I am including myself in this. Communism is an ideal we are striving towards. It is possible but we were all raised by and in capitalism and we all know it fucking sucks and is evil and gross and smelly. We all have a lot to unpack and relearn about the world, other people, history, everything just about. So when I get corrected on here or someone disagrees with me I love it. It's a chance for me to learn or educate or just reach a mutual understanding of each others opinions.
Struggle sessions are good and the best praxis this site is doing. I have learnt so much from them and I hope the continue until I actually become a communist. If people leave because of them that is tough but I think the site is improving because of them. I think people should come here with an attitude that they want to learn and engage and try and grow not just be fed entertainment. I do enjoy the memes and the bits but it's not why I keep coming back here.
Thank you for listening to my HexTalk.
I agree. I think a lot of leftists believe they become automatically good people because of their political ideology. We are the most ethically sound political ideology but just because we are, it doesn’t make us moral in an individual sense. I’ve come across some pretty hateful and toxic leftists who think they can say whatever they want because of their positions. A lot of the drama here starts because of this fact. As you said, we always have to unlearn and learn new things. Marxists need to be flexible in their thinking and it’s disappointing to see stubbornness persist.
I’m still learning a lot myself about theory and gender identities. A few of my friends came out as non binary and I want to ensure I’m still being a good friend even though there are a lot of things I still don’t understand and probably won’t ever understand. But it’s my duty as a socialist to make sure they’re protected and feel welcome.
We have to be disciplined, calm, empathetic, and healthy. Our success depends on it.
Someone can be as theoretically correct as one can be, but if they're an asshole to everyone else pulling in the same direction they're not going to get much done. It should be the easiest thing in the world to be generous with people broadly on our side (and to be generous with who is considered at least kinda-sorta "on our side"). We're going to need most of them along with tens of millions of other people who aren't currently 100% with us if we want to accomplish anything big. Driving away otherwise persuadable people is the ultimate wrecker behavior. We can't afford to tolerate it.
tbh i would have been radicalized a lot sooner if the lefties i knew online and off were just a bit nicer and not so anxious to debatebro me into the dust
This is why I hesitate to give myself a label beyond anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist (but if pushed, I'll call myself a Marxist. which you're right, I'm prob not really one).
This is the correct line. Given the current state of the left in the west the idea of being Team Lenin or Team Deng or whatever is really cringe. Its indistinguishable to the Twilight fandom. If any of that shit was actually right we would have communism by now. Learn, think critically, punch nazis
I think this is a pretty good take on synthesis as praxis. We are often all coming from different material experiences, have read and identified with different theories and tendencies, and in discussion with each other we share perspectives others are missing. I don't have the perspectives of anarchists or of trans people or of anyone in the global south; my understanding of the world is lessened by this. I have an incomplete understanding of communism and how to build it until I learn from my comrades; just as my comrades elsewhere have an incomplete understanding before they learn femminist perspectives or before they read Leninist works or learn from indigenous communities.
I was trying not to use all the big scary word but yeah.
I use them confidently and almost always incorrectly so someone can swoop in and tell me I'm using them like a dumbass: until it happens I just keep shoehorning them in.
I had to double check I was using reactionary right before posting this and I am still not 100% sure it applies here but it sounds right.
I think it was a bit strong, but it works when you refer to people unlearning stupidpol, or unlearning redditatheism, or woke libs who have to be bullied into standing against imperialism, so going with an overexageration to make people click on the post and read it is pretty justified.
That is the politest and wordiest way I have ever been accused of click bait. :che-laugh:
top 10 ways to draw folks into engaging with a topic! number six will surprise you!
edit: youll never believe the results you can achieve with this one weird trick! liberals hate it!
My dream is to be lead to the guillotine for being too reactionary by the new generation.
Proverbially of course. I'm rather attached to my neck.
Gonna just leave this here
Paul Morrin, an ML who does an interviews with smart leftists . Focused on Marxism, but he's open minded and brings lots of people on from hardline tankies like Hakim to revisionists like Bay Area to anarchists like Mexie.
Why exactly are you on this site then if you hate entertainment and discussion and learning? You hoping to recruit for some militia or crowdfund a commune? How do you picture this site material contributing to revolution?
The outdoor cat stuggle session is pointless and it is obviously a meme at this point even. The Vegan stuggle session made a few people try it out so it was a material success. The ones about socialist states are always going to be constant as we get new members who need to unlearn some propaganda and try and get a more accrate picture of them. They have helped me learn to make better arguments in favour of them and understand them better from a materialist perspective rather then my knee jerk anarchist "states bad" reaction. You might not be taking anything on board but some of us are and appreciate this site for it.
And arguments in general are irrelevant to actually important things
That settles it then. Let's invade vuvuzela
I don't think it's particularly helpful to elevate the status of "communist". None of us is the all-knowing Marxist above everyone else, and nearly everyone has reactionary elements to kill off, but that doesn't make you not a communist. Most people are working on becoming more enlightened one way or another, be it economic theory, learning more about non-gender conforming experiences, history of other nations etc. At the end of the day, nearly all of us were born in the west, and we all have to unlearn a lot of the western propaganda that raised us. Doesn't make you not a communist.
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence
Carlos Marx
