taliban logo in the upper left is very telling as well.
Cringe. Shit compass.
i've been digging a lot of the posts from Pamphlets but using calling any single political compass accurate is an immediate L
I think the top right has the Haz logo who did/does Maga communism bullshit so even if it's okay in some aspects I'm still gonna withhold agreeing with it.
It hides the bad shit behind broad anodyne terms. As someone else pointed out, what the hell does "large civilizational states" mean?
A "large civilizational state" is not really a well defined concept in and of itself. It's a term that only makes sense when viewed as the opposite of (or a reaction to) the western model of the "nation-state". Basically it's a multi-ethnic (often also multi-religious) state that is bound together by some sort of shared "civilization", where "civilization" is itself a vague term, sufficiently flexible that it can mean whatever the person using that term wants it to mean.
Fundamentally this is just a rejection of the model of Balkanization promoted by the West for states like Russia and China which imperialists want to shatter along ethnic, linguistic and religious lines like they did with Yugoslavia.
I don't think it's a term that Marxists need to adopt, because as i said, the philosophical framework around it is not really rigorous, but i also don't think it's particularly harmful. I don't feel strongly about it either way is what i'm saying, and if anyone has good arguments for or against it i'd be willing to reconsider. Until then i'll stick with the more classical Marxist-Leninist terms, since the philosophical framework laid out in ML works like "Marxism and the National Question" is at least properly rigorous and scientific.
I mean the basic idea is fine, there's just a whole bunch of unnecessary cringe in OP's version.
Yeah, so I don’t believe Pamphlets made this compass based on their replies, but said replies are not helping their reputation…
It’s that mentally ill mindset that some “leftists” have that if a group is opposed to the US, then they are automatically good. Even if they are a rabidly violent Islamic fundamentalist group.
Why can't people so close to being right just get the memo?! Why is there always a last handful of reactionary brainworms??!!which brainworms, like it's a bit reductive in my oppinion but it's alright
Aside from politcal compasses themselves being intrinsically stupid, especially when you transparently make your favorite section the 'correct' one (even though 'authoritarian leftist' is in general the closest to being the correct one in real life) - they've included the LGBT flag in the liberal but NOT the communist section, while they've included patsocs and national chauvinists amongst actual anti-imperialists.
It basically spells out a specific set of brainworms, the 'social conservative' who believes all LGBT rights are bourgeoise inventions rather than being crucial to the struggle of the working class, and who also buys in to the idea of 'redeeming the USA' by just turning it communist instead of needing to tear the whole thing down and build new structures in its ashes.
That's fair but as far as liberal nonsense this compass is very surprisingly not absolute crap it has relevant and sometimes even correct takes I for one am impressed, but yeah throwing lgbt rights on the liberal side is just sad indeed
Personally I look at this compass and my own thoughts are- it's almost 100% brain worms lol... Though at least I suppose it seems they probably support Palestine, and aren't homophobic. Which is basically just meeting the criteria of "not a blatant genocidaire/bigot"- until you realize they're probably in support of the Banderites, NATO, and ETIP (and thus effectively a genocide-supporting, warmongering bigot) and support (or lump in the ""libertarian left"" anyways) other abhorrent institutions like the EU, rogue Taipei, and the Nordic regimes.
? This is generic “maga communism” the idea of the US is good, but every US enemy is good especially for being socially regressive.
What's the point of making this when you're gonna add the same flags to multiple sections
Taliban flag. Also note its not internationalist, but in favor of “large civilizational states,” ie ethno nationalism, classic fascism.
Actually "civilizational states" is pretty much the exact opposite of ethno-nationalism or ethno-states. In the ideology of the people who use that term, a "civilizational state" is a state like Russia, China, India, Iran, etc. that is explicitly a multi-ethnic, possibly also multi-religious state that is based on some abstract shared "civilization", whatever that means (i find the concept vague and ill-defined but that's another matter, i'm just explaining what they mean when they use this term). It's the opposite of the nation state concept pushed by the West where they seek to balkanize states like Russia and China along ethnic, linguistic and religious lines. According to this view, the West are actually the fascists as they're ones pushing for ethno-states.
