My social media environment (mostly Lemmy for the last year, after I left Reddit) is very leftist. I’m finding myself floating more and more left because y’all have a point and there’s not many counter-arguments in this social media environment. I sometimes wonder if that’s how MAGA folks feel–floating more and more right because that’s what they’re surrounded by.
Of course, my floating is (naturally /s) based on reason and leftists making good memes/arguments.
Anyways, that’s this morning’s introspection.
Side showerthought: my convictions are based on memes. Anyone have nice, accessible resources for giving those convictions a more solid base? I’d love something like a graphic history of leftist thought (similar to Queer: A Graphic History). Something approachable but with citations. Thanks :)
ironically, this leftish area has caused me to go from thinking the right was terrible and the left was good to realizing there are really annoyingly aggressive people on both sides. I generally can’t stand oppression, so I am naturally on the side opposed to antiLGBTQ oppressors, racists, and sexists; which causes me to fall on the left side. But, now being in a leftish area a while, I dislike how the sheer vilifying and mob mentality disrupts calm logical thought. I will get downvotes for saying this (and that’s exactly my point), but, for example, if I were to think a policy of trump or elon was smart and good, you know there is no way i could mention it without 80 downvotes and constant personal attacks. If Trump liked gummi bears, saying ‘thats cool gummi bears are good’ would instantly result in 40 people yelling how terrible Gummi Bears are… because Trump likes them.
So lemmy caused me to go from leftist to instead having a distinction between respectful, nonaggressive people and those that aren’t. I would value a respectful, wellmeaning republican that I can have a meaningful conversation with (even if I disagree), over an aggressive lefty attacking any hint of an ideology other than their own.
Yeah it’s the pile on mentalities that every online social media seems to get.
If you’re in the “wrong” on that specific site there’s rarely room for calm discussion just a pile on of abuse solidifying everyone’s echo chambers
The most annoying/worst person you know can share your political ideology and that’s both unsettling and makes you wonder “are we the baddies?”
Part of being online is that folks will just be a jerk to you sometimes, I suspect to feel better about themselves and their position.
I suppose you could say both are pipelines in a manner of speaking, the difference is that one is designed to target the ego and promote artificial and toxic individualism in the service of a powerful few, while the other is designed to target our natural need for community and cooperation in the service of all members of the group.
One has to be promoted artificially, dishonestly (most often by co-opting leftist ideas, see national “socialism”), and at great cost to be effective, while the other just needs to be (unless my comrades are getting those Soros cheques I missed out on? lol).
Most people, when presented with leftist ideas with the “scary” isms removed, tend to agree with them, it is the capitalist indoctrination that makes them fear said isms. Remove the indoctrination and the systems it supports, provide people with their needs rather than hold them hostage behind a paywall, as well as providing an honest and critical education, and the left wouldn’t need a pipeline at all.
Meanwhile the right already have things their way, and yet they’re still dependent on those levels of deep manipulation to recruit to their side, because their side is shit and only serves a handful of people.
Anyway, I’m rambling, as for resources, these are unfortunately not as accessible as a graphic history, but here are some links I have saved for more general introductory material, and a couple of more topic specific articles to get you going (they’re not all from there, but in general, the anarchist library is a great resource, it can take some navigating to find what you’re after, but if nothing else, you’re guaranteed to find something interesting and informative on the way):
anarchism - a beginner’s guide
What is Communist Anarchism? Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism
Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!
How Nonviolence Protects the State
Red Flags: Before You Join That Org
E: as for the bullshit notion that we must platform and listen to fascists and other bigots “for balance” or to avoid an “echo chamber” or whatever other bullshit - NO. Our priority is to survive in spite of those people, not to allow them to continue to walk all over us and invade literally every single space in existence so that they don’t feel excluded. Fuck that.
Thanks. I’ve opened all these up in my tabs and have saved the anarchist library to my favorites.
You’re welcome, and remember that they’re for browsing, not necessarily consuming in bulk, some of them I’ve never read the whole way through, but they provide answers to specific questions and are great for dipping in and out of.
The key to it is to never get comfortable in your beliefs. Challenge them, break them down in your head over and over. Not until anything. You never stop.
Yes, you still run the risk of self selecting what you already believe because you use the same reasoning each time, but there’s limits to what you can do in that regard. It takes practice to work around that, so the only way to avoid it is through practice. When you find yourself agreeing with what you already believe, seek out a different stance and pick it apart to try and convince yourself of it.
Again, it isn’t perfect, there’s no echo chamber as complete as our own heads. But the more you work at it, the better you’ll get.
Part of that is rigorous fact checking though, and that’s where the far right in specific falls short. Too much of what they rely on is about fear and hate that is based in falsehood. Now, the far left also has its problems with facts vs faith, and that can lead to hate and fear, but it isn’t based on it from the start, so it’s easier to sort out when a specific belief is poorly constructed.
That isn’t a centrism argument that the middle is better, there’s way too many flaws in that concept. It’s saying that you can end up at extremism in different ways, for different reasons and it’ll still behave the same.
I ended up more left after a few years on Reddit because as I saw how many ideas were expressed and challenged and had my own ideas tested, the conclusions I came to pointed in that direction over and over.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People’s_History_of_the_United_States is accessible, though I had to stop a bunch to just give myself time for the “damn, that’s fucked up” to pass pretty much every chapter.
I just picked up a copy of “A People’s History of American Empire”, a graphic adaptation of a chapter from that book, from my library. (“A People’s History of the United States” is listed in the collection, but labeled “missing”). I expect to be reminded that the USA’s history is bloody and full of oppressing brown people.
