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”
Everyone cannot read a treatise on every subject.
We need simple devices to break through entrenched misconceptions.
Such devices complement, not replace, properly nuanced discourse.
We seem to agree generally on the concepts, but for some reason you seem to be objecting, through the use of quote mining.
I quoted the last sentence of your last response because I disagreed with it, and gave the reasons for why in my response. I don’t think simplifying things in the way that you are is either constructive or complementing nuanced discourse.
I don’t see how that’s quote mining.
I acknowledge differences as well as commonalities, yet you select one particular facet of my explanation to insist I am “collaps[ing]… different projects”.
The situation we face is that much of the public believes leftism to be inherently authoritarian. The proposed “stethoscope” diagram is effective in separating the authoritarian versus anti-authoritarian left, keeping the latter close to rightism but not fully merged.
Breaking through the prevailing misconceptions requires us to emphasize specific relationships while keeping others as less prominent. We are not abandoning proper theory, only adopting messaging appropriate for the current circumstances.
I’m not interested in sorting leftists into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories for public consumption because that approach accepts the premise that left politics must earn legitimacy by distancing itself from its own radicals.
Even as purely a messaging exercise, this reinforces the idea that domination is a matter of posture rather than structure. That orientation leads the public to see liberation as a branding/mental exercise instead of a material struggle.
That type of approach narrows what kinds of opposition to capitalism can even be imagined as legitimate.
I feel your pure motives are in tension with practical constraints.
Messaging achieves efficacy through simplification. We pick the most important priorities, while still maintaining more rigorous discourse for anyone specifically able to engage more deeply. As movements evolve, and public consciousness develops, we find newer priorities, perhaps ones more favorable generally.
Being overly earnest in seeking a pure form of communication simply keeps the larger mass alienated that we rather need to be participants.
Regardless, state capitalism is not any kind of opposition to capitalism. We certainly should exclude opposition that is not meaningful.
I think you replied to me twice with the same comment:
What is the practical constraint?
I already said I dont think there’s value in approaching this as a messaging campaign. I also don’t see how this would be an important priority.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to convey by saying this is a ‘pure form of communication’. I think that this is a material struggle and trying to approach it like a marketing campaign is not constructive, it also reproduces liberal assumptions about power by treating domination as a matter of style rather than structure.
I don’t think wholesale denunciation of past revolutionary movements in the name of consciousness-raising is useful. It turns complex, material struggles into symbols of what not to be, tailored for acceptability rather than understanding. That kind of simplification doesn’t challenge domination, it reassures people that nothing more disruptive need be imagined.
The reality is that our movements may only succeed through expanding participation and improving unity.
Messaging plays a vital role in our movements developing along such a successful course, messaging that is accessible and straightforward even at the cost of completeness.
I doubt you will find a historical example to contrary, but it seems that on the particular matter we are simply in disagreement.
I don’t disagree that expanding participation and unity matters. I don’t see that specific type of messaging as constructive to that end.
Most mass movements that achieved real gains did so by forcing confrontation with material conditions, not by first correcting public misconceptions. Simplified messaging tends to follow success rather than generate it.
Also that simplification isn’t exactly neutral, it shapes how people understand power, struggle, and possibility. Messaging that gains accessibility by adopting liberal moral frames around ‘authoritarianism’ may broaden appeal in the short term, but it does so by narrowing the horizon of what opposition to capitalism can look like.
That tradeoff isn’t just about completeness, it’s about whether unity is built around confronting material structures of domination or around reassuring people that nothing too disruptive is required. I think we’re simply at different conclusions.
I appreciate the conversation, even if we don’t agree.
I stand by my assertion that accessible and straightforward messaging is essential, even while not sufffient, for movements to succeed, and that some simplification becomes inevitable.
I understand you disagree.
Regardless, criticism of authority is fundamental and unique to leftism. It is not “liberal moral frames”.
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