I know "dogmatism" is definitely loaded towards the negative here but that's really the only way I can think to refer to it.
For a specific example, the idea of shutting down and avoiding all criticism of America's geopolitical enemies. I certainly understand where people are coming from with this, and how even leftists aren't immune to state propaganda, but at the same time I have to fall on the "dogmatism is always bad" side. To me it seems like even within a warped and propagandized discourse, shutting down any line of thought uncritically is both a bad general practice and an ineffective way of opposing that line of thought.
“this belief has done good things for me and I don’t have it in me to question that today” is a fine sentiment. It's not like every day I wake up, get out a pencil and paper and re-prove to myself that x group of right wingers are wrong. But to me the key thing is that I know I could if I wanted to and that belief is well-founded.
Unless what you meant with this was related more to religious/spiritual claims than political ones, which I think is just an entirely different situation. In that case it doesn't really matter if an idea is factually true, whereas with political ideas believing things that aren't true can be incredibly dangerous.
And the memes I think are a third thing altogether
I think during the Jordan Peterson debate, Zizek made a point where he insisted that some dogmatism is required in society - for example, wouldn't you want to live in a society where people simply know that rape is bad, instead of having to litigate it every single time and so on. There are definitely lines of argument where the density of bad actors is so high and the effects they have on discourse is so great that the act of shutting down critical thought is preferable to letting them say their piece.
Switching over to your example, dogmatically insisting that the opponents of US Imperialism are good and the US is bad will often get you better results than trying to litigate the point with libs. Sure, if I'm talking among fellow leftists who I know are on the same side I am in opposing US hegemony then I might take a more nuanced position because I know that the conversation will be productive - but when talking to libs Assad is the fucking Lion of Damascus and the US is the eternal Satan, etc.
Is "rape is bad" dogma though? Rape is definitely bad for a lot of very obvious reasons
it's always good, and if you disagree with me you're a revisionist
having nuanced thoughts that you can defend takes too much work. better to be a dumb socialist than an intelligent lib.
Nothing wrong with being a dumb socialist, but I don't think dumbness is going to lead a lot of people to socialism
yea I try to sound intelligent when I can...looking back I've probably opened my mouth a few too many times. sorry comrades.
the unfortunate reality with socialist orgs nowadays is they require a commitment to self-education. yea that's great but most people don't have the time or the will to commit to that.
this is kinda the tragedy of being a marxist. we're so irrelevant that its upon each of us to represent the ideology. being a dumb lib or conservative is a care free experience.
it's very meta but yes dogma is good. because 1 - 0 = 1
my purple opponents say: red bad red evil. 1 point purple
Me, an enlightened redman, say: purple evil. 1 point red
1 - 1 = 0purple opponents: purple always good. 1 point purple
me, a euphoric red crimson cape crusader: red good, BUT also bad. 0 points red
1 - 0 = 1 point purplepurple win
you say that but everything ultimately comes down to numbers and material. ideology is the same.
big banks can create as many fancy convoluted "credit default derivatives" and 2nd order hiding mechanisms as they want but the only thing that matters is that line go up = more money
dogma of opinion = opinion is stronger
You can try to rationalize it away, but you'd just be doing the same thing as a wall street banker, just with ideology instead of currency.
reality is reductive, it's just about energy and material. Rich people steal energy and material from poor people. That's all
The analogy of "being critical to China" for a leftist would be sort of like "giving away free money" for an investor
"giving free money" is sometimes good in small amounts if you're so big and powerful that public sentiment is worth a few wasted dollars.
giving free money is very BAD if your public sentiment doesn't matter. Which is the case for 99% of people who ever existed, because most people are so small and unknown that they have no public sentiment.
IMO marxism-leninism's following in the west is so small that it's not even worth doing this, and I view our current status as analogous to a company that is basically unknown outside of a tiny locale
i feel like this analogy and analysis is lacking structure and clarity. it reads like obscure metaphysics
there might be something there, but i can’t quite parse it
"Dogmatism" is bad unless you're dogmatic about things you're sure are correct. The problem is getting to surety.
So I'm only dogmatic about things I axiomatically assert. Because they're fact-independent assertions, I can be as dogmatic as I like about them, but I can also assert them away when they become an encumbrance.
If you're really sure you're correct why bother with dogma?
How can you be dogmatic about something your uncertain about?
I mean I guess anything you're dogmatic about you're certain about, but if you're dogmatic conditionally depending on the evidence then that's not dogma
