I have a friend like this and damn is he frustrating to talk politics with. He is convinced that his politics are cutting edge and transcend left/right but he mainly gets his news from msnbc. Never read any theory and seems to have no real interest in leftism. Likes to talk about "personal liberation" in some kind of vaguely spiritual sense. Trust fund kid who's never had to worry about money. Went to a fancy arts college. Feel like there are a lot of people out there like this.
I’m convinced this is why anarchism often gets a bad rap. It’s very easy to call yourself an anarchist and not have to challenge a lot of American propaganda and setter colonialist beliefs. Anarchism in the popular understanding lends itself really well to extreme individualism, and you can still criticize American enemies like China and Venezuela on the basis that they are states, and you are against the state. Every college anarchist I knew was like this, as was I at one point. It’s like you are critical of both liberals and conservatives, you know you’re on the left and not a chud, and anarchism is the ideology that you can most fit with your as yet unchallenged beliefs that you have been raised with your whole life. So you say you’re an anarchist when your actual beliefs are more just liberal.
Yeah I have a few actual anarchist friends who read theory and do a shit ton of mutual aid and actual direct action, and they're all great. Especially because on things like China and Venezuela they go, "why would I give a shit, there's nothing we can do about them here and everything we know about them is state propaganda lies." Should be the default position for any "anarchist" imo, and often is amongst the more committed ones. Don't have to actively support China or Venezuela or Cuba or anything, but actively just being like "hey maybe don't worry about them one way or another and leave them alone." That's good enough for me.
why would I give a shit, there’s nothing we can do about them here and everything we know about them is state propaganda lies
Literally should be every socialists default position imo, but noooooo we gotta have a bunch of nonconformist dipshits who thinks its radical to buy a Comrade Che Guevara shirt from Hot Topic, commodify socialism into culture war bullshit, eat hotchip, and lie.
I mean I would argue that the default socialist position should be explicit and enthusiastic support of actual existing socialists states, but yeah I'd take that as the default for now considering the alternative of "CIA bad unless it's about socialist states."
I do mean socialist in the broad sense of the word from social democrats to whatever kind of ultra or anarchist tendency is the left-most prior to becoming post-left cranks
idk even Final Straw platformed a HK lib, and besides that they're pretty based as far as anarchist news media goes
Very true, ultimately questions like these are what pushed me more to the ML camp. Contemplating questions of power and organization of a society.
Yeah I think both anarchism and ML-ism both have very important contributions, and to fully reject or solely immerse yourself in either one has some serious consequences. Also, as I understand it, both anarchism and Marxism have the same end goal, that is, "free association." And so when we discuss anarchism and Marxism, we are really trying to figure out the best way to get to the same place.
For me, the core concept of my ancom-ism is to be "fully critical of and eliminate any unjustified hierarchy and power structures", certainly a noble mission. We know that if things are all well and good (FALGSC mode) everyone can pretty much do whatever they want, cause what could go wrong? On the other end, we aren't going to have a ranked-choice vote if we're in some sort of battle or other emergency situation; even the most principled anarchist should realize that the hierarchy is justified. If you want to save your own skin/defend your community/save others' lives you need to shut the fuck up and listen to your squad leader/command chain for better or worse (there are boundaries, of course, but you know what I mean).
As we can see, there's some material analysis beginning to form in that thought process, so after working my way across the spectrum of when hierarchies justify their existence, I've noticed that Marxists generally had the right idea about things. There are even many ways to criticize the things that Marxist political leaders/parties did "wrong" within Marxism!
I didn't phrase it well, but I would consider myself a former ancom, though it is obviously very influential on my thinking. Glad to hear that I and/or our other ancom comrades have been an impact on how you see things though! We all have a lot to learn from each other, and I know we appreciate the dev and admin teams for working to make it possible for us :)
Well, I don't focus too much on tendency labels, but you've seen me semi-ironically shoot "socialism with American Characteristics" across your inbox, and I guess that would describe my politics. My class standing and brain overload leave me less driven to politics than many of our comrades here, but I definitely enjoy understanding what makes the world tick. The sub/chaposphere has been my main online hangout for a few years now, and the Marxists have consistently been right (it's like the Palpatine pasta, I needed to "learn that power").
Turns out the Marxist worldview is a very powerful lens! (as you know), also turns out that it isn't particularly exclusive to lib-soc ideas, but it explains why they were ineffective compared to Lenin and DemCent and such. I guess where that leaves me is with a stack of books to continue working on my material analysis skills, but politically I'm gonna go to whatever has a chance at making a difference in my community. If that's volunteering for Bernie, I'm gonna do it (even knowing that the Dems will shut it down). If that's a left-org (DSA is the leader in my area, and many others), I'll be in the mix there, even though they're full of libs and PMCs yada-yada, till something else comes along.
The most powerful driver for me though, has been the philosophical concept of instrumentalism. I try and incorporate concepts, theories, and analyses that are useful to helping me better understand what's going on in the world, and if they aren't useful any longer, then I'll set them aside. Sure, anarchism is how things "ought" to be, but I didn't find enough useful information about how to actually implement it, so I had to set 70% of it aside, and move on to material analysis.
Anyway, always learning, so ask me again in 6 months and I'll have something different to say.
Yup I think I found it from Historic.ly.
It’s my guiding document in organising.
I'll be honest I really don't see how we can have a functioning society without some power structures. Might be unpopular but I don't think power structures in and of the themselves are always bad.
