Comment on Lemmy.jpeg
lugal@sopuli.xyz 4 days agoYou started by accusing me of not reading theory at all, I answered by asking what qualifies as theory. You didn’t answer.
There is a rich intellectual tradition dating back to Marx’s time that’s critical of him (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Bergman, Simon Weil, …). Does that qualify as theory? What are your criteria or prototype of what counts as theory?
Objection@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
Sure.
If you have criticisms of Marx’s arguments and analysis regarding the national question, then let’s hear them. But if it’s just gonna be, “it’s bad because states are bad,” I could get that from a damn an-cap.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
Again, do you get that people are less likely to engage with you when you start the convention by insulting them? Call me a cry baby, I don’t care, but online tankies have to learn about outreach. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy that people you insult will not engage with your arguments.
One basic argument is that structures of power will reproduce themselves. That’s why the state will not wither away but we need to build the movement in the structure we want to see in the end. I can point you to Anark as a content creator who engages with tankies arguments but I’m not motivated to put any more energy into a convention like this one.
Objection@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of patience for opposing Palestinian statehood without a very good reason.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re not engaging with the arguments and you’re not looking at the material conditions, it’s purely this knee-jerk ideological opposition to states in general, with zero analysis beyond that.
Palestinians do not need to be the forefront of some anarchist experiment that they have no desire to be a part of. If they were brought to a similar system to what virtually everyone lives under, it would be a massive improvement in their lives.
Furthermore, while a culture is suffering under the boot of colonialism, it is very hard for it to progress or change internally because there is such a powerful external threat, and any proposed changes will be seen as being imposed from the outside. There have been plenty of states where decolinization has produced real material improvements in people’s lives, in spite of your knee-jerk opposition to states. Can you really look at modern Ireland and say that it’s no different than when the English were starving them?
Imagine if someone’s chained up in your basement begging to be released into the world and you’re like, “You don’t wanna go out there, you’d have to get a job and jobs suck, you’d have a boss which would essentially recreate the structures of power that are constraining you right now. Let’s focus on creating an anarchist system first.” They’re not gonna give a shit about that, they’re only going to be thinking of how to get out. It’s the same way with colonized people, the first priority should be ending colonialism and engaging with them on equal footing before considering these demands about how their system has to be ideologically pure.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Apology accepted. And I apologize for not citing all my sources in a two sentence comment I hastily wrote before going to sleep.
True. I said it’s not liberation but gradually better for sure. I have the impression that you read alot into my short comment.
I’m still not very motivated to put energy into arguing with people who insult me but the short version is that power corrupts (see Lenin) and positions of power attract people who don’t have the interest of the masses in mind (see Stalin). Anark talks about that. That’s why the USSR didn’t wither away but instead centralized power away from the soviets (read councils) and to the party. I’m sure you will tell me who the party were all workers and oppression by workers is different. I heard it before. It didn’t convince me then. If you want to read a contemporary anarchist perspective on the USSR, I recommend Emma Goldman, eg There Is No Communism In Russia.
And to point to some “theory” that informed my position: I read Perfect Victims and I’m currently reading Palestine A Socialist Introduction. The former has a nationalist perspective and the latter I would categorize as Trotzkist tho I’m not sure. Neither of them nor the Palestinians on my local protests have anything positive to say about the PA. The latter book also talks about other Arab nations are lead by leaders who are complicit with the US and Israel against the will of their people. You don’t have to a an anarchist (tho it doesn’t hurt) to see national liberation in the global south with a critical lens. But to summarize an anticolonial anarchist perspective: By building nation states, they copied the power structure of the oppressors and therefore invited people willing to cooperate with the (former) colonialists. If I have the impression that it’s worth it, I might elaborate a little more.