So for me it's not fascism, certainly not in the classical sense, but it's also not Marxism or any kind of a coherent materialist world view.
Marxism is internationalist but supports the self determination of every nation. These people probably just believe in assimilationism.
I don't know what they believe, and i don't think they know for sure either. I think they're a little confused.
We like to joke about factionalism on the left, but try putting 5 conservatives/MAGA "communists" in the same room to define what "woke" or "globalism" means and you'll end up with 7 definitions and more than a few grudges
So, after giving it some thought, i think you're probably right, in the sense that the idea of a "civilization" is an inherently assimilationist one. It's just a fact that countries like Russia (as well as the USSR before it) and China, although they are a composite of different nations/ethnic groups, do tend to assimilate these groups into a larger supra-national culture. The USSR did this with the attempt to create the "Homo Sovieticus", a "Soviet identity" to supersede (but not replace) national identities.
I don't think this is inherently something bad or wrong, nor does it have to clash with national self-determination, it just depends how you do it. And there is perhaps some validity to the argument that if you don't create a kind of over-arching culture which binds a country like this together that you risk it breaking apart along national lines, to the benefit of imperialist powers which are always going to seek to drive wedges between peoples, to "divide and conquer".
Far more problematic imo is when this impulse is turned outwards as in the case of the US. The US are arguably the only state in the West that would qualify as "civilizational" rather than a European-style nation state (there's no "US nation"). Unfortunately it's one that suffers from a collective messianic delusion. It views itself as essentially a crusader state (my impression is that this is intrinsically linked to its settler legacy), a unique chosen people with a holy mission of making sure they are the only such state in the world, eradicating all other civilizations and remaking the world in their image.
They cannot and will never be able to tolerate other "civilizational states" existing and will always seek to break them up in order to create a civilizational vaccum into which they can insert their own - their own culture, their own values, and eventually even their own language. Like they did in Europe and many other parts of the world (Japan, occupied Korea, Philippines, etc.).
I know this isn't exactly a Marxist analysis but it was the best i could do trying to give this concept of the "civilization state" the benefit of the doubt. I thought i may as well try to see if i can get some value out of it, maybe to provide a different perspective from which to view things. I'm still not convinced it's all that useful. It still has major, glaring gaps as an analytic framework compared to a proper dialectical materialist analysis, in particular on the class front.
You tend to give too much benefit of the doubt to these types. I agree with the analysis though.
A reasonable person would say beating the US and reducing poppy production makes them cool. These guys probably think of them like they think of the DPRK: le based authoritarian socially reactionary ethnostate opposed to the “””globalists””” (funny thing is they aren’t even allied with anti-imperialist countries much).
Afghanistan is very much not an ethno-state though. It is actually quite ethnically diverse.
Political compass in general seems simultaneously reductionist and not nuanced enough at the same time. If we were going to simplify the current world, I think it'd be more accurate to simply say there is the western empire and its exploitation (and those allied with it) and then there is anybody who opposes that. Within that, you can start getting into nuance like "do they just preach vague stuff about anti-war but cling to the white supremacy dynamic developed over hundreds of years" (e.g. US patsoc, if I'm not mistaken). But even then, if we're understanding imperialism in the right definition, it's like, ok, is somebody opposing imperialism or just opposing, vaguely speaking, some of the international decisions that the US makes. Are they siding with decolonization processes and mindset behind them or are they just wanting to call it quits on the looting and pillaging for now and sit on their hoard.
I have some concern that overthinking the distinctions just empowers a divide and conquer strategy. That it has its place when we are talking about combined theory and practice in an organized manner making sure your developing movement is not being derailed or taken over by opportunists. But if we're talking about personality test style aesthetics, it only waters things down and draws confusing lines.
