cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/[email protected]/p/426876/the-downsides-of-running-a-fediverse-platform
S17E3 “Mac and Dennis Become EMTs”
cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/[email protected]/p/426876/the-downsides-of-running-a-fediverse-platform
S17E3 “Mac and Dennis Become EMTs”
Because of intellectual propriety.
Did you intend “intellectual property”?
Regardless, I understand the meaning of the symbol, but not its applicability to the context.
It’s supposed to be funny.
The political extremes are often more exclusionary and sometimes holier-than-thou, which is why it’s funny to say that you have exclusivity for the Far Left™ label. But as a leftist I also think that property is theft, intellectual property is not proper, hence… propriety.
I suppose. I feel the message is clear and accurate without the joke. With the joke, concerns about the anti-authoritarian left are being unduly exaggerated.
At a guess, it might be intended to depict the concept of True (as in Genuine, Authentic) Far Left?
If so, I would argue that a corporate symbol does not match perfectly with the ideals of a Far Left, so I’d give it a grade of A for process (summarizing a lot of information into just one symbol) but only a C for outcome. It seems better if it had simply been removed entirely.
Then again, it’s easy for us to criticize, and it was harder for someone else to have created it initially, so props to whoever did that - overall I think that the image conveys a lot and is a good match for the concepts (that one symbol aside).
Also, to me it seems obviously tongue-in-cheek, not meant so much for actual conveyance of teaching real information so much as to provide a bit of brevity surrounding the topic. (Usage of the word “fuck” aside, there’s also “whatever”, which seems not congruous with like an academic - even at the Wikipedia level - discussion of the reality of the topic matters, chiefly since it lacks precision.) Then again, I could be wrong.🤔
I think the concept is effective at lest in exposing the inaccuracy of horseshoe theory.
Yeah I presume - though I have no idea, really - that horseshoe theory is what it was being tongue-in-cheek TO.
And it seems remarkably effective in that goal, as evidenced by many people (other than myself) continuing to share it. It offers a nice balance of simplicity and complexity, at least in the sense of going one level deeper than left vs. right.
Having the trademark on far left never made sense to me either, really undermines the whole thing. the plot is also missing axis.
I took a stab at fixing it, will add coordinates once i can find my graphing calculator
The far right bend needs to be going the opposite direction, towards more cis.
Also why are tankies more fascist?
I guess the 2 dimensionality of the image makes it hard to see.
Those are some great points, hazards of trying to represent something 3d in 2d tbh.
I updated it
It’s even more incomprehensible. Good job.
happy to put my editing skills to work
To be honest, I am not perceiving the modifications as an improvement.
The original cleverly shows, quite simply, that the authoritarian left develops from reaction, that is, regresion toward the right, within leftism.
It also exposes as misconception that leftism generally is authoritarian.
debatable, it’s just horseshoe theory, but with a trademarked pick-me spur of leftists
I did update my plot though, it needed more text
I really don’t see how it does that, the original doesn’t even have authoritarianism indicated, it’s vibes based
Tankies and rightists are both authoritarian, whereas leftism is anti-authoritarian.
Horseshoe theory inaccurately conflates authoritarian leftism with generally all leftism.
“Authoritarian” as is commonly used often conflates people trying to abolish class domination with those working to uphold it. It flattens very different forms of power by treating coercion that arises in a revolutionary context, where entrenched elites are unlikely to give up their position voluntarily, as equivalent to the everyday normalized coercion that sustains capitalist rule.
Liberal democracies enforce property relations through police, courts, and prisons, yet this use of authority is typically treated as neutral or simply how society works. Challenges to that order are then singled out as specifically authoritarian.
Framing politics around “authoritarian versus anti-authoritarian” also allows capitalist domination in general to pass as freedom while collapsing the entire radical left into a caricature, for example by dismissing it all as “tankie.”
As an anarchist, I want to see class society abolished altogether, not endlessly managed or reformed. Every social order exercises authority, the real question is whose interests are being served by that authority.
We break capitalist domination by expanding consciousness that both liberal capitalism and state capitalism are authoritarian systems that rob the working class.
Every state generates a class antagonism. Every state protects its oppression by a narrative about the ruling class serving the interests of the working class.
A distinction may be found between those whose power is justified by an intention to abolish class versus those relying on other justifications of power, but all are incapable of delivering liberation. A people may be liberated only by rejecting the narrative. The distinction ultimately is superficial. Once authoritarian communists consolidate power, they dismantle every current in society that is authentically liberatory, because they cannot endure the challenge.
I agree that all states reproduce domination and justify it through ideology, but framing liberation primarily as a matter of expanding consciousness is overly deterministic in its own way.
Capitalist domination is enforced through material institutions that constrain people regardless of what they believe. Rejecting the narrative is necessary I don’t think it’s sufficient to actually end the system.
Treating all authority as equivalent, or differences as superficial, flattens real differences in how power is exercised and contested. It does so without meaningfully explaining how domination is actually dismantled.
Communist governments will often suppress liberatory currents, that outcome follows from centralized power reproducing itself. However, that is also contextualized by capitalist governments attempting to undermine them. There’s not some inevitable law that makes all revolutionary struggle collapse into the same form, which is what the’authoritarian vs anti-authoritarian’ lens implies.
Bedtimes are authoritarian, your parents are dictators
Thanks for the pro tip.