I think Americans need to absorb a bit more global context about the left-right spectrum. I see people saying that policies like universal health care, access to abortion, basic worker rights and affordable education are “far left”. Most of the proposed policies of the left in the US are centrist in the rest of the Western world. Unless you are advocating for a Communist regime along the lines of the Soviet Union or Maoist China, you aren’t really “far left”. Similarly, unless someone is advocating for a fascist dictator state, we should probably not call them “far right”. Of course, that is what Trumpists advocate for, so they really are far right!
Unless you are advocating for a Communist regime along the lines of the Soviet Union or Maoist China, you aren’t really “far left”.
If you do that you definitely aren’t, authoritarianism and far-left are mutually exclusive.
Council communists and Anarchists generally qualify for far-left status. (Or, differently put, council communism is methadone therapy for Marxists who don’t yet dare make the jump to syndicalism).
It’s even worse than horseshoe. Stop trying to assign point values to tyranny.
The first use of authoritarian is in 1852, in the writings of AJ Davis apparently. Here’s the quote:
1856 A. J. Davis Penetralia 129 Does any one believe that the Book is essential to Salvation? Yes; there are many externalists and authoritarians who think so.
Authoritarian was also increasing in usage well before the cold war, beginning around 1910 or so. An example from Nationalism and Culture by Rudolf Rocker, written in 1933:
Nietzsche also had a profound conception of this truth, although his inner disharmony and his constant oscillation between outlived authoritarian concepts and truly libertarian ideas all his life prevented him from drawing the natural deductions from it.
That’s a thoroughly modern use of the word authoritarian, written almost 15 years before the start of the cold war. Authoritarian is used to describe those who support hierarchial systems of government. That’s the short and sweet of it, perhaps not a perfect dictionary definition but it illustrates the distinctive bit. Auth-left ideologies get equivocated with fascism because there’s an undeniable ideological throughline between the two, no matter how much they hate each other.
"The working class […] cannot be left wandering all over Russia. They must be thrown here and there, appointed, commanded, just like soldiers […] Compulsion of labour will reach the highest degree of intensity during the transition from capitalism to socialism […] Deserters from labour ought to be formed into punitive battalions or put into concentration camps.’
Trotsky wrote that. It may not be 1:1 but the similarities between his ideas and those.of fascists are pretty obvious.
All of this, written before the cold war. Tell me again how authoritarian is a made up word that serves only to slander “communists”?
While I would say that graph is more correct than the two-dimensional ones, many of us are fed in the west. (As a social libertarian/anarcho communist) I make the point that I don’t believe authoritarians actually qualify significantly for any form of left or right. They are all about their authority primarily and doing what they wish to do. They will resort to any rhetoric or means to achieve their goals they think will serve them. Whether it is left or right.
Case in point Hitler, who is closely associated with fascism which is considered nominally right-wing. Absolutely aped the terminology and rhetoric of early 20th century socialism. Till it didn’t serve him anymore. China who is more or less The Golden child of ml activists is more state capitalist than they are State communist. Because it suits those in power.
The graph more accurately might look like a deformed Dorito. Authoritarians being fluid and centrist. Not committed to being left or right. On the right side gradually sloping down through libertarians into capitalists/liberals on the far right. Somewhere neutral between authoritarian and actual libertarian. But the more true libertarian you trend the more left you absolutely trend. That’s for sure.
Exactly. I like to keep things simple and boil things down to authority. I’m the only one allowed to define me, and I don’t have the right to define others. If everyone has absolute freedom to be what they are, then by design no one has the right to define, exploit, marginalize or otherwise or oppress them. if anyone was oppressed, not everyone would have absolute freedom. Then on top of that we put societal contracts. “Here’s a time period of my labor, would you trade it for that thing you have”. "I’d like to give some of my extra things so that more people can have good things [taxation] “Here’s consent, how about you?” “I go by [pronoun].”
Anarchism -> Maximum freedom for all Hierarchism-> Maximum freedom for the one on top.
Smarter people than me have talked about the nuances for ages so as I said, I like to simplify things. Fullyautomatedspacegayluxurycommunism ftw!
What if I want to use my absolute freedom to oppress someone else? What if I use my absolute freedom to build a structure that blocks the view of the mountains from my neighbors, who love the view? Whose freedom should get oppressed to solve that?
