braces for down votes and possible ban
braces for down votes and possible ban
I've been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to "voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism" and "the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic" and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they're replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling -- in retrospect I'm pretty sure I could've built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that's what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) -- and the only reason I'm not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
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Marxism and Christianity only share the fact that they contain frameworks for analyzing material reality(Marxism through Materialism and Christianity through representing reality as though it is divine, and thus explainable via the divine), and this post seems to not be willing to honestly engage with Marxism as a concept.
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Marxists do not oppose incremental change. Marxists believe that minor concessions under Capitalism are insufficient to actually fix the underlying problems, and this point of view is built on a thorough understanding of the Marxist critique of Capitalism.
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Marxists do not oppose reform, they just believe it is impossible to do successfully without sliding backward, because the state is built in a manner that supports Capitalism and resists change.
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Marxism is an economic critique of Capitalism, a philosophical framework, and a call to action. It is a complete set of tools to look at the world, analyze it, and how to fix it. In this manner, it can be superficially compared to Christianity, but only on the surface.
That's really it.
So Marxists are not opposed to incremental change, except they actually are. And Marxists are not opposed to reform except they consider it impossible.
What in the Ministry of Truth?
Marxists are not opposed to incremental change. They do not believe incremental change is a bad thing, and do not move against it. Incremental change is a nice-to-have, when revolutionary change is seen as necessary.
Marxists are not opposed to reform. If it is shown to be legitimately possible to reform a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, ie a Capitalist State, into a Socialist one, Marxists would be first in line. However, history has shown this to be extraordinarily difficult to outright impossible, akin to politely asking a bear to stop mauling you, so Marxists seek other methods. Marxists are Materialists, not Idealists.
Hope that helps!
However, history has shown this to be extraordinarily difficult to outright impossible
Successful reform of capitalist countries to socialist: 3 - 10 ish depending on how you define it
Successful communist revolutions: ZERO
Curious how Marxists have not adjusted their beliefs when confronted with these statistics
Successful reform of capitalist countries to socialist
Point me to socialist country that got there through reform.
In case you try to claim these the UK/Sweden/Norway is not a socialist country. They are hybrid economies. Hybrid economies are not socialist.
No true Scotsman
Wrong, actually.
Successful reform of Capitalist countries to Socialist: 0.
Successful Communist Revolutions: 5-10.
Curious how Cryophilia thinks they are making coherent points when they just redefine established terms until it looks like they have a point.
Where are these 5-10 nations?
The USSR disbanded, same with Anarchist Catalonia and Burkina Faso, but China, Cuba, Chiapas, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea are all examples of states that all managed to establish a Socialist government via revolutionary means. I don't consider the Paris Commune to be successful either, it was extremely short lived.
The overall success of these states is definitely arguable, obviously, but it is inarguable that they managed to establish a Socialist state via revolution.
It's also worth mentioning that I am not endorsing these countries, just pointing out some examples of revolutions successfully changing economic systems.
I am sorry but China and North Korea are not socialist states. You are going to have to try harder than that.
That's what the 5-10 bit was for, if you want to play the purity game and claim China and North Korea aren't pure Socialism, that's fine. There are still other examples, which I already gave.
Are any of your examples actually socialist nations though? From what I understand modern Vietnam is fairly capitalist to the point the US has opened trading with them. Cuba still seem to follow socialist principles to some extent but they also aren't exactly the most democratic.
It's also not a purity issue to talk about China not being socialist, that's just a fact at this point. Ditto for North Korea. A dictatorship cannot be socialist, and neither can a state dominated by large corporations.
"Nuh UH!" is: a. Childish, b. Not an argument, and c. Not going to change the facts.
But, you know. Enjoy your hot wheels or whatever.
Tell me, what countries have democratically decided to change from Capitalism to Socialism via electoral means? You offered exactly 0 explanation for your answer and ignored pretty much all of the last 150 or so years.
Let's just skip the part where I provide a researched answer and go straight to you saying "nuh uh! That's not REAL socialism!"
I mean, if you're just talking about an expansion of the welfare state, then you aren't talking about Socialism. We have had this convo before, you just prefer to use established terms in a manner that right-wingers use them, basically, so the convo just becomes arguing over correct use of terms and not an actual discussion of the topic at hand.
you just prefer to use established terms in a manner that right-wingers use them
The irony here is that you define "right wing" more arbitrarily than I define "socialism".
But yeah, that's fair. However I think it's also fair to point out that even though you've defined the countries I consider socialist as not-socialist, there's still never been an effective socialist/communist revolution.
Oh man... This is well stated and clear. But confusing because people from lemmy.ml are irrational and authoritarian. Not sure what to do? Should I confront that confusion? Nah. Fuck it downvote.
Hmmm.... This seems a little hypocritical. fair enough. Downvoting my comment as well.
I was kinda hoping instead of just downvotes someone would attempt to engage, and there could have been a productive discussion, but that's excessively difficult on Lemmy.world. Unfortunate.
For the most part, I like lemmy.world. Probably because I'm comparing it to Reddit.
Unfortunately, most people want to have their half baked ideas based upon what they've been told or their limited, mostly online, experiences with certain people. These people are few, but loud. And unfortunately, many go through this phase in their learning journey where they know more than their liberal counterparts, but haven't necessarily done the work to see its depths or had life experiences and real connections to temper the presentation.
So as far as some most people are concerned, there are a "worrying number of leftists" who present a loud and inflexible view of Marxism.
So there's no ability for people to engage. It's just non-sensical and you'll be a quickly forgotten anomaly.
I hear you, but I have had reasonable conversations and encouraged liberals here on Lemmy.world to engage with Leftist theory. It's rare, but it happens enough that I keep trying to push people to read Marx or Goldman or whoever it takes to deprogram the inner, liberal biases they have.
It is rare, but it happens.
That's great! I'm heartened to hear that. I agree, it rare, but is definitely rewarding. I'm glad to hear you're doing that!
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