Identity politics over meaningful progress is the whole reason westerners become tankies. They just want a group identity, not a revolution. It doesn’t matter if you work together on similar principles; they want you to wave the flag like a moron.
They haven’t learned that a liberal doing the right thing will always be better than a Marxist doing the wrong thing. No identity can make you a good person; you have to do good
Liberals doing the right thing eventually realize their biggest obstacle is capitalism and either end up in an anarchist or communist org based on who is organizing around them, ideology is secondary to actually getting shit done.
Identity politics over meaningful progress is the whole reason westerners become tankies.
Half the time I see someone critical of “Identity politics”, they’re talking about the way it’s cynically wielded by liberals (black CEOs, cops, and judges who are no less oppressive than the whites who selected them), the other half they doing some class reductionist horseshit and advocating ignoring all axis of oppression except class.
I’m saying that tankies aren’t bad for being Marxists; they’re bad at being Marxists. The identity blinds them to the praxis, convincing them to defend things that aren’t worth defending. They never own up to the problems in ML movements, instead letting power centralize and corruption fester.
The whole issue with liberal capitalism is how it encourages the unchecked accumulation and exploitation of power. ML movements encourage it too, centralizing power through the tactics necessary to win control. It might start off with a leader dedicated to the cause, but in their rise to power, they create an environment that compromises the whole goal of the cause. Liberation turns into imperialism, as selfishness is the path of least resistance.
Libs might claim that MLs and fascists are two sides of the same coin, but they really have themselves and MLs as demonstrations of the same truth. It really is an evolutionary ecosystem of nonhuman macroentities. That ecosystem is blind and cruel, with right and wrong not really factoring into what happens. Might does not make right, only what typically happens.
I guess that puts me into the anarchy camp more than anything, but only in a vague sense. I don’t think it matters what you call me. In a fascinating way, I’m very pessimistic, but not because I think people are bad. Governments aren’t run by the king or the members of parliament, but by the kingdom and the parliament as an entity. Capitalism isn’t run by rich people, but by the the rich as a class. The systems don’t serve anybody; we serve the systems. That’s the real problem.
I really love your last paragraph. I’m somewhere in the anarchist camp as well and when pressed by the ML types my general take is that power corrupts.
Identity politics over meaningful progress is the whole reason westerners become tankies. They just want a group identity, not a revolution. It doesn’t matter if you work together on similar principles; they want you to wave the flag like a moron.
They haven’t learned that a liberal doing the right thing will always be better than a Marxist doing the wrong thing. No identity can make you a good person; you have to do good
Liberals doing the right thing eventually realize their biggest obstacle is capitalism and either end up in an anarchist or communist org based on who is organizing around them, ideology is secondary to actually getting shit done.
Half the time I see someone critical of “Identity politics”, they’re talking about the way it’s cynically wielded by liberals (black CEOs, cops, and judges who are no less oppressive than the whites who selected them), the other half they doing some class reductionist horseshit and advocating ignoring all axis of oppression except class.
Which are you doing?
I’m saying that tankies aren’t bad for being Marxists; they’re bad at being Marxists. The identity blinds them to the praxis, convincing them to defend things that aren’t worth defending. They never own up to the problems in ML movements, instead letting power centralize and corruption fester.
The whole issue with liberal capitalism is how it encourages the unchecked accumulation and exploitation of power. ML movements encourage it too, centralizing power through the tactics necessary to win control. It might start off with a leader dedicated to the cause, but in their rise to power, they create an environment that compromises the whole goal of the cause. Liberation turns into imperialism, as selfishness is the path of least resistance.
Libs might claim that MLs and fascists are two sides of the same coin, but they really have themselves and MLs as demonstrations of the same truth. It really is an evolutionary ecosystem of nonhuman macroentities. That ecosystem is blind and cruel, with right and wrong not really factoring into what happens. Might does not make right, only what typically happens.
I guess that puts me into the anarchy camp more than anything, but only in a vague sense. I don’t think it matters what you call me. In a fascinating way, I’m very pessimistic, but not because I think people are bad. Governments aren’t run by the king or the members of parliament, but by the kingdom and the parliament as an entity. Capitalism isn’t run by rich people, but by the the rich as a class. The systems don’t serve anybody; we serve the systems. That’s the real problem.
I really love your last paragraph. I’m somewhere in the anarchist camp as well and when pressed by the ML types my general take is that power corrupts.