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[+] -9 points 1 week ago (25 children)

Is it lost on you that the meme rhymes or is parallel with memes from reactionary conservatives or do you just disagree? To me it looks like when the news focused on the little damage during BLM in order to claim complete wreckage.

Ignorant memeing ain't praxis or revolution. Anarchism and communism (even from ML roots) aren't incompatible. I guess I shouldn't expect cowbee grade responses from everyone or that humans could ever stop themselves from acting human.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    While I do support Marxists and anarchists working together against imperialism and capitalism, communism and anarchism are not compatible. Anarchism, oversimplified, presents a world of interconnected horizontalist cells, essentially a world of petty bourgeois cooperatives. Communism seeks total global collectivization across all of society, to create a classless world. The reasoning for this is that Marxists hold to dialectical materialism as our worldview and toolset for changing the world, whereas anarchists do not.

    This strikes me in particular because I used to consider myself an anarchist. Part of my growth into a Marxist was simply understanding how historical materialism works, as presented by Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. I recommend giving it a read when you get the chance, and really pay attention to how Engels describes the transition to socialism and communism.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

    If anarchists and communists can work together politically towards goals positive for both, I argue that as a binary anarchism and communism cannot be incompatible.

    Is there no human foundation shared between and no collective label that can apply to both?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    It's incredibly difficult to square anarchism's petty bourgeois cooperative focus with communism's analysis that the future will be collectivized. They stand at polar opposites, one where humanity is balkanized into tiny cells, and one where humanity is united.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Do you see fascism and anarchism as equally distant from communism? If not, is that distance entirely unrelated to the parts of each?

    I guess if they are defined alone by what makes them unique, then rather than them being incompatible or compatible, it is more that compatibility is a category error.

    I guess I'm considering the overlaps in the massive negative space for each.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    There are of course overlaps, but the underlying trend is in opposition, with anarchism you have full horizontalism and decentralization, with communism you have full collectivization. This creates profound differences in where each stands that cannot be made to reconcile.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    Is there opposition within the overlapping negative space? In the places they each say "this space intentionally left blank"?

    If anarchism is horizontal and decentralized, is communism vertical and centralized? It's not what you said, but those seems like truer opposites.

    Are the origins of anarchism and communism entirely separate or are they diverging refinements on a common base? Are all of those refinements really changes in category and none of them in specificity?

    I guess my claim is changed now, from "anarchism and communism are compatible" to a person can live a life aligned with anarchism or communism without entirely reinventing themselves during transitions between".

    Though this is well away from "Haha enjoy getting raided" feeling eerily similar to the liberal "Enjoy the camps, transes". Not the same rationally as the power relationship is wildly different, but feels similar.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    I said there are overlaps, the pertinent part is that collectivization into one and communalization into countless cells are two fundamentally opposite approaches with different class characters.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago (17 children)

    The truth is not black and white.

    The most effective lies contain a kernel of truth.

    Conservatives are right in recognising the flaws of liberalism (which is conservative), especially when poor rural areas (dominated by conservatives more reactionary than liberals) bear the brunt of liberal/neoliberal capitalist economic policy.

    The unfortunate nature of capitalism is that the proletariat have 2 paths that lay before them.

    1. Descend into reactionary ideology (liberalism, fascism, etc.)
    2. Attain class consciousness

    "it lost on you that the meme rhymes or is parallel with memes from reactionary conservatives"

    So no, of course it is not lost.

    Because someone that is "reactionary" or "conservative" agreeing with you does not make you wrong, to think otherwise is dogmatic and reactionary in and of itself.

    The better a grasp you have on dialectics, materialism, historical materialism and the greater your class consciousness the more the above becomes apparent.

    "reactionary conservatives" are very often proletarian first and conservatives second. Unless of course they are petty-bourgeois or bourgeois "reactionary conservatives".

    "To me it looks like when the news focused on the little damage during BLM in order to claim complete wreckage."

    Completely different and completely irrelevant.

    "Ignorant memeing ain’t praxis or revolution. "

    No one said memeing was praxis or revolution. Communists aren't allowed to have fun?

    wee woo wee woo fun police.

    "Anarchism and communism (even from ML roots) aren’t incompatible."

    Yes. They most certainly are.

    Anarchism stems from petty-bourgeois individualism and liberalism.

    The better you understand liberalism the more this becomes apparent.

    Due to Anarchism's inherent foundation that rest upon liberal ideas such as:

    1. Freedom of association
    2. Individual freedoms/liberties being far more important than collective freedoms. (Which is ironic because true individual freedom is only obtained in the context of collective freedom through an individuals relationship with the collective)
    3. Decentralized competing communes (as opposed to a united collective whole).
    4. Liberal notions about individual/private ownership of the means of production as opposed to collective ownership

    Need I say more?

    Or will you actually read?

    I recommend starting with Mao (as it's easy).

    Then read Lenin, starting with State and Revolution.

    Then Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder.

