Pragmatic Leftist Theory
The neolibs are too far right. The tankies are doing whatever that is. Where's the space for the people who want fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism, but realize that it's gonna take a while and there are lots of steps between now and then? Here. This is that space.
Here, people should endeavor to discuss and devise practical, actionable leftist action. Vote lesser evil while you build grassroots coalitions. Unionize your workplace. Participate in SRAs. Build cohesion your local community. Educate the proletariat.
This is a place for practical people to develop practical plans to implement stable, incremental improvement.
If you're dead-set on drumming up all 18,453 True Leftists® into spontaneous Revolution, go somewhere else. The grown ups are talking.
Rules:
-1. Don't be a dick. Racism, sexism, other assorted bigotries, you know the drill. At least try to default to mutually respectful discussion. We're all on the same side here, unless you aren't, in which case kindly leave.
-2. Don't be a tankie. Yes I'm sure you have an extensive knowledge of century-old theory. There's been a century of history since then. Things didn't shake out as expected, maybe consider the possibility that a different angle of attack might be more effective in light of new data.
-3. Be practical. No one on the left benefits from counterproductive actions. This is a space informed by, not enslaved to, ideology. Promoting actions that are fundamentally untenable in the system in question, because they fulfill a sense of ideological purity, is a bad look. Don't do that.
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Those are precisely the people that content is meant to reach: well meaning people who have fallen into an enthusiastic, ideological pipeline that leaves no room for meaningful discussion or compromise. Memeing them out of a position they were memed into in the first place.
There's nothing anticommunistic about it. I don't consider tankies to be communists, they're just authoritarians with a red paint job. I have no issues with communism, idealistically I'd consider myself an anarcho-communist (though practically, I think that's a multi-generational project which we can't reasonably reach without passing through a number of intermediate systems).
What I do have an issue with is the line-the-dissidents-against-the-wall, everyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-a-shitlib mentality that dominates the tankie instances. The USSR never did anything wrong, China never did anything wrong, both are examples of communism, progressives are just as bad as fascists, either don't vote at all or vote for some fringe candidate polling at 0.001%, the proletariat need to be liberated by force against their consent for their own good. It's an ideology that decorates itself with leftist buzzwords, but it's the furthest thing from leftist praxis.
Anyone in that camp isn't going to be a strong ally, if anything they'll oppose pragmatic efforts toward progress because they aren't ideologically pure enough. I've spent a large portion of my life trying to educate people and help them to change their minds, and these people need to be shaken from their dogma before they can be allies.
The memes are deprogramming. The discussion is reprogramming. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the practical utility of the memes; I still think they form a valuable component of reeducation, and a way to drive engagement from the general feeds.
But I agree that they shouldn't be the focus. Ideally, most of the content should be resources and cooperative discussions. I'd much rather the community be 100% discussions and resources than 100% anti-tankie memes.
But this is still a small community. I only see about half a dozen users engaging with any regularity. The discussions I've started don't generate as much engagement as the memes. If people see a meme validating their frustrations from the oppressively present backwards "left", like it, view the community, and engage in discussion with others who are also frustrated by the oppressively present backwards "left", I'll consider that a win for now.
Hopefully, soon, the discussions and resources will dominate, and we can work towards meaningful progress together.
What do you mean by pragmatic? You use the word a lot so you're like referring to some philosophy? Its very politicized in every context ive seen it so I wonder what you mean, concretely.
Also I'm not sure there is as much clarity around the commie/tankie distinction as you suppose. I had a convoy elsewhere here, the post with the Atlantic article, where someone was confused by what was meant by "the left of DSA," they said it would all be ML, and I had to correct them. A lot of new socialists don't realize that bring a Marxist- Leninist is distinct from being a Marxist and Leninist.
How do you thread that needle? Because the online tankies are distinct from the many many good ML educators and organizers. I don't agree with them on certain things, like rehabilitating Stalin, rejection of internationalism, and uncritical support of problematic socialist regimes. But I see people talking negatively about ML ideology, like about how they are infiltrators like some formless parasitic other. The memes don't educate, they aren't concrete, and I think they are troublesome for the left.
When I see people more concerned with mischaracterizing some other, rather than doing practical work (and this doesnt mean you pers, we've talked about your work a little) I get a little worried. Listen I'm not saying start deleting these memes but they are legit the only memes, well maybe one exception. There are other political memes that would be actually educating, not just attacking some group that doesnt even come here. When people start associating Marxism and communism with these "tankies" because they don't know all the history stuff but they can relate to being yelled at online for saying like, "isn't Cuba a dictatorship," then the tankie memes start to erode the basis for my work.
Because even if we don't like their immaturity, there is a lot of stuff I think they are closer to being right about than the average angry liberal. Or rather, the two sides sort of create each other, like I mentioned before, making eachnother more reactionary and provoked, deepening the worst behavior of both tendencies.
I'm not referencing any specific philosophy, I'm using the dictionary definition:
It is a direct response to impotent idealism. Leftist conversations on Lemmy eventually trend towards purity test circle jerks instead of actionable solutions. I want actionable solutions, actual praxis.
Which is precisely the behavior we're trying to counteract. The problematic instances are basically nothing but mischaracterizations of other leftists. It worries me that you're bending over backwards to give these people the benefit of the doubt, but you seem to have problems when we call out specific interactions we've had with them.
Their behavior is substantially more detrimental to your work than ours. They produce a constant stream of content that splinters the left, makes us look foolish, and presents leftist thought in a way that drives people away. If you haven't experienced that personally, that's nice for you, but it's a way bigger problem than you're making it out to be.
EDIT: I just looked at all the posts, and I'm not sure what you see as a "mischaracterization". Everything is either a screenshot of an actual conversation, or a commentary on an interaction I've either had personally, or is exactly identical to one I did. They're not flattering depictions, true, but they're not mischaracterizations. The real observed behavior they reference just isn't flattering.