An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't irrationally idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
"One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way - prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs."
"Hitler's government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise."
Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
Please femdom me involuntarily 🥺
Are you agreeing to this voluntarily?
C
- A
- B
What kind of hierarchy is this?
I can literally just point to the republican party.
Gestures to Trump Supporters
Gestures to Russia and China
Gestures to AfD victories
Dom/sub is not hierarchy, it's a consensual relationship between people.
Hierarchy is an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships
Dom/sub is not hierarchy
Yes daddy. Explain sexual psychology to me harder.
If I want to learn to bake bread I voluntarily accept the bakery te4acher as my superior in this matter for the duration of the lessons. If the first person had said voluntary hierarchies are the only valid ones they might have had a point!
Expertise merely refers to one’s knowledge or skill in a particular field, but my understanding of CPR or ability to bake shortbread cookies does not make me an authority over you. Other than the conflation of force and authority, this is one of the most common confusions people have about anarchism, made worse by the fact that there are some anarchists who still use authority to refer to both command and expertise just because Bakunin did. Personally, I find that creates needless confusion. If you’re using the word authority to describe everything from slavery to knowing how to build a bridge, then why use the word at all? Just use the word expertise when you’re talking about expertise. Listening to medical advice isn’t a hierarchy. Having expertise doesn’t give me the right to command you unless I hold a position in a hierarchical power structure that grants me that authority. As Bakunin himself said:
…we ask nothing better than to see men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and, above all, great hearts, exert over us a natural and legitimate influence, freely accepted and never imposed in the name of any official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial.
— Andrewism, How Anarchy Works » Dissecting Authority (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrTzjaXskUU)
here's my reply to another comment like yours:
that wouldn't really be a hierarchy because there's no authority involved. if you're deferring to someone's skill, that's not authority, because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary. you or the other people can leave that association at any time.
a hierarchy is, as CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social so sufficiently just put it, "an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships".
This really seems like it only makes sense in the context of contrived definitions of "authority" and "hierarchy". Expert Authority (authority deriving from an individual's expertise in a particular field) is a well-established and widely recognized concept.
"Hierarchy" does not inherently imply that the relationships are involuntary. If you want to call such structures "involuntary hierarchy", knock yourself out, I'll agree with everything you say against them. But voluntary hierarchies are still hierarchies by the actual definition of the word, and when the structure is based on expertise (judges, teachers, trades experts, administrative coordinators, etc) they are extremely effective.
Redefining words to exclusively refer to the most negative aspects of the common definition is bad rhetoric, intellectually disingenuous, and ineffective at spreading a message. Like I said, if you would like to be specific, and append an appropriate adjective to existing words to refer to a particular subset of a concept (involuntary hierarchy, arbitrary authority) you'll have much more luck convincing those who know what the base words mean.
It's the problem that occurs when a term that is being used in a narrow more academic context makes contact with people who use it in a more colloquial conversational sense. Neither definition is "wrong" really, it's just very confusing unless clarified, and becomes a problem when both sides refuse to understand that context comes into play here.
when a term that is being used in a narrow more academic context
That's not really what I see happening though, these aren't academic terms, academia uses the "colloquial" definitions. This is a niche in-group co-opting words, changing their definitions, and using them as jargon.
Wrong, it's how the term is used in a lot of anarchist literature because precisely defining what they mean by "hierarchy" is important for discussions about it. So yes, it's a bit of out joint with Standard English usage of the term, that doesn't make it wrong. They aren't being obscurantists, or trying to fuck with you by using hyper specific terminology to trick you into thinking they mean something else. Also words can't be "co opt'd", different groups use them differently all the time, it's a normal feature of all languages don't be an ass about it.
Again, no. Anarchist literature is an in-group. Do you consider the conservative definition of "homosexual" meaning "homosexual child groomer" to be correct as well?
Again, "involuntary hierarchy" is a fine and accurate term. Generalizing that term to just plain "hierarchy" is in-group jargon. The fact that many anarchists use it that way doesn't make it any more correct than conservatives using "homosexual" to mean "homosexual child groomer".
This isn't an "in-group", you aren't being excluded, they aren't trying to obscure what they're talking about. They've come to an understanding that when THEY say "hierarchy" they mean something different, stop trying to assign some devious motive to it. I get why it annoys you when an anarchist SHOULD know they're talking to people unfamiliar with that usage, or act difficult and refuse to acknowledge that the term means something different in general usage. That doesn't ALL anarchist do that, or even that those that DO are trying specifically to fuck with you.