Honest question, not trying to be a contrarian.
We’re “not allowed” to. The concept of comparing our politics to elsewhere around the world is chastised. “It’s not the same here!” “They have a longer history” “they share a common culture!” (far right for “skin color”)
Any excuse under the sun to keep the right as being viewed as closer to “center” and to misrepresent centrist policies as “far left” so we get no progress and all the arguments.
It’s really interesting how the right has embraced moral relativism on a case-by-case basis. Often it is a strategy to quarantine/localize ideas, so as to avoid the need to reconcile them to any broader worldview.
It’s also a strategy for insulating ideas and events from history that they want to shelter from criticism, like criticizing slavery, theocracy, monarchism, etc. I’ve seen real cases in the wild where criticism of slavery was dismissed as “presentism”, as inappropriately imposing present day moral values.
There are quite a few actual leftists on Lemmy. I don’t think they’re confused and as the meme suggests, they’re rather vocal.
Meanwhile Trump and other far right people have tried to brand liberals as “radical left” which is just silly, but a lot of news sources seem content to parrot alt-right rhetoric. One thing the Republican Party has always been good at is poisoning the well.
You’re half right. Americans as a whole don’t need to absorb context, but American conservatives do.
The rest of us are well aware of what’s going on. There are democrats in our government that are pretending to be against “socialism”, but they are old and these clearly dated policies aren’t going to last.
I get the feeling most of that nonsense was just fear mongering to force Biden into office instead of Bernie four years ago.
At least online, it seems like the only Americans who call themselves far left agree those are all centrist positions. It’s only “centrists/progressives*” (moderately far right Americans) and other flavors of far right who still often dont generally call themselves far right (trump enthusiasts, alex jones types, proud boy types) who label basic things like universal health care a far left idea or just call it impractical atm.
*I feel like 10 years ago, people who were at least moderately left were the main people using this term, but in the last few years, people right of center have been using the label to try limit progress by pretending they’re just trying to be practical/realists about what can actually be done.
Those terms are so vague and have so different meanings to a lot of people that I often avoid using them… I recently read the idea that egalitarian=left // strong hierarchy=right and it kinda makes sense, but it’s still quite debatable
Generally it’s better to separate views by who supports them, and who they benefit. Leftists tend to support the Proletariat, whereas rightists tend to support the bourgeoisie.
Except there are a ton of right wing positions that don’t benefit anyone except the politicians who use them to keep their supporters angry and afraid. I’d go so far as to say left wing policies are primarily about helping people and right wing policies are primarily about hurting people.
I’m not sure its that easy nowadays, when lots of freelancers and self-exploiters struggle while being considered bourgeoisie. Or at least, not “proletariat”. The lines are not as clear as they used to be.
To be “on the left” at minimum you need to be totally opposed to the capitalist system.
From there, there are many ideologies to choose from whether authoritarian (like Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Stalinism, etc.) or anti-authoritarian: mutualism, communalism, one of the many strains of anarchism, etc.
Also if you’re authoritarian I’d say it’s questionable whether you’re still on the left.
“I speak alternative facts, making others do the work of figuring out what I meant.”
vs.
“I have researched in-depth and know what I am talking about and why.”
Tbf there are probably far-right people who are more like the latter. Just b/c I do not recall ever hearing those arguments does not mean that they don’t exist!
Tbf there are probably far-right people who are more like the latter. Just b/c I do not recall ever hearing those arguments does not mean that they don’t exist!
Those people are working with the heritage foundation and other far right think tanks. They understand that their brand of mask-off fascism is problematic to a lot of people, so they allow their ideas to percolate through various right wing media outlets and entertainment personalities. By the time their ideologies reaches the mind of your average voter they’ve been neatly repackaged as “hey we’re just asking some questions here, we just want to get the facts straight.”
Thanks. I have no time lately but perhaps I should research them directly and actively then, e.g. to find out things like if the COVID response was used to bring population numbers down as a means of control and possibly thought to be beneficial for the sake of mitigation of the effects of climate change. But probably I am giving too much credit for even that much level of strategic thought towards climate change effects for the survival of humanity and perhaps it is solely “we do not need the masses anymore so let’s kill them off, or at least not help at all with saving them”, i.e. think of myself first, only, and always, and nothing else.
