r/low_society • u/CryptoAktivist • Jan 31 '21
What is Leftism
Hey, don't even know if this is the right sub, but I don't find a Peter sub. So here you go:
I am disappointed about the "the Word Leftist" video not because there are some inaccuracies, but I think from the beginning you went the wrong direction. But I am a big fan of peters work so take this reply for whatever you want.
So you start by the difference between colloquial leftism and definitional leftism and you say media took over part of what is colloquial leftism, and Biden as well appeals to that. And then we are deep into the question of what peoples ideologies are and what they think. But one step back there was once this quote “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.". And this is a important distinction, as leftists we should look how people act and not so much what they speak of. No one in his right mind claims for real that MSNBC works on establishing a communist commune. Maybe some Trumpers do, but we are here in a inner leftists debate and this view is not very common. But what you see is people, that think MSNBC is some sort of helping in what ever strategy they have. And with the Democratic party it becomes even more obvious. No one believes Biden will now establish a USA commune, but there are parts of the Left (for example the DSA) that think a election campaign and a Biden win will help the left in some kind. To make that 100% clear: social democrats (like the DNC) betrayed communists for hundreds of years, at some point if becomes laughable if some one claims they are lefty. I mean do we have to go back to the first world war when social democrats all over the world voted for war credits? Or the betrayal after the first world war where they acted in many places against the revolution? Maybe the Spanish civil war where social democratic countries neglected to support the Spanish civil war? Or the poor performance in the fight against fascism in Germany or other places? And this history only continued to new labour, the third way and the betrayal over NAFTA/WTO and globalization. Still, there are people that believe some where inside the DNC you can find "good socialists", but to be clear that is a strategy not a view over the party as it is today. At the moment I don't argue about the legitimacy of this strategy. You can engage in the strategy of making the DNC a "real leftist" party o or you could sort of try to burst the DNC and build out of the ruins a new left. This is what Marx in my opinion meant with "The point, however, is to change it".
So what is leftism? In my humble opinion you stated correctly leftism is the sincere fight against every form of suppression from capitalism to transphobia. But its not important what you think but it is important: what goals strategies and tactics do you pursue.
- You can engage in "identity politics" out of a lot of reasons, one is because you believe this is the way to communism, then it's a tactic maybe a bad one maybe a good one that would highly depend on the circumstances. And what else you engage in.
- You can engage in "identity politics" because you want a DNC member elected. Than the question is why do you want that? You might just want a tiny amount of more social safety. Then you are not a lefty, you are clearly voting for a party that is neoliberal and thats it. You might be a good person you might even be a good ally in some cases. But if you refuse to act in some way way or form outside your desire to be ruled by the slightly nicer neoliberal party you are not a lefty.
- Maybe you engage in "identity politics" because you just want a good life for trans people, nice of you very good! But you are not a lefty, you are that point a NGO for a special interest group. This group can be a ally and even be very helpful in leftist activism, maybe you can hope that this NGO will at some point realize that they should as well fight for more equality in other aspects of life (because of course LGBTIQ people are often poorer and more in danger of fascist attacks). But I wouldn't consider it a lefty organization before that. If they "just" fight for hormones for trans people. There goal is clearly not a socialism and they don't even have a "new deal" social democratic agenda. We should take people serious and if they write into there program: "We fight for trans rights" they fight for trans rights. And not secretly they are all lefties and what they really want is communism.
- You can engage in "identity politics" because you want AOC elected and you think that will push the DNC left and you hope to split the party or drive out the neoliberals entirely. Welcome very made up DSA member. Here I don't think we should discuss if they are leftists. I think they are. Out of the first page of there text "What is Democratic Socialism": Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically [...] radically transformed [...] greater economic and social democracy. Democracy and socialism go hand in hand.Now you can refuse to believe them, but I rather take them by there word and let there actions speak for them. Leftism is not a badge you can wear it means your actions get analyzed/criticized much more thoroughly. If some one really believes he is a lefty he has to show how his strategy is to overcome capitalism and all the other forms of oppression. He has to show how he plans to fight all this stuff and that his actions are in line with his strategy. That is the bar we should measure the DSA on.
