Hello comrades. In the interest of upholding our code of conduct - specifically, rule 1 (providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all) - we felt it appropriate to make a statement regarding the lionization of Luigi Mangione, the alleged United Healthcare CEO shooter, also known as "The Adjuster."

In the day or so since the alleged shooter's identity became known to the public, the whole world has had the chance to dig though his personal social media accounts and attempt to decipher his political ideology and motives. What we have learned may shock you. He is not one of us. He is a "typical" American with largely incoherent, and in many cases reactionary politics. For the most part, what is remarkable about the man himself is that he chose to take out his anger on a genuine enemy of the proletariat, instead of an elementary school.

This is a situation where the art must be separated from the artist. We do not condemn the attack, but as a role model, Luigi Mangione falls short. We do not expect perfection from revolutionary figures either, but we expect a modicum of revolutionary discipline. We expect them not simply to identify an unpopular element of society hitler-detector , but to clearly illuminate the causes of oppression and the means by which they are overcome. When we canonize revolutionary figures, we are holding them up as an example to be followed.

This is where things come back to rule 1. Mangione has a long social media history bearing a spectrum of reactionary viewpoints, and interacting positively with many powerful reactionary figures. While some commenters have referred to this as "nothing malicious," by lionizing this man we effectively deem this behavior acceptable, or at the very least, safe to ignore. This is the type of tailism which opens the door to making a space unsafe for marginalized people.

We're going to be more strict on moderating posts which do little more than lionize the shooter. There is plenty to be said about the unfolding events, the remarkably positive public reaction, how public reactions to "propaganda of the deed" may have changed since the historical epoch of its conception (and how the strategic hazards might not have), and many other aspects of the news without canonizing this man specifically. We can still dance on the graves of our enemies and celebrate their rediscovered fear and vulnerability without the vulgar revisionism needed to pretend this man is some sort of example of Marxist or Anarchist practice.

  • quarrk [he/him]
    ·
    8 days ago

    Incoming ramble

    The Hexbear user base has held two contradictory views which need to be reconciled.

    1. Luigi should be celebrated as an example of the transcendental power of material forces to overcome ideology.
    2. Luigi should be disowned as an unreliable, broken clock whose ideology happens to align with the working class in this one instance.

    Both of these things can be true simultaneously — so do we like Luigi or don’t we?

    On the one hand, “actions speak louder than words.” Who cares what the guy tweets if his actions are indiscernible from those advocated by theory-gary? How can we, in abstract theory, speak of the inevitability of material forces to assert themselves on society, yet behave as though these forces are manifested only through the intellectually enlightened?

    As Marx puts it, “They do not know it, but they do it.” Individual behaviors are forced to align with the conditions, eventually, whether or not one is conscious of it.

    On the other hand, we also have reference to historical examples of revolution. I’m not the most well read on the Bolsheviks, the Maoists, and dozens of other revolutionary groups. But I think it can be said that ideological consistency is important for a revolution to succeed. Political action only becomes a movement when it has direction. At the forefront of the class war is the intellectual war. The bourgeoisie has claim of not only the forces of production, but the forces of intellectual production. A revolutionary movement has to have some kind of vanguard that can intellectually counter the theory and ideas put forth by the bourgeoisie.

    Even at the time of the Manifesto, it was important for Marx and Engels to consolidate a constellation of socialist ideas behind a clear and decisive theory; one that could be signed-on by each faction.

    Excerpt from Engels’ 1890 foreword to the Communist Manifesto

    It was bound to have a programme which would not shut the door on the English trade unions, the French, Belgian, Italian, and Spanish Proudhonists, and the German Lassalleans. This programme — the considerations underlying the Statutes of the International — was drawn up by Marx with a master hand acknowledged even by the Bakunin and the anarchists. For the ultimate final triumph of the ideas set forth in the Manifesto, Marx relied solely upon the intellectual development of the working class, as it necessarily has to ensue from united action and discussion. The events and vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the successes, could not but demonstrate to the fighters the inadequacy of their former universal panaceas, and make their minds more receptive to a thorough understanding of the true conditions for working-class emancipation. And Marx was right. The working class of 1874, at the dissolution of the International, was altogether different from that of 1864, at its foundation. Proudhonism in the Latin countries, and the specific Lassalleanism in Germany, were dying out; and even the ten arch-conservative English trade unions were gradually approaching the point where, in 1887, the chairman of their Swansea Congress could say in their name: “Continental socialism has lost its terror for us.” Yet by 1887 continental socialism was almost exclusively the theory heralded in the Manifesto. Thus, to a certain extent, the history of the Manifesto reflects the history of the modern working-class movement since 1848.

    Clearly, while material forces will assert themselves, the character of their manifestation depends on many factors. Decaying conditions can either produce a positive and democratic revolution, or they can cast a nation into a long period of fascism that sets back the revolution by 500 years. Human agency is an essential part of history and revolution. Ideology, being the indirect driver of human action, plays a part regardless of its theoretical subordination to material forces.

    Wrapping this up… I think it comes down to the true meaning of Christmas critical support. What does it actually mean? It’s too easy to use it as a crutch — to omit from analysis those things most challenging to understand, while preserving a self-image of nuance and maturity.

    Critical support should actually involve critique. Not in order to undermine but to advance the theory and therefore the cause. This dude Luigi presents an opportunity to demonstrate the truth of point #1 (inevitability of material forces) while critiquing the person: the insufficiency of adventurism, in its function as an individual battle and not a collective battle of the working class; the flaws of his reactionary ideology and its tendency to break up the working class; and the wasted potential of a manifesto without a clear message.

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      8 days ago

      When someone says "Do you support Luigi?" it depends on context. Are they saying the shooting and his reasons for doing so? Then yes, uncritically (anti-adventurists will argue about that). His brainworms? No. Those can be separated though, the brainworms aren't related to the act, all that matters here is that someone had a horrendous experience with healthcare, recognises nothing will change without waging class war for it, and went out and committed an act of class war on the side of the proletariat.