For the uninformed: The Alt-Right Playbook
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
A fascinating series, I cannot agree more. His other works too like protagony/agency. I really hope he can find a way to do more like that, but as a more personal video from him mentioned (not on the channel iirc, search for his name instead) that depends on funding support.
To sum up: it is far easier to tear down than to build up. :-| Also, truth is often stranger than fiction, and much harder to pin down and truly understand.
Really I guess these are not merely two opposing sides of the same argument, but literally represent opposing worldviews.
Real (enough) to someone, I suppose.
Right up until they aren’t anymore. e.g. when someone chooses not to take the vaccine, somehow MANY of those (I wonder if perhaps nearly all?) end up in hospitals, spreading their diseases to others and putting stress on the already-overworked system.
I legit would not judge someone who for whatever reasons decided to withdraw from society, like Amish, and not take the vaccine, but DO social distance for the sake of others, and then die but like… fully by their own, informed & rational choices according to their own valuation of priorities in their life. I fully respect that.
It is the hypocritical nature of those who are not informed, yet act to block others’ access from knowledge and benefits of society, that I am against. These people will judge themselves later on, once they finally cannot escape into their fantasies quite so comfortably, except by then they have already dragged others along with them. In short: they are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED to find that actions have consequences. But… they should not have been so shocked?! An ounce of preparation is worth a pound of cure, as the saying goes.
TLDR: it is irresponsible, childish behavior, from adults who should know better.
Sometimes they never get it, even when their actions directly lead to someone they love dying.
My buddy won’t talk to his brothers anymore because they took their unvaxxed grandmother out to a concert and she got COVID and died a couple years ago. They (from what he said at the time) accepted no blame for this.
Personally i wonder if the consequences were too horrible for them to accept right away. Maybe with time, but i don’t talk to them either.
I’m not far-left, I’m extreme far-left. Radical far-left if you will. I want everyone to have healthcare and adequate housing. (spooky noises)
Whoaa there. That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? Maybe turn it down a bit. Best we can do is Universal Debt and cardboard boxes.
Both political extremes are as bad as the other. The only sensible course is to allow our political and corporate systems to destroy our environment unchecked while a tiny elite of billionaires funnel up all the remaining wealth of our societies.
This meme is not glorifying either side.
It just says that the far left says they are far left but the far right denies it.
I know your joking, but the extreme left is just as batshit crazy as the extreme right. They are called extreme for a reason.
The both sides bullshit comes in when people are comparing far right nutbags like Trump to lefties like Bernie.
Bernie wants a livable wage for everyone, and Trump wants to kill trans people! They are not two sides of the same coin.
Honest question, not trying to start an argument or anything, but what is extreme left when we’re talking about the current political landscape actually? Cause when I look at US politics I don’t see anything close to what I’d consider extreme going on on the left side. Maybe individual people with no significant political power talking about overthrowing the whole capitalist system but yeah, they don’t seem to have any actual political power.
Since we’ve spent the past 60 years talking about how horrific communism and extreme left is, even fighting multiple wars over it, we don’t really have a presence of far leftism.
I feel like it’s cyclical at this point. We hate the far left so much that people become fascist. A fascist dictator rises. Everyone realizes how this was a bad idea, and we equalize. Generations forget, and we progressively move right again til another fascist dictator comes in.
So no, there is no political power in America with true far left views, and our boomer gov would do anything to keep it that way.
The far left would be people like tankies, where they go so extreme they end up parroting a lot of the same rhetoric you see on the far right, just through a different lens. I’ve literally interacted with people on this site who believe North Korea is secretly a utopia that the West is trying to hide with propaganda.
They don’t really have much in the way of significant political representation in this country. The far right unfortunately does.
I’d consider commies, anarchists, and anti capitalists in general to just be leftists, not far leftists. It’s not really my thing but I can at least respect it.
I think the anti-vax movement started from far left. Wanting to be so close to nature and protecting the body.
Also anti intellectualism, where science embodies the establishment that oppresses us.
These are very real things that the far left made impacts.
But the far right loves these too now, they just co opted them.
I’m an extreme centrist. Between absolute anarchist worker self-management and overreaching socialist government regulation, I think we should reach a healthy middle.
