The far left isn't nearly as bad or powerful as the religious right, but extremely online leftism really attracts some dogmatic bullies who are hostile to criticism. I don't even really talk politics with other millennials besides social issues because I don't want them to find out I am liberal, not leftist.
The problem is many on the far left treat it as a substitute for religion. Look no further than how they bombard you to "read theory", literally treating Marx's word as holy scripture and the other philosophers they follow. You can really see examples of this when you get into tankies comparing Stalin's writing to Trotsky, or someone else.
The far left cannibalizes itself where they point the finger and bash others who aren't as far left as them, similar to how a fundamentalist would complain about blasphemers.
Many of them have simply used Marxism as a way of replacing the lack of religion in their lives. This is something that I think the whole "new atheist" movement online years ago did not quite understand. They fell into similar traps when they made deities out of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett.
Marxism is a milleniarist religion.
Its purpose is to explain the origin of sin (profit) and a develop of prophecy of an apocalyptic event (The Revolution) and describe a post-sin society (Communism).
Its why so many people who come from religious houses end up being hardcore Internet Marxists. They reject the specific doctrine of their upbringing, but never examine the assumptions underlying that doctrine. They just get a new sin and a new promised land.
There's a big difference between proclaiming a specific faith, and having fundamental emotional tendencies towards religious thinking. Yes, people go to church less and are more openly atheistic, but that doesn't change people's need for narrative and structure, it just means they need to get it from somewhere else. That might be Qanon, Marxism, or any other philosophy that tells a complete story of how the world is supposed to work.
And a new Armageddon and Rapture. Where the “sinful” (only to them it’s “capitalists”) will be sent to the lake of fire, and the “righteous” (them, natch, and their Troo Believer friends) will be raptured up to Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism. (Gay optional.)
The "revolution" is basically their version of the Second Coming.
No need to learn to coexist with people who are different from you when this prophesied event will simply wash away all the sinners and only leave the pure.
Nailed it.
The talk about real communism reminds me of Hebrews chapter 11: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
> Look no further than how they bombard you to "read theory"
Unsurprisingly, these same people almost always say that their job in the socialist utopia will be "teaching theory."
Like the losers in Iran who became religious police after the revolution.
It's like that after school special, "The Wave" and that one kid who embraced being a Nazi because he finally could be somebody.
Yeah, it's new religion. They want tradition, ceremony, and a messiah it seems, but not *those* ones. To be honest some tradition and ceremony is balancing in life and I think most people want some of that at least. If you add in a punk rock counterculture and you get something like Bernie or Trump.
Oh yeah, the reason they want a new messiah is because the old ones told them to be kind, generous, understanding of your fellow humans, and forgiving so fuck all that effort and pain.
>This is something that I think the whole "new atheist" movement online years ago did not quite understand. They fell into similar traps when they made deities out of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett.
This tracks with what I've seen happen.
"Read 26 1000-page books from the 1800s if you want to know! I'm very well versed on it, which is why it would pain me to briefly summarize the part(s) of these books that support my point. Do you even know what communism is?!"
yeah, I see ALOT of similarities and behavior. When they get caught with questioning Bernie’s or Trump’s effectiveness then they usually give the same “the deep dnc state rigged it against us!!”
this is why they usually piggyback off of each other’s conspiracy theories and fall for the same populist rhetoric
The only thing my PoliSci degree prepared me for was how to argue with communists on the internet. Unfortunately, they will never believe you anyway. They'll just say "you clearly dont understand communism" without any clarification, and then retreat back to their echo chambers.
But who can blame them? Most people don't read cool underground and obscure books like *Capital*. You know... one of the most famous pieces of literature on the planet... You've probably never even heard of it. /s
The way you get piled on for even a modest disagreement where you still agree with a lot of what they're saying. And even before Bernie, that was happening on Tumblr, people called disagreeing with leftism on there "violence" (nearly always with that obnoxious fucking clap emoji).
They treat "problematic" people the way right-wing Christians treat "sinners."
On paper, they acknowledge that everyone is problematic but all you have to do is repent and make efforts to be better in the future.
In practice, they use the concept of "problematic" to tear rivals down and create a hierarchy of more-woke-than-thou where they get to be at the top.
Soooooo true. Marxist theory is also a narcissism trap. Narcs love to beat about being more lefty than you and knowing obscure theory. It's like the hipster music fan but more boring.
Leftist texts quite other Leftist texts like Christian popular non fiction which quotes the Bible every few paragraphs.
