I hope this is a nice conversation and you’re not frustrated; it’s nice for me!
inside
I don’t disagree it shouldn’t be an echo chamber; I’m glad you’re here (not that I have or should have any say in the use of the space!). Definitely not “inside” though. When I say “inside” I mean within a democratic centralist organization with some kind of political discipline. Organizations I’ve been part of would, from time to time, task members with researching and creating a report on AES countries, and then presenting their report internally to help develop well-considered positions on them. That’s the level of “internal” that I mean! Like…among people who trust each other, and only those people.
strategic criticism
If you mean that “strategic criticism” winds up just being “no criticism” I think that may be a fair critique of a lot of ML orgs.
Theory
Obviously the importance of theory is something people disagree about heatedly but to me, resistance to imperialism in the imperialist countries is so minimal that I’m happy to see a wide variety of tactics and let what happens happen. I got my theories but I ain’t gonna go out of my way to criticize someone else’s (hell, I was general Secretary of an IWW branch for several years…Marxist friends joke thay of course the anarchists made the Marxist be the organized one)
authoritarianism
When it comes to the word authoritarianism, I think a lot of Marxists have the same knee-jerk traction, which is to turn to Engels’ On Authority. Not for no reason, I think he makes a good point:
But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists.
So am I authoritarian? I mean I guess so, in that I believe in revolution. I believe “authoritarian means” may be appropriate. I don’t think any MLs see authoritarian means as a desirable feature in and of themselves. I think every ML wants to see them discarded as soon as they are no longer necessary. I think reasonable people can disagree about what that looks like, obviously…but that’s a difference of degree, not of kind, right? At least I would see it that way.
Big agree that intellectual dishonesty is bad. We should all think and speak and work as clearly as we can. Insofar as MLs (or anyone else for that matter) think unscientifically (worshiping books, class reductionism, etc), that’s bad!
I think some people can hold China accountable; Chinese people! When I say “we can’t hold them accountable” I mean “the internet.” (Of course I think people in the CPC have the most power and greatest obligation to hold the government accountable, but I understand skepticism about that, obviously. I don’t think that skepticism is merely a result of western propaganda or something. I worry about that too; they clearly don’t do a stellar job lol).
propaganda
You said your categories but not what you meant by them, just that they are important factors for you. So having a target audience makes something more likely to be propaganda, as does intention to spread a political message, as does the actual effectiveness of reaching people? That’s all fine; I don’t think these really help us come to agreement on what is or isn’t propaganda. Like…it looks to me like your messages in this thread have a target audience (tankies and/or potential tankies), they intend to carry a political message (comparing china and the us like this let’s China off the hook for its own evils)…maybe they don’t reach many people (maybe even just one?). But in the scheme of things I don’t think that factor particularly weighs in favor of anything on Lemmy being propaganda lol; way too puny for reaching any substantial number of people (And fwiw I would say the same thing about my own messages).
I hope this is a nice conversation and you’re not frustrated; it’s nice for me!
I don’t disagree it shouldn’t be an echo chamber; I’m glad you’re here (not that I have or should have any say in the use of the space!). Definitely not “inside” though. When I say “inside” I mean within a democratic centralist organization with some kind of political discipline. Organizations I’ve been part of would, from time to time, task members with researching and creating a report on AES countries, and then presenting their report internally to help develop well-considered positions on them. That’s the level of “internal” that I mean! Like…among people who trust each other, and only those people.
If you mean that “strategic criticism” winds up just being “no criticism” I think that may be a fair critique of a lot of ML orgs.
Obviously the importance of theory is something people disagree about heatedly but to me, resistance to imperialism in the imperialist countries is so minimal that I’m happy to see a wide variety of tactics and let what happens happen. I got my theories but I ain’t gonna go out of my way to criticize someone else’s (hell, I was general Secretary of an IWW branch for several years…Marxist friends joke thay of course the anarchists made the Marxist be the organized one)
When it comes to the word authoritarianism, I think a lot of Marxists have the same knee-jerk traction, which is to turn to Engels’ On Authority. Not for no reason, I think he makes a good point:
So am I authoritarian? I mean I guess so, in that I believe in revolution. I believe “authoritarian means” may be appropriate. I don’t think any MLs see authoritarian means as a desirable feature in and of themselves. I think every ML wants to see them discarded as soon as they are no longer necessary. I think reasonable people can disagree about what that looks like, obviously…but that’s a difference of degree, not of kind, right? At least I would see it that way.
Big agree that intellectual dishonesty is bad. We should all think and speak and work as clearly as we can. Insofar as MLs (or anyone else for that matter) think unscientifically (worshiping books, class reductionism, etc), that’s bad!
I think some people can hold China accountable; Chinese people! When I say “we can’t hold them accountable” I mean “the internet.” (Of course I think people in the CPC have the most power and greatest obligation to hold the government accountable, but I understand skepticism about that, obviously. I don’t think that skepticism is merely a result of western propaganda or something. I worry about that too; they clearly don’t do a stellar job lol).
You said your categories but not what you meant by them, just that they are important factors for you. So having a target audience makes something more likely to be propaganda, as does intention to spread a political message, as does the actual effectiveness of reaching people? That’s all fine; I don’t think these really help us come to agreement on what is or isn’t propaganda. Like…it looks to me like your messages in this thread have a target audience (tankies and/or potential tankies), they intend to carry a political message (comparing china and the us like this let’s China off the hook for its own evils)…maybe they don’t reach many people (maybe even just one?). But in the scheme of things I don’t think that factor particularly weighs in favor of anything on Lemmy being propaganda lol; way too puny for reaching any substantial number of people (And fwiw I would say the same thing about my own messages).