Comment on Personalized Political Spectrum
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 22 hours agoThe question of being right or left is which role you play, a progressive role or a reactionary one. For all of the ways the nordics may be more progressive internally, it is of a Herrenvolk style, only for them and at the explicit expense of the global south. For all of the social faults of some countries in the global south, their rise is progressive against imperialism, and this rise facilitates social progress internally.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
There is no way to be a leftist or progressive dictatorship. There is no leftist or progressive way to have unequal laws for women, or to prevent gay people from marrying, or to deny people medical care. It’s a contradiction in terms. You may believe that Iran or India becoming more powerful is an overall good thing, but it is objectively and definitionally not progressive or leftist.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 21 hours ago
Where do you think social progress comes from? It isn’t purely economic, of course, but what’s critical is that social progress is hampered by imperialism and neocolonialism. When the primary obstacle to global progress, including socially, are these economic systems of brutal plunder, considering countries like the social democracies in the imperial core based purely on their internal policy and not at all on their foreign policy is a grave error.
Again, it’s like you’re pointing to a group of landlords and calling them more progressive than their tenants. It’s a form of Herrenvolk progressivism, progressivism at the expense of the global south and working against global progress.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
Well, yeah, all you have to do is look at Iran under Mossadegh to realize that reactionary forces often stem from colonial oppression. What doesn’t make sense is denying that those forces are reactionary. You can understand why something is happening and still call it what it is.
The US is largely at fault for how reactionary Iran is, but Iran is still reactionary. If you never learned to swim because your parents wouldn’t let you near water, it isn’t your fault that you never learned, but you still shouldn’t jump in the deep end.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 19 hours ago
I am not denying social conservativism as reactionary, I am rejecting the idea that imperialist and neocolonial countries can be considered left of center when they are larger obstacles to forward progress than socially reactionary anti-imperialist countries.