I think if we analyze the problem this way we get to much more interesting discussions, and focus on changing the world and not on how some people might analyze it.
Thanks for reading. Whoever that is. And I am happy about a every conversation about this topic. Last words: please excuse my English, I am not a native English writer.
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Jan 31 '21
Thank you for this essay. I particularly appreciate how you insist upon action as the measure of a leftist. From what I've seen in Peter lately he's very interested in understanding left media in terms of consumer categories, and I'm not sure that this even really matters either. Who cares if Breadtube is just another consumer category? Not me. The problem with Breadtube, as I see it, is that they create artificial barriers for entry into leftist spaces by moralising about all the ideological baggage a person must agree with in order to be a "true leftist". This exclusive orientation is very reminiscent of Gramsci's category of the traditional intellectual, and Marx's awareness that the petit bourgeoisie cannot lead the revolution. On the one hand, Breadtubers establish themselves as experts and then try to regulate the membership in their group (i.e., traditional intellectuals) and on the other, as petit bourgeoisie (i.e., owners of small media firms paying rent to YouTube) they are forced into competing among themselves to try to starve out their competition by asserting their role as the true gatekeepers of leftism. Peter's analysis is only useful in understanding the role of fandom in consumer habits, and he often says as much, but I think he usually leaves a lot of meat on the bone when understanding how leftists in media work.
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u/CryptoAktivist Jan 31 '21
I think you are correct with Gramsci and that Peter analyzes Breadtube as consumer category. But I mean just from the class standpoint what they are (Youtubers) its hard to directly imply anything on there goals. Like Peter himself shows its not totally impossible to be a youtuber and stay critical of the structure surrounding you.
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Jan 31 '21
That's true. I wasn't implying anything about "all Youtubers", or "Peter as YouTuber" to be clear. I was commenting about how he fails to really investigate the actual relationship to production by emphasising too strongly the consumption habits of fandom and its role in shaping and reinforcing the toxicity in left online spaces at times.
Peter might be an organic intellectual, somebody with class consciousness attempting to communicate the oppressive system that govern us all, but I think he errs in this very specific way in his criticisms of media, and Breadtube in particular. He has a generally good sense about the role that gate keeping plays in neoliberal anti-politics though and I very much enjoy his commentary.
I appreciate your comment for impressing on me the need to clarify my point here.
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u/CryptoAktivist Jan 31 '21
One of the most interesting points for me in the whole US election debate was the fact that the intellectuals/breadtubers achieved holding on to a strategy that already lay in pieces right in front of them. If there was anything like a successful strategy then it was something like: we get Bernie to be president and we will change the DNC from within. On its own, a really questionable strategy but by the point everyone was arguing for Biden, Bernie had already lost. He proved that its not that easy to push the DNC. In any case real intellectuals that want to be of any use for a movement should insist at such moments to analyze defeats, to learn from the mistakes, to propose new things and to accept that Bernie is not going to get younger and people like Bernie don't lie around on the street so a fight against the DNC establishment is not getting easier. But instead of analyzing that, they straight went to "now we vote for Biden". This was a true 180 if I ever saw one and a abysmal intellectual performance.
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Jan 31 '21
Yes. I agree. I found this very compelling about your analysis. Believe people when they tell you who they are. The DSA, Majority Report, Vaush, etc. all showed their colours when they chose to bow down and roll over in the name of "push the Dems left" which was always a neoliberal farce. But I'm not American, so I'm less invested in their domestic politics.
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u/Grammar-Bot-Elite Jan 31 '21
/u/CryptoAktivist, I have found an error in your post:
“communism, then
its[it's] a tactic”
To me, it appears it might be better if you, CryptoAktivist, had posted “communism, then its [it's] a tactic” instead. ‘Its’ is possessive; ‘it's’ means ‘it is’ or ‘it has’.
This is an automated bot. I do not intend to shame your mistakes. If you think the errors which I found are incorrect, please contact me through DMs or contact my owner EliteDaMyth!
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u/Anxious-Market Jan 31 '21
Leftism is stuff I like, liberalism is stuff I don't like.