I think the typical ancom response to this (and I happen to agree with it) is that not all power structures are inherently bad. But any hierarchies have to continuously justify their necessity to the community and always strive to be as horizontal and voluntary as possible.
There is something that rubs me the wrong way when some worker centered anarchists talk about labor compensation. The way it's articulated feels very ancappy where receiving the full value of your work is strictly monetary rather than in the framework of a communal society where resources are shared. One of the worst takes I've seen along this line of thinking is that people who do not work should not be allowed to be a part of society.
Pro tip: this is why you should avoid labels unless they actually assist in communication and understanding
Wouldn't be so bad if that political compass test wasnt completely, utterly flawed in its design.
Edit: But honestly the compass itself should just be a dot for every single question, with larger dots for more important questions, so you can see someone's cluster.
There should be a dynamic URL with the answer to each question encoded in it, so you can see someone's test and hover over each dot to see each question and answer.
God I gotta figure out how to make this, I could probably hack it together somehow but I'm not that good at coding
Looks like it's not, but the python data science libraries look promising. Thanks!
That's a good idea, I want to basically build it to reflect a leftist perspective of the political spectrum, but not label it that way
This is a really good way to put it. The commodification of ideology in a sense is definitely happening and has been. It's a bit too in the nose at times if you spend too much time in spaces like twitter or YouTube, you'll see it everywhere. It's almost like an extension of their "brand" if not outright what they're trying to market themselves as. I hate bringing him up but I think Vaush is a good example of what happens when it ends up working, because so many new or not very bright people adopt almost the exact style of aesthetic and so called ideology Vaush attempts to represent, no matter how incoherent it is at times. He sorts caters to this type of post-right channer that doesn't want to read or try to understand much theory but still pitch themselves as a serious and knowledgeable leftist.
UEH HUE, NO GUYS IM FOR MARKET SOCIALISM UEH UHE, I'M NOT A CAPITALIST HUE HUE
LOOK, LENIN WOULD HAVE DEFINETLY SUPPORTED BIDEN, SEE HOW HE WROTE ABOUT SUPPORTING A LABOUR PARTY TO FURTHER THE GOALS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY?
Ni**ER NATIONALISM IS JUST AS BAD AS THE KKK, AND MLK WOULD TOTES AGREE WITH ME!!!
i met someone briefly last year who claimed to be an anarchist but supported elizabeth warren for president lol
I have plenty of friends who think they are far left because they believe that racism, homophobia and transphobia are bad but they don't really care about any systemic issues.
But it's important not to scoff at them imo. Just let them call themselves whatever they want, it doesn't matter, you catch more flies with honey after all. There's a good chance their heart is in the right place and you'll be able to convert them to the real stuff soon enough.
That's where I was at 10 years ago, just keep planting those seeds.
exactly, the OP describes who I was like 6 years ago tbh
the seeds are there, they just need a bit of watering
I think all chapo users are my friends and yes they are all libs.
They tend to bring up identity politics way more than intersectionality. And don’t like being called out on their lack of solidarity.
But he’s a worker too. If we would all just come together and understand that. This is why the left isn’t growing.
Talking about identity politics is identity politics. Nobody loves identity politics more than the whinging white victims of stupidpol
white victims of stupidpol
Oh yeah, they’re victims. This is almost exactly what I’m talking about. Good illustration of what not to be like.
Yeah, there is some truth to this. With this dude I feel like it really comes down to coming from money. He just doesn't have any experience of the struggle most people go thru. He is a perfect example of vaguely left utopian idealism as opposed to on the ground material analysis. And the facts are that (whether he recognizes it or not) maintaining the status quo is in his material interest. At some point it's like: are you gonna be a class traitor or not lol
Have you told him about chapo dot chat? We’re pretty good at radicalizing. And reactionaries get shut the fuck down.
I said it above but Pedagogy of the Oppressed could be really useful for fostering that class traitor identity
meh, not really. Trans white, proletariat leftists (specifically Marxist-Leninists, from my biased POV) are much more radical and understandable of conditions than say, uneducated anarchists/brocialists.
like that all conservative voters should be killed en masse
fellow baseball fan
Start a reading group with him? Have him pick some radical literature he likes, read it together, discuss it, then repeat with something you pick.
If he goes for the whole thing, boom, you've put him on a leftward path. If you can only get one thing he's read out of this, you at least have some threads to tug at to highlight why his politics are bad. If he balks at reading any political literature, having a conversation about how good one's political ideas can be if they've never interacted with any other political ideas might help.
Start a reading group with him?
This isnt a bad idea, but I want to go against a notion that a lot of people here seem to have. “Reading theory” isn’t some magic “make person not stupid” pill. It can help but State and Revolution doesn’t magically rewire someone’s brain into being a Marxist. People can totally read the same theory as you and it won’t click with them. I know plenty of people who have read more than me but still have dumb as fuck takes.
You should still encourage people to do it but don’t overestimate it’s effectiveness.
Open to any suggestions on theory that would appeal to this counterculture/radlib type of person. Maybe I'll just give him george jackson's blood in my eye
it took years of festering but Pedagogy of the Oppressed turned me from radlib to class traitor
See this is the problem. He's the type of person who always thinks he has the most advanced take on everything, be it music, art or politics. When the protests started in the spring though, it kind of broke his brain. I tried to point him towards some leftist writings but to no avail.
I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth trying to radicalize him or if this class of trust fund/artists are all just naval gazing reactionaries who want to maintain the status quo.
Personal liberation sounds like self actualization, and trust fund kid sounds like he’s deluded himself into thinking he’s achieved it