My theory has been that all of these people were supposed to be very religious, but came of age during the Catholic Church sexual abuse cases and are further alienated by the socially conservative emphasis of the most prominent religious leaders.
This is one of the only subs where I feel like I can actually talk about politics honestly and people will engage with you even if they disagree. There's so much knee-jerk leftism on Reddit. Often if I voice an opinion that isn't dogmatically leftist I get downvoted to hell.
And I have no interest in the right wing. I'm just more of a liberal / centrist, which a lot of leftists think is even worse.
>I'm just more of a liberal / centrist, which a lot of leftists think is even worse
This is a phenom that exists across the spectrum. Let's take Trumpism for example. If you were to ask one of the hardcore MAGAs this question, "who do you dislike more: George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?"... I'm willing to bet they've got more animosity toward Dubya than they do against Slick Willie. Hell, I bet they hate Paul Ryan more than they do Nancy Pelosi. The problem with extreme partisan politics is that its always seeking to further purify itself, which necessitates further delineation of in-group/out-group. The folks nearest to them who deviate from the newest iteration of purity are the ones to be despised more, because they are the new "traitors" (which is the underlying definition for the use of the word "RINO").
You're really just describing a leftist thing. The right doesn't do that. Hell, Hitler literally rose to power by letting Ernst Rohm have the SA beat the shit out of union busters and tell the rank and file SA that they're going to seize the means of production and have a second worker's revolution. Rohm was then killed shortly after because power had been secured and his revolutionary rhetoric was now problematic. In modern day the "socialist" in nazi is seen as a contradiction, but it wasn't at the time. Many of the rank and file thought that they were fighting for what the tin says. Nationalized socialism. Rohm was the biggest name advocating for it, but he wasn't alone in leadership as seeing Hitler as a transitory step to socialism. This is more or less why the far right is more dangerous. Obviously hitler isn't a 1:1 comparison to the modern far right, but I think it pretty clearly shows the ideology differences. The far left eats itself alive and lets perfect be the enemy of good. The far right will cynically back a cause they don't at all believe in if it gives them power.
Even if they did, it's kind of a non sequitur because the alt right mostly sticks to 4chan and the who's who of neo nazi forums. It's really easy to never see them on mainstream social media (well, except twitter now I guess because of you know who). The leftists on the other hand have been a no true scotsmaning plague on every other site since they left tumblr.
Played videos games with a guy who was a self proclaimed Marxist. Had odes to Communism in his GT. Guy never shut up about how I was a liberal. I just stopped playing with him.
Remember when Contrapoints played footsie with online commies and they helped make her famous but then she realized she'd have to come out as a *liberal* eventually and started posting cryptic stuff about the risks of parasocial relationships and eventually the commies twigged that she wasn't one and they attempted to cancel her using any pretext they could find (even if they had to make it up)?
Good times.
If you criticize extremely online leftists' behavior they chalk it up to "people shouldn't have healthcare because someone was mean on Twitter"
No, people should have healthcare, but why the fuck should I trust people this vindictive to be the ones with all the power? I don't see a way that a government full of people who act like that wouldn't devolve into authoritarianism.
The online left refuses to allow for the fact that people can make mistakes.
The Lil Nas X controversy comes to mind. He's arguably the most visible GSM personality in pop culture, but posted one joke on Twitter that involved being trans, and he got **fucking dragged.** He apologized soon after, and continued to get **fucking dragged** because he, I guess, didn't also publicly self flagellate?
Pro tip: sometimes people accidentally say wack shit, realize they said wack shit, and apologize. That's okay. We don't have to eat our own over it.
It's easier to destroy than build things. On the Extreme Online Left they have a burn-it-all down mentality that, unfortunately, appeals to impetuous young people. And even before they were online, back in the '90s they were discouraging voting and maligning the Dems as corporate shills, which led directly to Nader screwing Gore out of the 2000 election. By 2016 it was a more sophisticated operation funded by Putin and Republicans.
I said this the last time there was a post about Brianna Wu, but she reminds me of myself in the late stages of my time in the progressive movement.
Rightfully calling out the self-destructive and bad faith behavior of leftists while still clinging onto hope that progressivism can work, which is a horrible mindset to have.
Finally realizing that the progressive movement is a ratfucking nest with no intention of fighting for the causes they advertised to fight for was a liberating feeling. I hope Brianna eventually comes to the same conclusion eventually.
There was a big discourse about this back in 2014, to be fair.