I expect to be reminded that the USA’s history is bloody and full of oppressing brown people.
I haven’t read it, but I’m sure that’s pretty much going to be the gist of it lol and a healthy dosage of “we say fight for oppressed people’s freedom, but we really mean helping capitalist interests in the area and/or gaining geopolitical advantage.”
Feel free to crosspost to !AskUSA@discuss.online
Not all Lemmy users are US citizens
Done. And now I know how to cross-post :) (small square-on-square icon)
Thanks!
I don’t think they have the same experience. I think in those spaces you see people giving each other a sense of camaraderie and belonging for aligning against out-groups, whereas we ditched Al Franken merely for being accused of misconduct.
Maybe it’s a tired joke by now, but I have never been able to reckon with the political dynamic when you judge people by the company they keep - people of quality are not in a hurry to accept and tolerate just anyone who shows up, whereas people of the worst kind are very happy to make new friends of any stripe.
I was about to say “I don’t know. My cousin shoved me away just because I don’t eat pork.” then I realized that that aligns me with not-Christians. (pork violently does not agree with my digestive system)
Pork products are a big deal to some people I guess. And I thought the whole early 2000s bacon meme thing was cringe. …
Even Leftists hate other Leftists due to the aggrandizing resource depleting insufferability of micro causes
Update: I just requested Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World through my library system ( https://store.iww.org/shop/wobblies-a-graphic-history-of-the-iww/ )
Don’t swing too far in either direction. Doing that is what creates radicals
My advice is to get news and info from all sides. If you’re able to identify what the dramatics are and are able to exclude them from news you absorb, then that’s where the real truth is
When you are no longer willing to listen to those who disagree with what you hold as truth, you have not found truth, you have stopped looking for it.
I don’t really need to listen to people that think there are microchips in the vaccines, for example. Lots of ideas aren’t worth considering. There’s nothing noble about having no standards.
There is a difference between believing someone is saying nonsense and plugging your ears when they say anything. If someone talks about microchips in the vaccines and certain entertainment producers are pedophiles, you know the vaccines don’t have microchips in them because of technological limitations but you can’t prove that producers aren’t pedophiles.
The boy who cried wolf was right the one time when nobody listened.
Snowden exposed what conspiracy theorists were lambasted for believing because the truth was masked by nonsense.
If I told you that the US government was force sterilizing Native American women for decades, I may sound unhinged until you gave it enough consideration to find out what the reality was in the 60s and 70s.
If I told you the US government was giving unknowing black men STDs, you may not believe me until you looked into Tuskegee.
If I told you [documented facts]
Those things are true, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say because some claims are true that any and all claims have merit.
Also, you should reread the boy who cried wolf. The point isn’t that the wolf is real, the point is people won’t put up with bullshit.
That’s not how proof works. it’s not up to you to disprove every claim someone makes or else accept it as true, it’s up to them to prove their claims.
That’s a false dichotomy. Centrism isn’t inherently noble, either.
When the far right starts questioning arithmetic the way they question climate change will it be noble to doubt 2+2 = 4?
You need to think for yourself rather than expecting the correct answer to be some average of the prevailing ideas.
“How about just a little genocide”
Ironic you’re telling me to think for myself
I think there’s some good advice here, noticing news is always pushing some sort of propaganda is useful as is being able to discern what is propaganda and what is truth between the lines.
But I think there’s sometimes a notion that a centrist point of view is inherently more balanced and correct and that is a dangerous way of thinking. It’s not unthinkable that political leanings in one direction or another are better for a society and in thinking the center must be better, there can be a push to accept the horrors one side or another is pushing for.
As the US lurches further and further towards fascism, so does the center.
The left has their own fascist tendencies that are just as bad as the right. At different times different sides are in power and implement their version which their side supports because it is their side. You have to be willing to be critical of your own side. Make it a point to vote for someone not your sides candidate every election just because choosing that other person is a good exercise. (In my case I’ve just decided nobody gets more than two terms in office). Note that I didn’t say other side, there are always “fringe” parties on your side that you can vote for. the important part is you look for reasons why your own side is evil and take action to prevent it even if that means the opposite side gets power and does things you don’t like.
Who would you say are these politically empowered far left politicians who are enacting fascist tendencies in America?
By America do you mean the US, or do you include both continents. Juan Perón comes to mind as a left wing authoritarian, but that is Argentina (and he died in 1974)
Either way, the important part is to not get so arrogant that you support it on your side. There are people who agree with your who are authoritarians and it is easy to fall into the trap of supporting them as plenty of authoritarians over history have proved. (you should have been there killing Caesar and then demanding the return of the republic)
I don’t know of elected officials, however, on lemmy, there are a lot of authoritarian left wing groups. There are a lot of anti-authoritarian ones too, but the authoritarians are very loud, and abrasive, because authoritarians operate via force.
Maybe it’s my own biases and US centric mentality, but I really struggle to put bossy power mods on a forum on the same level as the Neo Nazi adjacent policymakers in the government.
neither do I, there really isn’t a real left in the US. However the online influence pipeline for the left has a lot of authoritarians, which is similar to the problem the right fash pipeline creates. Whether or not there will be a true left in office with population enough to truly do something, and not just beef up liberal voting, we shall see.
You didn’t declare absolute fealty to the ideology, news sources, and goals of the left. Nor did you even spew caustic hate at any other ideologies.
Therefore you are bad.
Downvoted.
