Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at house. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
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I think we should be cautious about something now that the fediverse is rapidly growing.
We should be careful not to get drawn into wrecker tactics. If you search the fediverse for lemmygrad, you’ll see quite a bit of trouble kicking off in other instances. I came across this when looking for news about lemmygrad being down on the weekend. I wouldn’t ordinarily search to see what others are saying about us because I don’t care for the drama. And if If liberals avoid this place, I’ll be happy.
But there’s a problem. People are posting lies about us and warning others not to come here. But that’s not the worst of it. Now, I don’t want to see monsters where there aren’t any. But it seems to me that the structure and form of these posts and comments are dangerous. The way they’re framed will lead others to (a) put words in our mouths and (b) question us in a particular format.
We’ve seen this already on posts on lemmygrad, and some of you may have seen it in comments here and on other instances. It goes, roughly, like this: ‘I’ve heard that you eat babies. Why do you eat babies?’ Or: ‘Why do you love Putin/genocide/etc?’ Or: ‘Don’t worry about those people on LG, they’re all young, and don’t know why better.’ Or: ‘Don’t worry about [redtea], he’s a champagne socialist from New York.’
These comments are infuriating. And they will lead you to slip up if you’re not careful. Because, when faced with an accusation, the temptation is to defend yourself. But how do you do that? You might reply that you only eat babies on Fridays, or that you love Putin for XYZ, or that you’re not young, you’re 45, or that you’re not from NY, you’re from a small village outside Memphis, population 10. If you reply to these provocateurs with the wrong response, you may allow people to build up a profile about IRL-you, attached to statements that could get you in trouble. Don’t fall for it!
Is this a psy-op? All those agents paid to astro turf the narrative on Reddit and Twitter will be looking for other work. So I wouldn’t discount it. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The effect is the same whether it’s isolated or orchestrated. People are being riled up to come at us with their pitchforks, here and on other instances. Be careful, and don’t fall for their tricks. Don’t dox yourself. Don’t be trapped into saying something illegal.
I’m posting this so that we can talk about how to spot these traps and how to avoid them. Everyone on LG is concerned with making the world a better place, with ending oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, exploitation, climate catastrophe, etc. We have vitriolic enemies because of it. Don’t let them define what we stand for—choose your words carefully.
very good points – on a related topic, I think it’s best to follow @yogthos’s example and avoid being needlessly hostile on other instances, since it’s likely to just reinforce their assumptions about us and “tankies” in general
Agree. It can be difficult, still. Not just avoiding the temptation to dunk (forget imperialism, the key contradiction of our times is whether to dunk or educate). But because the other person might never have been challenged from an ML perspective before. If they have, they might not be used to it; sometimes it seems that they simply cannot get their head around what’s being said.
For instance, challenging one point is interpreted as meaning support for the only contrary point they’ve ever heard (e.g. challenging the narrative that Russian invaded ‘unprovoked’ is taken as support for Putin because they’re the only two options that are ever presented in the (western) public discourse.
Being polite is only half the battle when trying not to be hostile. Even the mere pointing at counter-evidence, or asking questions for clarity, are taken as hostility.
Feel free to point it out if you think I am ever needlessly hostile. I’ll try to correct it.
Yeah, let’s not become r/communism
I don’t think we need to worry about being overrun by Gonzaloists on this instance
I started reading this comment and thought it was going to be about people making deliberately inflammatory comments (of which I’m the worst offender) that would play into the userbase being evil. But yeah, doxing is an even more real concern.
It’s difficult, especially online. IRL, I can be deliberately inflammatory and with a disarming smile and a wink, the conversation stays friendly. That’s not so easy online. Where, to make it more complicated, you and the other person are practically anonymous. And we’re constantly faced with trolls, so the temptation is to shut them down and have fun doing so. We probably could be better at not being deliberately inflammatory but I’m in no place to judge. It’s worth us discussing that, too, though, so that we only do it on appropriate occasions and when we intend to.
I mean…welcome to being a communist on the internet?