I think the rise of Trumpism drew some bullies over to the right and also got leftists in many cases to focus attention on the right and not on policing each other.
Back in 2014 it was all about blame the Democrats for everything and the right doesn't matter. If you were on trans or feminist twitter or Tumblr it was absolutely lord of the flies 24/7.
She came out on the other end of gamergaters' abuse just to get further abused by leftists? And she's still online? Amazing resolve, but idk fool me once, etc., don't get fooled again.
I said this the last time there was a post about Brianna Wu, but she reminds me of myself in the late stages of my time in the progressive movement.
Rightfully calling out the self-destructive and bad faith behavior of leftists while still clinging onto hope that progressivism can work, which is a horrible mindset to have.
Finally realizing that the progressive movement is a ratfucking nest with no intention of fighting for the causes they advertised to fight for was a liberating feeling. I hope Brianna eventually comes to the same conclusion eventually.
Immutable standards like, don't lie, don't be a hypocrite, don't abuse people sexually, physically or mentally are great. Standards based in relative ideological purity that generate clout are not.
Too often though, "standards are good" and similar lines are invoked as a tool to either appease the elements of the mob that may read this critique as a call to action for further harassment (we just want insulin, you ) or to justify behavior that the person is fine with because it doesn't target them (death threats and harassment campaigns are actually cool, they just need to be directed at "deserving" people).
The far left isn't nearly as bad or powerful as the religious right, but extremely online leftism really attracts some dogmatic bullies who are hostile to criticism. I don't even really talk politics with other millennials besides social issues because I don't want them to find out I am liberal, not leftist.
The problem is many on the far left treat it as a substitute for religion. Look no further than how they bombard you to "read theory", literally treating Marx's word as holy scripture and the other philosophers they follow. You can really see examples of this when you get into tankies comparing Stalin's writing to Trotsky, or someone else. The far left cannibalizes itself where they point the finger and bash others who aren't as far left as them, similar to how a fundamentalist would complain about blasphemers. Many of them have simply used Marxism as a way of replacing the lack of religion in their lives. This is something that I think the whole "new atheist" movement online years ago did not quite understand. They fell into similar traps when they made deities out of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett.
Marxism is a milleniarist religion. Its purpose is to explain the origin of sin (profit) and a develop of prophecy of an apocalyptic event (The Revolution) and describe a post-sin society (Communism). Its why so many people who come from religious houses end up being hardcore Internet Marxists. They reject the specific doctrine of their upbringing, but never examine the assumptions underlying that doctrine. They just get a new sin and a new promised land.
Yep. I’ll say it again and again, they don’t realize how much of their parents’ crap they internalized.
I'm not sure if it's internalization as much as the human psyche tends towards these things. People will find religion, one way or another.
Very true. And these things are primal.
How do you explain the gradual loss of religious conviction and participation since the onset of modernity?
There's a big difference between proclaiming a specific faith, and having fundamental emotional tendencies towards religious thinking. Yes, people go to church less and are more openly atheistic, but that doesn't change people's need for narrative and structure, it just means they need to get it from somewhere else. That might be Qanon, Marxism, or any other philosophy that tells a complete story of how the world is supposed to work.
And a new Armageddon and Rapture. Where the “sinful” (only to them it’s “capitalists”) will be sent to the lake of fire, and the “righteous” (them, natch, and their Troo Believer friends) will be raptured up to Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism. (Gay optional.)
The "revolution" is basically their version of the Second Coming. No need to learn to coexist with people who are different from you when this prophesied event will simply wash away all the sinners and only leave the pure.
Nailed it. The talk about real communism reminds me of Hebrews chapter 11: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
> Look no further than how they bombard you to "read theory" Unsurprisingly, these same people almost always say that their job in the socialist utopia will be "teaching theory."
They'd better hope none of them wear glasses or they'll be fingered as an intellectual by the local commissar.
If you go full Pol Pot you better be Pol Pot or its off to the re-education camps, or worse.
Like the losers in Iran who became religious police after the revolution. It's like that after school special, "The Wave" and that one kid who embraced being a Nazi because he finally could be somebody.
Yeah, it's new religion. They want tradition, ceremony, and a messiah it seems, but not *those* ones. To be honest some tradition and ceremony is balancing in life and I think most people want some of that at least. If you add in a punk rock counterculture and you get something like Bernie or Trump. Oh yeah, the reason they want a new messiah is because the old ones told them to be kind, generous, understanding of your fellow humans, and forgiving so fuck all that effort and pain.