The reasons behind the specific definition is pretty complex, but you have to understand, when anarchists are talking about these systems they don't want to spend a whole page PRECISELY explaining what they mean every single time. Many writings are translated from other languages, or written in english by people who aren't native english speakers, "jargon" here is kinda necessary for ease of communication. Are you gonna get mad if you hang out with some electricians don't understand what the hell they're talking about when they start using technical terminology?
They've come to an understanding that when THEY say "hierarchy" they mean something different
Like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass? He wasn't supposed to be a role model, that was an illustration of twisted, insane logic.
when anarchists are talking about these systems they don't want to spend a whole page PRECISELY explaining what they mean every single time
Who said anything about a whole page? It's one word. If anarchists can't add one extra word to clarify, and instead have to define "thing" to mean "a specific bad version of thing" then they deserve to be misunderstood and disregarded.
Are you gonna get mad if you hang out with some electricians don't understand what the hell they're talking about when they start using technical terminology?
I'm not the one getting mad here, but what electrician jargon is comparable? This isn't a case of just using a word in a context-dependent way, this is imposing a biased connotation to strengthen a particular agenda.
Like a homophobe defining "homosexual" as "homosexual child groomer", or an anti-semite defining "Jew" as "greedy Jew", or a misogynist defining "men" as "rapist men". This doesn't ease communication, it obfuscates it. It's a single adjective, a laughably small price for effective communication.
No one is discussing whether it's a "good" definition, just that it's understandable, this isn't a disagreement on the "moral rightness" of whether to define hierarchy that way, just that it's intelligible and consistent.
Also, actually fuck off comparing anarchists having a specific definition of hierarchy to homophobic bullshit, that is entirely in bad faith and I KNOW you know that.
just that it's intelligible and consistent.
It isn't. The fact that the argument happens in the first place is proof.
that is entirely in bad faith and I KNOW you know that.
It isn't. The principle is exactly the same: a niche group defines an existing word (hierarchy/homosexual) with an implicit negative connotation (involuntary/child groomer). Homosexual child groomers are bad, but it's wrong (morally and rhetorically) to use language that generalizes all homosexuals as child groomers. Likewise, involuntary hierarchies are bad, but it's wrong (morally and rhetorically) to use language that generalizes all hierarchies as involuntary.
If it's unintelligible and inconsistent when they do it, it's unintelligible and inconsistent when you do it.
For fucks sake, stop being a semantic crybaby and learn to read and discuss in good faith. TL;DR: Don't be a "debatebro".
Edit: I understand some of your reasoning, but the form in which you put it and the way you refuse to give others leeway in a discussion is unbecoming of a good socialist or just mutual respect in general; next time you will get a rule 1 timeout.
What's wrong with my form? Was I the only one, or even the first, to refuse leeway? Have I been anything but civil in my firmness? Are accusations of bad faith and name-calling becoming of good socialists? Do you not think the threat of moderative action somewhat undermines the whole anarchic stance on authority and hierarchy? If not, doesn't that kinda prove my point?
Avoiding being a "debatebro" is much, much lower on my list of priorities than discouraging rhetorical habits that make leftists look like oblivious fools. Obviously everyone who has ever worked on any kind of group project knows that you need some kind of hierarchy and authority to accomplish anything at a scale above half a dozen people. When you say you want to abolish authority and hierarchy, your audience (who isn't already in the in-group) doesn't know that you're using a cheeky private definition of those words where you're only talking about the oppressive versions. They just know that the sentences you're building with those words, which they have common definitions for, sound like naïve nonsense.
If all you care about is circle jerking with the in-group, fine. I don't want to be a part of that anyway. But if you actually want to move the general population to the left, and that's never been more crucial than now, you need to seriously examine your rhetoric. If your platform sounds stupid to the general audience, they're not going to entertain it for a second.
I unironically, have no idea if this post is a satire or not.
I was about to say "what about therapy" and then I remembered how almost every therapist besides me does therapy (and how they react when they learn how I do things...). I know I can't eliminate all the spooks, but I do try my best
That's so vague tell me more.
