I understand the need to learn from the past but Leftists have an unhealthy obsession with it. We've fallen so far that it seems like people just wan't to endlessly discuss and argue about the glory days.
Why does everyone feel the need to label themselves as Troskyists, Leninists, Maoists, Stalinists, who gives a fuck. If you like their praxis then incorporate into a broader political view. Having such a deep attachment to some dead guys name is counterproductive and shows weak character. It breeds dogmatism and sectarianism. Stop crying about Kronstad, Catalonia, Rosa Luxemburg, the Fourth Intenational,the NEP etc none of us even know anyone who was involved with these events. Why don't we worry about the present, if we take power then we can argue and kill each other over sectarian differences.
I can agree with the sentiment, but I don't think there's really a problem with using labels named after old leftists when they have actual philosophy. It's just a common thing in both philosophies and sciences.
Someone who espouses Keynesianism or Darwinism doesn't want to dry hump Keynes and Darwin. They just agree with their ideas on economics and natural selection.
Parker Lewis
Your quotes reverse cause and effect. Leftists circlejerk about the past because the current Left is totally rudderless and lacks any sort of consistent direction or proper organization. With the present and near-future offering nothing but further disappointments, the glory of the past becomes an attractive alternative to the Nothingness that is the current Left. If the modern Left had any sort of proper direction or concrete hope to turn to, I believe the Left movements of the past would be reduced to mere academic disputes quite shortly.
Benjamin Reed
The difference is Darwin & Keynes never directly controlled state policy (I know Keynes had some role in Govt but not to the same extent as someone like Lenin or Mao.) When you say your a leninist or maoist you have to defend these figures record which leads to constant pointless dispute about historical actions and decisions. It also causes normies to think that groups based on these figure are just going to end up recreating their historical mistakes.
Angel Martin
Your right that nostalgia is what causes this obsession with the past, but I think one factor which prevents the modern left from getting anywhere is the fact that different sects have maintained their 20th century antagonisms.
Kayden Taylor
Yeah seriously, if there was an actual leftist movement currently I could support I wouldn't have to look up to Castro and Allende
Jaxson Bell
This is the reason for the miserable state of "leftism" today.
Hunter Ross
The past is important, but strategies change with changing material conditions, so disagreements about strategies in past countries with different conditions shouldn't be enough to split the Left.
Bentley Watson
Look I'm all for playing up the "glories" of the USSR or Mao in India, The Phillipines, Russia, China or other places where it will appeal to the population, but you have to realize that there is absolutely no way we are going to convince people in America or Western Europe by emphasizing our continuity with XXth Century socialist experiments.
This is true partly because of cold war propaganda/ignorance but its people also have negative views for good reason.
Caleb Foster
history is literally the whole basis of marxist theory, fuck off
Anthony Ramirez
Really I just don't see any way around that. Even merely claiming you're a Marxist or Ancom will cause normies to spaz out about Stalin, Mao, and Venezuela. I'd rather just be honest about my positions and the gains and mistakes made in the past.
You can try pulling the wool over people's eyes by trying to never mention these figures, the word communism, etc., but it really wont take long for people to realize the parallels with these tendencies.
Dylan Fisher
wrong
Mason Flores
There is no fucking leftist movement in my area. I came here to leftypol exactly because I wanted to talk to radicals since there is no one here.
Kayden Rodriguez
but it's beside the point, that's not what i meant rather to give one example of the coming up DKP party congress they want to discuss state monopolistic capitalism and some "transition period". it is an old question that has been answered. what i mean is people tend to bring this revisionism up as something new we just gotta try out, while it's something already debunked decades ago. people aren't learning.
Jeremiah Nelson
I'm an actual Nazi and the way you people venerate your figureheads and marry your theory to their authors kind of makes me cringe
look at how many threads people parade around Marx's face like a crucifix
that should really make you think tbh
Luis Brown
Stopped reading there
Zachary Turner
Did I mistype that or does Nazi really wordfilter to nazi?
Anyways
Christopher Walker
Because leftism has a sense of time that lacks a future, it's either present indefinite or the eternal ad hoc.
Robert Wilson
Anarchist Ukraine was cool. Deal with it.
Owen Myers
Are you autistic?
Bentley Long
...
Anthony Thomas
Literally a bunch of organized peasants and middle class who were voluntarily organized by a few individuals into an army to defend their land.
Read a book.
Luis Morales
We know, but then you are also being a faggot who wants us to go full [current year] in the same breath and ignore the massive use of being able to see failure and tragedy in hindsight.
I agree, but it's what we're stuck with until the next Marx is born.
Hmmm, waiting for the second coming of a subversive, wise, world-changing Jew… seems familiar…
Dylan Robinson
Marx was not Jewish religiously tho, only ethnically. He was actually a Lutheran who actively despised the Jewish family he inherited, which is what made it so easy for him to critique Judaism often and even write a paper on the Jewish question.
Also I always wondered why Jesus was never portrayed with a big/hook nose, as ethnic/superreligious Jews have always idealized. I mean he was Jewish, venerated by Jews despite changing the religion fundamentally and his legacy was built in a period when Jews had quite big political power around where he was.
Jose Diaz
Yes, we need someone to come along and criticise this system that was here the last time the criticisms were made.
Benjamin Ramirez
We do actually, because the beast has changed a shitload since then.
Well the Jews in power did dick him over. The early Christians were pariahs, as heretics tend to be.
Carter Morgan
Sadly, this sentiment is natural because a when the left makes a genuine attempt to be relevant again, it's once again a threat to the status quo, and right wing ideology means it's not only necessary to counter this resurgence in populism on a full scale, but to opposite personally and to berate, ostracize and alienate any individual that disagrees with them, a mentality that is effective enough that Tumblr liberals tried to appropriate it.
Talking about theory all day in a community where you're welcome is less scary.
Andrew King
Messianism? On my Holla Forums?
Ryder Stewart
Christianism is Judaism 2.0, Islamism is 3.0, Marxism is 4.0.