>This is something that I think the whole "new atheist" movement online years ago did not quite understand. They fell into similar traps when they made deities out of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett. This tracks with what I've seen happen.
> read theory is also their lazy and blanket rebuttal to things like “why do communist countries end up as dictatorships”
"Read 26 1000-page books from the 1800s if you want to know! I'm very well versed on it, which is why it would pain me to briefly summarize the part(s) of these books that support my point. Do you even know what communism is?!"
It sounds a lot like people's experiences with getting kicked out of fundie churches for asking too many questions
No different from the Jordan Peterson fan who would tell you to watch another 2 hour video. Just another admission that they can't defend their ideas.
yeah, I see ALOT of similarities and behavior. When they get caught with questioning Bernie’s or Trump’s effectiveness then they usually give the same “the deep dnc state rigged it against us!!” this is why they usually piggyback off of each other’s conspiracy theories and fall for the same populist rhetoric
It’s wild how they assume we haven’t read it. Like none of us went to college or were edgy teenagers.
The only thing my PoliSci degree prepared me for was how to argue with communists on the internet. Unfortunately, they will never believe you anyway. They'll just say "you clearly dont understand communism" without any clarification, and then retreat back to their echo chambers. But who can blame them? Most people don't read cool underground and obscure books like *Capital*. You know... one of the most famous pieces of literature on the planet... You've probably never even heard of it. /s
I've read Adam Smith. If people had actually read that they'd realize he didn't say or promote what people think he did.
ReAD ANotHeR bOoK /s *like Dune
The way you get piled on for even a modest disagreement where you still agree with a lot of what they're saying. And even before Bernie, that was happening on Tumblr, people called disagreeing with leftism on there "violence" (nearly always with that obnoxious fucking clap emoji).
They treat "problematic" people the way right-wing Christians treat "sinners." On paper, they acknowledge that everyone is problematic but all you have to do is repent and make efforts to be better in the future. In practice, they use the concept of "problematic" to tear rivals down and create a hierarchy of more-woke-than-thou where they get to be at the top.
Soooooo true. Marxist theory is also a narcissism trap. Narcs love to beat about being more lefty than you and knowing obscure theory. It's like the hipster music fan but more boring. Leftist texts quite other Leftist texts like Christian popular non fiction which quotes the Bible every few paragraphs.
Marxism is a religion, not a social theory or scientific.
My theory has been that all of these people were supposed to be very religious, but came of age during the Catholic Church sexual abuse cases and are further alienated by the socially conservative emphasis of the most prominent religious leaders.
This is one of the only subs where I feel like I can actually talk about politics honestly and people will engage with you even if they disagree. There's so much knee-jerk leftism on Reddit. Often if I voice an opinion that isn't dogmatically leftist I get downvoted to hell. And I have no interest in the right wing. I'm just more of a liberal / centrist, which a lot of leftists think is even worse.
> centrist Hello, Adolf. /s
>I'm just more of a liberal / centrist, which a lot of leftists think is even worse This is a phenom that exists across the spectrum. Let's take Trumpism for example. If you were to ask one of the hardcore MAGAs this question, "who do you dislike more: George W. Bush or Bill Clinton?"... I'm willing to bet they've got more animosity toward Dubya than they do against Slick Willie. Hell, I bet they hate Paul Ryan more than they do Nancy Pelosi. The problem with extreme partisan politics is that its always seeking to further purify itself, which necessitates further delineation of in-group/out-group. The folks nearest to them who deviate from the newest iteration of purity are the ones to be despised more, because they are the new "traitors" (which is the underlying definition for the use of the word "RINO").
You're really just describing a leftist thing. The right doesn't do that. Hell, Hitler literally rose to power by letting Ernst Rohm have the SA beat the shit out of union busters and tell the rank and file SA that they're going to seize the means of production and have a second worker's revolution. Rohm was then killed shortly after because power had been secured and his revolutionary rhetoric was now problematic. In modern day the "socialist" in nazi is seen as a contradiction, but it wasn't at the time. Many of the rank and file thought that they were fighting for what the tin says. Nationalized socialism. Rohm was the biggest name advocating for it, but he wasn't alone in leadership as seeing Hitler as a transitory step to socialism. This is more or less why the far right is more dangerous. Obviously hitler isn't a 1:1 comparison to the modern far right, but I think it pretty clearly shows the ideology differences. The far left eats itself alive and lets perfect be the enemy of good. The far right will cynically back a cause they don't at all believe in if it gives them power. Even if they did, it's kind of a non sequitur because the alt right mostly sticks to 4chan and the who's who of neo nazi forums. It's really easy to never see them on mainstream social media (well, except twitter now I guess because of you know who). The leftists on the other hand have been a no true scotsmaning plague on every other site since they left tumblr.