    I wish you luck, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 week ago (16 children)

    You cannot help but collapse the context or at best come in running without taking a second to see if your sermon was even applicable.

    The person I replied to, not you, took my critique of a meme and brought up revolution and you have inserted yourself ignorant of the context. I'm not in here smearing communism even as anarchism is being smeared.

    You are so wonderfully erudite that my lumpen self cannot help but bask in your secondhand smoke.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    The person I replied to, not you, took my critique of a meme and brought up revolution

    Well yes, you seemed to be thinking that we're defending capitalism here or something. Often when people come in from out of instance with a reply that seems out of left field, there is some level of ignorance of left politics going on. So I made a best guess clarification based on what I figured the confusion might be. Your response has only lost me as to what your criticism even is. I'm not sure what pointing out flaws in small scale anarchist commune thinking has to do with siding with conservatives. The other poster looks like they tried to do what I did, with making a best guess, and you seem to be annoyed that they preached at you in the process.

    If people are reading you wrong, you gotta tell em how. We aren't mind-readers and it's almost never personal, the corrections or preaching. If it feels patronizing sometimes, I'm sorry, but people come in hot with weird shit every so often and there's only so much one can do if the person provides little information/context for what they're saying.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    This broken ping pong chain of people is aggravating. You are mostly fine other than your assumption essay, but good lord.

    The mind reading goes both ways. How am I to know that a misreading is a misreading and not bad faith? How did you connect rhyme/parallel to siding?

    If not for the fact that communists in much of the world don't have much political space below them, I'd say the meme is punching down. I can't see that and stereotyping as anything but either useless or aiding capitalists by creating toxicity in anticapitalist places. I cannot see the meme as anything but needlessly mean-spirited.

    Am I truly so incomprehensible? I cannot comprehend my initial reply containing so much information about myself to fuel two useful and well-thought, lengthy replies without baseless assumptions. Nor can I understand the effort put in or joy taken from writing so much when a question of less than ten words could have sufficed. So I can do nothing but assume the opposite.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago

    Nor can I understand the effort put in or joy taken from writing so much when a question of less than ten words could have sufficed.

    Well in a forum context like this, it (usually) takes less effort to guess and write a response than to write a question then wait for the person to respond, potentially forget about the entire conversational context in the meantime, and then IF they clarify, go back to the context and see what it clarified in order to converse about it further.

    I do in fact write questions sometimes in spite of this, but it can be like pulling teeth sometimes getting a straightforward answer of people. You just never know.

    I cannot see the meme as anything but needlessly mean-spirited.

    That seems like a valid criticism to me. Though the way I take the meme, I think it is probably coming from a place of dealing with anarchists who talk down to marxist-leninists, and so from that standpoint, it's more of a response to them than it is an attempt to "put them in their place" or something. Especially in the western "left", there is a history of so-called anarchists who don't really accomplish much of anything yet are perfectly happy to shit on socialist projects that have accomplished incredible things for their people as "authoritarian" or whatever. So it's not a disagreement that started today, ya know.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (10 children)

    Anarchism and communism (even from ML roots) aren’t incompatible.

    I’m not in here smearing communism even as anarchism is being smeared.

    By claiming communism to be compatible with anarchism you did smear communism.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (9 children)

    Are an-coms on the same level as an-caps to you?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (7 children)

    "Anarchist communists" don't really exist. Communists practice Dialectical and Historical Materialism and follow the Scientific Socialist path to the stateless society laid out by Marx and Engles. "An-coms" are Utopian idealists with good intentions but they are just anarchists.

    "Anarchist Capitalists" are just capitalists who want to abolish age of consent laws.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    That doesn't directly answer the question or the context.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (5 children)

    I dont think I can help you if I have to clarify that

    “An-coms” are Utopian idealists with good intentions but they are just anarchists.

    are not on the same level as

    “Anarchist Capitalists” are just capitalists who want to abolish age of consent laws.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    The implication was that you could not answer the question because it was not directed at you. You were quite clear.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (3 children)

    This type of attitude is why many people don't take anarchists seriously.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    I've never claimed to be an anarchist, but I will claim that you cannot know the thoughts of another better than themselves, nor that you can decide for me to accept your opinion when I've asked for another's.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    You don't have to say "I'm an anarchist" for me to know you think you are an anarchist. Nobody is going to call this meme "slander" of anarchists other than people who think they are anarchists. Actions speak louder the words.

    I can tell you what my comrades think because our opinions are founded on a scientific method not just our feelings. There is room for error and it isn't perfect science but the human mind is not a mystic enigma unless you choose to believe it is.

    I know it will be hard for you to understand when your brain is pickled in idealism and individualism but when you believe your thoughts and feelings are the source of understanding you will never be able to understand anything including yourself because feelings are not constant. When you accept that material reality is ontologically primary things make a lot more sense and people become much less mysterious.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Congratulations, you managed to say absolutely nothing of substance and instead resorted to critiquing my character instead of my argument.

    It is very clear that you do not read.

    Lumpen indeed.

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