Questionnaire time

What are some bad habits you see from other leftists, in particular leftists whom which you've interacted (both IRL and online)? List them and explain why.

Related question: what do you think should be done to improve these issues?

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alternet.org/story/19840/a_march_to_irrelevance
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1b_4Utnwf8CZANeWJhCHwBybQfRYbB8R
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Over-zealousness, self-righteousness, belief that doing something for a good cause should exempt you from all criticism, opportunism. Like: "You can't call Bernie a liberal he wants us all to get free health care, you can't criticize co-ops because they're the only alternative we've got right now."

Mandatory struggle sessions.

They never bathe or leave their parents house

Most of them being statist pigs
And the ones that aren't statist pigs will just call everyone they disagree with a tankie

The main bad habit is being inaccessible to working class, which is persistent among all sects. To improve on this would require being able to articulate points without language the average guy will not understand, which I think the left as whole is utterly incapable of doing.

It would also help if you left the house and got an actual job with working class people

Honestly all "student movements" need to be forcibly killed and replaced by actual worker controlled organizations.

I work 40 hours a week you basement dwelling autist.

Many students are workers, though rarely the ones in leadership positions of these student movements. So I suppose I agree.

Terribly lazy and think any form of authority or self-discipline is fascist.

Virtue signalling, a greater concern with the image of an organization or how one is perceived than actually doing anything meaningful, fear of putting forth an idea or arguing it out of how it might be received. Narcissists are fucking scum, they would rather torpedo an organization than not get their way. Always keep your fucking eye out for narcissists. You know how to spot them. Tendency to close their eyes when they're talking, tendency to talk in a sing-song tone. Maybe they're just LARPing liberals, maybe they're not. They're fucking cancer no matter what their views.

Finally, usually mutually exclusive to the above problem, an eagerness to shit on everything and do nothing. "Waiting for the revolution" is the biggest load of bullshit ever when it comes to hesitancy to act. Revolutions don't spring up out of nothing, they crystallize after people have seen the failure of other methods. If other methods are never attempted, they turn reactionary thinking it's the only option.

A few off the top of my head, you don't change the world because it makes you look good and increases your chance at sexual relations. This peacocking needs to stop. Same for rebelling against your rich parents and hoping the new world will allow you to touch children.

I can think of a couple:

1. Conflating anger with knowledge. It's just assumed that a leftist who is consistently angry must be angry because they know the workings of some horrible injustice, when it could just be that their anger comes from malignancy (resentiment in the Nietzschean sense).

2. Infantilism. This isn't about LeftComms since this is fairly common among all schools of leftism and even moreso among the right. The left retreats to childishness because they fear getting their hands dirty and looking "just as bad" as their adversaries, and assume that by taking on the behaviors of a child they become absolved of any guilt.

3. Egotism. Everything becomes a clash of egos. There is little to no discipline, which is something I can't understand. Tag this as lifestylism all you want, but if leftists are going to style themselves as grand revolutionaries akin to Blanqui, Lenin, Mao, Che, Öcalan, and such, they better be willing to set an example for the masses and live as close to their values as possible. You have to take a step back (mentally) and observe yourself.

They need to be solved on a macro level, but the most an individual can do is find methods to transcend their narcissism and solipsism.

i agree. students are idealistic and become inherently reactionary once the real world sets in and all the romance of revolution turns into 12-hour workdays on the collective farm.

We aren't ancaps.

I like you because you see it too.

Holla Forumsyp detected

In the west most students become "class traitors" once they graduate (quotes are used since a lot of them aren't even working class to begin with.)

That's because they immediately start working in big corporations, and once the system starts working for them they lose any incentive to fight it.

A friend of mine, who I knew from HS, used to be super-radical. She participated in Occupy and all that. However, she was also a student at a very elite and expensive school (GWU). She graduated with a degree in international relations and immediately went to work for a policy institute. Four years later in 2016 she's a Clinton supporter and not just out of lesser evilism either, she really upholds the platform of the Democratic Party. How the fuck do you go from Trotsky to Clinton in a few short years?

Forgot to mention, she decided to work for that institute primarily because her student loan debt was way too much.

Is this is the power of AA or something? Every think tank in my area required a masters or higher.

She has "connections."

Sad! A real mess! Many such cases!

Intersectionalism is the worst habit there is. The solution? Dworkinist Feminist Essentialism.

...

y-y-you mean we aren't special snowflakes after all?

How do you figure?

If you're a prole you usually can't afford to go to a $40k+ a year uni.

You know that there are way more students who go to public universities?

A public school is still over $10k per year in the US.

Can't explain their points without using a metric shit ton of theory terms. Most people will not know what the fuck a reactionary is.