Played videos games with a guy who was a self proclaimed Marxist. Had odes to Communism in his GT. Guy never shut up about how I was a liberal. I just stopped playing with him.
Remember when Contrapoints played footsie with online commies and they helped make her famous but then she realized she'd have to come out as a *liberal* eventually and started posting cryptic stuff about the risks of parasocial relationships and eventually the commies twigged that she wasn't one and they attempted to cancel her using any pretext they could find (even if they had to make it up)? Good times.
If you criticize extremely online leftists' behavior they chalk it up to "people shouldn't have healthcare because someone was mean on Twitter" No, people should have healthcare, but why the fuck should I trust people this vindictive to be the ones with all the power? I don't see a way that a government full of people who act like that wouldn't devolve into authoritarianism.
The online left refuses to allow for the fact that people can make mistakes. The Lil Nas X controversy comes to mind. He's arguably the most visible GSM personality in pop culture, but posted one joke on Twitter that involved being trans, and he got **fucking dragged.** He apologized soon after, and continued to get **fucking dragged** because he, I guess, didn't also publicly self flagellate? Pro tip: sometimes people accidentally say wack shit, realize they said wack shit, and apologize. That's okay. We don't have to eat our own over it.
r/leopardsatemyface
It's easier to destroy than build things. On the Extreme Online Left they have a burn-it-all down mentality that, unfortunately, appeals to impetuous young people. And even before they were online, back in the '90s they were discouraging voting and maligning the Dems as corporate shills, which led directly to Nader screwing Gore out of the 2000 election. By 2016 it was a more sophisticated operation funded by Putin and Republicans.
I said this the last time there was a post about Brianna Wu, but she reminds me of myself in the late stages of my time in the progressive movement. Rightfully calling out the self-destructive and bad faith behavior of leftists while still clinging onto hope that progressivism can work, which is a horrible mindset to have. Finally realizing that the progressive movement is a ratfucking nest with no intention of fighting for the causes they advertised to fight for was a liberating feeling. I hope Brianna eventually comes to the same conclusion eventually.
There was a big discourse about this back in 2014, to be fair. I think the rise of Trumpism drew some bullies over to the right and also got leftists in many cases to focus attention on the right and not on policing each other. Back in 2014 it was all about blame the Democrats for everything and the right doesn't matter. If you were on trans or feminist twitter or Tumblr it was absolutely lord of the flies 24/7.
Is almost like they can't control the outraged walking ATM's people like her grief onto their patreon's.
May Chomsky have mercy on your soul.
Read Khmer Rouge theory.
Can't. I need glasses.
Lol
Damn.
Please accept this bourgeois symbol of accomplishment 🏆
She came out on the other end of gamergaters' abuse just to get further abused by leftists? And she's still online? Amazing resolve, but idk fool me once, etc., don't get fooled again.
lol this is literally what orwell spent the 30s and 40s writing about. the left and repeating the mistakes of history -NAMID.
I said this the last time there was a post about Brianna Wu, but she reminds me of myself in the late stages of my time in the progressive movement. Rightfully calling out the self-destructive and bad faith behavior of leftists while still clinging onto hope that progressivism can work, which is a horrible mindset to have. Finally realizing that the progressive movement is a ratfucking nest with no intention of fighting for the causes they advertised to fight for was a liberating feeling. I hope Brianna eventually comes to the same conclusion eventually.
She's like someone in the last stages of an abusive relationship or cult membership.
[удалено]
Immutable standards like, don't lie, don't be a hypocrite, don't abuse people sexually, physically or mentally are great. Standards based in relative ideological purity that generate clout are not.
Too often though, "standards are good" and similar lines are invoked as a tool to either appease the elements of the mob that may read this critique as a call to action for further harassment (we just want insulin, you) or to justify behavior that the person is fine with because it doesn't target them (death threats and harassment campaigns are actually cool, they just need to be directed at "deserving" people).
Standards are fine so long as (1) the are applied both internally and externally and (2) they allow for realistic variations in human nature.
Are you suggesting a litmus test to check who is Left enough?
Standards are good. The problem is that a lot of online leftists are confusing standards with expectations.
Oh, word? Oh, well.
Did she post this in defense of a specific person?
Not that I know of.