It's all so second nature to me at this point that I had to spend a good bit of time thinking about all the ways I incorporate my anarchist values in my practice. I'm sure there are more, but these are the most significant ones I could think of
No insurance, so I'm not forced to pathologize my clients and I'm not beholden to a third-party constraining what we're allowed to work on, etc
Extremely low cost, with no means testing, and I even accept bartering
Full therapeutic self-disclosure to help dissolve the power dynamic
Conduct sessions in neutral or client-centered environments (I have no public office- I meet clients virtually, outdoors, or in their home)
Peer accountability with a fellow anarchist in the medical field
Consent and boundaries are iterative and explicit
Session structure, modalities, etc, are collaboratively negotiated
Edit: I realize this list probably sounds normal and benign to leftists, but libs react very strongly to these things
Is there a nuance to usage of the word hierarchy that I'm not understanding in this context?
Like if I invite a bunch of friends over to help me move into a new apartment, is there a hierarchy because I'm telling everyone where to put the boxes? If my pal Sarah drives a truck for work, so I entrust her to load the van with two other people, is that a hierarchy?
I'm not asking this to be a smartass, I'd just like to understand if there is a meaningful difference between hierarchy and deferring to someone's skill in a particular domain.
a hierarchy (from Greek, for 'rule of priests') is a structure which creatures superiors and subordinates.
Like if I invite a bunch of friends over to help me move into a new apartment, is there a hierarchy because I’m telling everyone where to put the boxes?
if your friends want to help you, then they're helping you. they of course needs to defer to you for instructions, because you're the one who knows what you need help with. if they're doing so without the guarantee/demand of anything in return (because they care about you), then this is mutual aid.
no, that wouldn't really be a hierarchy because there's no authority involved. if you're deferring to someone's skill, that's not authority, because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary. you or the other people can leave that association at any time.
a hierarchy is, as @CrocodilloBombardino@piefed.social so succinctly just put it, "an institutional set of involuntary command/control relationships".
because you have the freedom to do that and it is voluntary
So what's the agreed upon definition of "having the freedom" and "voluntary" here? Because even under an authoritarian government, you can technically go against the authorities, but there will be consequences to doing so. What level of consequences do we consider to be acceptable for these purposes? Or is it not a question of level of severity of the consequences?
An example of what I'm thinking of is a situation where you defer to someone else for their expertise because maybe they're the only doctor available who can treat your illness, so you need to do as they say to get better. If you refuse, then you die. Is that voluntary? I can choose to die, so the "freedom" is there, but the consequences are severe.
where you defer to someone else for their expertise because maybe they’re the only doctor available who can treat your illness, so you need to do as they say to get better.
you have the right word for it: expertise (see my other comment).
it becomes a hierarchy if the doctor involuntarily hospitalises you or uses the courts to force you to undergo the treatment; the power (force) to do that is authority. so long as you still have the power to challenge or otherwise discuss the prognosis, it is not a hierarchy, especially if the treatment is gratis and libre.
Illegal actions are always available. States use violent consequences to coerce legal choices. Someone might say the Kent State massacre was an acceptable consequence for violating the rules of the state.
The set of legal and moral actions are not one to one. Any moral deference of autonomy needs to be consentual. There are times I would choose death instead of the doctor. For example, unpayable debt would make death an acceptable outcome.
Autonomy is about power to take an action. Heirarchy is about power over the actions of others. Anarchy is an individual and social philosophy.
I think maybe a level of external intentional threat is necessary for it to be involuntary. Deferring to an expert because you want good results or because you feel more comfortable in a follower role seems distinct from being threatened with going to hell or losing your home.
But even then I still wonder because what if the thing you're threatened with losing is the other person's companionship? It's reasonable to not want to interact with someone uncooperative, but you are technically coercing them into compliance if they're going to be removed from a project, relationship, etc.
I also think there needs to be a word for what people mean when they say voluntary hierarchy if we're going to assign it a strictly involuntary meaning. You can't just subtract vocabulary and expect everyone to jump on board.
but you are technically coercing them into compliance if they’re going to be removed from a project, relationship, etc.
this is an ongoing discussion within anarchism.
ideally, removing someone who wants to remain should be the last resort of a group. ideally, someone would not get to this point unless everyone else in the group (at some point) wanted them there.
this is where relationship anarchy and restorative and transformative justice come into play:
for disclosure: i'm not for relationship anarchy, but i'm not against it, either.
I cannot tell you how happy I am to have been given literature.
I prefer horizontally-hierarchial BDSM.
A lot of people here take jokes seriously.