I would argue that the hedonistic attitude is a remnant of "free love" 60's counterculture. The problem that any progressive movement faces, under the circumstances of an Abrahamic society, is that it is seemingly impossible to escape guilt and sin without abandoning reproduction and work ethic altogether. The solution is Dworkinite Essentialism with a heavy dose of Postmodernism.

Most criticisms here can be summarized as: caring more about looking/feeling good than doing good along with a detachment from the actual working class.

AFAIK student loans are guaranteed.


How hard is it to say that workers are being exploited because they produce more value then they are paid, there is an inherent antagonist between the working and the owning classes, and that economies that function based upon the profit motive leads to severe dysfunction and self-destruction?

The working class doesn't want socialism. If they did then that's what they'd be fighting and voting for.

Blows my mind that people have trouble with it. Hey you work real hard to earn your pay but doesn't it seem like the guys at the top are always getting more and more for doing fuck all? Did you know your company paid out x dollars to their stock holders this quarter? When's the last time you had a raise? That's all it takes.


Of course they don't want socialism. They want to make money, have a family, drink with their friends be a part of something etc. Socialism is a framework in which people live their lives, most people are too busy trying to do the things that matter to them to think much about reformulating the game they have to play. They're busy and somebody said socialism means you have to stand in line for bread and you don't get rewarded for working harder.

take your meds

no u

Allowing people who have employees or who are rich landlords into your "Marxist" party. Tolerance for students who openly spy on you and literally tell you they are writing down everything you discuss in a non-public meeting as part of their homework for their profs (and other interested third parties) to read. WTF.

Comrade, I think much of what you say here prefigures in the works of Sir Reginald Brownpill.

Still in your oral-anal stage I see.

Idealism, contrarianism and "materialism" in the speglord sense

Getting distracted by idpol slapfights with the far right. Back in my student days we spent like 50% of our energy on that, 30% infighting, and 20% actually doing things.

Also this. They turn everything into personal drama, under the guise of politics. Their personal opponents, people they don't like, become ideological enemies. I'm convinced that the vampire castle is in actual fact an narcissist palace.

This feels like it's right. I think this was Zizek's point when he talks about how the virtues of militarism have been monopolized by the right: discipline, camaraderie, work, unity - all these things can be emancipatory, but contemporary leftists tend think they are of the devil because they might infringe on their totally free and individualized person. There is very little collective action you can take once you forswear these values.

going to MA CDONALDS ffs or just spending money at all on frivolent things which are actually forwarding capital. Idk communism can be a lofty ideal to keep at times. You gotta balance feeling that the revolution is coming vs shrugging things off because the revolution will take care of it.

Spending money forwards capital. Period.

I don't think they should be killed, but they certainly shouldn't be the leaders of the left. This whole disastrous "new left" experiment was essentially the result of SDS taking the reigns of the entire american left. They should have adopted the model that the Panthers were using.

I hate that word. Being virtuous shouldn't be stigmatized.

except that usually the "virtue" being signalled is actually empty liberal platitudes or obnoxious self-serving idpol

community colleges in my area (multiple, 5+ per county and like ten in the city) are $2000-$5000yr depending on the degree and course load. most working class people i know easily can afford a couple of classes usually to advance their earning potential.

definitely private school students should be distrusted but there is a major working class contingent and there always has been. why do you think major student movements broke out on the berkeley campus coinciding with major anti-war and civil rights movements?? tuition was free.

are you surprised?

There are a lot of them, but I think the biggest one I see is people conflating the bourgeoisie for the system of capitalism rather then as a component of capitalism. As in, viewing the bourgeoisie as a set group which acts as the defining factor of capitalism instead of consequence of the system as a whole.

nothing. absolute nothing what so ever. they're way more normal than the alt-right. It's easy to get popular support like this and keep growing since "the left" isn't the one fucking up, some of them just have different point of views, they're outside discussing the issues, they work together. It's Holla Forums who has problems and it's leading to it's own undoing. Holla Forums is the worst enemy of Holla Forums.

it has to be both together, the more the better period. and thats what it's happening. a lot of students also work.

==Autism==. If leftists spent just a bit of energy studying social skills like Emily Post, and learned how to talk to people like normal human beings, we would be much, much more effective in communicating our ideas.

Yes but a lot of them are future "professionals" who won't be part of the workers' struggle.

This is probably a big thing.

People need to learn how to talk to people in their own language.

you don't have to be part of it to help it. everyone has a voice, small or bigger louder to be heard. The point is that the message spreads and we're more.
Russia won WW2 because they were a fuck ton, even if for 10 of them there was only 1 rifle.
Labor moves the world, all disabled can labor, even the disabled can in other ways now see Hotwheels. Nazis can't win because they like it or not this is already an united world, the internet made it this way and as technology progresses the more it becomes like that.

