sure but on this server, socialists, anarchists and other leftists are regularly called libs by some if they say negative things about China or Stalin or whatever. It’s really not used herr to talk about proponents of liberal capitalism anymore. Kinda lost its meaning
You can make criticisms of both. Just actually talk from a place of knowing what you are talking about when you do it.
While I’m not a leftcom, Bordiga is probably one of the more solid critics of Stalin. I disagree with Bordiga’s criticism, but I can track and understand where he was coming from because he very clearly actually did the reading.
What I don’t always respond kindly to, is someone going “14 kajillion dead, worse than hitler, authoritarian”.
It’s extremely common for people to combine their pre-existing biases from growing up and being educated in, working in, and living within the confines of bourgeois cultural hegemony with newly radicalized left-wing politics. Without going back and confronting our pre-existing stances, we actually end up warping our new radicalized beliefs to conform to our deeply instilled beliefs about existing socialism. This is how people that genuinely believe themselves to be socialists perpetuate liberal lines of logic and historical narratives.
Instead, we combat this through long periods of self-criticism and confrontation. We have to take our new knowledge, such as that of dialectical and historical materialism, and intentionally confront our pre-existing beliefs that came from liberalism. We all have this process to go through, and it’s never “complete,” either. It took me a long time to actually come around to supporting existing socialism, even after I began reading theory, because my frame of analysis was ultimately still liberal, and therefore my interpretations of theory were forced to fit in neatly with my existing world view, rather than uprooting the weeds and planting new seeds.
This process of dialectical growth and inward reflection is difficult and lengthy, which is why those that are in support of socialism tend to be far more knowledgable, well-read, and aren’t typically strangers to real political organizing. It takes tremendous energy to not only learn new information, but re-analyze existing conclusions that had faulty logic.
A handy analogy is looking at it through a computer program. If you have version 1 of a program spit out a bunch of outputs, and then fix a critical bug for version 2, you can’t just only rely on the new outputs, you have to confront the old outputs made with bad code and go through the new process. This is where people get tripped up ideologically.
To give a simple example for readers, imagine if a conservative deconstructs his racism and becomes a lefty, but still thinks George Soros funds antifascist groups because he hasn’t really thought about that since he was a conservative.
sure but on this server, socialists, anarchists and other leftists are regularly called libs by some if they say negative things about China or Stalin or whatever. It’s really not used herr to talk about proponents of liberal capitalism anymore. Kinda lost its meaning
You can make criticisms of both. Just actually talk from a place of knowing what you are talking about when you do it.
While I’m not a leftcom, Bordiga is probably one of the more solid critics of Stalin. I disagree with Bordiga’s criticism, but I can track and understand where he was coming from because he very clearly actually did the reading.
What I don’t always respond kindly to, is someone going “14 kajillion dead, worse than hitler, authoritarian”.
It’s extremely common for people to combine their pre-existing biases from growing up and being educated in, working in, and living within the confines of bourgeois cultural hegemony with newly radicalized left-wing politics. Without going back and confronting our pre-existing stances, we actually end up warping our new radicalized beliefs to conform to our deeply instilled beliefs about existing socialism. This is how people that genuinely believe themselves to be socialists perpetuate liberal lines of logic and historical narratives.
Instead, we combat this through long periods of self-criticism and confrontation. We have to take our new knowledge, such as that of dialectical and historical materialism, and intentionally confront our pre-existing beliefs that came from liberalism. We all have this process to go through, and it’s never “complete,” either. It took me a long time to actually come around to supporting existing socialism, even after I began reading theory, because my frame of analysis was ultimately still liberal, and therefore my interpretations of theory were forced to fit in neatly with my existing world view, rather than uprooting the weeds and planting new seeds.
This process of dialectical growth and inward reflection is difficult and lengthy, which is why those that are in support of socialism tend to be far more knowledgable, well-read, and aren’t typically strangers to real political organizing. It takes tremendous energy to not only learn new information, but re-analyze existing conclusions that had faulty logic.
A handy analogy is looking at it through a computer program. If you have version 1 of a program spit out a bunch of outputs, and then fix a critical bug for version 2, you can’t just only rely on the new outputs, you have to confront the old outputs made with bad code and go through the new process. This is where people get tripped up ideologically.
To give a simple example for readers, imagine if a conservative deconstructs his racism and becomes a lefty, but still thinks George Soros funds antifascist groups because he hasn’t really thought about that since he was a conservative.
Yep, great example!
If you act like a lib, talk like a lib and agree with almost everything that liberals says people will call you a lib.