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sudo wrote

Reply to comment by ziq in Leftist Smurf by ziq

I didn't participate in said rage-fest, so I can't comment on whether it was justified or not. But that's no excuse for aggressively slandering all communists, especially ones who hold no ill will against you.

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ziq OP wrote

see my edit (last line)

also postleft memes aren't meant to slander you, they're meant to improve your politics.

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this_one wrote

If they're not doing what they're intended for, (and more than that, doing something they're not intended to do), maybe you should workshop them a bit more before sharing them.

Ofc, maybe you didn't know how ineffective they'd be for their intended purpose until sudo pointed it out, but now they have, you can work on making the memes more effective

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ziq OP wrote

It's plenty effective. That's why it's being downvoted. Expecting leftists to celebrate being told their politics are stale is an excercise in futility.

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this_one wrote

If you say so. I guess you know what you're trying to achieve with the memes much better than I do :P Good luck <3

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DissidentRage wrote

You're not going to really improve anyone else's politics when you seem to intentionally misattribute liberal practices to anyone that doesn't adhere to your specific tenets regardless of whether or not they actually partake in those practices. Instead you're just going to look like a stereotype and people are going to close themselves off to you in particular because you are coming across as arguing from bad faith.

If "left unity is a meme" truly then it's not because of failures of tendencies to align, but because some very vocal and rhetorically powerful actors actively want to work against everyone else.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Sorry, didn't see this until now.

I wouldn't accuse someone of engaging in those practices if they didn't engage in those practices. I'm not sure why you expect everyone that calls themself an anarchist to be 100% woke (I really hate that word). Everyone has blind spots, some that we'll eventually overcome, and some that will always be with us. The more privilege someone has, the bigger the blind spots and the harder they are to overcome. I can only be informed by my own experiences with fellow anarchists. If you've only ever encountered perfect anarchists, then that's great, but I'm not able to live in your skin.

I don't work against everyone else. I'm an individual. My goal was never to be some kind of collective consciousness. I can be critical of other anarchists, it isn't some kind of grand betrayal of the team or whatever. If there aren't anarchists among us calling out each other's blindspots, then none of us are reaching for anarchy. If we're not able to be self critical, what's even the point of calling ourselves anarchists?

Left unity is a meme because anarchy was never meant to be part of 'the left'. But when an anarchist is aware of the limitations of 'leftism', and rejects the left, they're automatically accused of being a pariah. I'm not doing any damage to anarchy by rejecting the left, or the idea of 'left unity' i.e. a collective consciousness that I have no interest in abiding by. I'm an individual first, and my allegiance is to living anarchy, not to a unified body of anarchists.

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DissidentRage wrote

I wouldn't accuse someone of engaging in those practices if they didn't engage in those practices.

That is exactly what you did in the linked post.

Everyone has blind spots, some that we'll eventually overcome, and some that will always be with us.

You weren't addressing blind spots, you were saying that people who aren't in your camp overtly do liberal things to sidestep being called out for sectarianism.

I don't work against everyone else.

Surely you can understand where I'm coming from when you say shit like "Nah, fuck society still." and have made kinda gritty remarks elsewhere where you seem to relish the disagreements. Maybe you're just shitposting but after a while it starts to wear a little thin.

If we're not able to be self critical, what's even the point of calling ourselves anarchists?

I just think you've gone beyond the point of good faith criticism.

Left unity is a meme because anarchy was never meant to be part of 'the left'.

Left unity is a "meme" when people actively reject cooperation with people not in their specific camp when the reality is that the kind of world we're trying to create (one without capital and oppressive systems) is still mostly hypothetical and may have crises and conditions we can't foresee. Still try to get as close to your goal as possible but don't reject it all if you don't get everything on your wish list. The world isn't yours, you're going to be sharing it with the rest of us, too.

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