In western countries professionals are basically bourgeoisie courtesy of imperialism. They fervently support liberalism.

Pure western propaganda.

I mean, I'm a dirty, human loving, science-praising hippy. I think it's wrong for people to not take responsibility for themselves, and if they want to change, first change themselves, and do what they can to better influence the circumstances that upset them.
It's not their fault, they have learned helplessness due to their dependence to a welfare state that controls, moulds, and divides them away from their brothers in atom and in blood.
We are made of the same beautiful parts, why should we ever spill eachothers' blood over disagreement?

It would also help if the biggest leftist youtubers were pretty women who spoke eloquently. Like if we had communist (preferably MLM) versions of Tara McCarthy and Lana Lokteff.

NEETs have to go back to Holla Forums

I've said this before ad nauseam, but it bears repeating nonetheless: western Maoists are the worst when it comes to this, because they assume taking on a non-western form of Marxism is enough to mentally cleanse out every way capitalist and bourgeois ideology has morphed their minds, without taking into account that emotions also have to be disciplined. "Think like an Asian" to them means replacing Hegelian dialectics with Daoist ones (might as well just become Spinozaists), dressing up like Red Guards, and behaving all hard and domineering with none of the stoicism or restraint. Take a look at what counts as a "struggle session" for them and it's all shouting and screaming (if that's not yellowface, I don't know what is). An actual Asian (or Arab, or Indian, or First Nations) will prioritize dignity before anything. Not looking honourable is a sign of shame in their cultures.

Or, look at how many ultra-horny MLs and MLMs love fetishizing hijabis on the basis that these women are "humble" "caste" and not "degenerate wh*res like those disgusting First World net exploiter women". In Islam, as is the case in Judaism, modesty isn't just about (temporarily) covering the body, but much more about control of the mind. A real halal tradwife isn't going to burst into a narcissistic rage-induced hissy fit because some asshole questioned her identity.

Pretty hard taking into account the habit of using terms not understood commonly like bourgeois and proletariat and the prevelance of capitalist ideology. That's not even touching on how to act with such a realization.

They don't read and yet claim that they do.

Roo, Muke.

This is just like being an alcoholic but going from vodka to gin.

There's nothing positive about being a prole, user. The point of Socialism is to eradicate the proletariat. Caring about worker rights and ultimately the abolition of work is perfectly consistent with wanting to not work.

the idea that capitalism exploits workers and a personal aversion to working under capitalism is not contradictory. a significant number of workers refusing to work would actually be an effective attack against capitalism but most do not have the luxury of not being able to work without threat of starvation.

who says this?

They are arrogant af.

I take it you've never heard of RAIM.

Okay.

I mean the job description is pretty much literally to produce liberal propaganda on Porky's payroll. You either keep your head down and suck up to the bullshit, or don't, get fired, and lose your six figure salary, CNN guest head prestige, etc. It's hard to think of conditions more conducive to deradicalize someone than that.

Getting tattoos and having stupid piercings and dyed hair.
Communists should dress smartly, or at least look presentable and serious.

But thats oppression you misogynist shitlord. Why do you care so much about something that doesn't affect you retard? So insecure holy shit!

This is actually the original meaning of the term "opportunist" in socialist context. Pretty funny that the Bordigists call everyone an opportunist when they are the biggest ones.

Tats are pretty common among working people where I live, as long as you aren't totally covered it's nothing notable. Piercings all over do make you look like a dumbass though.

Depends on what you mean by "dyed hair". If you're going from blonde to brunette it's nothing, if you're going full on blue or green then yeah, it never looks good on anyone.

nothing wrong with this.

...

alternet.org/story/19840/a_march_to_irrelevance

On your point about 'discipline', I find it to be essential for developing theory, studying writers and also for questioning oneself. Only a potential ideologue with a petite-bourgeois mindset would feel that they can suddenly and instantly understand and formulate concepts which are coherent and applicable to the current state of the world and perhaps its future. This has nothing to do with initial learning paces and we must certainly be careful to avoid the defeatist mentality which stands opposite this, where one is hopeless with regards to their theory and studies.

Relevant playlist:
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1b_4Utnwf8CZANeWJhCHwBybQfRYbB8R

These videos are about methods for Torah study, but leftists could use them just as much in regards to studying Marx, philosophy, economics, history, critical theory, etc.

Please. Female garments almost always reproduce the conception of female submissiveness whether they cover too much or very little.

For tanks to fetishize hijabis is nothing more than a redux of the wanting a "submissive oriental wife" trope.

Yes.

What's mysoginistic about it, reddit?

Slut-shaming, the idea that one manner of dress is more "noble" than another.

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Not to exist

Bump for juice.

They're sectarian.