Anti-coms know that what communists say is reasonable. Which is why they just lie about us, because if people gave us a chance, they would realise we aren’t hateful monsters, but human beings with reasonable points that we are actually willing to discuss and debate (so long as the debate isn’t just “million-gorillion dead” over and over)
So the only option is to dehumanise us. Treat us as something to be dismissed out of hand, not ever listened to, because if they did, they’d realise that we seem to be actually trying to understand things and not just spouting meaningless buzzwords. Which in turn might make them question why their liberal friends don’t seem to be interested in that, and prefer the buzzwords. Self-reflection is anathema to the liberal worldview, so naturally this can’t be allowed.
That’s not always true. Some (I would guess most) liberals have no idea what communism actually is; their anticommunism is based entirely on bourgeois propaganda (“news”, “history” books written by both deliberate liars and useful idiots, works of fiction like Gulag Archipelago and 1984, etc.), and I’m convinced that a lot of these people can be convinced. Unfortunately, social media sites like R*ddit are infested with various three-letter agencies, and I’m sure at least some of them have branched out to the more popular Lemmy instances :|
I think this is the source of a lot of friction with liberals online. It’s clear they haven’t read anything about communism written by a communist. Usually they haven’t read any liberal theory, either, but that’s by the by.
In practice, this means that when liberals (especially the ‘progressive’ type) read positive comments about communism they assume the person is an ill-educated, teenage, edge lord. They have zero comprehension that most of us have reached their Marxist position because of and after several years of dedicated study.
Unfortunately, the bourgeois playbook means that if you tell them they’re misinformed or tell them to read, they take it as a school yard insult; because that’s how they use it when arguing with other people within the frame of the overton window. They’ll read one book with a communist caricature and think they know everything there is to know.
For them it comes from a position of arrogance based on very little analysis. The instruction is often used to mask the speaker’s own ignorance and inability to fully explain themselves. Not because they’re not bright. They could be highly intelligent and well educated. But because the liberal framework provides no way of dealing with the internal contradictions in their findings. It doesn’t even provide tools to acknowledge that contradictions exist and can be valid.
There is one main category of exception: those who’ve read Isaiah Berlin. He trained himself on Marxism and managed to write a fair biography, all things considered. Then spent the rest of his life promoting the idea that contradiction is central to liberalism. It didn’t catch on, though.
Anyway, the point is, when it comes to what communists say about the world (end poverty, etc), I fully agree, that:
But when they know that the communist is a communist, however reasonable the claim, I agree that
But it does require a certain openmindedness. And a willingness to accept that they might be wrong about some things. Such as the tendency to accept works of fiction as profound works of fact. This becomes very difficult when dealing with packs/ganders/gaggles of liberals: it only takes one to belittle, deride, or smirk at the communist with a roll of the eyes. And the others will be so scared of looking stupid that they’ll shut down.
This is what leads me to accept:
If it wasn’t true before, it should be assumed true now. It would be an immense tactical blunder to control media for so long only to leave the fediverse unmonitored. Maybe they’re planning to get in through Threads? I’d just assume they’re already here.
It might be silly to try think they could be spotted. The ones with bad politics will glow on LG but in the same colour and a similar intensity as other liberals. They’ll blend right in everywhere else. Then there are the functional agents, who do the three-letter work without an affiliation because the egg comes before the chicken.
What does this look like? I think it’s partly what I posted in the top-level comment and partly what I wrote here: ridiculing communists, name calling, etc, so that others no the punishment merely for entertaining Marxism-Leninism—exile and ostracisation.
What else we might look out for, and how to challenge it, could make for a fruitful discussion. I remember there’s a hexbear thread about this kind of thing if anyone has the link.
oof, some day
it’s very difficult to tell just based on their comments, so I always doubt that I can convince an anticommunist by arguing with them (if I reply it’s because I think it may influence others who are just reading the thread)
I can almost guarantee that you’ve consciously read more Marxist theory than the average liberal has read liberal theory.
that’s an extremely low bar 💀
True, I was using the term a bit vaguely there. I was talking about the people in charge of creating that ignorance amongst the public, rather than the people who believe easy answers and don’t question things.